The "Macedonian Cry."

In 1831 four Flathead (Salish) and Nez Perce Indians made an unprecedented journey to St. Louis from their homelands in the Columbia Plateau in the Northwest. They were unable to speak English, but officials interpreted their religious purpose in their signs of the cross and the gestures that suggested baptism rites. When presented with a cross, they kissed it, so William Clark, commissioner of Indian Affairs in St. Louis, sent them to the Jesuit mission, where they were baptized. This event, pivotal in Native and Anglo- American history, became known in evangelical folklore as the Macedonian cry—a reference to the spread of the early Christian church to Asia Minor upon the appeal of the Macedonians to the Apostle Paul. Although both native and white traditions agreed that the Indians came seeking "the white...