Observing Formosa: Savages in the Missionary Writings of George Leslie Mackay and William Campbell

Abstract

Nineteenth-century missionary writings are not disinterested in nature. Claiming objectivity for their portrayal of indigenous heathens, overseas missionaries, like ethnographers, adopted a detached view toward the subjects in their ＂participant observation＂—that is, their intimate contacts with uncivilized savages. Yet the ambivalence of missionary ethnographies as a hybrid genre consisting of a twofold purpose explains the inherent contradictions and difficulties of reporting heathen savages objectively. This paper thus explores the ethnographical representations of Formosan aborigines by George Leslie Mackay and William Campbell, a Canadian and a British Presbyterian missionary to Formosa in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In Mackay`s From Far Formosa and Campbell`s Sketches from Formosa, the two missionaries demonstrate their flair as ethnographical observers. Making acute perceptions of alien culture in every aspect of life, Mackay and Campbell nevertheless are not unbiased in offering a unified, consistent picture of savage cruelty in need of evangelical and imperialist redemptions.

透過「參與觀察」(participant observation)，十九世紀遠赴世界各洲傳播基督教文明的傳教士與原住民異教徒近距離接觸，實際參與其生活環境所完成的對於未開化人種之描述紀載，就如同當時民族誌學者整理出版的田野調查報告一樣，皆標榜客觀、不介入的觀察視角。然而，傳教士的民族誌書寫此一文類同時雜揉兩種不同屬性之書寫，本身就有內在的矛盾─從傳教士的角度如何客觀忠實地報導異教信仰的野蠻人。此外，伴隨十九世紀基督教海外傳教運動的蓬勃發展，帝國的迅速拓展以及受達爾文物競天擇理論啟發的社會演化論之提出都對傳教士的民族誌書寫產生相關之影響。本篇論文以十九世紀下半葉前往海外傳教的加拿大長老教會牧師馬偕及英國長老教會牧師甘為霖在《福爾摩莎紀事》(From Far Formosa)及《素描福爾摩莎》(Sketches from Formosa)裡對於台灣原住民之敘述為例，指出上述兩位傳教士雖然皆深入異域實地參與原住民之生活，然而兩者對於原住民殘酷天性所採取的渲染描繪，並藉機提出基督教與帝國力量作為原住民異教徒救贖之手段，則是與標榜客觀中立的民族誌書寫背道而馳。