The Beginnings of Moravian Missionary Photography in Labrador Hans Rollmann
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The Beginnings of Moravian Missionary Photography in Labrador Hans Rollmann he Uni ty Archives of T the Moravian Church at Herrnhut, Saxony, include a collec tion of mor e than 1,000 photo graphic plates taken by missionar ies in Labrador, besid es a smaller co ll ec tio n that comes from Greenland. These historic photo graphs, takenbetween the late 1870s and the early 1930s, cover themati cally a wide range of missionary, aboriginal, and settler existence on Labrador's north coast, from loca tions and settlements to Inuit life and labor. The photographs complement earlier artistic and ar chitectural depictions of the Labra dor settlements that were made to record the Moravian presen ce in Labrador. Unlike the earlier art, the photographs reached an increas ingly wider public in print through major German and English peri odicals, notably Missions-Blatt, Pe riodical Accounts,and MoravianMis sions. In addition, these phot o Walter Perrett photographing Inuit w omen from Labrador on a bundle offish. graphs were used sys tema tically in Photograph by Paul Hettasch; early twentieth century. Courtesy of the Unity print and slide pr esentations de Archives, Herrnhut, Germany. signed to maintain the link between the mission field and the home congregations and raise aware found there were ethnically related to the Inuit of Greenland, ness and funds in church circles for the Labrador Mission. whom the Moravians had begun evangelizing in 1733. With the This essay does not aim to interpret the content, aim, or approval and support of the British government, Moravian artistic merit of the photographic representations by Labrador missionaries settled perman ently in northern Labrad or begin missionaries. Instead, I explore the early history of the photo ning in 1771. They established communal centers for Christian graphic medium as developed by mis sionaries in Labrador, as Inuit, to which the abo riginal population increasin gly returned well as its institutional setting among Moravians, confining from Christmas to Easter and on occasion throughout the year. In my self to the Herrnhut collection and its documented photogra the early tw enti eth century the Moravian settlements extende d phers. from Makkovik in the south to Killinek on the northern tip of the Illustration and an appeal to the full range of sensory expe Labrador peninsula. By then the missionary efforts also em rience ha ve long been part of the Moravian educational method braced the settlers living on Labrador's north coast and the ology. Moravian bishop and pedagogical innovator John Amos seasonal Newfoundland schoone r fishers who frequented it Comenius (1592-1 670) purposefully used illustrations in the annually. service of education in his revolution ary Orbis Sensualium Pictus Moravian cultureand trade havesignificantly shaped north (1658).1 Count Zin zendorf's profound religious commitment ern Labrad or and the lives of Inuit and settlers living there. The was deep ened by viewing a painting of the crucified Christ by Moravian chur ch is still the perv asive religious force in the Domenico Feti, exhibited in a church at Dusseldorf. Although region, with approximately 2,500 members in four churches rigorists in their religious commitment, Moravians have em (Nain, Hop ed ale, Makkovik, and Happy Valley-Goose Bay) and braced a wide range of culture. It is thus not surprising that two fellowships (No rth West River and Postville), whi ch are part Moravians, who had dep icted their missionary surroundings in of an affiliated provin ce under the supervision of the Board of drawings, watercolor, oil, and engravings, would also adopt the World Mission. medium of photography in the service of mission. The northern coast of Labrador was first explored by Early Labrador Photography in Print Moravians in 1752. They assumed that the Inuit people they The earliest ph otographs from the Labrador mission field were tak en by Captain Henry Linklater of the missionar y vessel Har Hans Rollmann is Professor of Religious Studies at Memorial University of mony, which annually supplied the mission stations and ob Newfoundland and Adjunct Professorin the Faculty of Theology at Queen's tained the seal oil, pelts, and oth er goods traded in Moravian College, St. John's, Newfou ndland. 150 INTERNATIONAL B ULLETIN OF MISSIONARY R ESEARCH stores. In the June 1875 issue of the English missionary journal Periodical Accounts, "Labrador Views, Photographed from Na ture by Capt. H. Linklater of the Harmony" were advertised for sale to the benefit of the mission.' These images, 11V2 by 91h inches, depicted the then extant missionary settlements: from south to north, Hopedale (founded 1782), Zoar (1865), Nain (1771), Okak (1776), Hebron (1830), and Ramah (1871), as well as group portraits of aboriginal men and women. They could be purchased through the offices of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel (SFG) at a price of 1 shilling, 6 pence each. The use of these early photographs in the servi ce of sup por t ing the LabradorMission is documented in an unpublishedletter of the Swiss Labrador missionary Heinrich Meili (1831-1 921). While on furlough in Europe, Meili lectured on the mission in supportive Swiss circles. One of his contacts, a Swiss lady of nobility who had organized female workers in sewing projects for Labrador, showed so much interest in these photographs that Meili sought to secure a set for his next lecture to her grou p.' Despite the availability of such commercial photos, mission ary photographydid not receive much exposure in the Moravian periodical literature until a decade later. Before the middle of the 1880s illustrations were sparse, consisting largely of line art or printsbasedon drawings or engravings.The first employment of photography in the German Moravian journal Missions-Blatt used a photographas thebasis for line art. Itwas a group portrait of an Ala skan Inuit family "in faithful reproduction," furnished in 1885 by the Lithographic Institute of Leopold Kraatz in Berlin, Hulda, a 26-year-old girl, who seroed the mission which also printed maps for the German Moravians. The direc in Labrador, wearing traditional Inuit clothing. tors of the SFG, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, sent a collection of The hair tied in a knot at the ear indi cate s that she such pictures to theDepartmentof Missions at Herrnhut,Saxony, was not yet a communicant church member. where the y were deposited in an attached museum for the Photograph by Berthold Lenz; early twentieth general benefit of visitors and the piou s.' century. Courtesyof the UnityArchives, Herrnhut, In the following year, the April 1886 issue of Missions-Blatt Germany. featured its first photograph in print. The gold-toned image, following the last pa ge of the issu e, is printed on regular paper mission s, the Periodical Accounts,which featured lar gely orig inal and represents a group portrait of three Inu it women employed comm unications from the mis sion field s and was published by in the blubber yard at Nain, Labrad or ." The description of the the SFG beginning in 1790, no art wh atsoever appeared until the photo in a separate article, which is entirely related to the subject mid-1880s, not even engravings of mission establishme nts, such in view, explains the process of producing sea l oil from blubber as tho se at Nain and Hopedale, which the German Missions-Blatt and the role and clothing of the women employed in the blubber had featured already in the mid-1840s on its covers. The earliest yard." While the photographer is not identified , we can safely black-and-white art, group portraits of missionari es to Alaska, assume from what is known from other sources that this picture appear ed simultaneous ly with photographs in the Periodical was taken by mis sionary Hermann [annasch (1849-1 931) of Accounts of 1886 and 1887.9 Nain, no later than 1885. Issues 1 and 3 of the 1887 Missions-Blatt featured two other Pioneer Missionary Photographer gold-toned photographs from Labrador, presumably also taken by [annasch. One depicts a group of Inuit in front of their sod Photographs only grad ua lly repl aced printed black-and-white house in Hopedale, the other sho ws the settleme nt of Hebron art and sometimes were used during the 1880s as a basis for line with Kangerdluksoak Bay. Both images were produced on spe drawings and lithographs.The serialized tra vel accounts of 1887 cial photographic paper inserted into the journ al. from Labrador by missions secre tary Benjamin La Trobe, pub In 1888 black-and-white prints based on a photographic lished in the following yea r under the collective title "With the image taken in Lichtenau, Greenland, and a gold-toned photo of Harmony in Labrador" and lat er also in book form, continues that the New Fairfield Delaware mission building in Moravi antown, tradition. While the travelogue is copious ly illustrated , the im Ontario, were published ? The commentar y to the art from ages either are based on La Trob e's sketches or rep resent art Lichtenau, which sho ws an Inu it group in front of a lake with the based on photographs su p plied by mi ssionary Hermann mission buildings in the back ground, reveals something of the [annasch, Two group portrait s, widows at Nain and the Nain self-consciousness that the act of photography evoked among church choir, represent art based on photographs. the children. While the scene was peaceful and the children In his commentary to the pic tures, La Trobe alludes to the pla yful, we ar e told that "at the moment when Bro. Scharf built pioneer role of [annasch in Labrad or photography.