Arts in the Religions of the Pacific: Symbols of Life (Religion and the Arts)

The Pacific region is a vast area, encompassing the sparsely populated islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, as well as the more populous and established cultures of Indonesia, Melanesia and Australia. This work emphasizes its primal - the so-called "primitive" or "tribal" - religious cultures as they are expressed in diverse art forms. These arts are related to vivid myths and rituals, which are in turn related to religious experience in these cultures. Since the religions arise among peoples with distinctive languages and traditions, this variety offers an instructive introduction to comparative religion in the sense of tracing the basic themes of religion in different forms and societies. The book covers a range of tribal communities and includes Maori and Aboriginal arts.