Deliverance and Destruction: The Erosion of Inuit Spirituality During the Early Years of the Moravian Mission to Labrador

This dissertation presents an exploration into the intersection of spirituality of the Inuit of Labrador and Czech Moravian missionaries in the late 18 th and early 19th centuries. Moravians came to North America to educate and convert the indigenous peoples to a pre-Protestant sect of Christianity. This exploration describes the Labrador Inuit's spirituality and shamanism, and posits the question, what is the strength of their cosmology, and in particular, the symbol of the Tree of Life / cosmic axis during the decades after contact?;Utilizing methods of ethnohistory and art history, the study surveys the appearance worldwide of the symbols of Tree of Life and cosmic axis. The research scrutinizes Inuit cultural artifacts, such as clothing and dwellings, for evidence of the persistence of their cosmology. Additionally, the Moravians kept meticulous notes of their contact with the Inuit in their station diaries, daily records of their routine, as well as a record of conversion and its sustainability. The study examines these records for their perspective on this process and on indigenous spirituality, and presents a picture of a systematic attempt to impose an antithetical and incompletely understood set of Christian beliefs on a people whose own cosmology was not even acknowledged. The Moravians also ran a store at each mission station which orchestrated and tightly controlled the Inuit's absolute reliance on them. The impacts on physical sustenance, spirituality, and social customs were little short of devastating.