Making conversation : opening dialogues of the Nisga'a encounter with the Church Missionary Society, 1864-67
Date
2003
Authors
May, Nicholas Paul
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Abstract
In 1864 the Church Missionary Society established a mission among three Nisga'a villages on the lower Nass River on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. The mission functioned for three years under Reverend Robert Doolan before being reestablished at the site of Gingolx. This thesis analyses three distinct yet interrelated dialogues that occurred during this initial encounter between the Nisga'a and the CMS churchmen: the corporeal, material, and spiritual. In following these exchanges we see the protracted struggle over particular meanings and the capacity to make meanings that was central to this encounter. Power was negotiated primarily through mundane, quotidian practice, as the missionaries attempted to convert the Nisga'a to the signs and practices of Protestant English culture. The Nisga'a's receptivity to the CMS mission was highly selective, however, as they were more interested in harnessing its power for their own uses than in the explicit message of the churchmen.