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‘Mana’, a term denoting spiritual power, is found in many Pacific Islands languages. In recent decades, the term has been taken up in New Age movements and online fantasy gaming. In this book, 16 contributors examine mana through ethnographic, linguistic, and historical lenses to understand its transformations in past and present. The authors consider a range of contexts including Indigenous sovereignty movements, Christian missions and Bible translations, the commodification of cultural heritage, and the dynamics of diaspora. Their investigations move across diverse island groups—Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Hawai‘i, and French Polynesia—and into...
Attending to the mid-Victorian boys’ adventure novel and its connections with missionary culture, Michelle Elleray investigates how empire was conveyed to Victorian children in popular forms, with a focus on the South Pacific as a key location of adventure tales and missionary efforts. The volume draws on an evangelical narrative about the formation of coral islands to demonstrate that missionary investments in the socially marginal (the young, the working class, the racial other) generated new forms of agency that are legible in the mid-Victorian boys’ adventure novel, even as that agency was subordinated to Christian values identified with the British middle class. Situating novels by ...
This book explores the first encounters between Samoans and Europeans up to the arrival of the missionaries, using all available sources for the years 1722 to the 1830s, paying special attention to the first encounter on land with the Laperouse expedition. Many of the sources used are French, and some of difficult accessibility, and thus they have not previously been thoroughly examined by historians. Adding some Polynesian comparisons from beyond Samoa, and reconsidering the so-called 'Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate' about the fate of Captain Cook, 'First Contacts' in Polynesia advances a hypothesis about the contemporary interpretations made by the Polynesians of the nature of the Europeans, a...
Journeys and Destinations: Studies in Travel, Identity, and Meaning brings together scholarship from diverse fields all focused on either practices of journeying, or destinations to which such journeys lead. Common across the contributions herein are threads that indicate travel as a core component — as a concept or a practice — of the fabric of identity and meaning.
Of all the anomalous phenomenon reported, ghost sightings are by far the most common. The words "ghost" and "spirit" are used interchangeably in American English but in other cultures the lingering souls of the departed are not to be confused with ancestral spirits, demonic spirits, numens or poltergeists. This encyclopedia lists hundreds of entities of the spirit realm--from aatxe to zuzeca--from world mythology and folklore.
What is deep history? How do histories make sovereignty on Country? What is history’s future? For Aboriginal people, the past is the present. Competing histories form and transform the lands, peoples and nations of Oceania, from the Pacific Islands, New Guinea and Aotearoa/New Zealand to Australia. In nations impacted by colonialism, such questions are particularly pertinent. First Nations peoples have long made history, living on their Country far longer than the colonial invaders. In Deep History: Country and Sovereignty, edited by Ann McGrath and Jackie Huggins, leading historians and thinkers explore Indigenous histories of caring for places and people over millennia. With contribution...
The rapid decline in the world's linguistic diversity has prompted the emergence of documentary linguistics. While documentary linguistics aims primarily at creating a durable, accessible and comprehensive record of languages, it has also been a driving force in developing language annotation and analysis software, archiving architecture, improved fieldwork methodologies, and new standards in data accountability and accessibility. More recently, researchers have begun to recognize the immense potential available in the archived data as a source for linguistic analysis, so that the field has become of increasing importance for typologists, but also for neighbouring disciplines. The present vo...
This new volume of the Language Family Series presents an overview of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian languages, spread across a region embracing eastern Indonesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia. It provides sufficient phonological and grammatical data to give typologists and comparativists a good idea of the nature of these languag
A wealth of information about Cook Islands language, culture and society is contained in this dictionary which involved the efforts of many people over 35 years. It is an essential handbook for every Cook Islander and all persons interested in the Cook Islands.
A language coursebook designed for both personal and classroom use and suitable for a wide range of ages and backgrounds, from secondary level to adult. Includes 60 sets of exercises, songs and word lists.