Postcards from Mongolia, 19th century:
Some time ago, I found some really interesting old postcards in an antique shop in Antwerp: one of the cards shows a quite common motive from everyday life of a then unknown culture:
Mongolians having Supper.
The second card irritated me, as the text showed one more time the religious ignorance and imperialism:
he is offering... but not to the right God
then I studied the complete underline and understood that these cards were printed by a belgian missionary company, the Missiecongregatie van Scheut, a company, which was very active in China, Mongilia and Tatarstan in the 19th century
in the stream of the european imperialism of the 19th century, the word of God was spread, a cultural arrogance, which rules again nowadays: van Scheut is active again in Mongolia, ordered by the pope, and in Tuva we find the organisation Light in the East. I noted my thoughts about them already.