Missionaries read Maori social structure and physiognomy as ancient Israel mirrored

Evidence

John Colenso, a Cambridge-educated mathematician who was ordained bishop of Natal in 1853, was convinced that the two Zulu names for God embraced perfectly the notions of the divine “contained in the Hebrew words Elohim and Jehovah.” So close indeed were the resemblances, according to Colenso, that frequently the point was made that anyone who really wanted to understand the Bible had best study Zulu customs. Zulu “habits and even the nature of their country so nearly correspond to those of the ancient Israelites, that the very scenes are brought continually, as it were, before their eyes, and vividly realized in a practical point of view.” Practically everything about the Zulus from their lunar calendar to the order of religious feasts seemed to reflect an Israelite past. “The Zulu keeps his annual feasts, and observes the New Moons as the old Hebrew did. The very Zulus have their festivals at the beginning of the Southern Spring and at the end of their Autumn, corresponding to the ‘feast of the first fruits’ and the ‘feast of the ingathering’ of the ancient Hebrews.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 333 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The Karens’ account of their origins—that they were from the River of Running Sand—no doubt served as a springboard for all sorts of speculation. This was a people with a mysterious past. Quite clearly there were striking and seductive similarities between Karen legends and those of the Jewish Scriptures: one such example was the Karen story of creation, which “was almost parallel to the Mosaic account in Genesis.” The first to observe the Karen and to note the resemblances between them and the Israelites were the Baptist missionaries who had been forced to move to the Tenasserim coast of northern Burma with the outbreak of the first Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26). Francis Mason of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society arrived in Burma in 1814 and in time became convinced that the Karen were part of the Lost Tribes. He had certainly reached this conclusion by 1833: on December 6 of that year he communicated his beliefs to the British government from his headquarters at Tenasserim. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 324 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

In his detailed and carefully researched work Merker believed that he had found significant parallels between the Masais’ myths and customs and those of the biblical Hebrews. Merker discovered parallels between the beliefs and customs of the ancient Jews including: similarities in the names of God; in circumcision; in a belief in the figure of Moses (whom Merker identified with the Masai Marumi or Musana); and in a variety of legends that included the stories of the creation of the world, Adam and Eve and the fall of man, the story of the flood, the theft of the birthright, the bronze serpent, and the ten commandments. He concluded that both the Masai and the “oldest” Hebrews originated from the same people. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 338 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European missionaries read Indian religions as versions of Judaism; Missionaries used the Israelite-r kinship trope to recruit allied minorities against native majorities; Maori battlefield success was explained via claims of Israelite descent (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Colonial missionaries mapped Zulu religion onto ancient Israelite customs #exemplifies (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 333
• Missionaries identified the Karen as a Lost Tribe of Israel via scriptural parallels #exemplifies (0.94) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 324
• Colonial scholars mapped biblical Hebrew traits onto African peoples like the Masai #exemplifies (0.93) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 338
• Maori battlefield success was explained via claims of Israelite descent #exemplifies (0.92)
• Ch’iang cultural traits were selectively recast as evidence of Israelite descent #exemplifies (0.92) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 320
• Maori utu requires response to wrongs to restore cosmic balance #complicates (0.72) — , A Year of World Stories, 12437
• Andean peoples bound humans, animals, land, and earth in a sacred web of reciprocity #complicates (0.70) — , A Year of World Stories, 10887