article
The Paliau movement in Manus and the objectification of tradition
History and anthropology • 5 (3-4) • Published In 1992 • Pages: 427-454
By: Otto, Ton.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is the story of the conversion of the Manus to Christianity. Otto describes how it was almost an overnight phenomenon after an initial 15-year period of slow if negligible success. He explains the reason for this sudden change to an accumulation of events that finally tipped the balance in favor of the new religion. He is interested in the possible motives for mass conversion which are not discussed by missionaries, who instead attributed it to a miracle. Otto explains the conversion in terms of the Manus strong motivation for cultural experimentation which predisposes them to adopt enthusiastically a creed once it is seen as effective. In a similar vein, Otto also discusses a later anti-colonial movement reacting against social inequalities.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Acculturation and culture contact
- Religious denominations
- Missions
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Manus
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Melanesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2004
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1986-1997
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1885-1990
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Manus Province, Papua New Guinea
- NotesAdditional notes
- Ton Otto
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 453-454)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 86646963
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Manus (Papua New Guinea people)