What Happened To The Mana Source

Life force energy, ability, effectiveness, and prestige in Pacific Island culture

According to Melanesian and Polynesian mythology,

mana

is a supernatural strength that permeates the universe.^[1]
Anyone or anything can take
mana. They believed it to be a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being a source of power.^[ane]
It is an intentional forcefulness.^[1]

In the 19th century, scholars compared
mana
to similar concepts such as the
orenda
of the Iroquois Indians and theorized that
mana
was a universal phenomenon that explained the origin of religions.^[1]

Mana
is not universal to all of Melanesia.^[1]

Etymology

[edit]

The reconstructed Proto-Oceanic word "mana" is thought to have referred to "powerful forces of nature such as thunder and storm winds" rather than supernatural power.^[2]
That meaning became detached every bit the Oceanic-speaking peoples spread eastward and the word started to refer to unseen supernatural powers.^[2]

Polynesian culture

[edit]

Mana
is a foundation of Polynesian theology, a spiritual quality with a supernatural origin and a sacred, impersonal forcefulness. To have
mana
implies influence, authority, and efficacy: the ability to perform in a given situation. The quality of
mana
is not express to individuals; peoples, governments, places and inanimate objects may too possess
mana, and its possessors are accorded respect. Mana protects its protector and they depend on each other for growth both positive and negative. Information technology depends on the person where he takes his mana.

Hawaiian and Tahitian culture

[edit]

In Hawaiian and Tahitian mythology,
mana
is a spiritual free energy and healing power which can exist in places, objects and persons. Hawaiians believe that
mana
may exist gained or lost past actions, and Hawaiians and Tahitians believe that
mana
is both external and internal. Sites on the Hawaiian Islands and in French Polynesia are believed to possess
mana—for case, the top rim of the Haleakalā volcano on the isle of Maui and the Taputapuatea marae on the isle of Raiatea in the Gild Islands.

Ancient Hawaiians also believed that the island of Molokaʻi possessed
mana, compared with its neighboring islands. Before the unification of the Kingdom of Hawaii by King Kamehameha I, battles were fought for possession of the island and its south-shore fish ponds which existed until the late 19th century.

A person may proceeds
mana
by
pono
(correct actions). In ancient Hawaii, there were two paths to
mana: sexual means or violence. In at least this tradition, nature is seen as dualistic, and everything has a counterpart. A residue between the gods Kū and Lono formed, through whom are the ii paths to
mana
(ʻimihaku, or the search for
mana). Kū, the god of war and politics, offers
mana
through violence; this was how Kamehameha gained his
mana. Lono, the god of peace and fertility, offers
mana
through sexuality.^{[
commendation needed
]}
Prayers were believed to take mana, which was sent to the akua at the finish when the priest usually said "amama ua noa," pregnant "the prayer is now free or flown."^[3]

Māori (New Zealand) culture

[edit]

Māori use

[edit]

In Māori, a tribe with
mana whenua
must have demonstrated their authority over a territory. In Maori mythology, there are two essential aspects of a person'due south
mana:
mana tangata, authorisation derived from whakapapa (genealogy) and
mana huaanga, defined as "potency derived from having a wealth of resources to gift to others to demark them into reciprocal obligations".^[four]
Hemopereki Simon, from Ngāti Tūwharetoa, asserts that there are many forms of
mana
in Maori beliefs.^[5]
The indigenous word reflects a non-Western view of reality, complicating translation.^[6]
This is confirmed by the definition of
mana
provided by Maori Marsden who states that
mana
is:

Spiritual power and authority as opposed to the purely psychic and natural force — ihi.^[seven]

According to Margaret Mutu,
mana
in its traditional sense means:

Power, authority, buying, status, influence, dignity, respect derived from the atua.^[8]
[5]

In terms of leadership, Ngāti Kahungunu legal scholar Dr. Carwyn Jones comments: "Mana is the central concept that underlies Māori leadership and accountability." He as well considers
mana
every bit a fundamental aspect of the constitutional traditions of Māori society.^[9]

According to the New Zealand Ministry of Justice:

Mana and tapu are concepts which take both been attributed single-worded definitions by gimmicky writers. As concepts, especially Maori concepts they can non easily be translated into a single English definition. Both mana and tapu take on a whole range of related meanings depending on their clan and the context in which they are existence used.^[10]

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General English language usage

[edit]

In contemporary New Zealand English language, the word "mana" refers to a person or organization of people of bully personal prestige and grapheme.^[11]
The increased use of the term
mana
in New Zealand lodge is the consequence of the politicization of Māori issues stemming from the Māori Renaissance.

Academic study

[edit]

Missionary Robert Henry Codrington traveled widely in Melanesia, publishing several studies of its language and culture. His 1891 book
The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folk-Lore
contains the first detailed description of
mana
in English.^[2]
Codrington defines it every bit "a force altogether distinct from concrete power, which acts in all kinds of ways for skilful and evil, and which information technology is of the greatest advantage to possess or control".^[12]

His era had already divers animism, the concept that the energy (or life) in an object derives from a spiritual component. Georg Ernst Stahl'south 18th-century animism was adopted past Edward Burnett Tylor, the founder of cultural anthropology, who presented his initial ideas nigh the history of faith in his 1865
Researches into the Early on History of Flesh
<sup>[13]

: vi</sup>

and developed them in volumes i (1871) and 2 (1874) of
Primitive Civilisation.<sup>[thirteen]

: ane</sup>

Tylor's cultural evolution

[edit]

In Tylor's cultural anthropology, other primates did not announced to possess civilisation.^{[annotation 1]}

Tylor did not try to observe testify of a non-cultural human state considering he considered information technology unreachable, "a condition not far removed from that of the lower animals" and "barbarous life as in some sort representing an early known land."<sup>[xiii]

: 33</sup>

He described such a hypothetical country equally "the human savage naked in both listen and body, and destitute of laws, or arts, or ideas, and nigh of language".<sup>[13]

: thirty</sup>

According to Tylor, speculation about an acultural state is incommunicable. Using the method of comparative culture, similar to comparative anatomy and the comparative method of historical linguistics and post-obit John Lubbock, he drew upwards a dual classification of cultural traits (memes and memeplexes). His categories were "savage" and "civilised". Tylor wrote, "From an platonic point of view, civilization may be looked upon as the general improvement of flesh by higher organization of the individual and of gild ... "<sup>[xiii]

: 24</sup>

and identified his model with the "progression-theory of civilization".<sup>[13]

: 81</sup>

Evolution of organized religion

[edit]

Tylor cited a "minimum definition" of religion every bit "the belief in Spiritual Beings".<sup>[13]

: 383</sup>

Noting that no roughshod societies lack religion and that the initial country of a religious man is beyond accomplish, he enumerated two stages in the evolution of religion: a simple belief in private animae (or Doctrine of Souls) and the elaboration of dogma. The dogmas are systems of higher spirits commanding phases of nature. In volume 2 of
Primitive Culture, Tylor called this stage the Doctrine of Spirits.<sup>[13]

: 108–110</sup>

He used the word "animism" in ii unlike senses.<sup>[13]

: 385</sup>

The showtime is religion itself: a belief in the spiritual as an constructive energy, shared by every specific religion. In his progression theory, an undogmatic version preceded rational theological systems. Animism is the simple Theory of the Soul, which comparative religion attempts to reconstruct.

Tylor's work predated Codrington'due south, and he was unfamiliar with the latter. The concept of
mana
occasioned a revision of Tylor'south view of the evolution of religion. The first anthropologist to formulate a revision (which he chosen "pre-animistic religion") was Robert Ranulph Marett, in a series of papers collected and published as
Threshold of Faith. In its preface he takes credit for the adjective "pre-animistic" but not the noun "pre-animism", although he does non attribute information technology.<sup>[14]

: xxi</sup>

According to Marett, "Animism will not suffice every bit a minimum definition of religion." Tylor had used the term "natural religion",<sup>[xiii]

: 386</sup>

consequent with Georg Ernst Stahl's concept of a natural spiritual energy. The soul of an beast, for example, is its vital principle. Marett wrote that "one must dig deeper" to find the "roots of religion".^{[
citation needed
]}

Pre-animism

[edit]

Describing pre-animism, Marett cited the Melanesian
mana
(primarily with Codrington's work): "When the science of Comparative Religion employs a native expression such as mana, information technology is obliged to disregard to some extent its original or local meaning. Science, and so, may adopt mana equally a general category ... ".<sup>[xiv]

: 99</sup>

In Melanesia the
animae
are the souls of living men, the ghosts of deceased men, and spirits "of ghost-like appearance" or imitating living people. Spirits tin inhabit other objects, such equally animals or stones.<sup>[14]

: 115–120</sup>

The most significant belongings of
mana
is that it is distinct from, and exists independently of, its source.
Animae
human activity only through
mana. It is impersonal, undistinguished, and (like energy) transmissible between objects, which tin can have more than or less of it.
Mana
is perceptible, actualization as a "Power of awfulness" (in the sense of awe or wonder).<sup>[fourteen]

: 12–13</sup>

Objects possessing it impress an observer with "respect, veneration, propitiation, service" emanating from the
mana's
power. Marett lists a number of objects habitually possessing
mana: "startling manifestations of nature", "curious stones", animals, "man remains", claret,<sup>[fourteen]

: two</sup>

thunderstorms, eclipses, eruptions, glaciers, and the audio of a bullroarer.<sup>[14]

: 14–17</sup>

If
mana
is a distinct power, information technology may be treated distinctly. Marett distinguishes spells, which treat
mana
quasi-objectively, and prayers (which accost the
anima). An
anima
may have departed, leaving
mana
in the form of a spell which tin can be addressed by magic. Although Marett postulates an earlier pre-animistic phase, a "rudimentary religion" or "magico-religious" stage in which the
mana
figures without
animae, "no isle of pure 'pre-animism' is to exist found."<sup>[14]

: xxvi</sup>

Like Tylor, he theorizes a thread of commonality between animism and pre-animism identified with the supernatural—the "mysterious", as opposed to the reasonable.<sup>[fourteen]

: 22</sup>

Criticism

[edit]

In 1936, Ian Hogbin criticised the universality of Marett'south pre-animism: "Mana is by no means universal and, consequently, to adopt it as a footing on which to build up a general theory of archaic religion is not only erroneous simply indeed fallacious".^[fifteen]
However, Marett intended the concept as an abstraction.<sup>[14]

: 99</sup>

Spells, for instance, may be found "from Central Commonwealth of australia to Scotland."<sup>[14]

: 55</sup>

Early 20th-century scholars too saw
mana
as a universal concept, found in all human cultures and expressing key human sensation of a sacred life energy. In his 1904 essay, "Outline of a Full general Theory of Magic", Marcel Mauss drew on the writings of Codrington and others to paint a flick of
mana
every bit "power
par excellence, the genuine effectiveness of things which corroborates their applied actions without annihilating them".<sup>[xvi]

: 111</sup>

Mauss pointed out the similarity of
mana
to the Iroquois orenda and the Algonquian manitou, convinced of the "universality of the institution";<sup>[16]

: 116</sup>

"a concept, encompassing the idea of magical power, was once plant everywhere".<sup>[16]

: 117</sup>

Mauss and his collaborator, Henri Hubert, were criticised for this position when their 1904
Outline of a General Theory of Magic
was published. "No one questioned the existence of the notion of mana", wrote Mauss'south biographer Marcel Fournier, "but Hubert and Mauss were criticized for giving it a universal dimension".^[17]
Criticism of
mana
equally an archetype of life energy increased. According to Mircea Eliade, the idea of
mana
is not universal; in places where it is believed, not everyone has it, and "fifty-fifty among the varying formulae (mana,
wakan,
orenda, etc.) there are, if not glaring differences, certainly nuances not sufficiently observed in the early studies".^[18]
"With regard to these theories founded upon the primordial and universal character of
mana, we must say without delay that they have been invalidated past afterward inquiry".^[nineteen]

Hoolbrad
^[20]
argued in a newspaper included in the seminal volume “Thinking Through Things: Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically”, that the concept of mana highlights a significant theoretical assumption in Anthropology : that matter, and meaning are split up. A hotly debated consequence, Hoolbrad suggests that mana provides motive to re-evaluate the division assumed between matter and significant in social research. His piece of work is part of the ontological turn in Anthropology, a paradigm shift that aims to take seriously the ontology of other cultures
^[21]

See as well

[edit]

• Barakah
• Chakra
• Amuse
• Guṇa
• Kami in Shinto
• Magic
• Mana (Mandaeism)
• Manas
  in early Buddhism
• Manna
• Mysticism
• Occult
• Philippine shamans or
  Babaylan
• Prana
• Qi
  or
  Chi
• Quintessence or Aether
• Ritual
• Scientific skepticism
• Spell
• Supernatural
• Taboo
• Talisman
• Yorishiro
  in Shinto

Notes

[edit]

References

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]

• Keesing, Roger. 1984. "Rethinking mana".
  Journal of Anthropological Research
  40:137–156.
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude; Baker, Felicity (translator). 1987.
  Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss. ISBN 0-415-15158-9.
• Mauss, Marcel. 1924.
  Essai sur le don.
• Meylan, Nicolas,
  Mana: A History of a Western Category, Leiden, Brill, 2017.
• Mondragón, Carlos (June 2004). "Of Winds, Worms and Mana: The Traditional Agenda of the Torres Islands, Vanuatu".
  Oceania.
  74
  (iv): 289–308. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.2004.tb02856.x. JSTOR 40332069.
  
• van der Grijp, Paul. 2014. Manifestations of Mana: Ability and Divine Inspiration in the Pacific. Berlin: LIT Verlag.

External links

[edit]

• Allen Varney: Mana in the Real World
• mana, Te Aka Māori–English, English–Māori Dictionary