Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 51:201 (Jan 1894)
Article: Catholic Missions
Author: Edward D. Weage

BSac 51:201 (Jan 1894) p. 45

Catholic Missions

Rev. Edward D. Weage

When Druilletes, the Jesuit missionary among the Canadian Indians, came to Roxbury, Eliot, the Puritan apostle to the Indians, not only received him cordially, but “prayed his guest to spend the winter with him.” 1 We may safely imitate Eliot enough to ask candidly: What have Catholic missionaries done among the Indians? How does their work compare with the mission work in the Middle Ages? How does their work compare with that of Protestant missionaries among the Indians?

We shall not touch the question of present mission work. Nor shall we attempt to cover the whole ground of Catholic missions to Indians. We shall take as an example the mission of which Gleeson, the Catholic historian, says: “The happy results both temporal and spiritual have rarely been equalled and never surpassed in modern times,”2 the mission to California. It was not an irreligious race that the Spanish padres found when they reached this sunset land. Their customs and religious ideas varied somewhat in different parts of the country. Our reference will be more particularly to the customs, ideas, and work in what is now known as Southern California.

The people believed in an invisible, all-powerful God, whom they called Nocuma.3 There was a second being whom

BSac 51:201 (Jan 1894) p. 46

they worshipped, named Chinigchinich, or the Almighty. He came to earth to teach men to dance, worship, and build temples. After accomplishing his object, he was taken to one of the stars, where he constantly watches men. At San Juan Capistrano there was a temple where Chinigchinich was worshipped under the form of a coyote. No sacrifices seem to have been offered, but the temple was a place for prayer. It was also a place of refuge. A murderer might flee there, and then be safe wherever else he went. They had a third object of worship, whom the)’ named Touch. He was the special protector of men, and always on earth. When a child reached the age of six or seven years, he was taken to the temple, compelled to drink some intoxicating drink, then fast and pray till Touch revealed to him in a vision the kind of an animal that was to be his guardian. The figure of the animal was then branded on the child.

They had distinct theories of creation. Man was made from the ground.4 Medicine men, the most powerful people, were made first.5 In some places there was an elaborate theory of development, the natives believ...