1854 - Nicolas Krick & Augustin Bourry

September 1, 1854

Tibet

Nicolas Krick.

Nicolas Michel Krick was one of the first Catholic missionaries to enter Tibet in the 19th century. Born at Lizheim, France, on March 1, 1819, he entered manhood with a passion to serve Jesus Christ and make him known to those who had never heard. To achieve this calling Krick was sent to the most remote and dangerous mission in the world, Tibet.

After reaching India in 1848, Krick searched for a way to cross the Himalayas and enter forbidden Tibet. After spending a time studying Tibetan at Guwuhati in the Indian state of Assam, he journeyed on through Arunachal Pradesh towards the Tibetan border, crossing through areas inhabited by the Adi, Mishmi and Lhoba tribes. Finally, on January 16, 1852, he crossed into Tibet and made his way to the town of Walung near the present-day juncture of Tibet, India, and Myanmar (Burma). Krick

“had been warned about previous failures to reach this mountain country by explorers and traders, men equipped with weapons, military support and official patronage. He had only his dog, Lorraine, to go with him. He was told, ‘Your Pope must be some kind of a tyrant to force you to do such a thing,’ and answered that he did it freely because it was written, ‘Go and teach all nations.’”[1]

Tibet at the time was a closed kingdom. Nobody was allowed in, and Krick faced great opposition from the unfriendly locals who were determined to keep him out. The Frenchman could find nowhere to sleep, and the people refused to sell him any food. In order to survive, the missionary “was forced to collect grains of rice that had fallen on the ground and to scavenge for the disgusting leftovers from other people’s meals, which even dogs refused to touch.”[2] After a few days the Walung locals drove Nicolas Krick out of their town and back across the border. He arrived in India feverish and exhausted.

After recovering, Krick made plans to again re-enter Tibet. He was named Vicar Apostolic of Tibet in 1853 and set out the following year, this time accompanied by young recruit Augustin Etienne Bourry, who hailed from La Chapelle-Largeau, France. After graduating from the Missions Etrangères de Paris in 1852, Bourry applied to join the mission to Tibet and met up with Krick in India on December 10, 1853. On the following February 19th the duo started their journey toward Tibet, with their sights set firmly on reaching Lhasa. In mid-May Krick recorded in his diary:

“For ninety days I have been marching barefoot. All my shoes are ruined except for one bad pair, which I keep for celebrating Holy Mass. For two weeks we walked in non-stop rain, which poured down as from a cloudburst and completely ruined all our books, the breviary, the Bible, and the Imitation of Christ. To complete this picture of misery—in the mountains you may fall prey to manifold sicknesses like fever, dysentery, rheumatism and sores from insect bites.”[3]

Worn out from their exertions, Krick and Bourry stopped for a few months at a village called Somme, where they studied Tibetan and dispersed medicine to the sick. They then started out on the dangerous journey across the Himalayas. On September 1st, while approaching the Tibetan border, Chief Kaisha of the Mishmi tribe attacked Krick and Bourry with a group of men armed with spears and machetes. One account records, “Kaisha caught up with them and cut them to pieces. The grieving villagers buried them with honour under a cairn of stones.”[4] It was later discovered that the crime had been instigated by the Tibetan authorities, eager to prevent the missionaries from entering their territory. Nicolas Krick was 35 and Augustin Bourry 27 at the time of their deaths.[5]

1. Thomas Menamparampil, “In the Footsteps of Murdered Mission Heroes: Mountain Quest for Lonely Spot Where Martyrs Died,” Mission Today (Spring 2003).
2. My translation of the Biographical Note of Nicolas Krick in the Archives des Missions Etrangères de Paris, China Biographies and Obituaries, 1800-1899.
3. Quoted in Menamparampil, “In the Footsteps of Murdered Mission Heroes.”
4. Menamparampil, “In the Footsteps of Murdered Mission Heroes.”
5. A recent book trying to piece together the story of Krick and Bourry’s ill-fated journey is François Fauconnet-Buzelin, Mission Unto Martyrdom: The Amazing Story of Nicolas Krick and Augustine Bourry, the First Martyrs of Arunachal Pradesh (India: Don Bosco Centre for Indigenous Cultures, 2001).