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  u “Their Gestures Shame the Very Brutes” Missionary Talk I began. “Ah, Ideea, mickonaree oee?” the same as drawling out—“By the by, Miss Ideea, do you belong to the church?” “Yes, me mickonaree,” was the reply. But the assertion was at once qualified by certain reservations; so curious, that I can not forbear their relation. “Mickonaree ena” (church member here), exclaimed she, laying her hand upon her mouth, and a strong emphasis on the adverb. In the same way, and with similar exclamations, she touched her eyes and hands. This done, her whole air changed in an instant; and she gave me to understand, by unmistakable gestures, that in certain other respects she was not exactly a “mickonaree.” In short, Ideea was “A sad good Christian at the heart— A very heathen in the carnal part.” —Omoo () T had a unique, formative role in the creation of missionaries. Sailor talk is predicated on action, or what Margaret Cohen calls “know-how.”1 Cannibal talk is predicated on perception. But missionary talk is above all talk. It was this talk that inspired men and women to travel to unknown places on the other side of the world to evangelize for their religion, and talk that formed the main means of carrying out this evangelization. The talk that frames the missionaries’ whole reason for being is the heightened and absolute talk of spiritual revelation that is grounded in the complex metaphor of the Bible, the Book, the written word. Although the word of God is written, it was received by most people in the period before widespread literacy as heightened speech. Because both the terms— the language itself—and the purpose are heightened and understood as revealed truth, the potential for discrepancy between the talk and the actual experiences of missionaries is vast. The stakes are as high as they can be. The cost of failure: lost souls, damnation; the reward for success: eternal glory. The stakes are set by the missionaries themselves, and there is no room for flexibility or negotiation.As an  04 Edwards ch4 10/31/08 11:25 AM Page 99 observer, Melville, who shares an overarching cultural background with the missionaries , is nonetheless far more free to question and to identify contradictions. Because the missionaries are wedded to the absolute authority of their worldview, however, they are incapable of engaging in the sort of questing, questioning conversation that Melville relishes and upon which he thrives. Missionary talk is speech of another order, akin to prophecy. Melville adopted this authoritative, allusive language, freighted with complex meanings, as a vehicle for lifting his narratives into the realms of the metaphysical and the sublime. The advent of organized missions to the South Pacific was recent enough that Melville observed societies in several stages of absorbing its impact. This chapter will first look at the early Protestant missionaries sent to the islands of what is now French Polynesia, then at the ways in which natives and missionaries responded to each other, then at the sailors, with whom both groups interacted. It will consider the missionaries’ relationship with beachcombers, most often deserting or discharged sailors who lived for varying lengths of time on the beaches of the South Pacific. It will include an investigation of the overlapping forms of talk created by the interaction of these various groups and the suffering created by the misunderstandings that arose during this cross-cultural exchange. As Niel Gunson, author of Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas –, notes:“Silver-voiced preachers could often create a picture of the missionary life which would powerfully attract the young listener. The giants of this art were some of the missionaries who had already served in distant fields.”2 Missionaries returned from foreign stations and traveled throughout Great Britain and the United States to raise money and recruit new missionaries. The men and women they recruited then left to serve the Lord by preaching to the “heathen.” Missionaries engendered talk not only through their sermons and the letters and reports they sent home but also through the responses of sailors and natives to their talk. Sailors were the means by which missionaries arrived at their distant stations, and natives were those they encountered there. Whenever missionaries were present on Pacific islands, sailors and natives were also present. All three groups came together as actors in the unfolding historical drama on the vast stage of the South Pacific. Embedded in the question of talk is the really...

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