Who Converted?

Franciscan priest Berard Haile, who has spent 53 years working with the Navaho Indians in the southwestern United States, has, according to Time, March 15, learned bit by bit from their medicine men “what no white man had known before him: the whole of the ‘Blessing Way’—a sacred, secret collection of ceremonies covering the whole religious life of the Navaho people.” He has written this carefully searched-out information in a 1,203-page manuscript, which he hopes to have published. When the Navahos gave their approval and support, he said: “I am one of you.” But one of the tribal councilors put it another way: “You came to make Christians out of the Navahos, but the Navahos have made a Navaho out of you.”

We wonder how many other peoples look at their missionaries in the same manner.