英文摘要 |
Nineteenth-century missionary writings are not disinterested in nature. Claiming objectivity for their portrayal of indigenous heathens, overseas missionaries, like ethnographers, adopted a detached view toward the subjects in their 'participant observation'-- that is, their intimate contacts with uncivilized savages. Yet the ambivalence of missionary ethnographies as a hybrid genre consisting of a twofold purpose explains the inherent contradictions and difficulties of reporting heathen savages objectively. This paper thus explores the ethnographical representations of Formosan aborigines by George Leslie Mackay and William Campbell, a Canadian and a British Presbyterian missionary to Formosa in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In Mackay's From Far Formosa and Campbell's Sketches from Formosa, the two missionaries demonstrate their flair as ethnographical observers. Making acute perceptions of alien culture in every aspect of life, Mackay and Campbell nevertheless are not unbiased in offering a unified, consistent picture of savage cruelty in need of evangelical and imperialist redemptions. |