Raymond Firth - Rank and Religion in Tikopia (Routledge Revivals): A Study in Polynesian Paganism and Conversion to Christianity.

Originally published in 1970, this book represents a unique study of beliefs and ritual practices in a pagan religion, and of the processes by which a transformation to Christianity took place.

Christianity came to the major islands of Polynesia nearly two centuries ago, and within a couple of generations, the traditional pagan religion had disappeared. Only a few remote islands such as Tikopia preserved their ancient cults.

Over eighty years ago, the author first observed and took part in these pagan rites, and on later visits he studied the change from paganism to Christian faith. Unique in its rich documentation, this book presents a systematic account of the traditional beliefs in gods and spirits and of the way in which these were fused with the social and political structure. The causes and dramatic results of the conversion to Christianity are then described, ending with an examination of the religious situation at the time of the book's original publication.

The book is both a contribution to anthropology and a case study in religious history. It completes the major series of studies of Tikopia society for which the author is famous. It gives the first full account of a Polynesian religious system in a state of change.

Rank and Religion in Tikopia

A Study in Polynesian Paganism and Conversion to Christianity

Raymond Firth

First published in 1970
by George Allen & Unwin Ltd

This edition first published in 2011 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

1970 George Allen & Unwin Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

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A Library of Congress record exists under ISBN: 0042000181

ISBN: 978-0-415-69470-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-14545-6 (ebk)

RANK AND RELIGION IN TIKOPIA

A STUDY IN POLYNESIAN PAGANISM AND CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

RAYMOND FIRTH

GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD

RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1970

SBN 04 200018 1

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
in 11 on 12pt Bell type
BY W AND J MACKAY AND CO LTD
CHATHAM

TO ROSEMARY

For many intellectual and other debts

This book was planned forty years ago, but the plan has changed in accordance with my experience of developments in Tikopia society. Originally intended as a study of Tikopia paganism, the work has been transmuted by stages into an analysis of major changes in the Tikopia religious system as the society turned with increasing rapidity to the adoption of Christianity. The result has been delay in publication, but a gain in historical perspective, as I added findings from my visits in 1952 and 1966 to those of 19289. In the meantime several other publications have given part of the analysis. The Work of the Gods in Tikopia (first published in 1940 and reissued in an amplified second edition in 1967) is an account of the elaborate seasonal cycle of rites in which traditionally the whole society was involved. Tikopia Ritual and Belief (1967) is a set of essays from various dates dealing with some concepts and patterns relevant to an understanding of the traditional religious system, with some comment upon the state of these from my latest observations. These two works are Volumes One and Two of my Studies in Tikopia Religion. (They are supplemented by my History and Traditions of Tikopia (1961), which gives some account of the corpus of myth which makes Tikopia traditional religion intelligible.) Volume Three of these Studies in Tikopia Religion, the present book, is designed to show the general dimension of Tikopia religious activity and belief over nearly two generations, ending in the radical reorientation of the system now manifest after a dramatic, complete conversion of the last upholders of paganism. (It incorporates material from an interim study From Paganism to Christianity, originally designed for separate publication.)

Since Tikopia was almost the last Polynesian society to retain its traditional religious system relatively unimpaired, I have placed as much stress as possible on the fullness and accuracy of the ethnographic record. Here as elsewhere I have reproduced as far as possible my observations of ritual procedures and my renderings of vernacular statements in which Tikopia explained these procedures and discussed them with me.

But much compression and arrangement of materials has been needed to show what I wishedthe process as well as the structure of the religious system, in the flow of traditional procedures as well as in the more radically changing situations of recent times. I have used my own framework of ideas for this; that is, I have been responsible for the identification and articulation of relationships from the raw material of observation. In contemporary social science language I have constructed a model of the Tikopia religious system. Some time ago (1954) I discussed the nature of anthropological models and indicated the complexity of the problem of relating model to empirical reality. The model given here is intended to be primarily a generalized systematic statement of the patterns and processes of Tikopia religious belief and ritual as directly inferred by me from a corpus of Tikopia actions observed and statements heard. In this sense it is primarily a Tikopia model of their religious system in that it is based on what I have recorded Tikopia themselves to have done and said; and many Tikopia have contributed very closely in their own vernacular to the formulations in which it is expressed. But it is not the Tikopia model. Though, as far as I know, nothing empirically described therein is beyond the range of Tikopia experience and conceptualization, it does not represent a single uniform Tikopia viewpoint. Some Tikopia have had much clearer conceptualization of their religious system than have others, and even the people with equally clear views have disagreed about relationships in terms of their own divergent personal visualizations, claims and interests. I have thought it a necessary part of the argument to show the range of Tikopia opinion in the more critical fields, and by implication the complexity of a primitive religion.