The body is a primary domain of contestation in colonial encounters. T
he indigenous response to virgin soil epidemics provides an opening fo
r colonial agents, especially missionaries. Methodist missionaries amo
ng the Heiltsuk of the Northwest Coast imposed a hegemonic conception
of the body, involving the central practice of discipline. Hegemony an
d resistance have been enacted in bodily beliefs, practices, and disco
urses. A focus on the meaningful body as a mediating category reveals
important dimensions of processes of culture change.