Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T21:07:00.652Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Independent Religious Movements in Three Continents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

L. P. Mair
Affiliation:
London School of Economics

Extract

It appears to be characteristic of a very large number of societies that from time to time movements arise in opposition to the established religious institutions, offering either new means of attaining the benefits offered by the established religion or new interpretations of its dogmas. The leaders of these movements often claim to have received direct revelation from supernatural sources, and for that reason are frequently called prophets, though this name is of wider application, embracing also such persons as the Hebrew prophets, whose chief function appears to have been that of moral criticism, and also the givers of oracles who have a recognized place in some established systems. There is no reason to suppose that the movements of this kind which appear among non-European peoples subject to European rule form a class by themselves, but, owing to the circumstances in which ethnographic information has been collected, the bulk of this refers to subject peoples, and among such peoples religious movements are largely concerned with the relations between subject and ruler.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1959

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Balandier, G., Sociohgie Actuelle de l’Afrique Noire. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France,1955.Google Scholar
Berndt, R. M., “A Cargo Movement in the Eastern Central Highlands of New Guinea,’ Oceania, vol. XXII, 19521953, pp. 4045, 137–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chinnery, E. W. P., and Haddon, A. C, “Five New Religious Cults in British New Guinea”,Hibbert Journal, vol XV, 1917, pp. 230–40.Google Scholar
Firth, R. W., Elements of Social Organization. Watts, 1951; “The Theory of ‘Cargo Cults’ A Note on Tikopia,” Man, vol. V, 1955, No. 142.Google Scholar
Guiart, J., “The John Frum Movement in Tanna,” Oceania, vol. XXII, 19521953.Google Scholar
Kamma, F. C., De Messiaanse Koreri-Bewegingen in het Biaks-Noemfoorse cultuurgebied. 's-Gravenhage, Voorhoeve, 1954.Google Scholar
Keesing, F. C., The South Seas in the Modern World, London, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1941.Google Scholar
Lawrence, P., “Cargo Cults and Religious Beliefs among the Garia,” International Archives of Ethnography, 1954, pp. 120.Google Scholar
Linton, R., “Nativistic Movements,’ American Anthropologist, vol. 45, 1943, pp. 230–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowie, R. H., Primitive Religion. London, Routledge, 1936.Google Scholar
Mair, L. P., Australia in New Guinea. London, Christophers, 1948.Google Scholar
Marwick, M. G., “Another Modern Anti-witchcraft Movement in East Central Africa,” Africa, vol. XX, 1950, pp. 100112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, M., New Lives for Old. London, Gollancz, 1956.Google Scholar
Mooney, J., “The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890,” in Powell, J. B., ed., Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institute, 1892–1893,1896.Google Scholar
Nash, P., “The Place of Religious Revivalism in the Formation of the Intercultural Community on Klamath Reservation,’ in Eggan, F., ed., Social Anthropology of the North American Tribes. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1955.Google Scholar
Richards, A. I., “A Modern Movement of Witchfinders,” Africa, vol. VIII, 1935, pp. 448–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanner, W. E. H., The South Seas in Transition. Sydney, Australian Publishing Company,1953.Google Scholar
Sundkler, B., Bantu Prophets in South Africa. London, Lutterworth Press, 1948.Google Scholar
Ward, B. E., “Some Observations on Religious Cults in Ashanti,” Africa, vol. XXVI, 1956, pp. 4760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, F. E., “The Vailala Madness and the Destruction of Native Ceremonies in the Gulf Division,” Papua Ahthropological Reports No. 4, 1923; Orokaiva Magic. London, Oxford University Press, 1928.Google Scholar
Worsley, P., The Trumpet shall Sound. London, Macgibbon and Kee, 1957.Google Scholar