Melanesian mythology refers to the folklore, myths, and religions of Melanesia, a region in Southwest Oceania that encompasses the archipelagos of New Guinea (including Indonesian New Guinea and Papua New Guinea), the Torres Strait Islands, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji. The various mythologies consist primarily of the traditions of oral literature in the different populations of Melanesia. More recent aspects include the cargo cults born in the 20th century during the Pacific War.
The Mythology of All Races (1916) In 1916 Roland Burrage Dixon wrote an early account of Melanesian mythology in The Mythology of All Races.Dixon (1916). Dixon's compilation reflects beliefs by some Western observers of the time in the existence of a mythology at the scale of Melanesia as a whole. It was then accepted practice to blend together mythological traditions from different regions of the South Pacific as if they were examples of a single "Melanesian" culture. Modern scholars such as Hilary Howes, Tristen Jones and Matthew Spriggs, critique this approach as over-simplification, preferring to present each local tradition separately and suggest possible links more carefully.
Dixon's proposed division of the area's populations According to Dixon, Melanesia falls into two geographic divisions: New Guinea with its adjacent smaller islands forming one; and the long series of islands lying to the north and east of it, from the Admiralty group to New Caledonia and Fiji, constituting the other.
From an anthropological point of view, the population of the Melanesian area is composed of a number of different historical populations (what Dixon called "racial types"). He recognized "at least three groups": One group, called by Dixon "Negrito or Negrito-like tribes", were supposedly living mostly in the interior of New Guinea and a few islands of Island Melanesia (the "Eastern Archipelago" in his terms)It is unclear which population of New Guinea Dixon was referring to using that description "Negrito-like". A second group he identified as Papuan, which he had little information about. A third group, corresponding to Austronesian-speaking populations of Melanesia.Dixon described these Austronesian populations, which he called "Melanesians", in these terms: a group “which occupies much of south-eastern New Guinea, together with part of its northern and north-western coasts, and forms the majority of the inhabitants of the islands reaching from the Admiralty Islands to Fiji”.
Contrary to modern usage, Dixon used the term Melanesian only to refer to his third group, namely the non-Papuan populations of Melanesia.
Main characteristics of Dixon's typology According to Dixon, the material on the mythology of Melanesia, though incomplete and fragmentary, "appears rather clearly to prove" the existence of two distinct strata, one of which he called "Papuan", the other "Melanesian". Although the author does not mention languages, his proposed dichotomy, based on oral literature, evidently matches the contrast made by linguists, between speakers of Papuan languages and speakers of Austronesian (Oceanic) languages.Dixon evidently uses the term "Melanesian" to refer exclusively to Austronesian people: this is at odds with the generally accepted definition of "Melanesia", which commonly includes both Austronesian and Papuan populations.
Dixon's "Papuan" layer was best represented, in his view, among the Kai tribes of northern Papua New Guinea, as well as by the Baining and Sulka of northern New Britain.
His so-called "Melanesian" stratum, on the other hand, was mostly found in Remote Oceania (which he named "eastern Melanesia"), but also throughout parts of New Guinea, among the coast tribes of northern New Britain, and in the Admiralty Islands.
According to Dixon, the "Papuan" type of mythology was characterized by a relative absence of cosmogonic myths, by the prominence of ghosts, and by "a general simplicity and naivete".Note the judgmental phrasing typical of Dixon's colonial times, sometimes dismissive or even racist. This category also appears to remain in local populations, rather than being distributed more widely. The "Melanesian" mythology, on the other hand, has more myths relating to cosmogony, as well as cannibalistic tales, and often includes a rudimentary dualistic character (revealed in many stories of the wise and foolish hero brothers).
As Dixon further examined his "Melanesian" type, he found that it lacked unity. He suggested the following grouping: Myths that were generally from "Melanesia"; Myths strictly in New Guinea and the immediate vicinity. Myths from Fiji, Central Vanuatu, or the Banks and Santa Cruz Islands.
Including the whole of the Oceanic area, Dixon noted that the "Papuan" type showed little in common with any of the other Pacific regions, while his so-called "Melanesian" type showed similarities with Indonesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia; and even Australia. The "Melanesian" type of myths (which held similarities to the other areas) can be divided into four groups: Those who only share similarities with Indonesia, which are typically represented more in the northern coast of New Guinea; Those sharing similarities with Polynesia, which are more prominent in the southern coast of New Guinea and seemingly comprising myths from Melanesia as well; Those sharing similarities with both Indonesia and Polynesia, which are most common in Remote Oceania, the eastern archipelago of Melanesia, and may have been brought and preserved by Polynesian ancestors from their Indonesian homes; or Only with Micronesia, which are equally represented in New Guinea and the eastern archipelago.
Myths of origins and the deluge According to Dixon's classification, the mythology of his "Melanesian" area (i.e. the area populated by Oceanic-speaking populations) is characterized by the almost total lack of myths relating to the origin of the world. With one or two exceptions, the Earth seems to be regarded as having always existed in more or less the same form as today.
In the Admiralty Islands, a portion of the population believed that once there was nothing but a widespread sea. One myth states that a great serpent commanded a reef to rise to form the first area of dry land. Another origin myth entails a man and a woman floating in the sea on a piece of driftwood until the waters retreated, upon which they began to reside on dry land. In New Britain, among the coastal tribes of the Gazelle Peninsula, the two culture hero brothers, To-Kabinana and To-Karvuvu fished dry land from the bottom of the sea. The same story in slightly greater detail is found also in the southern New Hebrides.
The concept of a primeval sea is found widely in central Polynesia, Micronesia, and Indonesia, but appears only in the northern parts of Melanesia, where contact with non-Melanesian peoples would theoretically be expected. A much closer affiliation with Polynesia is shown in another class of origin-myths.
While Dixon did not focus on the beginning of the world in his "Melanesian" area, he found considerable and widely varying material on the creation of mankind. Three types of myths may be recognized: one, in which mankind is directly created by some deity or pre-existing being; second, in which man comes into being spontaneously or magically; third, where mankind descends to earth from the sky-land.
Creation of mankind In the Admiralty Islands, one myth exists about a lonely man who longed for a wife and so commanded a carved wooden figure of a woman to come to life.
In the Banks Islands, the deity Qat is described as the first to make humans, cutting wood out of the dracaena tree and forming it into six figures, three men and three women. After hiding them away for three days, he brought them to life and divided them into three married pairs. Marawa, an envious man, saw what Qat had made and took another kind of wood and gave them life. When he saw them move, he dug a pit and covered the bottom with coconut fronds, burying his men and women in it for seven days. After he dug them up again, he found them lifeless, this being regarded as the origin of death among men. According to another version from the same area, while the first man was made of red clay by Qat, he created the first woman of rods and rings of twigs covered with the spathes of sago palms, which are used to make the tall hats used in sacred dances.
A tale of the creation of man from earth is told in the New Hebrides. It involves a godlike figure, Takaro, who made ten male figures from mud, and breathed life into them. He then threw a fruit at one of them, which transformed the man into a woman.
Another myth from New Britain describes a being drawing two male figures upon the ground, sprinkling the drawings with his own blood, and covering them over with leaves, the result being that they came to life as two men, To-Kabinana and To-Karvuvu.Oxford Reference To-Kabinana then climbed a coconut-tree, and picking two unripe coconuts, threw them to the ground, where they burst and changed into two women, whom he took as his wives. Then To-Karvuvu tried to do the same, except that he threw the nuts to the ground point downward, and the women that arose from them had flat ugly noses.
Origin of mankind from other sources Another major myth of the creation of humankind in Melanesian mythology is that humans originated from birds.
In the Admiralty Islands, a myth describes a dove bearing two young, one of which was a bird and one a man, who became the ancestor of the human race. In another version of the myth, a tortoise laid ten eggs, from which hatched eight tortoises, one man, and one woman. The men and women married, becoming the ancestors of both light-skinned and dark-skinned people. In Fiji, it is said that a bird laid two eggs which were hatched by Ndengei, a serpent, a boy coming from one and a girl from the other. A variant of this is found in Torres Straits where, according to the Eastern Islanders, a maggot developed from a bird egg, which then transformed into a man.
Myths of the origin of men or of deities from a clot of blood are found in Melanesia among other parts of Oceania. A myth from the Admiralty Islands places the origin of men as having hatched from eggs that arose from the spilled blood of a woman named Hi-asa. In the neighboring island of New Britain, one account gives a similar origin for the two brothers To-Rabinana and To-Karvuvu: An old woman was wading in the sea searching for shellfish; her arms pained her, and so, taking two sharp strips of pandanus, she scratched and cut first one arm and then the other. The two bloodied strips of pandanus later began to swell, and when she was about to set fire to it to destroy them, two boys had grown from her blood—from the blood of her right arm, To-Kabinana, and from her left arm, To-Karvuvu. At several regions in northern Papua New Guinea, Dixon seemed to find similar tales of children originating from clots of blood.
An origin of the human race from plants is unique to the Solomon Islands, where it is said that two knots began to sprout on a stalk of sugar-cane, from which came a man and a woman. In New Britain, however, a myth goes that the first woman came from a sugar cane planted by two men. After the sugar cane burst, the men seized and mated with her. In some versions, the woman then became the wife of one of the men, and all mankind are descended from the pair. An origin of the first woman from a tree and of the first man from the ground is given by the Papuan tribes of Elema in southern Papua New Guinea; in the New Hebrides, the first female being is said to have been transformed from a cowrie-shell.