Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Limit search to available items
Record:   Prev Next
Resources
More Information
Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Schwartz, Theodore, author.

Title Like fire : the Paliau movement and millenarianism in Melanesia / Theodore Schwartz and Michael French Smith.

Publication Info. Acton, ACT : ANU Press, 2021.
©2021

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xx, 515 pages) : illustrations, maps.
text file PDF
Physical Medium polychrome
Series Monographs in anthropology series
Monographs in anthropology series.
Contents Preface: Why, how, and for whom -- Spelling and pronunciation of Tok Pisin words and Manus proper names -- 'The last few weeks have been strange and exciting' -- 2. Taking exception -- 3. Indigenous life in the Admiralty Islands -- 4. World wars and village revolutions -- 5. The Paliau Movement begins -- 6. Big Noise from Rambutjo -- 7. After the Noise -- 8. The Cemetery Cult hides in plain sight -- 9. The Cemetery Cult revealed -- 10. Comparing the cults -- 11. Paliau ends the Cemetery Cult -- 12. Rise and fall -- 13. The road to Wind Nation -- 14. Wind Nation in 2015 -- 15. Probably not the last prophet -- Appendix A: Pathomimetic behaviour -- Appendix B: Kalopeu: Manus Kastam Kansol Stori -- Appendix C: Lists of thirty rules and twelve rules.
Summary Like Fire chronicles an indigenous movement for radical change in Papua New Guinea from 1946 to the present. The movement's founder, Paliau Maloat, promoted a program for step-by-step social change in which many of his followers also found hope for a miraculous millenarian transformation. Drawing on data collected over several decades, Theodore Schwartz and Michael French Smith describe the movement's history, Paliau's transformation from secular reformer and politician to Melanesian Jesus, and the development of the current incarnation of the movement as Wind Nation, a fully millenarian endeavour. Their analysis casts doubt on common ways of understanding a characteristically Melanesian form of millenarianism, the cargo cult, and questions widely accepted ways of interpreting millenarianism in general. They show that to understand the human proclivity for millenarianism we must scrutinise more closely two near-universal human tendencies: difficulty accepting the role of chance or impersonal forces in shaping events (that is, the tendency to personify causation), and a tendency to imagine that one or one's group is the focus of the malign or benign attention of purposeful entities, from the local to the cosmic. Schwartz and Smith discuss the prevalence of millenarianism and warn against romanticising it, because the millenarian mind can subvert rationality and nourish rage and fear even as it seeks transcendence.--From publisher's website.
Note Unless stated otherwise, the author retains copyright to their work while ANU Press retains exclusive worldwide rights for the distribution of the book. From 2018, the majority of ANU Press titles are published under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND; creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which broadens the ways in which works can be used and distributed. Please refer to the copyright page of each book for more information on a specific title's copyright licensing.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references.
Access National edeposit: Available online Unrestricted online access. AU-CaNED
Local Note JSTOR Books at JSTOR Open Access
Subject Maloat, Paliau.
Cargo cults.
Cargo cults.
Millennialism.
Millennialism.
Political culture -- Papua New Guinea -- Manus Province.
Political culture.
Papua New Guinea -- Manus Province.
Christianity -- Papua New Guinea -- Manus Province.
Christianity.
Manus Province (Papua New Guinea) -- Politics and government.
Admiralty Islands (Papua New Guinea) -- Religion.
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Added Author Smith, Michael French, author.
Australian National University Press.
Other Form: Print version: Like fire : the Paliau movement and millenarianism in Melanesia. Acton, ACT : ANU Press, 2021. 9781760464240
ISBN 9781760464257 (electronic book)
1760464252 (electronic book)
9781760464240 (print)