Moon of Wintertime: Missionaries and the Indians of Canada in Encounter since 1534

Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1984. Soft cover. Very Good. Clean, tight, unmarked; a couple of very small nicks to upper edge; otherwise spine straight and uncreased; very minimal wear; Not many years ago the missionaries who introduced Christianity to the Indians of Canada were almost universally regarded, as least by other white people, as selfless benefactors who offered improvement and salvation to Indians sometimes puzzlingly reluctant to accept them. Today, largely because Indigenous people have succeeded in making their opinions more widely known, the missionaries are almost universally dismissed as unwitting destroyers of a culture they seldom took the trouble to understand. In Moon Of Wintertime John Webster Grant tells the story of the encounter between Christianity and the Indian peoples over a span of 450 years, from 1534, when Jacques Cartier first erected a cross before Indians on the Gaspe, to the present. Grant examines both the aims and activities of missionaries of all denominations and the varying responses of Indians at different times and under different circumstances. His intention is not to justify or to condemn either missionaries or Indians, but rather to bring into focus both the nobility and the ambiguity that have marked the encounter. He outlines the typical pattern of missionary activity that emerged towards the end of the 19th century, traces the origins of outspoken discontent in the 20th, and analyses the parts played by missionaries and Indians as well as by traders and governments. He argues that the Indians, almost all of whom became at least nominally Christian, were touched by Christianity during their 'moon of wintertime, when ancestral spirits had ceased to perform their expected functions satisfactorily and angel choirs promised to fill a spiritual vacuum.' This study makes a major contribution to Canadian history and to our understanding of the consequences of contact between differing cultures.