George W. Hunter

George William Hunter MBE ( Chinese  胡进洁 , Pinyin Hú Jìnjié ; born July 31, 1861 in Kincardineshire , Scotland , † December 20, 1946 in Zhangye (Kanchow), Gansu , China ) was a Scottish Protestant missionary of the China Inland Mission . He worked in the interior of China, especially in Xinjiang .

Life

youth

Hunter was born in Kincardineshire and raised in Deeside . As a young boy he lost his mother. His first love, Jessie, died at the age of 22 and was buried in Aberdeen . Soon afterwards he applied for the mission abroad, whereupon he initially undertook missionary work at home with the YMCA and other organizations. Eventually, his second application to the China Inland Mission was accepted.

First years in China

Hunter arrived in China in 1889. He studied Chinese in Anqing for two years and was then sent to a mission station in Gansu . While studying languages, he made a decision not to get married for the sole purpose of serving God. Although he enjoyed working with his colleagues, the rules and fixed times in the station were a nuisance to him. Therefore, he often went on hikes and visited Hochow , Sining , Ningxia and Liangchow , among others . During these trips he learned how to best share the gospel with Muslims and Tibetans .

During the Boxer Rebellion , the governor of Gansu made sure that the missionaries could safely leave China. Hunter made his only home leave during this time, visiting Jessie's grave, on which he placed a granite heart because the family would not allow him to place a tombstone. On February 24, 1902, he traveled a second time to China on the SS König Albert and returned to Lanchow .

Xinjiang and Gansu

On March 27, 1906, he traveled to Urumqi (Tihwafu) in Xinjiang . For the next 40 years he was almost always traveling. He wandered through Xinjiang and even came to Khovd in Mongolia . On his travels he preached in Kazakh , Uighur , Manchu , Mongolian , Nogai , Arabic and Chinese, while distributing tracts in these languages. In addition, he also visited the settlements of the White émigrés (Russian emigrants) who had settled in Gulja (Yining).

Hunter observed that Tungan Muslims ( Hui Chinese ) almost never forced their daughters into prostitution , while Turki Muslims ( Uighurs ) often sold their daughters. Therefore, the prostitutes in the country were mostly Turks.

Under Sheng Shicai , Hunter was arrested on false charges and detained and tortured in a Soviet prison in Urumqi for thirteen months . When released and exiled, he went to Lanzhou, Gansu, and later further west to Kanchow , hoping to return soon.

Translations

Hunter translated the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, as well as the Acts of the Apostles of Luke and the Genesis into Kazakh. He also translated The Pilgrim's Progress , Mark, Acts, 1 Samuel and twenty-five chapters of Genesis into Uighur and Mark into Nogai.

He published a collection of Kazakh, Zartar , Uzbek , Uyghur, Azerbaijani , Kyrgyz , Turkish and Astrakhan-Turkish literature with his own translations into English and also wrote a translation of the stories of the Prophets from Uyghur and published it in a bilingual edition.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerald H. Anderson: Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions . Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI 1999, ISBN 9780802846808 , pp. 311-312.
2. ^ Ingeborg Baldauf , Michael Friederich: Bamberger Zentralasienstudien . Schwarz, 1994, ISBN 3-87997-235-4 , p. 352 (accessed June 28, 2010).
3. ↑ Ildikó Bellér-Hann: Community Matters in Xinjiang, 1880-1949: Towards a Historical Anthropology of the Uyghur . BRILL, 2008, ISBN 90-04-16675-0 , pp. 258-.

literature

• Mildred Cable , Francesca French : George Hunter: Apostle of Turkestan. 1948.
• BV Henry: Fakkelbæreren til de ukjente: pionermisjonæren George Hunter i Sentral-Asia. Lunde, Oslo 2001.
• George W. Hunter: Examples of the Various Turki Dialects: Turki text with English translation. Tihwafu : China Inland Mission 1918