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Chapter 10 Conclusions In chapter 2, I attempted to present a general overview of Micronesian religions. However useful such an overview may be, it omits the significant differences between island regions. For that reason, the overview is followed by chapters offering a detailed description of religious practices and beliefs in each island group. In this final chapter, I hope to summarize the unique features of each region, review the common patterns across Micronesia, and finally to offer a view of the old Micronesian religions as “gentle religions.” Unique Features The regional differences within Micronesia may be explained in a number of ways. These differences may result, of course, from the simple fact that a given feature is found only in this or that region and nowhere else. On the other hand, what appear as differences may simply be due to an error in reporting—something that is impossible to verify but is nonetheless likely to have occurred. Another explanation may lie in the variation of importance of a rite or belief from place to place; the feature may be present elsewhere but not to the extent found in one or another particular region.1 Kiribati and Nauru Even though male puberty rituals are seldom found in Micronesia and elaborate ones are almost nonexistent, males in Kiribati began training to be warriors while still children. The training involved an elaborate series of ritual trials that had to be accomplished to bring a boy from the end of his childhood to his status as warrior. An entire period of a male’s life, essentially his adolescence, became the transition or liminal phase of this rite of passage between childhood and the adult warrior. On Banaba, young males went through a similar isolation from the community, but it was accompanied by devotions and meditations facing the rising sun. Kiribati religion flattened the ranks of the spirits to just two sets of spirits: (1) those of the sky gods, the cosmic creators, and (2) those of the named clan leaders, both from the distant past as well as the recently Conclusions 207 deceased, commemorated in the cult of the skulls. Kiribati and nearby Banaba are the only Micronesian regions to emphasize ritual invoking the power of the sun, the moon, and their deities. Nauruans flattened the pantheon even more drastically, with the greatest emphasis given to the familial ancestors. Household shrines to the ancestors, next to the central house post, and the stone offering places outside the homes were the focal points of respect rituals for the ancestors. Cosmic creator gods seemed to be remembered in name only (Petit-Skinner 1981, 73ff.). The gods and goddesses, however unimportant in the daily life of the Nauruans of old, were much like those of Kiribati, showing a distinct Polynesian influence. As one looks at the same motifs in the myths, one might be tempted to speculate on the cultural origins of the Micronesians south of the equator, but all that can be said with certainty is that the divinities of the south show more Polynesian affinities than in the rest of Micronesia. Hambruch concluded that the religious views of the Nauruans were “an amalgamation of the old and the new, of the Polynesian pantheon and Christianity (1914, 273).” The Marshalls The Marshallese charter myths—those describing the works of the gods for the Marshallese—speak about gifts given directly from the heavens, such as sailing, canoe construction, tattooing, and the matrilineal-based chiefs. The Marshallese, on the other hand, do not speak of any of their cultural features coming from Katau, Yap, or Pohnpei. To them, cultural blessings came directly down from heaven. The counterpart of the Marshallese deity Letao has been described as a pure trickster in Ulithi and the central Chuukic atolls. In the Marshalls, too, he is mostly trickster, although now and again he is pictured as doing a kind deed. Letao is an ambiguous figure. In most of the stories, he is the model of what not to do, a negative morality model. As trickster, however, Letao is viewed by contemporary Marshallese as a positive example in the art of deliberate deception. The Marshallese and their myths are pragmatic; they understand that the day can be won by subterfuge and concealment. Letao, then, is the personification of one type of power, as interpreted by Marshallese; he appears as a mythological Machiavelli, concealment and power being the underlying theme. This belief sets the Marshallese Letao apart from his counterparts, the other tricksters of...

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