Re: your Jan. 21 article, “Missionary martyrdom ultimately saves tribe�:
This article reinforces the false notion that the colonization and Christianization of the Americas is a saving grace for the indigenous inhabitants.
What Christian, European or Euro-American invasion brings generally to the Western Hemisphere — and to what today is called Ventura County — is disease, military occupation, genocide, ecological devastation and religious conversion under duress. A similar process occurred when the tribal people of Europe were invaded by the Roman Empire.
Certain journalists or persons religious may now point to certain converted indigenous people who are thanking the white man with the Bible for his kindness. But even this pro-evangelical article admits that only 430 of the 2,000 surviving Waodoni of Ecuador are now estimated, by an evangelist, to be Christian.
In this article, we hear from one of those 430, but nothing from the other non-Christian or traditional 1,570.
Some Euro-Americans, to justify their theft of indigenous land and resources, or to justify imposing their religion, have claimed that they are not committing genocide or cultural genocide, but are only bringing progress, civilization or the love of God to indigenous Native Americans. This article is another of that genre which attempts to reassure everyone how much better off the indigenous are since Christian, European incursion.
Now that The Star has run an article celebrating the Christianization of indigenous people in Ecuador, can we expect articles about the indigenous who are battling for social justice, or perspectives from indigenous people of the Americas who are happy to be who they are, even if they are not Christian?
— Jim Yarbrough, Newbury Park
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