Songs of the Spirit: Hymnody in the Moravian Mohican Missions

Abstract

abstract:One of the core principles of the global Moravian missionary enterprise begun in the eighteenth century was to share the gospel through song. Moravians believed that music had the power to move the human heart, regardless of culture or geographic location. As a result, thousands of hymns were composed in the Native languages of the communities in which Moravian missionaries worked, including Mohican and Delaware communities in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. A significant body of Mohican language hymns is preserved in the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem. The Moravian mission records allow for an unprecedented examination of the process of creating Native language hymns as well as an exploration of how these hymns came to be used by Native affiliates of the missions. This article argues that the Moravian Mohican hymns carried on Native understandings of the spiritual efficacy of song, while facilitating the engagement of new sources of spiritual power deployed toward easing the suffering caused by colonialism.