by

Ted Daniels, Ph.D.

Electronic version copyright © Ted Daniels 1997. All rights reserved
Originally published in Millennialism: An International Bibliography by Garland Publishing New York, 1992. Reproduced here by permission.
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         461. Mair, Lucy P. "Independent Religious Movements in Three Continents." Comparative Studies in Society and History 1, 1959: 111-36.
        Proposes that healing and anti-witchcraft movements should not be distinguished from millenarianism, since all elements are commonly found together, and all these movements share other elements in common.
        The movements often adopt symbols of foreign authority as validation devices: khaki uniforms and their own scripture in Africa, imitation of whites in New Guinea. The Ghost Dance, with its complete rejection of modernity, can be contrasted with African movements of the "Ethiopian" type, which envisioned pursuing power and had their own political organization. [I think the distinction is false; though the Ghost Dancers didn't seek to rule whites but to be rid of them, that is still a search for power, albeit retrograde. The question, if any, is what form does this power take?] Mair hopes for a psychological explanation better than Jung's of why these occur. [I would vote for the inherent logic of life necessarily conducted in society].
        Since the New Guinea groups had not been forced to abandon old ways, it is logical they did not long for their return, instead insisting that white goods were rightly theirs, having been stolen by the whites. They did not long for the return of the dead [which is scarcely "universal" (p. 126), see, e.g., Hill, W., 1958: item 343 on the Navajos] because they already were in contact with them.


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