Culture, Christianity and the Northern Peoples of Canada and Siberia

Abstract

"Flying in a military helicopter along the coast of Baffin Island in 1986 Captain James MacFie discovered traces of an abandoned Inuit camp. Among the remains, undis- turbed for fifty years, lay a Scripture Union membership card, signed Arnguak, and a calendar of Bible readings for 1934 of which 'all but two days in late November were conscientiously marked off'. Not only was the mystery of the disappearance of Arnguak and his family during a routine hunting trip solved, but it became obvious that he had been not a nominal Anglican, but a keen practising evangelical Christian. l This paper explores aspects of indigenisation and syncretism in Christian mission based on examples from Canada, Siberia and to some extent Alaska. "