George J. Geis

Who is George J. Geis?

The Reverend George J. Geis was an American Baptist minister and anthropologist of German descent, best known for his missionary work in northeastern Burma. He promoted Christianity amongst the Kachin people, a group which he also studied, collecting general ethnographical data about them. He arrived in Burma with his wife in 1892, and spent most of the rest of his life there, establishing missions throughout Kachin State and Shan State. Geis is best known for his work in Myitkyina in Kachin State, but in the 1930s he established a mission in Kutkai in Shan State, and at the time of his death in 1936 was working there at the Kachin Bible Training School.