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Journal of the American Academy of Religion Advance Access originally published online on August 4, 2007
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2007 75(3):524-553; doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfm034
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Mana in Christian Fiji: The Interconversion of Intelligibility and Palpability

Matt Tomlinson

Matt Tomlinson, Anthropology/School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Menzies Building, No. 1111, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia

E-mail: matt.tomlinson{at}arts.monash.edu.au


  Abstract

How might religious discourse about powerlessness motivate practical strategies for gaining power? To answer this question, I analyze two events in Fiji, both explicitly violent and markedly Christian: the story of a murder committed by a man who wanted to become a Methodist minister and a threat of cannibalism by men who supported a coup d'état that was justified with reference to Fiji as a Christian nation. These events are best seen as responses to a common theme in indigenous Fijian religious discourse: the loss of mana (efficacy). This theme motivates the "interconversion" of these events between poles of intelligibility and palpability: palpable actions are transformed into intelligible products such as narratives; conversely, intelligible products are enacted. The cases of "good Christian" murder and cannibalism, I argue, reveal the transformative dynamics of religious discourse and suggest how claims about the loss of efficacy can be practically effective.


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