Yannick Essertel
Yannick Essertel is Professeur des Universités, Docteur-HDR. He was a researcher at CREDO (Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l’Océanie) Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, EHESS, CREDO UMR 7308; he is a member of various university research groups in the history of religion and the spread of Christianity. His work has focused on the pedagogies of evangelization, and on the phases of encounters between missionaries and the missioned. He also examines the concept of inculturation and the relationship between evangelization and cultures. In this respect, he brings in cultural anthropology and even museology through missionary collections. It also explores the constraints encountered during evangelization: colonization, rivalries, material and climatic conditions, etc.
The study of contacts and encounters inevitably led me to integrate cultural anthropology to gain an in-depth understanding of the relationships involved in conversions to Christianity. The reactions of missionary/missioned actors are dictated by their cultural categories. Often, missionaries are welcomed as superior beings, gods, or prophets. Missionaries, on the other hand, believe that the natives are predisposed to Christianity. This creates a double misunderstanding, which can be productive for missionaries if they understand it and use it as a lever for evangelization. Conversely, if the misunderstanding is unproductive and therefore impossible to understand, the missionaries’ next step will be more complex and may even fail. In short, these misunderstandings show that the cultural environment is appropriate or inappropriate for the arrival of missionaries.
The essential point of this “first time” is the different perceptions of the local people towards the missionaries and their discourse, which will trigger conversions. In other words, what are the various factors behind conversions? Through the archives, we see that every missionary, every culture, was attracted or converted by one or more points of the new religion: missionary dress, skin color, Catholic liturgy, preaching, sacraments, the notion of equality, charity, the missionary’s dedication, the “fulfillment” of a prophecy, a cure, the destruction of an idol, and many other aspects, were all triggers. In New Zealand, Mgr Jean-Baptiste Pompallier was perceived as a great chief, descended from a “God”, with powerful mana and tapou (sacred) character. In New Caledonia, Mgr Guillaume Douarre and his missionaries are identified as the “Ancestors” of the Kanaks, who come back and act on the elements and whose baptismal cult cures and protects against illness. In Siam, Mgr Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix established courteous relations with the future Prince Rama IV, who spoke Latin and mixed Christianity and Buddhism to the point of reforming his religion by turning to Christianity. Let’s not forget the young lama who converted by translating Catholic doctrine for Father Joseph Gabet. All these “triggers” for inculturation should be listed, many of which owe little to an adapted missionary pedagogy. We must insist on the pioneering phases of evangelization, which are key to understanding the history of the missions.
Finally, this approach should not be confined to missionary history. Indeed, history is made up of various types of encounters: colonization, migrations, invasions, and explorers. Here, too, there are “first-time” situations that must be analyzed as such, because through all the reactions and reciprocal perceptions it becomes possible to understand better how the history of human relations has been constructed. Let’s not forget that history is, first and foremost, about understanding people in their contexts, and in particular, the context of contacts and shocks. We therefore call for developing a spécifié approach to contacts in human history, integrating anthropology and psychology.