Hi Joe, what we have here is Europeans trying to rationalize an alien concept in purely European terms. This is not a religious issue, at all, like some here are trying to make out to be. it is similar to the way Aboriginal people see themselves in relation to the land. No Maori gathering can take place without first acknowledging the ancestors, which is called the Whakapapa.

http://maori.otago.ac.nz/reo-tikanga-treaty/te-reo/mihi

Not something Europeans find easy to understand, in fact become very dismissive off, as you can see from some of the posts on here. Don't understand it, therefore it can't be any good.

Hi Paul,

That was partly my point, that Maori and Aboriginal people may respect, revere and love their land and its significant features, as something more than human, but therefore not as a 'person'. In Aboriginal society, that 'person' would immediately have to be slotted into family relationships, perhaps as an ancestor in the indeterminate past. What I'm suggesting is that to declare a revered natural feature, like the Whanganui River or Uluru, to be just a 'person' like other people, would be demeaning it ?

But it does make good news :)

Cheers,

Joe

It is religious Paul. The fact that you don't want to admit that is worrying. Aboriginal peoples tended to see the supernatural in just about everything. They are animists. We've moved on from that, and it is a condition of modern life that we do. No one is stopping them from worshipping the land as their ancestors did, but I would insist that it remain in the private realm, not be part of public policy.

I don't misunderstand primitive religion, I just accept that it has to give way to modernity.

Dear Graham Y,

You said that tribal religion has to give way to modernity. Shouldn't that also apply to your religion? There is no evidence for miracles or supernatural beings whether animist, polytheist or theist.

Hi Graham,

There is a fascinating series of articles by Pedersen, Descola and Viveiros de Castro teasing out the differences between totemism, animism and 'naturalism'; this is good starting point, Pedersen's Sept 2001 article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.00070/full

As I dimly understand it, in totemist societies, people perceive themselves and their clan group to be akin to animal species and to other natural features (such as the rain), and therefore fundamentally different from other clan groups: nature is reproduced in society, as separate and hostile groups.

In animist societies, people perceive that nature works just like human societies, wolves have their hierarchies and villages and marriage relations, mountains have their human-like ways of operaing. Mountains marry, deer go to war against neighbouring deer villages. In other words, nature reproduces human society and can be 'controlled' by the sorts of tributes and entreaties one might offer .

Viveiros's notion of 'naturalism', I'm still trying to get my head around, but I think he is suggesting that animals etc. are actually humans in animals' skins, thinking and acting like humans.

So Aboriginal groups here were/are totemist (my wife's 'ngatjis' were bush turkey, talkundji, and swamp wallaby, toolache: no, I don't know how groups can have more than one totem, wouldn't that defeat the notion of a single society-nature relationship ?). Most Native American and Siberian and Mongolian groups are animists.

But maybe Maori religion is more animist than totemist ? After all, there is no particular reason why different Indigenous cultural and religious notions should be in any way similar.

Joe

Hi Graham, I am told it is a cultural issue and not a religious issue, can one have a cultural belief and not be religious. or are all cultural beliefs religious? The Whanganui River is not crown land, it never has been, it may have been illegally classified as such under The New Zealand Settlement Act 1863.