Brendon Duque

Many people are afraid of change and do not always welcome it. In the case of the Umofians and the Waodani, native tribes, they had to change and welcome the new missionaries and their Christian ways. Both the natives and the missionaries had their perspectives of each other and these clashing ideas of each other in time cause conflict that could only be resolved by the natives. This essay will include: the perspectives of both the natives and the missionaries, indentify what leads to conflict as well as what change is needed to occur in order for a resolution to be reached. In both cases of the Umofians and the Waodoni, the missionaries viewed the people of the tribe as people who whose life style was incorrect in a way, and that their beliefs where wrong and needed to be changed. The missionaries believed that the Christian way of life/beliefs, needed to be implemented into the lives of the natives. For the Waodani, they had a savage lifestyle of spearing people and this was causing them to nearly go extinct. On top of the missionaries wanting to stop the Waodani from spearing each other, they also wanted to introduce the son of God: Jesus. On the other hand, the Umofians were viewed similarly but not entirely the same. The Umofians didn’t necessarily have a savage lifestyle, but they had a very strong polytheistic belief system with their own traditions and rules that were a part of their everyday lives. The missionaries viewed these beliefs and practices wrong and proceeded to introduce the monotheistic Christian perspective into their lives. On the other hand, the natives like the missionaries had their perspectives on the intruding missionaries. The Umofians viewed them as fools and impostors. The Waodani viewed them as ‘spirits’ as imposters come to ruin their way of life, to make them weak. As a result of these perspectives, (especially the natives) conflict was caused. For the Waodani it a combination of various things. These include their stubbornness of not wanting to give up on their old way of life and accept the new Christianity. Also miscommunication was a big thing because they thought the missionaries had taken on e of their own but they missionaries did not understand them so the Waodani killed a few of the first missionaries they came into contact with. The leader of the Waodani thought the missionaries were trying to make the tribe weak. He often referred to them as ‘spirits,’ he didn’t view them as real people, he thought they were imposters. For the Umofians, their belief system was very