Arawak Bible History (3)

**List: Arawak Ministry the Bible ( the Bible ) Arawak... ARAWACK. "THE people to whom this language is vernacular inhabit the sea-shores and the banks of rivers in British Guiana, in Surinam or Dutch Guiana, and in the province of Venezuela.   The number of Arawack Indians, located within the British territory alone, has been computed at about 2000; but they have of late years been greatly reduced in number, from the consequences of indulging to excess in ardent spirits.   These Indians are divided into thirty tribes, and do not appear to live under any regular or organised system of government.   Their ideas on religious subjects are but feebly developed.   They believe in a Supreme Being, eternal, immortal, and invisible; but they consider that he is too exalted to interest himself in the affairs of man, and therefore they address their supplications to inferior deities. Sorcerers have great influence in this as in other Indian nations, and profess by their magical incan- tations to rule the spirits by whom the world is supposed to be governed.   The great majority of the Arawack Indians are now, however, brought under Christian instruction, and some hundreds have been baptized.   The influence of the Gospel has been manifested in ameliorating the condition of the females, who were formerly subjected to the most cruel toil and bondage.    The Arawack language, though participating in the general characteristics of the American type, differs in so many respects from the dialects of the neighbouring tribes that it is supposed to have been originally spoken at some distance from the region in which it is now predominant.   The traditions of the natives point to Hayti, and the larger islands of the West Indian Seas, as the former country of the Arawack Indians.   The aborigines of those islands were expelled or exterminated by the European colonists; but the few words of their language that have been preserved bear a striking resemblance to the corresponding terms in modern Arawack; in fact, the words are, in some instances, identical.    In 1823 a version of the entire New Testament, except the book of Revelation, existed in Arawack.   This version had been executed by Mr. Schuman, a my. well skilled in the Arawack language, who, during the years 1748 to 1760, resided among the Arawack Indians far up at the Berbice River.   This work has never been printed; but the MS. was corrected by Mr. Schultz, my. at Corentyn, who also revised a harmony of the Gospels, drawn up in the Arawack language by Mr. Schuman.   The first book printed in Arawack was the history of the Passion Week, translated by Mr. Fischer, my. among the Arawacks between the years 1789 and 1798: a small edition was printed at Philadelphia, and the copies were distributed among the Indians.   Subsequently, the Gospels and Acts, together with a considerable portion of the book of Genesis, have been printed in London, by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, from a version made by the Rev. W. H. Brett, who had been during many years engaged in my. labours in British Guiana, and whose long and familiar intercourse with the Arawack Indians, and his intimate acquaintance with their language, qualified him in a more than ordinary degree for the task.   The portions of Mr. Brett's version that were first printed were the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John, issued by the Society in 1850.   Some delay occurred in the production of the two remaining Gospels, owing to objections which had been made to the fidelity of Mr. Brett's translation, but which proved on investigation to be entirely groundless.   The printing was therefore resumed, and the whole was completed in 1856.   Some large wood-cuts, selected from the Society's Family Bible, add to the utility of this version of the Arawack Scriptures, designed as it is for the use of a semi-barbarous people, who, like children, exhibit peculiar aptitude for receiving such instruction as can be conveyed through the medium of the eye. Good results are already apparent from Mr. Brett's labours.   "I have just returned (he writes from Essequibo, in 1857, to the Committee of the Society) from the Indian missions, where the Arawacks are now busily engaged upon that portion of the Scriptures in their own tongue for which they stand so much indebted to your bounty.   I am happy to say, that there is every reason to believe that much spiritual good will be effected thereby.   In our remote mission at Waramuri, the bishop and myself were much struck by the manner of some of our catechumens, and the breathless silence with which they listened to the account of the fall of man, and the sentence pronounced on him by the Almighty." A translation of the Acts into Arawack has been issued by the American Bible Society (1851), from a MS. in their possession, but concerning which we have no further information."--The Bible of Every Land. (1860, Second Edition)   Samuel Bagster   [Info only] ARAWACK.   [PHILADELPHIA.]--1860   S. Bagster   [Info only: "1799" Matthew 27:62-66 unknown.]

[Christian Helps Ministry (USA)] [Christian Home Bible Course]