The Indians- 
 
 o F 
 
 -Guatemau5 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/indiansofguatemaOOpres 
 
JnbtattB of (guatpmala 
 
 What is an 
 Indian? 
 
 A little American 
 girl on seeing two 
 Guatemala Indian 
 children said, “Oh 
 Mamma, I’d like to play with those 
 little Indians — but I’m afraid they 
 would shoot me.’’ Of course that 
 idea of what an Indian is came from 
 older people. Now if we are to 
 understand Guatemala’s people, we 
 must divest our minds of this Modoc- 
 Apache idea. In southwestern 
 United States we begin to come in 
 contact with the industrial type of 
 Indian, and as a rule this type be- 
 comes more and more pronounced 
 in history as we go south. In Mex- 
 ico we had the Aztec and the Toltec, 
 and in Guatemala and Honduras the 
 still more cultured Maya. 1 These 
 peoples instead of devoting their time 
 to war and the chase, centered their 
 interests almost exclusively upon the 
 arts of peace. Though the fires of 
 ancient splendor of the Maya has 
 been blown out by the cruelty of 
 conquest, and the abjection of servi- 
 tude, the genius that once flamed so 
 brightly still smoulders and lies latent, 
 and awaits but the breath of oppor- 
 
 1 
 
tunity to fan it again into a flame 
 of glor^ The gentle, sympathetic, 
 industri^ character of these Indians 
 of Mexico and Central America at 
 once explains the possibility and 
 blackens the perfidy of the romantic 
 though unprovoked conquest of 
 populous, peaceable, industrious na- 
 tions by a mere handful of gold- 
 seeking Spanish adventurers. 
 
 Just as in the eastern 
 todians not continent we have 
 Homogeneous very white and very 
 
 black races, dwarfs 
 and giants and all degrees between, 
 so in the western we have the negro 
 Pericui of Lower California, the 
 white Chiriguanas and Pehuenches 
 of Brazil and Bolivia, the dwarf races 
 of Peru and the giant people of 
 Tierra del Fuego with all grades be- 
 tween. In the New World it was a 
 brown race that attained the highest 
 civilization, while in the Old it was 
 a white race. It is probable that 
 the Indians came not from one 
 source but from several. After 
 they had invaded, fought, amalga- 
 mated with, subjugated, chased each 
 other hither and yon as races would 
 and will, the curtain of history rises 
 upon the continent revealing be- 
 
 2 
 
tween 650 and 700 nations of 
 aborigines of every variety of char- 
 acter, size, color, language, customs 
 and capability. Of these over fifty 
 are found in Central America, thirty- 
 six in Guatemala alone. Their lan- 
 guages in some cases are closely re- 
 lated, and in others totally distinct. 
 While Spanish is the official language 
 and is the one most generally known 
 a great many Indians understand 
 only their own tongue. The Indians 
 in each town are very self-centered 
 and exclusive, making it difficult for 
 an Indian preacher from another 
 town even though he speaks their 
 own language to be very efficient, a 
 condition that will be largely rem- 
 edied with the first foothold that is 
 obtained in the new town. But 
 there should be a missionary in each 
 nation, who could learn their lan- 
 guage and devote himself exclusively 
 to them. 
 
 Though most of the 
 Antiquity Indian nations we 
 
 have any knowledge 
 of still exist, albeit in a conquered 
 and abject condition, their history 
 reaches back to the conquest and 
 we know not how much farther. 
 The Quiches till the soil yet around 
 
 3 
 
the ruins of their former mighty 
 cities, while their legends reach far 
 back into the mists and shadows of 
 ages long gone by. ^Tbe Mayas have 
 left the ruin strewed sites of their 
 former greatness, but the neatly 
 dressed materials of their scattered 
 habitations, their ruined temples, 
 their sacred artificial pyramids and 
 their colossal memorial monoliths 
 bear a mute and melancholy wit- 
 ness to their once superior engineer- 
 ing achievements, their architectural 
 genius, their art that had become 
 illustrious and grown old, their lit- 
 erary attainments, and their astro- 
 nomical knowledge that had ar- 
 ranged a calendar system as perfect 
 as our own with all our science of 
 calculation and all our instruments 
 of precision! American antiquarians 
 date these "ivlaya ruins back to the 
 earlier centuries of the Christian era, 
 the Germans think they have stood 
 for five thousand years, while the 
 French think the sun and storms of 
 ten milleniums have beaten upon 
 them, yet the irrepressible Maya still 
 holds his head up in the tempest of 
 adversity as unmoved as the mighty 
 monuments of his fathers, and waits 
 for a better day. 
 
 4 
 
Peculiar 
 
 Indian 
 
 Mentality 
 
 The mental processes 
 of the Central Amer- 
 ican Indian seem 
 very peculiar. He 
 arrives at conclu- 
 
 sions by paths so imperceptible, by 
 such unimaginable short cuts, that 
 it sometimes seems almost uncanny. 
 Even their words and concepts seem 
 cast in a different mold from ours. 
 For example, instead of having a 
 single word for forest, and modify- 
 ing it to express its varying qual- 
 ities, they use one word for a forest 
 on a mountain, another for a forest 
 on a slope, another in a valley, and 
 another in a plain. When they 
 would speak of a man as orderly or 
 well behaved, they say he is a man 
 who “doesn*t-go-away-from-home- 
 o’ nights.** Instead of saying. Good- 
 bye (God be with you) they say. 
 Be careful not to fall down. In 
 complicated questions they often ar- 
 rive at correct conclusions by their 
 short mental processes, more quickly 
 than we do with our more preten- 
 tious systematized logic. For suc- 
 cessful work, all this must be under- 
 stood by the missionary. 
 
 5 
 
In many of the prin- 
 Indian ciples set forth in 
 
 Character Utopia, Sir Thomas 
 
 Moore must have 
 been describing some of the Indian 
 nations of Central America. The 
 land belongs to all and is parcelled 
 out annually. It is remarkable how 
 in such unfavorable conditions, the 
 Indian morality is so relatively cor- 
 rect, when they are not under the 
 influence of liquor or of other races. 
 Though he represents 70% of the 
 population, he is charged with only 
 25% of the crime. In Guatemala 
 City, where legal pressure is strong- 
 est, in 1915 the Ladino or mixed 
 race showed an illegitimacy of 63% 
 while the Indians had but 27%. 
 Where drunkenness prevails the 
 Indian illegitimacy runs much higher. 
 The Indian is instinctively loyal, 
 chaste, very respectful to his authori- 
 ties, conscientious, religious, gen- 
 erous, grateful for favors, habitually 
 industrious where he can see any- 
 thing come of it, tenacious in the 
 face of difficulties, \ capable of high 
 intellectual attainment artistic in 
 temperament, in short an ideal soil 
 for a high type of Christian culture. 
 The Indian character itself is a ring- 
 ing call for evangelization. 
 
 6 
 
Indian 
 
 Homes 
 
 The conquered and 
 servile condition in 
 which the Indians 
 are submerged, gen- 
 
 erally precludes in the long run their 
 having any wealth beyond what is 
 barely necessary to keep them alive, 
 TTieir houses are generally small, 
 low, smoky, with but one unglazed 
 window opening or oftener none at 
 all, giving on the whole the appear- 
 ance of habitations of bears or 
 wolves rather than of human beings. 
 They are mostly of a single room, 
 with little or no furniture, and no 
 regard to sanitation as we under- 
 stand it. The cooking is of the 
 simplest and crudest. Life has little 
 for them but burden bearing and 
 tears, yet with it all there is about 
 them an air of stoic irrepressibility, 
 while through it all there shines a 
 tinge of faith in the constitution of 
 things and a blind and indefinite 
 hope for a better day. They do not 
 know what it is they need, but we 
 
 do. 
 
 Their former religion 
 Ancient was apparently a 
 Religion species of occultism, 
 
 witchcraft with many 
 charms, incantations and cere- 
 
 7 
 
monies. It was under the care of 
 professional religious leaders or 
 wizards, who by long study in occult 
 art had familiarized themselves with 
 the necessarily extensive religious 
 conventionalities, and knew how to 
 perform the intricate rites with the 
 supposed maximum results. A com- 
 plicated paraphernalia was in use. 
 They practiced sacrificing fowls and 
 other articles of food on the tops 
 of the volcanoes, examining the in- 
 testines of the fowls to foretell the 
 future of the person offering the 
 sacrifice. Most of these practices 
 are still followed, the Catholic 
 Church either adopting them under 
 a Christian name, or laughing at 
 them. 
 
 Industrial Innumerable super- 
 
 Superstitions 
 
 mg much or indus- 
 trial and domestic 
 life. For instance, they eat white 
 cheese when planting rice, believing 
 that the color of the rice will be in- 
 fluenced by the color of the food 
 the planter eats. When planting 
 sweet potatoes they carry a large 
 cow horn slung from shoulder or 
 belt, in the belief that it will influ- 
 ence the size of the coming vege- 
 
 5 
 
table. Large round earthenware 
 jars are whitewashed and put on 
 stumps in the pumpkin patches, that 
 the ambitious pepo may see how 
 large a well bred pumpkin is ex- 
 pected to grow, and do its best. 
 They have all the superstitions our 
 grandfathers had about planting in 
 the right time of the moon, and a 
 few more besides. They have in- 
 numerable remedial superstitions 
 and practices, some of them quite 
 heroic, and some embodying correct 
 principles, that may have been 
 reached or partly so by experience, 
 as steam baths for several maladies, 
 boiling their drinking water, etc. 
 
 Ever since the Span- 
 ish conquest, the In- 
 dian has been the 
 servant when not the 
 slave of the nation. 
 He is the public’s 
 laborer, the messenger, the burden 
 bearer. He does the work, others 
 enjoy the luxuries. Logs are sawed 
 into boards by Indian power in many 
 places because his wages are so low 
 that the steam saw cannot compete 
 with him. Year in and year out he 
 carries enormous burdens beside 
 bounding rivers because it would 
 
 Present 
 Social and 
 Industrial 
 Condition 
 
 9 
 
cost more to harness the rivers than 
 he gets for his toil. Many Indians 
 are working under the peonage sys- 
 tem for from three-fourths of a cent 
 to six cents a day. We knew of a 
 case where a majordomo, not under 
 the peonage system but in voluntary 
 wage received from the owner of a 
 plantation for his entire time, the 
 princely sum of thirty cents a month, 
 and the salt for his corn cakes (tor- 
 tillas) ! Here where people cannot 
 freeze, and anyone can get a banana 
 to prevent starvation, a maintenance 
 wage is very near to zero. 
 
 It is pitiful to see 
 Burden human beings doing 
 
 Bearing labor that be- 
 
 longs to beasts or 
 machines. Yonder goes a strong 
 
 man with a burden of two hundred 
 pounds on his back, which he will 
 carry for four or five days till he 
 reaches his destination, only to get 
 another as heavy to bring back, and 
 then repeat the task indefinitely. 
 Behind him trots his wife with a 
 hundred pounds or more, from 
 which even the exigencies of mater 
 nity do not excuse her. It not in- 
 frequently happens that a babe is 
 born scores of miles away from 
 
 10 
 
home, with only the loss of an hour 
 or two from the journey, the new 
 mother after the short delay re- 
 appearing with the new arrival hung 
 on her back, while her loving lord 
 and driver considerately takes most 
 or all of her load in addition to his 
 own, and all take up the heavy hope- 
 less round again. Even the little tot 
 of four or five goes trotting along 
 with his eight inch steps, crying be- 
 times, for it is very hard to keep up 
 withTat (father) and Nan (mother), 
 but he must learn, for that is the 
 only school he will ever have to 
 train him for the wretched servitude 
 called life, to which he is fated. All 
 this they have endured for genera- 
 tions. What a race of people! 
 With Christianity, freedom and edu- 
 cation they would make one of the 
 cleanest and finest races under the 
 sun, but without the Gospel their 
 outlook is as hopeless as despair 
 itself. 
 
 Both earlier and 
 later records of In- 
 dian life show that 
 they have always 
 been v/eak in the 
 
 Moral and 
 
 Religious 
 
 Condition 
 
 matter of abstinence from strong 
 drink. Their own tribal authorities 
 
 11 
 
often try to keep away from the 
 saloon, but conditions are all against 
 them. Both the extensive sugar 
 cane and not a little of the fruit crop 
 are manufactured into brandy. A 
 drink costs less than a cent and a 
 thorough intoxication less than a 
 nickel. The saloons give the left 
 overs in the glasses to the Indians, 
 the drink demon arouses and they 
 spend their last hard earned cent for 
 “burning water**. It is not disgrace- 
 ful. The Indian believes brandy is 
 a good substitute for food, for medi- 
 cine, even for trouble. In religious 
 festivals they must have brandy 
 even if everything else is wanting. 
 A fermented fruit brandy called 
 “chicha** is much used by the In- 
 dians, and produces the most fright- 
 ful results on the health of its vic- 
 tims. In 1913 there were 56,200 
 saloon licenses issued by the Govern- 
 ment, or one to every thirty-six in- 
 habitants, counting men, women and 
 children, for all drink, besides an 
 enormous though unknown amount 
 of “moonshine**. We have seen 
 mothers treating their children and 
 even their sucking babes. On re- 
 ligious feast days in Indian districts, 
 the roads out of town are fairly 
 ahowl with Indians in all stages of 
 
 12 
 
intoxication. You may see little 
 children crying because Tat and 
 Nan are both in the gutter, and the 
 problem of looking after them is too 
 much for the baby mind. In the 
 redemption of the Indian from this 
 his principal vice, no help can be ex- 
 pected from the Government be- 
 cause of the Devil’s old sophism of 
 the revenue. Nor does a single ray 
 of light break from the Catholic 
 Church. She fattens on sin, and 
 liquor is a fruitful mother of holy 
 revenue. Then too the “holy 
 father” is often the star consumer of 
 the stuff, holding the drinking rec- 
 ord of the town. The best priest in 
 the country confessed to the writer 
 that “when an Indian takes to liquor, 
 nothing can save him, he is gone.” 
 There is but one hope, and that 
 shines clear and strong — their evan- 
 gelization. This has been tried and 
 does the work. The Indian earnest- 
 ness with which they take to the 
 Gospel gives them an almost certain 
 victory. Again we exclaim. What 
 a field for mission work! 
 
 In spite of better in- 
 Qlli^ stincts, in those towns 
 
 Weaknesses 
 
 universal solvent of 
 virtue, has effected its ravages, un- 
 13 
 
chastity eJso prevails to an alarming 
 extent. Though the Indian is tem- 
 peramentally honest, the cruelty of 
 his servitude, the hopelessness of his 
 outlook, and the injustice of his 
 treatment breaks his sense of right, 
 and he feels justified in frequent dis- 
 honesty. After universal abuse of 
 his frankness, he has taken refuge 
 in systematic deception, and lives a 
 secret life for himself and his people, 
 and a quite different one for the 
 outer world. Their religious life is 
 shot through with superstition, and 
 the Church keeps them so, where 
 she has control, for a superstitious 
 Indian town is easiest governed and 
 exploited. Since, then, their fearful 
 moral condition is rooted in liquor 
 and the Church, we come back 
 again from this side to the fact that 
 the only hope for them is their evan- 
 gelization, and hence the responsi- 
 bility rests directly upon us. 
 
 The Liberal Govern- 
 Indian ment is making ef- 
 
 Education forts to educate In- 
 
 dian children, but 
 finds much difficulty, because it does 
 not enjoy the confidence of the In- 
 dian, who for that reason uses every 
 artifice in his power to evade educa- 
 
 14 
 
tion ; because his children after learn- 
 ing to read and write are taken from 
 the family and compelled to render 
 literary service for the State on a 
 starvation wage; and chiefly because 
 the main failings of the Indian are 
 moral failings, and the Government 
 schools are professedly irreligious, 
 and hence fail in moral force. Since 
 the Government cannot and the 
 Church will not educate them, their 
 only hope here also is the Gospel, 
 which has been tried and proved 
 capable of doing the work. They 
 want to learn in order to read the 
 Bible. 
 
 Were the Indians 
 Spanish ^ ever evangelized ? 
 
 Evangeliza- The chief aim of the 
 
 bon Spanish adventurers 
 
 who conquered the 
 country was to get gold, by violence, 
 and we may legitimately look with 
 suspicion upon a propaganda based 
 upon such a foundation. The Gos- 
 pel of peace is not the kind that is 
 propagated by the sword, by burn- 
 ing alive brave men who fight in 
 defense of their country, by un- 
 scrupulously robbing its “converts” 
 of all they possess, and reducing 
 them to the most insupportable servi- 
 
 15 
 
tude, the priest mostly cooperating 
 in the whole criminal proceeding, 
 and claiming and assuming all moral 
 and spiritual responsibility. Even at 
 the best the faith brought to the In- 
 dians, was the very type of religion 
 that had just been repudiated by all 
 northern Europe, as pernicious and 
 destructive of all that was noblest 
 and best in man. It was the Gospel 
 that Luther found ninety-five serious 
 objections to. It was the Gospel of 
 Tetzel, of Philip II, of Torquemada, 
 of Domingo de Guzman, of the In- 
 quisition. It came to the New 
 World with its idolatry, its indulg- 
 ences, its dungeons and racks, its 
 absorption of human rights, its 
 superstition and blight, and main- 
 tained its grip, till in 1871 the 
 people of Guatemala reached the 
 stage of degeneration and tyranny, 
 where humanity could endure no 
 more, and the Catholic people of 
 Guatemala arose against their own 
 Church and hurled her out of her 
 throne, and gave the nation such a 
 decided agnostic bent, that the 
 Church until now has never re- 
 covered. Were the Indians evan- 
 gelized? It is the veriest irony to 
 speak of such a religion carried by 
 such men with such motives and 
 16 
 
practices as evangelizing anything. 
 We have neither biblical nor logical 
 warrant for so outrageous an abuse 
 of a plain English word. 
 
 Probably nowhere 
 on the globe is a 
 general uplift work 
 more needed than 
 among the Guate- 
 
 Uplift Work 
 for the 
 Indian 
 
 mala Indians. The unspeakable liv- 
 ing conditions in which they exist, 
 their squalor, high mortality, ignor- 
 ant motherhood, insanitation, abject 
 ideals of human existence, and their 
 general hopelessness call for a life 
 wide work, such as neither the Gov- 
 ernment, the Church nor any other 
 factor now in the field, save the 
 Gospel can give. The evangelizing 
 and general uplift work of our Mis- 
 sion should be steadily pushed. 
 Each year our Bethany Nurses* 
 Training School is sending out a 
 little class of trained nurses to go 
 among the people and tell them how 
 to keep their homes clean, and the 
 relation of health to cleanliness and 
 sobriety. Some of these may go 
 among the Indians. We hope ere 
 long to have some Indian repre- 
 sentatives among the nurses, who 
 may teach their people how to take 
 
 17 
 
care of the sick, avoid disease, rear 
 their children, and prevent the 
 spread of contagious disease. With 
 the Gospel will come an improve- 
 ment of moral and industrial con- 
 ditions. Again the responsibility 
 comes home to us, for our Mission 
 is the only agency that has the 
 fundamental remedy. 
 
 What the Indian 
 The Supreme most profoundly 
 Need needs is the very 
 
 thing that a mistaken 
 American Protestantism almost al- 
 ways takes it for granted that he 
 has, not differential theology at all, 
 but the simplest fundamental ele- 
 ments of Christianity. It is true 
 they have many of the religious 
 terms that represent these things to 
 us, but so warped and atrophied 
 that they no more carry the Chris- 
 tian conception to them than if any 
 other word were used. We must 
 divest ourselves of the idea that 
 Christianity consists of words. We 
 cannot feed a starving man on a 
 grocery catalogue, nor a starving 
 soul on letters of the alphabet. To 
 the Indian with all his Catholic train- 
 ing, God is not a sympathizing, 
 care-taking, hand-leading heavenly 
 
 18 
 
Father, but a powerful absentee 
 divinity, less sympathetic, and even 
 more inaccessible than Dai Butz, 
 Huitzilopochtli, or Onkelonkelu. 
 Christ is not the tender pitying Re- 
 deemer of mankind who walks with 
 us and talks with us and tells us we 
 are His own, but a cake on the altar 
 that he takes his hat off to, and eats. 
 The Holy Ghost is not the Com- 
 forter, the Companion, the heavenly 
 light, but either the personal prop- 
 erty of the Pope, or a silver or tin 
 trinket to adorn an altar. Sin to 
 the Indian is not rebellion against 
 an infinite Love and a law-governed 
 universe and its Maker, it is only 
 an entry on the wrong side of the 
 ledger, an unfavorable deal, a bad 
 bargain for a dozen eggs in the mar- 
 ket. Repentance in Indian practice 
 has not a speaking acquaintance 
 with the Christian saving grace 
 taught by Christ, but is merely a 
 commercial transaction, a quid pro 
 quo, a balancing of accounts. Faith 
 is not an intelligent appreciation and 
 acceptance of Divine mercy and 
 grace, but the blindest and most 
 stupid and reprehensible credulity, 
 systematically fostered by those in 
 whose interest it operates. For 
 four hundred years Catholicism has 
 19 
 
tried to feed the starving Indian soul 
 on an institution, while he craved a 
 personality, and the result is one of 
 the most stupendous failures the 
 world has ever seen. It is time 
 Christianity came to the rescue with 
 the A B C of the Gospel. 
 
 The Indian needs our 
 help, because many 
 of the same super- 
 stitions and practices 
 that held before the 
 conquest are still 
 kept up, and some of the old idols 
 are still in use; because the images 
 of the saints, the Virgin Christ and 
 the old Indian gods are sometimes 
 used interchangeably by the same 
 worshippers; because their supersti- 
 tions have a cause and effect rela- 
 tion to their political, social, moral 
 and spiritual perdition; because the 
 drunkenness and unchastity and in- 
 justice found in the priesthood ruins 
 their influence for good, and de- 
 stroys the hope of relief from that 
 source; because the Government is 
 professedly agnostic and hence lacks 
 the spiritual factor in its work; be- 
 cause the fire of civilization that has 
 smouldered so long in the Indian 
 soul, needs but the Gospel to flame 
 
 Resume of 
 Reasons for 
 Evangeliza- 
 tion 
 
 20 
 
out again into life and power ;^e- 
 cause the Guatemala Indians have 
 extraordinary capabilities!] because 
 having the Gospel we would be 
 criminally responsible if we failed to 
 give it to them; because if we do not 
 give it to them, there is no one in 
 sight who will. 
 
 Effect of the 
 Gospel on 
 Indian Life 
 
 It is impossible to 
 describe the quiet, 
 philosophical type of 
 joy that pervades the 
 being, and shines 
 from the face of the Indian, when 
 he comes to realize that there is in- 
 deed for him a great sympathetic, 
 all powerful, personal God and 
 friend and that he has actually got 
 into enduring touch with Him. 
 When his deeply religious soul at 
 last finds its normal life, his wonder 
 and joy passes all bounds, and his 
 spiritual power becomes correspond- 
 ingly great. Before it the hitherto 
 invincible demon of alcohol dis- 
 appears like the mists in his native 
 valleys before the power of the 
 tropical sun. For him a personal 
 Saviour is not a theological tenet, 
 but a living personality and com- 
 panionship. He looks upon his for- 
 mer condition as upon a man that 
 
 21 
 
no longer is, and on his present self 
 as on a man that was not but has 
 come to be, as if there was no con- 
 nection whatever between the two. 
 True faith in the Indian becomes 
 intense, absolute. Normal religion 
 becomes at last the great thing of 
 life for which he lives, nay it is life 
 for him. It cost much to get them 
 started in the road of redemption, 
 but they are like sheep, as soon as 
 one goes over the bar, the rest make 
 haste to follow. They are beginning 
 to realize that the better conditions 
 that they have blindly sought for 
 ages are now knocking at their 
 doors. At last they have found a 
 Friend! A few examples will illus- 
 trate and confirm what we have said. 
 
 Pedro Poz 
 
 An Indian of Sunil 
 had a wayward son 
 named Pedro, whom 
 he put into military service as a 
 punishment for his wild life. While 
 there Pedro came in contact with 
 the Gospel and was converted. On 
 release he not only abstained from 
 his former iniquities, but opened his 
 house for services in his native 
 tongue, bought lamps and benches, 
 and before we knew it had a meet- 
 ing of over thirty Indians to whom 
 
 22 
 
he was preaching regularly. Learn- 
 ing of his zeal, a young American 
 from Aurora, 111., by looking after 
 his support made it possible for him 
 to devote one-half his time to the 
 work his heart was in, and later he 
 was taken on for full time. For 
 several years he has been preaching 
 the Gospel in his own and surround- 
 ing towns with splendid results. His 
 reformation has been so complete 
 and striking, his life is becoming so 
 strong and influential, and his devo- 
 tion to the cause so absolute, that 
 God alone knows what a life of 
 power and blessing is before him. 
 Without the Gospel that wonderful 
 man would still be a drunken worth- 
 less Indian. 
 
 Some Indians from 
 Indians of Sunil, down on a 
 Sm Antonio coast plantation, 
 
 heard that at San 
 Antonio, six miles away, there were 
 Gospel meetings, and began to at- 
 tend and interest others of their 
 people. Soon more than fifty of 
 them were regular attendants. The 
 plantation owner, a fanatical Cath- 
 olic, learning of it, sent them all back 
 to their native town to get them 
 away from Protestantism, and had 
 
 23 
 
fifty new ones sent down. Those 
 who were sent home found Gospel 
 meetings there in their own lan- 
 guage, and the new ones in the 
 plantation began to attend at San 
 Antonio. The outwitted planter pre- 
 pared to punish the chief believers, 
 but just then his son came home and 
 said to hini, “Father, all who follow 
 that religion stop getting drunk, 
 work better, give full days, don’t 
 fight and can be relied on. It is 
 more for our interest that they 
 should go there.” The father soon 
 found his son was right, and since 
 then he himself reminds the Indians 
 when preaching day comes. The 
 number of attendants has again risen 
 to over fifty though they have to 
 tramp six miles and back, after dark, 
 often through rain, and crossing 
 three dangerous rivers in flood sea- 
 son. 
 
 The unevangelized 
 Indian celebrates his 
 funerals with a big 
 brandy wake, hence 
 fights, wounds, and 
 
 An 
 
 Abstinence 
 
 Funeral 
 
 sometimes another death as a conse- 
 quence. They must get permission 
 of the plantation owner to bury their 
 dead in a leind that was once all 
 
 24 
 
their own. One of our Indian believ- 
 ers lost his only son by fever. For 
 the funeral he called in some fifteen 
 of his fellow evangelicals, and with- 
 out a drop of liquor held a religious 
 service, and thence bore the body 
 solemnly away for burial. Now the 
 plantation owner had just had some 
 annoying experiences with loss of 
 employees, imprisonments, attend- 
 ance at court, etc., in consequence of 
 the previous funeral, and had de- 
 cided to refuse henceforth all per- 
 mission for funerals. So our Indian 
 father was flatly refused permission 
 to bury his son. His reply to the 
 owner ranks as a classic piece of 
 testimony: “Senor, your objection is 
 well grounded, for that is what 
 comes from the use of ‘burning 
 water.’ But all we who are here are 
 Evangelicals, and not one of us 
 drinks liquor. Examine for yourself 
 and see if any one here has a bottle, 
 if any one of us has the stench of 
 liquor on him. We come to bury our 
 dead decently as Christians.” The 
 owner to his lasting surprise found it 
 true, and gladly gave his permission 
 for the first Christian funeral he had 
 ever witnessed. Since then he is 
 loud in his praise of a religion that 
 can do such things “even for Indi- 
 25 
 
ans/* It was his first contact with 
 the Gospel of the Living Christ. 
 
 In Guatemala the 
 Vision greater part of the 
 
 inhabitants, the best 
 fundamental qualities of character, 
 the greatest capabilities, the finest 
 material for future development be- 
 long to the aborigines, and even in 
 the mixed race the Indian blood pre- 
 vails. This work is or should be 
 mainly an Indian work, as fast as we 
 can get into it, for the Indian is the 
 key to the nation’s evangelization. 
 The priests recognize this and some- 
 times say to us, “You may have the 
 Ladino, but keep your hands off the 
 Indians.’’ Now it is among them 
 that good strategy calls for our 
 supreme effort. When, among them, 
 this agelong soul hunger is satisfied, 
 when these capabilities are devel- 
 oped, when this latent power is con- 
 secrated to God and they have be- 
 come a redeemed, enlightened, 
 civilized nation, who save Heaven 
 itself may set the limit of their pro- 
 gress, or define the extent of their 
 influence upon the world’s redemp- 
 tion. 
 
 Rev. Edward M. Haymaker. 
 
The Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 
 156 FIFTH AVE., NE’CT YORK 
 
 Form 2460 
 
 November. 1916