Changes

==Etymology==

==Etymology==

Maori mana [[authority]], [[control]], [[influence]], [[prestige]], [[power]], [[psychic]] [[force]]. Compare Samoan mana ([[supernatural]]) power, Hawaiian mana supernatural or [[divine]] power, [[miraculous]] power, authority

Maori mana [[authority]], [[control]], [[influence]], [[prestige]], [[power]], [[psychic]] [[force]]. Compare Samoan mana ([[supernatural]]) power, Hawaiian mana supernatural or [[divine]] power, [[miraculous]] power, authority

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century 19th Century]

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century 19th Century]

==Definition==

==Definition==

[[Power]], [[authority]], or [[prestige]]; spec. (in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia Polynesian] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanesia Melanesian] religions) an [[impersonal]] [[supernatural]] [[power]] which can be [[associated]] with people or with objects and which can be transmitted or inherited.

[[Power]], [[authority]], or [[prestige]]; spec. (in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia Polynesian] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanesia Melanesian] religions) an [[impersonal]] [[supernatural]] [[power]] which can be [[associated]] with people or with objects and which can be transmitted or inherited.

==Description==

==Description==

The [[word]] '''mana''' and its cognates exist in a number of [[languages]] within the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania Oceanic] branch of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian Austronesian language family], most of these within the Eastern Oceanic subgroup that includes [[languages]] of Northern [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu Vanuatu], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiju Fiji], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotuma Rotuma], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia Polynesia] and Central [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronesia Micronesia]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought#1859.E2.80.931930s:_Darwin_and_his_legacy Social evolutionary theorists] of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries worried over the defining characteristics of the various evolutionary [[stages]], and vigorously [[debated]] the exact sequencing of those putative stages of human [[progress]]. [[Argument]] about the [https://nordan.daynal.org/wiki/index.php?title=Paper_92 evolution of religion] fixated partly upon the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian Austronesian] [[word]] '''mana''', and this term has since been a staple of [[anthropological]] and comparative [[religious]] analytics.

The [[word]] '''mana''' and its cognates exist in a number of [[languages]] within the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania Oceanic] branch of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian Austronesian language family], most of these within the Eastern Oceanic subgroup that includes [[languages]] of Northern [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu Vanuatu], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiju Fiji], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotuma Rotuma], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia Polynesia] and Central [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronesia Micronesia]. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought#1859.E2.80.931930s:_Darwin_and_his_legacy Social evolutionary theorists] of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries worried over the defining characteristics of the various evolutionary [[stages]], and vigorously [[debated]] the exact sequencing of those putative stages of human [[progress]]. [[Argument]] about the [https://nordan.daynal.org/wiki/index.php?title=Paper_92 evolution of religion] fixated partly upon the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian Austronesian] [[word]] '''mana''', and this term has since been a staple of [[anthropological]] and comparative [[religious]] analytics.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marett Robert Marett], drawing on the work of missionary ethnographer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Codrington Robert Codrington] (1891) who had lived in Vanuatu and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands Solomon Islands], borrowed ‘mana’ to describe the ‘[[supernatural]] in its [[positive]] [[capacity]]’ (1909:128). He paired mana with a second Austronesian word, tabu (''[[taboo]]''), which would label the [[supernatural]]’s [[negative]] mode. Marett disputed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tylor Edward Tylor]’s claim that the [[simplest]] [[form]] of human [[religion]] was [[animism]], or the [[belief]] in [[spiritual]] [[beings]]. Marett, rather, [[advocated]] an even more [[primitive]] [[stage]]—[[belief]] in an [[impersonal]] [[supernatural]] [[force]] that he split into [[positive]] ''mana'' and [[negative]] ''tabu''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Durkheim Émile Durkheim] also borrowed mana to describe his ‘[[totemic]] principle’—an indefinite [[sacred]] [[power]], an anonymous [[force]] which is ‘the [[source]] of all religiosity’).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marett Robert Marett], drawing on the work of missionary ethnographer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Codrington Robert Codrington] (1891) who had lived in Vanuatu and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands Solomon Islands], borrowed ‘mana’ to describe the ‘[[supernatural]] in its [[positive]] [[capacity]]’ (1909:128). He paired mana with a second Austronesian word, tabu (''[[taboo]]''), which would label the [[supernatural]]’s [[negative]] mode. Marett disputed [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tylor Edward Tylor]’s claim that the [[simplest]] [[form]] of human [[religion]] was [[animism]], or the [[belief]] in [[spiritual]] [[beings]]. Marett, rather, [[advocated]] an even more [[primitive]] [[stage]]—[[belief]] in an [[impersonal]] [[supernatural]] [[force]] that he split into [[positive]] ''mana'' and [[negative]] ''tabu''. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Durkheim Émile Durkheim] also borrowed mana to describe his ‘[[totemic]] principle’—an indefinite [[sacred]] [[power]], an anonymous [[force]] which is ‘the [[source]] of all religiosity’).

This [[mana]] is an incorporeal [[supernatural]] [[force]] that [[energizes]] [[people]] and [[things]], conferring efficacy upon them. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Codrington Codrington]’s [[original]] examples of people and [[things]] with mana included [[magical]] stones that [[govern]] the [[fertility]] of fruit trees; effective spells and [[charms]]; influential chiefs; skilful [[warriors]]; and celebrated gardeners. Mana, as a powerful substance that people can acquire and that serves to [[explain]] their [[abilities]] and accomplishments, thus has much in common with another [[comparative]] religious term, [[charisma]].

This [[mana]] is an incorporeal [[supernatural]] [[force]] that [[energizes]] [[people]] and [[things]], conferring efficacy upon them. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Codrington Codrington]’s [[original]] examples of people and [[things]] with mana included [[magical]] stones that [[govern]] the [[fertility]] of fruit trees; effective spells and [[charms]]; influential chiefs; skilful [[warriors]]; and celebrated gardeners. Mana, as a powerful substance that people can acquire and that serves to [[explain]] their [[abilities]] and accomplishments, thus has much in common with another [[comparative]] religious term, [[charisma]].

The [[concept]] of mana has [[facilitated]] comparative religious [[analysis]] but it mistranslates Pacific religious sensibilities. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Keesing Roger Keesing] (1984) assayed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwaio Eastern Oceanic] [[linguistic]] [[data]] and [[established]] that mana is almost always a stative verb (which [[expresses]] a [[state]] or condition), not a noun. People and [[things]], accordingly, are mana; they do not have mana. Keesing suggests that mana might be [[translated]] as ‘be efficacious, be successful, be realized, ‘work’’. Mana is not a [[universal]] [[supernatural]] [[force]] that animates a miscellany of people and things, but rather the [[quality]] of efficacy. This [[explains]] odd, [[secular]] usages in which Islanders may characterize [[ancient]] but still [[functional]] outboard canoe motors as mana.

The [[concept]] of mana has [[facilitated]] comparative religious [[analysis]] but it mistranslates Pacific religious sensibilities. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Keesing Roger Keesing] (1984) assayed [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwaio Eastern Oceanic] [[linguistic]] [[data]] and [[established]] that mana is almost always a stative verb (which [[expresses]] a [[state]] or condition), not a noun. People and [[things]], accordingly, are mana; they do not have mana. Keesing suggests that mana might be [[translated]] as ‘be efficacious, be successful, be realized, ‘work’’. Mana is not a [[universal]] [[supernatural]] [[force]] that animates a miscellany of people and things, but rather the [[quality]] of efficacy. This [[explains]] odd, [[secular]] usages in which Islanders may characterize [[ancient]] but still [[functional]] outboard canoe motors as mana.

Notions of [[power]] as a substance or [[thing]] [[reflect]][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Europe European], rather than [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania Pacific], [[cosmology]]. They similarly underlie European [[metaphors]] of [[electrical]] [[energy]] as a sort of tangible ‘[[power]]’, [[metaphors]] whose [[development]] [[paralleled]] that of the comparative religious [[discourse]] of mana in the nineteenth century. It is not surprising, for example, that Marett wrote of mana’s [[relative]] ‘Voltage’.

Notions of [[power]] as a substance or [[thing]] [[reflect]][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Europe European], rather than [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania Pacific], [[cosmology]]. They similarly underlie European [[metaphors]] of [[electrical]] [[energy]] as a sort of tangible ‘[[power]]’, [[metaphors]] whose [[development]] [[paralleled]] that of the comparative religious [[discourse]] of mana in the nineteenth century. It is not surprising, for example, that Marett wrote of mana’s [[relative]] ‘Voltage’.

[[Anthropological]] interest in mana, however, has boosted that term’s modest popularity beyond the [[discipline]], particularly in the urbanized Pacific where Western [[understandings]] of mana as a substance may now have overwritten more [[traditional]] Pacific notions of mana as a [[quality]]. The Polynesian Cultural Centre in Hawaii billed one of its flamboyant stage shows as ‘Mana’; and a glance through the Honolulu telephone directory [[discovers]] Mana Productions, Mana Publishing and Mana Trucking.

[[Anthropological]] interest in mana, however, has boosted that term’s modest popularity beyond the [[discipline]], particularly in the urbanized Pacific where Western [[understandings]] of mana as a substance may now have overwritten more [[traditional]] Pacific notions of mana as a [[quality]]. The Polynesian Cultural Centre in Hawaii billed one of its flamboyant stage shows as ‘Mana’; and a glance through the Honolulu telephone directory [[discovers]] Mana Productions, Mana Publishing and Mana Trucking.

[[Category: Anthropology]]

[[Category: Anthropology]]