The Transition to Christianity in the South Pacific

1946 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
W. P. Morrell

Though the operations of the Christian missionary societies in the nineteenth century are in a general way well known, very rarely do we find a satisfying account of the transition among the native peoples of the mission fields from their old magico-religious beliefs to Christianity. The histories of the missionary societies are full and well documented, but they take too much for granted. The anthropologists give us ideas for which we must be grateful, but we cannot expect them to do the historian's work for him. And surely this subject is of general historical interest.

1980 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. B. M. Murphy ◽  
B. M. Taumoepeau

SYNOPSISNineteenth-century theory held that mental disorder was rare in stable, traditional rural societies. Today most societies are rapidly changing, but Tonga still fits that model and the evidence suggests that the psychoses are genuinely infrequent there. It is proposed that both the theory and the evidence deserve further examination.


2001 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-55
Author(s):  
Queena N. Lee-Chua

Many history-of-mathematics textbooks begin with the four ancient centers of civilization: Egypt, with its pyramids and Rhind papyri; Babylon, with its cuneiform blocks and sexagesimal system; China, with its magic squares and arithmetic classics; and India, with its Sanskrit manuscripts and numeral system. The focus then shifts chronologically to Greek geometry, Arab algebra, Renaissance calculus, nineteenth-century specializations, and finally, the technologically aided wonders of our present age.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 728-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Flexner ◽  
Andrew C. Ball

Postmedieval protestant missionaries working in exotic locations used objects both as a marker of their own ‘civilisation’ in contrast to that of the local populations and as a means of engaging these communities with Christianity. European things were displayed and conspicuously used to encourage a consumer mindset and interest in capitalism, thought to be crucial steps on the path to full conversion. Excavations at a Presbyterian mission house on Tanna Island, Vanuatu, recovered a remarkable assemblage of nineteenth-century British-made transfer-printed ceramics for such a remote location. These objects reflect multiple, complex meanings including performance of a ‘civilised’ British identity, romanticized ideals of pastoral landscapes, and conceptions of death and rebirth in the afterlife. These meanings were complicated by the context of cross-cultural interactions that were necessary to the missionary project.


Author(s):  
Gerry Turcotte

This chapter examines postcolonial Gothic in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the South Pacific and how its conventions as an imported British genre have been transformed in specific local contexts. Since the 1950s, Gothic in Australia has changed in a variety of ways: Christina Stead and Patrick White chart the suburban terror of the everyday, Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) and Kenneth Cook's Wake in Fright (1961) expand the possibilities for a modern uncanny that invokes an historic past and a frightening outback present, while women writers since the 1970s have employed Gothic to investigate the repressions of patriarchy. In the case of Canadian fiction, the Gothic voice has been present since the early nineteenth century, but realized its potential only from the 1970s onwards. The chapter discusses Gothic elements in Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and Indigenous and South Pacific novels.


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