The Religions of Oceania (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

by Tony Swain

This constitutes the first up-to-date study of the great and changing variety of traditional religions in the regions of Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, collectively known as Oceania.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 1995

Reviews

[Edward Butler]

It should be borne in mind that half of this book concerns Australia, which I don't generally think of as included in "Oceania". In fact, the portion dedicated to the religions of Oceania proper, minus the accounts of Christianity, etc. constitutes a mere 40 pages, obviously the briefest summary, which does little more than indicate a wide range of variation on every conceivable matter, with no attempt by the authors to find much order in it. The best that can be said is that the footnotes are probably sufficient to at least point one in the direction of more adequate, specialized studies; but a more focused survey volume for this region really is badly needed.

[Mary]

I really enjoyed the first part of the book, covering Australia, but I struggled a bit more with the second half covering the Pacific Islands (each half was written by a separate author). Partly it was not the author’s fault; there was just so much more to cover, but it jumped around so much that it was hard to follow. Moreover, I felt the author’s bias crept in more than it should, such as when he disapproved of some Catholic priests’ reaction to a local sexual custom and suggested the problem was that they themselves needed wives, which felt both crass and like an inappropriate insertion of his own opinion. Otherwise though, I did enjoy both halves of this book and feel I learned a lot as a layperson.