When Religious Missionaries Destroy An Indigenous Culture

I know the title of this Hub is going to spark some flames, but I would just like to share my perspective on the impact of fundamentalist missionaries on one particular culture that I witnessed firsthand.

In 1999 I left the United States on an around the world sailing voyage. I did not complete my circumnavigation but did discover one of the most beautiful corners of the world, the San Blas Islands of Panama and the wonderful Kuna people that inhabit them.

In late 2001 I arrived in the San Blas aboard my 31' sailboat. By that time I had met my wife and the two of us ended up staying almost a year and making friends with many of the Kuna Indians who inhabit this paradise. Our first contact with the Kuna people was a wonderful gentleman named Mr. Robinson who lived on the island of Tiadup in the Hollandes Cays. I became a good friend of his and routinely brought the tribe medical supplies from faraway Colon, Panama when I left the San Blas islands to resupply.

Mr. Robinson, who was a Kuna chief, tribal elder and the son of the chief who started the first schools in the islands, taught me much about the culture and their traditions. I was able to go on several trips up into the lush jungle that is part of their territory to collect bananas, and was also invited on several dugout canoe fishing trips to the reefs surrounding the islands.

Our conversations were mostly in Spanish although he did speak some English.

One thing that Chief Robinson told me about was how the missionaries from fundamentalist churches in North America were creating rifts between families in the ancient culture. Often a Kuna family would join a newly introduced fundamentalist Christian religion whose beliefs were radically different from another that members of the same family group had joined. Because the belief structures of the two religions were so different, and because the church required family life to begin to revolve around its activities, the family would often split apart, feud with each other, or even move to opposite ends of the island.

The rate of new converts, according to Mr. Robinson was directly related to how much free stuff, including eyeglasses, fabric for the women to make crafts with, or medical care the churches would give their new converts. Often the newly converted Kunas would change religions if another missionary group was giving out better benefits. The cleverness of his people in this regard amused the old chief quite a bit, as he chuckled loudly while telling me this.

"Our People Worshiped One God"

He also told me that the Kuna people have long worshiped "one god", a "Great Spirit" and that their original faith involves a deep respect for nature and animals. According to Mr. Robinson, this is one of the reasons the San Blas are still forested and the reefs are still in fairly good condition. Now that new religions are taking over, loss of the old faith with its roots in deeply in nature, may spell doom for the ecology of the San Blas islands.

I don't believe there are necessarilly any "bad" religions, but I do believe that some fundamentalist religions may not be the best choice for an ancient culture that has thousands of years of traditions and culture behind it, and which already has an established religion based on culture already in place. When relatively new fundamentalist religions ask their indigenous converts to give up all they have known before, it rarely leads to an improvement in their condition. Just look at the case of Native American tribes across North America after conversion to Catholicism and their virtual enslavement in mission towns to farm and work for the Spanish.

While making some of my many supply runs to Panama City, I have seen planeloads of young missionaries from places like Utah, singing in unison and practicing Kuna words, headed out to the villages to gain new converts for their religion. I have often thought that these missionaries, coming from their own little North American towns and lives, knowing little about this peaceful native culture, have virtually no concept of what these people's souls need.

If anything at all, I believe that the learning should be done by these fresh faced Americans, since there are hundreds more years of experience in spirituality among the "heathens" they were sent off to convert.

Related Hubs About The San Blas Islands Of Panama

Here is a Hub that I wrote about the unique fabric art or molas that are made by the Kuna people. See What Are Molas?