October 3
As part of our celebration of Theological Libraries Month, we are boosting our little digital library collection that is (finally) going online. The site has now officially launched.
First, a few selected temperance tracts from our small but interesting batch (most certainly came from John Ireland’s own collecting and/or collection). Here is this little sample. Second, a small number of Native American language religious tracts, in Dakota or Ojibwe, mainly Catholic, of course, but a couple Presbyterian. Here is this sample.
In addition, we will are adding some more material, including both temperance and Native American items. Here is the link to the Konkani temperance tract discussed below.
An interesting tract we are working on is one from India issued around the turn of the century by a Roman Catholic group called St. Anne’s Temperance Society, While not surprising that a staunchly British colony had active temperance crusaders, this curious tract was written in Konkani, an Indian language spoken around Goa (and elsewhere), perhaps evidence that Indians or Anglo-Indians in the Goa region were involved with, or at least evangelized by, the crusaders. Due to its history, of course, Goa was home to a significant Catholic population. Also, some sources indicate Konkani is spoken in Kerala with its own longstanding Catholic communities.
The power of the Internet made it possible, in fact, easy to identify the language of this tract entitled Dusrea Vorsacho Report (published in 1906). We may well be the only library in the States to have this item.
The original cataloging done here at St Thomas understandably noted the language as “undetermined.” Before such innovations as the Google search engine, it was often next to impossible to identify “exotic” languages in Roman alphabets unless someone recognized it on its own. How would one even begin to “look up” such a script?
But Google has made it comparatively easy. Suddenly, in a few minutes with a few selections from the text, an undetermined language becomes Konkani. Here is the first page from our Konkani temperance tract in Roman alphabet.
Simple as that.