Of the sacred and the secular: Missionary collections in university museums

Abstract

In 1882, Dr George Leslie Mackay (1844–1901), a Canadian Presbyterian missionary, established the earliest higher education institution in Taiwan, the Oxford College (today’s Aletheia University), and the first university museum collection on the island. After years of neglect, at the end of the 20 century, the collection was ‘rediscovered’ by Canadian and Taiwanese anthropologists from the Royal Museum of Ontario, Canada. Just as these illustrious artifacts embark on a new chapter in life, they also seem to be re-introduced with their original interpretations: items that Dr Mackay preserved to demonstrate the idol-worshipping and heathen beliefs of the ‘savages’ are, once again, seen from a pagan perspective. To date, they are deemed as one of the best resources available for contemporary researchers to understand the spiritual life and value system of the Taiwanese Aborigines. Dr. Mackay’s collection is extraordinary, but its history is far from unique. This paper aims to examine university museums whose holdings have strong theological ties. As user communities change and new research interests emerge, ecclesiastical collections have helped to shed new lights on secular scholarship on such topics as ethnography, folklore studies and even missionary work itself. Of the sacred and the secular: Missionary collections in university museums A missionary is a member of a religion who works to convert those who do not yet share his or her faith. Driven by the sense of fulfillment, a missionary is constantly engaged in reaching out. A university missionary collection is here defined as either a collection in a missionary university museum (museum in a seminary or a theological college), or a missionary collection in a university museum (museum in a secular university). In light of the frequent outreach and postings in far-flung places, a missionary has vast opportunities to build a rich collection of ‘all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small’, and which makes ‘missionary collections’ an interesting sub-set in the study of university museums. This paper will examine Dr Mackay’s collection, Taiwan’s first university museum, and the layers of meanings it has been invested with during its eventual journey. It argues that as the user communities change and new research interests emerge, ecclesiastical collections have helped to shed light on secular scholarship such as ethnography, cultural studies and even the missionary movement itself.