Super Natural Powers of Manaism (Mana)

The great advance in Ethnography in the last decades of the 19th century and in early 20th century provided later writers abundance of information of better quality. While Frazer differed from Tylor claiming a pre religion stage of Magic the other writers also look the same view.

It was W. Wilhelm Schmidt, for example expressed the opinion that ghosts and spirits were the ideas too sophisticate! for rude men, so there must be an earlier stage than animism, a ‘Mana’ stage in which the idea of lick of the canny and uncanny was the sole constituent of the supernatural.

Other contigues like Andrew Lange and R. A. Movertt, Andrew Lang was an evolutionary theories vehemently opposed the view that gods could have developed out of Ghosts and Spirits. They pointed out that the conception of a creative, omnipotent and ethereal God is found among the most primitive peoples and is probably to be accounted for the conclusion by primitive man that the world around him must have been made by some superior being.

The supreme being of these people, according to Lang is not thought of as spirit at all. The conception of God, according to Lang need not be evolved outpoll reflections on dreams and ghosts. Marett’s arguments were much different the advocated a pre-animistic stage and claimed that primitive man was not at all a philosopher that he has been made out to be. With early man, it is not the ideas which resulted in action, but it is action which gives rise to ideas. ‘Savage Religion’ he said, is something, not so much thought out as danced out.

As such, he concluded, that in the earliest, the preaninmistic stage, religion cannot be differentiated from magic. He preferred the use of the term ‘Magico religions’, a usage adopted by a number of anthropologists including Rivers and Selignian. However, Marett preferred to speak of both as ‘Mena’, a Malensian word anthropologists adopted into their conceptual vocabulary.

According to Marett, primitive people have a feeling that there is an occult power in certain persons and things and it is the presence and absence of this feeling which cuts off the sacred from profane. It is the function of taboos to separate one world from the other. This feeling is the emotion to awe, a mix of fear, wonder, respect and admiration, whatever evokes this emotion, and is treated as a mystery, is religion. But all his arguments lacked the weight of evidence required to support his theory.

Taboo

The word ‘Taboo’ has been derived from an ocevic word ‘Tapu’ or ‘Tabu’, which in turn refers to certain specific types of prohibitions. Violation of which is believed automatically or by supernatural means to produced undesirable consequences. Such beliefs are widely spread among the primitive society observed by all the members of a society without any exceptions. In all these societies, the consequences of the breach are believed to be drastic and more clearly defined, such as illness, death, draught, or disaster and economic failure and so on.

Taboo is in fact a different kind of prohibition in the sense that it is considered as ritual prohibition. Since they are followed and observed by all the members in a culture, with an element of compulsion by which certain acts or behaviours are profited, therefore, taboos are also defined as negative compulsives of culture. The association of the fear of the supernatural with taboo makes it a part of the belief system.

Since there are many types of acts prohibited by this term in different societies, they qualify different types of Taboos. Studies in primitive societies qualify different types of Taboos. Studies in primitive societies reveal following four types.

Religious Taboos

To protect the privileges and prestige of sacred persons or sacred places there are certain types of activities and behaviors which may be prohibited for them. The Toda sacred dairies and their dairy men enjoy high status in Toda societies.

The posts and utensils of the sacred dairies and milk and the buffaloes associated with them are of sacred category and cannot be handed or touched by the commoners. The ‘dairy men’ of these sacred dairies have to abstain from sex throughout his life.

However, it is generally seen that the acts prohibited or forbidden by Taboos are often anti social in nature such as adultery, theft, homicide, etc. Beliefs in Taboos discourage such activities.

In this way, Taboos act as important mechanism of social control-the unwritten law of the primitives operative through supernatural agency. Forbidding anti social acts, it reinforces prescribed social values.

Food Taboos

They are more usually than not associated with totemic beliefs because of which the consumption of certain plant and animal species (which are totems) is prohibited and it’s non observance is considered to be detrimental for the society.

In many societies, consumption of specific food articles is prohibited temporarily or permanently for the men of ranks or forbidden to women and children.

Sex Taboos

Certain prohibitions pertaining to sex relations are categorized as sex taboos. ‘Incest’ is an almost universal sex prohibition in primitive societies which prohibits any sex contact between the members of the same nuclear family and other closely related kinds. Women in primitive societies are prohibited any sex during the lactation period after the birth of a child. Similarly, taboo may also be observed during performance of some magic, religious activities or during hunting-expedition period.

Protective Taboos

There are certain ‘taboos which are observed for the sake of protection. Thus, tribal chiefs kings are not allowed to be touched by the commoners. The idea behind such taboos is to provide maximum protection to the life and persons of these political luminaries in tribal societies.

But all taboos cannot be rationalized like that. In Polynesia, certain things as a new born child, a dead body, body of a chief are not allowed to be touched.

By doing so an individual himself becomes a ‘Tabu’ polluted and certain rites of purification live be performed. This is known as desacralization and he or she becorae a ‘Noa’ after the performance there rites, a term opposed to ‘Tabu’.

Prior to 1886, it was considered as a practice restricted to Polynesia only. It was Frazer who periled out such systems of superstitions to be prevalent all over the world under different name Breach of Taboo places an individual in the condition of ritual danger. Relief from this danger is obtain! by performing an elaborate ritual expressive in nature.

Radcliffe Brown talks of ritual status and ritual value in connection with Taboo. According to him Taboo means ritual avoidance or prohibition. The ritual do not’s are definable in terms of ritual status: This means that, a ritual prohibition is a rule of behavior which is associated with the belief that a infraction will result in an undesirable change in the ritual status of the person who fails to keep the rule.. This change of ritual status is conceived in many different ways indifferent societies.

Sigmond Freud regards Taboos as an act of repentance, a product of conscious of some common guilt. However, the study of various types of taboos indifferent societies does not warrant any sing explanation of the phenomenon.