I would never marry any man who could not use a bow and arrow as well as I could; but as he still continued his suit, I walways laughed at him and answered in the Indian language, of which he was entirely ignorant; and so y degrees wearied him into silence on that head.
Unlike many women of her generation, Unca is an adventurer. Her talents lie outside of the general realm of the domestic, and she maintains the upper hand over her male suitors by making her acceptance of their proposals of marriage contingent upon something that she knows with absolute certainty they will never be able to do. She tells her cousin that she would never marry a man whom she could out shoot with a bow and arrow. Since he hails from the south of England, he has little use for a bow and arrow, and is clearly not able to live up to this requirement. Similarly, he is not able to speak the Indian dialect that is so familiar to her. She believes that chipping away at his belief in his suitability as a husband for her will be more effective in the end than a flat out "no".
Her comment also demonstrates how worldly Unca is, and how much she has travelled away from the familiar. She has already lived on two continents, speaks two or three languages and has an understanding of two opposite cultures. This is far more worldliness than her cousin is ever likely to experience in an entire lifetime.
Keeping them ignorant of who I was, or how I came to them, I might preserve a superiority over them, sufficient to keep then in awe, and to excite their obedience; yet I determined to speak no untruth.
Unca has somewhat of a dilemma in her role of Christian missionary. In order to convince the Indians to listen to her preach, and to remain open to conversion, she pretends to be a god, or an idol, whilst knowing that idolatry is against the teachings of Christianity; she also needs to convince them that she, a mere woman, was sent to them by a male God in order to teach them about His word. This goes against what she knows to be right; there should be no worshipping of other gods, yet it is not so much idolatry as pragmatism that makes her resort to this tactic.
Unca believes that she is superior to the Indians in intellect and experience, and so feels able to teach them in a way that will lead to their conversion. She knows that she will be able to make them believe she is a godly force or power, and if this is what she needs to do in order to facilitate their conversion then she is happy to do it, because it is a means to an end. She will maintain the superiority that she has over them, but she will only speak the truth to them, and in this way is doing no wrong at all, and a great deal of good.
