191 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



without, and it therefore became necessary to ascertain to which of the cultures 

 possessed by these peoples the present-day customs and institutions of Melanesia 

 belong, always keeping in mind the possibility that some of these institutions 

 may not have belonged to any one of the cultures, but may have arisen as the 

 result of the interaction of two or more of the blending peoples. 



I must be content with this brief sketch of my scheme of the history of 

 Melanesian society, for my object to-day is to point out that if Melanesian 

 society possesses the complexity and the heterogeneous character I have indicated 

 and is the resultant of the mixture of three or four main cultures, it cannot be 

 right to take out of the complex any institution or belief and regard it as primitive 

 merely because Melanesian culture on the whole possesses a more or less primitive 

 character. It is probable that some of the immigrants into Melanesia had a 

 relatively advanced culture, possibly even that the institutions and ideas they 

 brought with them had been taken from a culture higher still, and, therefore, 

 when we bring forward any Melanesian institution or belief as an example of 

 primitive thinking or acting, our first duty should be to inquire to which stratum 

 of Melanesian culture it belongs. 



To illustrate my meaning I have time for only one example. No concept of 

 Melanesian culture has bulked more largely in recent speculation than that of 

 maim, the mysterious virtue to which the magico-religious rites of Melanesia are 

 believed fcn owe their efficacy. This word now seems on its way to enter the 

 English language as a term for that power or virtue which induces the emotions 

 of awe and wonder, and thus provides a most important element not only in the 

 specific mental states which underlie religion, but also plays much the same part 

 in the early history of magic. Tn recent speculation the idea of mana is coming 

 to be regarded as having been the basis of religious ideas and practices preceding 

 the animism which, following Professor Tylor, we have for long regarded as the 

 earliest form of religion, and mana is thus held to be not only the foundation of 

 pre-animistic religion, but also the basis of that primitive element of human 

 culture which can hardly be called either religion or magic, but is the common 

 source from which both have been derived. If I am right in my analysis of 

 Oceanic culture, the Melanesian concept of mana is not a suitable basis for 

 these speculations. It is certain that the word mana belongs to the culture of 

 the immigrants into Melanesia and not to that of the aborigines. It is, of course, 

 nossible that though the word belongs to the immigrant culture, the ideas which 

 it connotes may belong to a more primitive stratum, but this is a pure assumption 

 and one which I believe to be contrary to all probability. At any rate, we can 

 be confident that even if the ideas connoted by the term mana belong to or were 

 shared by the primitive stratum of Melanesian society, they must have been 

 largely modified by the influence of the alien but superior culture from which 

 the word itself has been taken. I believe fchat the Melanesian evidence can 

 legitimately be used in favour of the view that the power or virtue denoted by 

 mana is a fundamental element of religion. The analysis of culture, however, 

 indicates that it is not legitimate to use the Melanesian evidence to support the 

 primitiveness of the concept of mana. This evidence certainly does not support 

 the view that the concept of mana is more primitive than animism, for the 

 immigrants were already in a very advanced stage of animistic religion, a cult 

 of the dead being certainly one of the most definite of their religious institutions. 



Further, I believe that the use of the term mana in Melanesia in connection 

 with magic, as a term for that attribute of obiects used in magic to which they 

 owe their efficacy, is due to an extension of the original meaning of the term, 

 and that it would only be misleading to use the Melanesian facts as evidence in 

 favour of the concept of mana as underlying primitive magic. Here, again, I do 

 not wish to deny that a concept such as that denoted by mana may be a primitive 

 element of masic; all that I wish to point out is that the Melanesian evidence 

 cannot properly be used to support this view, for the use of the term in connec- 

 tion with magic in Melanesia is not primitive but secondary and relatively late. 



The point, then, on which I wish to insist is that if cultures are complex, 

 their analysis is a preliminary step which is necessary if speculations concerning 

 the evolution of human society, its beliefs and practices, are to rest on a firm 

 foundation. 



I have so far dealt only with Melanesia. It is obvious that the same principle 

 that analysis of culture must precede speculations concerning the evolution of 



