Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter

Christopher and Winsome Davis

Like most persons who engage in cross-cultural evangelism, Christopher and Winsome Davis experienced their fair share of culture shock when they first settled to do ministry among the Cree.

The Anglican minister and his wife laboured for 19 years in Wemindji, a small community off James Bay at the mouth of the Maquatua River in Quebec, Canada. Wemindji was home to about 1,200 Cree Indians.

Rev. Davis hails from Hamilton, Ontario, while his wife is from Manchester, Jamaica. Mrs. Davis is the sister of Mary Clarke, Jamaica's Children's Advocate.

Last month, however, the Davises got a new posting. They are now serving in Kugluktuk, which is along the Arctic Ocean. There they serve Eskimos that make up the Inuit community.

Rev. Davis shared with The Gleaner his experiences among the Cree shortly before taking up his new posting.

According to Rev. Davis, "When we first arrived up on James Bay in 1987, we endured several months of uncanny silence. Cree people are peaceful, but they also have a profound sense of national pride. They don't appreciate being discriminated against or looked down on as savages by white people."

The Cree, Rev. Davis explained, have historical reasons to be suspicious of white people because of ill treatment meted out to them by fur traders from Scotland. When one is new to living among the Cree, they patiently observe one's actions. "They sort of look you over for a while before they decide that you are worth establishing a friendly relationship with," Rev. Davis explained.

Missionary engagement

Missionary engagement can be a lonely experience and so it was at times for the couple, especially during their early years in Wemindji. This cultural distance was exacerbated by the language gap.

In doing ministry, they needed a translator to communicate with the older members of the Cree tribe. The younger Crees knew English, he said, but not very well. Though he did church services in Cree, Rev. Davis said, he never really got to the point of conversing in Cree.

"It was lonely at first. You don't realise how much you yearn to hear your own language spoken. Winsome and I realised we were far gone, when we started regarding English-Canadian news announcers on television as our personal friends. But over time we have met a lot of great people in the Cree parishes we have served. We get invited to all the huge wedding feasts, baptism feasts, birthday feasts, anniversary feasts and funeral feasts, and we get to eat all their different kinds of meat and fish - moose, goose, caribou, beaver, bear, rabbit, porcupine, Arctic char, trout, sturgeon and whitefish.

"Winsome and I go to the local fitness centre three times a week just to work off all the calories from all these feasts. I get to go camping in the bush with my parishioners, and that is always a lot of fun. I am a city boy who has learned a few things about basic human survival in the bush. I remember I went winter camping with my organist, a 65-year-old hunter named Roderick Georgekish. Roderick dismissed my Southern Canadian sleeping bag - not warm enough for the North. Roderick told me my snowmobile pants were too thin and I would freeze my legs. He even told me my teabags didn't taste good. I was Chris the tenderfoot, Chris the amateur, Chris the white boy who needed to be taught the facts of northern life.

Distant memory

"The Cree in our area of Canada have been Anglican for so long, that the old religion is a distant memory for most of them. We did hear rumours of Shamanism, but were never directly confronted with it. It is something that is considered shameful, so it is hidden from outsiders.

"As far as I can see, Cree culture has been so permeated with the influence of the Gospel, it is hard to know what part of the culture predates contact with missionaries." In that regard, unlike a lot of other missionaries, he was not able to point to many redemptive analogies - i.e. things in a foreign culture that became tools for explaining the gospel message.

In describing the soul of the Cree, Rev. Davis said, this community is "peaceful - shy till you get to know them. But once you get to know them, they are your friends. You discover their keen sense of humour and love of wit and repartee. Cree people are practical and resourceful. Indeed they have to be, living in a harsh and unforgiving climate. The Cree are very family-oriented. They love big family gatherings, feasts and celebrations. They love having lots of kids around. This tribal group loves to stay in touch with their old nomadic hunting traditions. They often go out to spend time in the bush. And when a hunter makes a kill (animal he has shot), he shares the meat with all his relatives. Cree people love all the church's rites of passage - baptisms, confirmations, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, funerals - and they turn out in force for all ceremonies. They love ice hockey (Canada's national sport). The younger ones are keen players, and all ages go to the arena to watch the local games, and turn on their TVs for all the national games."

Change

The Cree community has changed over the years, Rev. Davis said. "Our church, like so many in England and America, is afflicted by materialism and pursuit of the good life, whatever that means — so we are praying for renewal and revival. Virtually everyone in Wemindji will say he/she believes in God, but what is needed is that solid personal commitment to a relationship with Jesus Christ."

Up until 1975, the Cree of James Bay in Northern Quebec were living their traditional hunting and fishing lifestyle in almost complete isolation from the outside world. The only way in and out was to fly, and most people could not afford that. Then the Quebec government entered the picture, having decided to dam Cree rivers to produce hydro-electricity to sell to the Americans for a big profit. The Cree people sat up and said, "Wait a minute! These are our rivers, and you just don't do that without any by-your-leave." The result was a long, drawn-out court battle, which established the Cree people's rights to compensation and royalties. So today the Cree people have one of the largest hydro-electric projects in the world in their backyard, producing electricity which keeps Boston and New York going. The Cree people all got new houses, hospitals, schools, and all the infrastructure of a modern community. Many young people have jobs, and the Monday to Friday 9 to 5 economy has arrived up on James Bay.

Connected to outside world

Wemindji was connected by road to the outside world in 1995, and virtually every family now has a van or car in the drive. They are always driving south to shop and explore the outside world that was always unknown to them before. The kids in school are all computer-literate and cruising the Internet, and they are listening to rap and hip-hop and reggae and heavy metal. And unfortunately, with all this has come more alcohol and now drugs.

The gap between the generations has become wider, with the bewildered older generation still clinging to the hunting & fishing of the past. In the midst of all this rapid change, the Anglican Church is seen as a rock of stability, part of the glue holding the community together.

The most frustrating part of doing ministry in Wemindji, the Davises found, was not the Cree themselves but the hierarchy of the Anglican Church.

"They are much more than frustrating," Rev. Davis said. "They are our denominational leaders, and the persecution has been continuous. I am under pressure from my ecclesiastical superiors because of the evangelical Gospel that I preach. Indeed, because of it, we are moving next month to a mainly Inuit and more evangelical diocese further north in the Arctic. It is a sorrow to us to have to leave our Cree parishioners, because now they will be at the mercy of false teachers and wolves in sheep's clothing. We are looking forward to using the cross-cultural experience we have gained among the Cree, and using it among the Inuit. My first order of business is to quickly learn enough Inuktitut to be able to do Sunday services in their language. Fortunately for me, most of them speak quite a bit of English.

"My constant prayer for my Cree parishioners is that they will remain faithful to the Gospel they received from the early missionaries, and not be seduced into error and apostasy.

"In the midst of it all I get up every day and survey the majesty of God's wilderness, and I am reassured that He is good and He is working His purposes out."

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Part one 'Taking Christ to the Cree' may be viewed at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060902/news/ news7.html

The Rev. Christopher Davis may be reached at revcidavis@hotmail.com

Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com