ABSTRACT
With the arrival of European missionaries at the end of the nineteenth century a new set of religious ideas was introduced and a new form of social grouping established. The Scottish mission deliberately sought to convert and train the traditional leaders, and so gain the whole community, whereas the Moravians and Lutherans preferred to withdraw their converts from the surrounding pagan community. The Moravians, Lutherans, and Church of Scotland worked in different areas and co-operated closely; but between them and the Roman Catholics and Pentecostal and the purely African or 'independent' Churches there was little co-operation and sometimes tension. Women members outnumbered the men by more than three to one in the congregations in Ngonde and by three to two in the Moravian congregations in BuNyakyusa. The organization of the Moravian congregations is similar; but until 1938 the Lutheran congregations were directly under the European Superintendent who was responsible to the Mission Board in Germany.
