First Contact with Laos Tribesmen

The Gospel has always progressed to a pattern of plan and circumstance. Sometimes a plan has been laid which circumstances, whether of opposition or opportunity, have molded: “Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth” was the plan the Saviour gave; yet it was persecution that first sent witnesses out to Judaea and Samaria “preaching the Word.” Sometimes it has been the other way around. An opportunity has been seen and plans have been molded to seize it; then much has depended on the Church’s response.

It was so in the earliest days when the apostles moved across the ancient world. It was so in the great periods of expansion of the Christian Church. Perhaps Pope Gregory’s remark “Not Angles but angels,” leading to Augustine’s mission to England, is a famous medieval example of opportunity seen and taken with careful planning and, as a result, the establishment of a church in new territory. In more modern times, the American Baptists in Burma switched their main emphasis from the unresponsive Burmans to the Karens on discovering the Karen belief that a white man with a book would come to teach the truth. The Karen church is now one of the strongest in South East Asia.

Christians today have greater facilities than ever to focus prayer and support on any new opportunity. Only the Holy Spirit can create a church, but every good means should be concentrated for His use, even as a country at war mobilizes its resources for its commander-in-chief. Unfortunately the man in the pew often believes that no virgin soil is left, that the churches have merely to expand in non-Christian parts already occupied, however thinly, and thus he fails to mobilize his personal and spiritual resources.

Recently, in the course of an unhurried tour which I am now making through the Asian mission fields, I found myself in the position of St. Luke, that is, a writer witnessing the first impact of the Gospel on an entirely untouched area.

Laos is a newly independent country, little known, and formerly a component of French and Indochina. In the lowlands are the Lao, a race closely connected with the Thai, who are Buddhists and among whom missions have operated for 50 years. The more mountainous area to the north and east is inhabited by primitive tribesmen, animists living in very real dread of evil spirits. They were scarcely disturbed by the French colonial government, and the whole province which we visited was prohibited to foreigners until independence. No Christian work, not even French Roman Catholic, has ever been done there.

Soon after its independence, a Gospel Recordings team penetrated to the Lao valley centers where the tribes come into market and made recordings of Gospel messages in several tribal languages. The team’s report led to a survey in Southern Laos as a result of which the overseas missionary fellowship of the China Inland Mission began an approach to the tribes late in 1957.

The first move was to form lowland bases in cooperation with the Swiss Brethren; and the second, during 1958, was to form three forward bases from which reconnaissance and evangelistic treks are being made on foot into the surrounding tribes. The intention is eventually to live right up in the tribal villages as response comes. The Lao authorities at first were fearful for the missionaries’ safety, but in fact only one tribe practices occasional human sacrifices.

It was with the team of the forward base at Attopeu, two young Americans, Mr. John Davis of Everett, Washington, and Mr. David Henricksen of Antioch, Illinois, that my wife and I trekked, knowing that we were out on no mere aimless fling but the early stages of a carefully planned strategy. As an indication of the remoteness of the place, we endured three days’ bus travel from the railhead, the last being 11 hours to cover 135 atrocious miles, before even reaching Mr. Davis’ house at Attopeu.

From there we walked. Only two tribesmen, in a large party, could be found to carry packs for us, so we had to carry them ourselves. These two were typical: small, naked except for G-string, teeth filed short (they do it when drunk), ears stretched and holed to carry heavy ivory bobs curiously similar to those of the South American Aucas pictured in Mrs. Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor. Though so little clothed, the tribe was modest. When they bathed the men covered themselves with their hands, and no child after puberty was allowed to run about naked. But married women often wore nothing above the waist except beads. One was seen to suckle her baby and then a puppy!

We ferried across a river, did three stages and slept in the forest, walked all the next day at an easy pace because of the women and children (it was very different two days later), and reached a large village by another river just before dusk. Civilization we discovered had already crept in—an army post, government officer, doctor, and schoolmaster. It would have been more romantic otherwise, but this emphasized the urgency. For in order to Laoize them fully, the government hoped to turn the tribes Buddhist. It is significant, therefore, that our meeting that night, though largely attended, made little impact.

The following day we walked deeper into the hills. The villagers we came to meet in a cluster of raised bamboo houses near a stream had never before had a white woman visitor. And Christ’s name had never been spoken there.

We sat outside the house of the headman or village father, who smelled of rancid meat, and ate with our fingers rice and a succulent chicken which they presented to us. Then John Davis set up the little portable gramophone and played Gospel records in their own tongue. As I watched those raw tribespeople, tattooed, brightly beaded, puffing at their stubby pipes, while a tiny puppy slept on the warm ashes at my feet and chickens wandered at will, I saw their close attention and believed that this revolutionary development of Gospel Recordings Incorporated of Los Angeles should be deserving of widest support.

John next brought out the Wordless Book, that old friend of evangelists to illiterates which, by means of colored pages, pictures man’s sin and judgment (black) the blood of Christ (red), the cleansed heart (white), and gold for heaven. Using Lao, which this tribe but not all the local tribes can speak, he took them through it. The first time they looked dumb. The second time they could explain it back. I noted that an unashamed, unadulterated biblical Gospel was taught of a Saviour crucified as man’s substitute and risen from the dead to be his Friend. Humanism would leave these men in their ignorance and desperate need.

John turned to the headman, who wore a G-string, a light blue necklace and a worried expression. “How about the village father,” he asked. “Do you want to go to hell or to heaven?” “I want to go to heaven,” the headman replied. “I want to escape from sin.” “There’s only one way you can get to heaven and that’s by having Jesus wash away your sins. Would you like him to do that?” “Yes!” “How many would?” The headman said: “I don’t know, I can’t speak for the village but only for myself.”

“Do you realize what it means?” John then warned this spirit-worshipper, “You can’t walk two trails at once.” He saw that, and spoke to his neighbors in their own language and then, in Lao to John, “I want to go the Jesus trail, only one trail.” “That means you’ll have to leave the old trail.” “I don’t understand,” said the headman, backing a bit and bringing up a little Buddhism. “What kind of work do you have to do?” “You don’t have to do anything,” replied John. “When you want to know where to make your rice fields, you don’t kill a chicken and ask the spirits, you ask Jesus to lead you. Jesus doesn’t eat chickens and pigs and buffalo. When you’re sick, don’t kill sacrifices, just pray. When you go into the forest, you needn’t propitiate the spirits with a pig, just ask Jesus to keep you safe.”

The headman said, “Why, if this is true it is the best thing in all the world! But we don’t quite understand.… I think we’ll go on as before but when we sacrifice, instead of calling on the spirits we will call on Jesus.” “That will never do,” said John. “They are enemies. Jesus would not be pleased. If you want to believe in Jesus you will have to throw over the spirits and burn all this,” waving his hand at the demon altar.

A long silence followed. Beads of perspiration appeared on the headman’s forehead as he thought of the awful risk. All his life he had dreaded the spirits. Could he dare throw them over? A handsome, smiling younger man began to suck at the potent rice wine (they use long thin bamboos from a common pitcher) which had been put aside at John’s insistence. “We don’t know these words yet,” the youth temporized.

“You don’t need to study first,” urged John. He asked for one of their pipes. “If I give you this pipe, my giving is of no use unless you reach out and take hold of it. God offers you a home in heaven, but his offering is of no use unless you take it.” They began to chatter in their own tongue. John sensed that they had gone off at a tangent. They turned to him. “We hear you saw a wild elephant on your way here.…”

John has already seen men burn their demon altars and “call on the name of the Lord.” It would have been fine had this episode ended like that.

But perhaps this was not permitted in order that my description should be left in the air as a standing challenge to the churches to focus prayer on this field. For a glance at the map will show that a strong church in the mountains of Laos could influence several surrounding countries. And who that knows of the mighty movement of the Spirit among the Nagas in Assam, the Karen in Burma, the Lisu in China can doubt that God can move the pagan tribes of Laos?

John C. Pollock, author of The Cambridge Seven and Way to Glory, is former Rector of Horsington, Somerset, England. He is touring Asia, and preparing a missions book for the Macmillan Company (New York) and Hodder and Stoughton.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.