comment 1
It is clear that many critics here, of the missonary's intervention, have not read the story carefully. The girl was saved by her brother who carried her out of the jungle on his back, the missonaries responded to the child's needs which got them involved in this situation and aware of the practice. It is also clear from the many responses from people who criticise Christian missonaries that they overlook the influences that modern western culture alone has had on tearing apart cultures by various outside influences causing people to make choices to follow the old ways or change to new ways of living. Throughout Africa and elsewhere people were uprooted from their centuries old lifestyles by governments that took their land and forced them into economic systems and social arrangments that regulate the way they lived and prevented them from living off the land or conducting business in a cashless sense. North American Indians had their children taken away from them so they could be assimilated into western culture. Is government involvement any less of a threat to a cultures survival? So where is the wrong of Christian groups putting themselves in the middle of a culture in an effort to help them see the world from a different perspective? It is sad, however, that some have resorted to 'the arm of the flesh' for the medical needs of people instead of trusting the promiss of the healer himself, Jesus. So much power is available but faith is the prerequisite of that power. Yet we work with what we have available at the time a need presents itself. To the person in need this may be a favorable intrusion with no harm intended
How much different of an intrusion into a cultures integrity are them who try to convince people that they have descended from apes or that they need to have a flu shot to go to school, or less on the abstract, telling someone who has hunted and fished for a living that they can't do that anymore unless they get a permission slip from the government?

There is a tremendous amount of hipocricy coming from the critics of Christian missonaries, i would not be surprised that these same people would be more than happy to put a walmart and a drugstore in the middle of the forest and then require a home addresses and currency before people can do business. dzp

Comment 2
I must add to my last comment some historical details that may not be thoroughly understood now that western philosophies have twisted history and distorted the cultural record of history and practices that cultures passed down through the ages.

Infanticide dates back to a time when people were sacrificing their children to appease the planetary and natural gods that had thrown the world into turmoil during the catastrophic period when "the gods warred in the heavens and brought great destruction to the earth". Legends across the globe speak of this with one voice and have represented their recollection of this period in art form and carvings on rock. This record has been deciphered to reveal that the earth and our solar system went through a chaotic period that repeatedly destroyed vast populations across the globe and caused people to world over into survival mode and a confusion that manifested itself in a wide variety of forms, one of them being human sacrifice. The confusion came as people sought to solve their turmoil brought upon the earth by the colapse of the planetary arrangement that predated our current one. The planets were in very close proximity and people began worshiping them as gods, especcially as they became more visible through the cosmic vail and began bringng destruction to the earth. The cause for the confusion has passed because the planets have moved into a less chaotic relationship, but we must remember that before the former system collapsed, the earth and its inhabitants experiencedwhat some cultures called a garden experience in which the electrically charged envirnment created certain conditions that no longer exist, but they were remembered and described as being connected and communicating with a higher spiritual being. That same being came back to earth after the chaos to mend the confusion and repair the breach caused by the chaos. In part, fear seperated mankind from the creator and love has reopened that door. Christ is that door.

Comment 4
We should question the medias focus on this story since they hold so little outrage for the abortion issue which is no different than infanticide, other than which side of the birth canal the baby is on. Unwanted pregnancies or hardship-type rational is not too far removed from the reasoning for this practice of infanticide and there could be many other variations of rational expressed the world over that in a our modern culture would be handled by a pill or a hanger and be no less wrong, even in the probable desperation but at the same time be not without understandable reasoning, note i didn't say justified reasoning. What is the difference between; not being able to care for the child because of your financial or its medical issues or who's father it is, and thinking that a deformity is evidence or a warning of something of an undesirable nature, an abnormal human not worth the life it received. I find real curious the statement that the child has the soul of a monkey. From whom did they get that idea? This question will be expanded elsewhere. The ancient scenario mentioned earlier may have trickled down to this age but there are so many other influences which could have brought this practice about, and elevated it to a normal status because of the lack of other options. Options are not always easy to implement and understanding which option will actually have the best results is far less obvious. Modern mankind has placed so little value on human beings that there is little wonder why a human life can be thought of as expendable. Until recently, humans looked at themselves with a different set of eyes than is now the case. We have the proposition of evolution to thanks for this yet minimize or dehumanizing another culture or race is not new, but in its current form, dehumanization can be more complete and wide-sweeping, reducing everyone involved to a attitude that can justify inhumane treatment. How wrong such behavior is can only be measured by the avenues the practitioners have taken and consequences produced. Such practices could not occur if we valued another humans life as we want ours valued. .