Strong words and forceful winds: religious experience and political process in Melanesia. From: Oceania | Date: September 1, 1994| Author: Whitehouse, Harvey | COPYRIGHT 1994 University of Sydney. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Melanesian religious movements tend to conform to two contrasting types of regime: the one relatively centralized, hierarchical, stable, long-lived, and nationalistic; the other fragmented, egalitarian, unstable, sporadic, and parochial. Existing theories of 'cargo cults', including the progressivist hypothesis which views millenarism as the natural precursor of nationalism, have failed to appreciate this fundamental divergence. It is shown that politico-religious regimes are rooted in altern...