Search

Anthropological studies of religion have been largely concerned with belief, with ritual, and with the general integrative significance of religious institutions for society. But many issues in the power relations of religious affiliation are still not clear. The political implications of religion involve grave practical as well as theoretical problems. Abstractly, religion and politics are often conceived as opposed; concretely, they interact. While religion can be a powerful political instrument, it can also adapt to political ends and generate its own political structures. In contrast to the broadly affirmative role assigned by anthropologists to religion in society is Karl Marx's thesis of religion as political ideology. Reasons for granting some validity to this position but also for questioning its basic assumptions are given. The whole analysis is illustrated by a wide range of examples, from Polynesian ethnography to the history of Christianity and of Islam, and the situation of religion in modem socialist states.

HPHE island of Rennell is of peculiar ethnographic interest as being * one of the few last strongholds of native Polynesian culture. It is, maybe, a variant or aberrant form of this culture, but in physical type, language, and what little we know of their chieftainship and other institutions, the inhabitants appear to present a Polynesian rather than a Melanesian cultural fades. The people of Tikopia, a kindred group also in the general Melanesian area, though four hundred miles to the east, know of the existence of Rennell, which they call Mukava, and recognize that there live folk of very similar speech and customs to themselves, though with true family spirit they stress the comparative poverty of these relatives and pride themselves on their own superiority. When in Tikopia in 1929 I obtained a small amount of information regarding Mukava from two sources. The first was the account preserved of the visit to this island of Pu Taf ua, father of the present chief of the Tafua clan, who was of a roving disposition, traversing many seas in his outrigger canoe and raising many lands, instead of resting at home to rule his people and instruct his children. The second source was the narrative of Pa Taitai, a strapping young man who a few years before had set out secretly from Tikopia with another youth as companion, to tempt the ocean spaces, as the custom is, in the hope of making a landfall on another island and seeing the world. Their confidence in fate in this case was justified, for after being driven past Vanikoro, one hundred and twenty miles to the north-west, by a strong wind when three days out, they finally fetched up at Rennell, when seven days away from home, with only two pair of coconuts left in their canoe. It is mainly from the description given to me by Pa Taitai in the Tikopia language that the following details concerning Mukava have been set down. These data are of interest not so much as an indication

THE new decade may be a crucial testing time for the practical aspects of the study of anthropology. The science and such it may now truly be called long pursued its way unnoticed by authority, a playground for the amateur, a recondite, informal and somewhat despised study, making little claim upon public attention or public funds. During the present century it has gained enthusiasm and confidence, its specialists have grown in numbers and have imposed upon themselves a more rigid discipline, and in a burst of self-assurance it has made representations to be considered not only as a field of theoretical interest, but as one of direct practical value. By the study of native peoples in contact with white civilization, it is held, much light can be thrown on their social and political condition, and assistance can be rendered to governments who may be faced with problems of depopulation, tribal unrest, economic dislocation, refractory religious cults or lack of amenability to medical services. This claim has been admitted, somewhat reluctantly, and to a limited extent, by various administrative centres, as is witnessed by the appointment of government anthropologists in some areas, and the provision for training in anthropology for officials of Colonial services. This attitude has been stimulated to a considerable extent by the growth of the ethical and political A