Mana (Oceanian cultures)
[9] Mana is a foundation of Polynesian theology, a spiritual quality with a supernatural origin and a sacred, impersonal force.
"[10] In Hawaiian and Tahitian culture, mana is a spiritual energy and healing power which can exist in places, objects, and persons.
Before the unification of the Hawaiian Kingdom by King Kamehameha I, battles were fought for possession of the island and its south shore fish ponds, which existed until the late 19th century.
[15]According to Margaret Mutu, mana in its traditional sense means: Power, authority, ownership, status, influence, dignity, respect derived from the atua.
[17] According to the New Zealand Ministry of Justice: Mana and tapu are concepts which have both been attributed single-worded definitions by contemporary writers.
[citation needed] Missionary Robert Henry Codrington traveled widely in Melanesia, publishing several studies of its language and culture.
[9] Codrington defines it as "a force altogether distinct from physical power, which acts in all kinds of ways for good and evil, and which it is of the greatest advantage to possess or control".
[20]: 12–13 Objects possessing it impress an observer with "respect, veneration, propitiation, service" emanating from the mana's power.
Marett lists several objects habitually possessing mana: "startling manifestations of nature", "curious stones", animals, "human remains", blood,[20]: 2 thunderstorms, eclipses, eruptions, glaciers, and the sound of a bullroarer.
"[20]: xxvi Like Tylor, he theorizes a thread of commonality between animism and pre-animism identified with the supernatural—the "mysterious", as opposed to the reasonable.
In his 1904 essay, "Outline of a General Theory of Magic", Marcel Mauss drew on the writings of Codrington and others to paint a picture of mana as "power par excellence, the genuine effectiveness of things which corroborates their practical actions without annihilating them".
[22]: 111 Mauss pointed out the similarity of mana to the Iroquois orenda and the Algonquian manitou, convinced of the "universality of the institution";[22]: 116 "a concept, encompassing the idea of magical power, was once found everywhere".
[22]: 117 Mauss and his collaborator, Henri Hubert, were criticised for this position when their 1904 Outline of a General Theory of Magic was published.
[25] Holbraad[26] argued in a paper included in the volume "Thinking Through Things: Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically" that the concept of mana highlights a significant theoretical assumption in anthropology: that matter and meaning are separate.
A hotly debated issue, Holbraad suggests that mana provides motive to re-evaluate the division assumed between matter and meaning in social research.
