Eskimo Deacon

A group of 140 Eskimos in bright-colored shirts, the women with children slung on their backs, sat attentively in a little wooden schoolhouse at Rankin Inlet on the icebound coast of Hudson Bay. Before them. Anglican Bishop Donald Marsh solemnly intoned: "It apper-taineth to the office of a deacon, in the church where he shall be appointed to serve, to assist the priest in divine service ..." Armand Tagoona, 35, was being ordained the first Anglican deacon in the eastern Arctic.

Armand Tagoona's ordination is a landmark in one of the most successful Anglican missions in the world. There are only 23 Anglican clergymen in the Canadian Arctic, as compared with more than 90 Roman Catholics, but 82.5% of Canada's Eskimos are Anglicans.

Word for Word. When the Anglicans began to work among the Eskimos in 1820, they found them more than ready for Christianity. The animist Eskimo religion is formidable with taboos, short on nourishment for the soul and solutions to community problems. Taboos often left an Eskimo physically as well as spiritually starved; for example, certain parts of an animal were forbidden to be eaten if a man had recently died in the community, other parts were forbidden if a woman had died, and frequently, when both a man and a woman had died, everyone went hungry.

The missionaries also found that the Eskimos easily identified themselves with Biblical situations. Says stocky. English-born Bishop "Donald the Arctic" Marsh, 55. whose diocese covers more than 2,750,000 square miles and who has spent 33 years there: "Living in a primitive society, the Eskimo had many of the same problems as the Biblical characters. To him, the moral background was perfectly understandable. A great deal of the conception of the Gospel was already there. Being a realist, he tried to put Christianity into practice, and he did it successfully."

Roman Catholicism has had relatively little success in the Canadian North, says Marsh, partly because of the difficulty of attending Mass, partly because the Eskimo is an individualist. "He just won't let anyone tell him what to do. He doesn't readily subject himself to the discipline required of a Catholic." The Roman Catholic mission at Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, has not made a convert in 30 years, and the Eskimos of northern Quebec, which is well saturated with Catholic missionaries, are 98% Anglican.

Eskimos themselves do the main job of spreading Christianity. "The Eskimo has a fantastic memory," says Bishop Marsh. "He memorizes everything--most of them have memorized at least one book of the Bible. When a missionary comes in contact with a family, the Eskimo remembers what the missionary tells him and carefully repeats it word for word when he meets up with another family in his travels.''

First Report. Brand-new Deacon Tagoona got acquainted with theology on his own with the help of books in English and the careful study of Biblical texts. "He knows more than most graduates of theological schools," says the bishop. "In another year he may become a priest.''

In the meantime, Deacon Tagoona is responsible to his flock of 500 Eskimos and 100 whites for all the duties of a priest except administering Communion or performing marriages. Last week the bishop received the deacon's first report: "Eskimos are come more to our services now after I ordained, even those who not used to come I do not know why."

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