52 pages • 1 hour read
Elisabeth ElliotThrough Gates of Splendor
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1957A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Index of Terms
“Auca” (Huaorani)
Throughout the text of Through Gates of Splendor, the word “Auca” relates to the Huaorani people and their language (sometimes also rendered as Waorani). The term comes from the language of a neighboring people group, the Quichua, and loosely translates as something like “savage.” Since the Huaorani’s own name for themselves was not known prior to the establishment of contacts, it was customary throughout the mid-20th century to refer to them by the name “Auca.” Now, however, most sources prefer to use the term Huaorani, especially since “Auca” is both an exonym and carries a pejorative meaning.
Gospel
As a work stemming from the evangelical Christian movement, Through Gates of Splendor makes regular reference to the idea of the gospel. While the term can be used to refer to specific books of the Bible (the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), its dominant use in the context of Through Gates of Splendor is as a reference to the overall message of Christianity. “Gospel” is a translation of the biblical term evangelion, meaning “good news.” The gospel message is the proclamation that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come into the world, died for the sins of humanity, rose to life again, and offers salvation through faith, leading to eternal life.
Missionary
A missionary is an emissary representing a particular religious tradition (in this case, evangelical Christianity), tasked with bearing the message of that religion and doing its associated tasks. Twentieth-century evangelicalism was marked by a pronounced missionary fervor, but it was not uniformly one-directional. At the beginning of the century most missionaries were going from Europe and North America to other areas, but by the end of the century many areas in the global south had become “sending” countries as well. Many missionaries went out with a primary goal of evangelization, but other skills and practices were also seen as part of the missionary endeavor, such as Nate Saint’s aviation ministry and the medical and education work undertaken by many of the figures in Through Gates of Splendor.
Mission Field
One of the mission-related terms used in the book is “mission field,” which designates an area targeted for missionary activity. The usage of the term can range from the general to the highly specific. In some cases, it is used to refer to a prospective missionary’s sense of calling, regardless of the specific area they will go to—in this sense, to say that someone felt a call to the mission field is simply to say that they discerned a calling to become a missionary to somewhere beyond their home country. In other cases, it is used in a specific sense—for instance, it could be used to refer to Huaorani territory during the plans for “Operation Auca.”
Operation Auca
“Operation Auca” refers to the attempts by the five missionary men in Through Gates of Splendor to make a direct contact with the Huaorani people. Beginning in October of 1955, Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, and Ed McCully resolved on a program of actions to undertake toward establishment of that contact. Later, Pete Fleming and Roger Youderian also joined the team, and together they conducted flyovers, gift drops, linguistic study, and other preparations for a landing in Huaorani territory. The landing came on January 3, 1956, on a strip of beach on the Curaray River, and three days later the first in-person contact with Huaorani tribe members occurred. Then, on January 8, a small group of Huaorani attacked and killed the five missionaries at their riverside camp, thus ending the initial phase of the missionary operation.
“Savage”
In a few instances in the text of Through Gates of Splendor, the Huaorani are referred to as “savages” (as, for instance, in the title of Chapter 12: “The Savages Respond”). The word “Auca,” used as a reference for the Huaorani, is also a word for “savage” in the Quichua language. While such usage is now widely considered pejorative, the term had a somewhat more descriptive connotation, though still paternalistic, in its earlier usage, referring to any culture whose technological capacities fit a hunter-gatherer subsistence pattern of life. Nonetheless, the term’s usage has often been mixed with cultural imperialism and moralistic judgment and is now regarded as inappropriate in any context.
