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[[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 [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.

==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 [http://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 [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.

[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’).

[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’).