O

ceania is made up of Australia

and the islands to its north and

east. Spread over an enormous

geographical area, these lands

have produced four distinct

cultural zones: Australia itself; Melanesia,

which consists of the island of New Guinea

and a string of smaller islands and volcanic

archipelagos such as the Solomon Islands and

the New Hebrides; Micronesia, which consists

of the island groups north of New Guinea;

and the vast and thinly scattered islands of

Polynesia, which occupy the triangle bounded

by New Zealand, Hawaii, and Easter Island.

Australia is home to many Aboriginal tribes

with distinct languages and cultures. Despite

the variety of their traditions and beliefs, there

is a common pattern of a remote sky god and a

number of other deities who act

as ancestor spirits or culture

heroes – beings who long

ago travelled over the land,

creating its features, making the first humans,

and teaching people how to live. The travels

of these ancestral beings make the land sacred

and therefore central to Aboriginal beliefs, and

are remembered and relived in rituals and art.

The scattered islands of Oceania are home

to many diferent myths. In Melanesia, for

example, the Earth has traditionally been seen

as always existing. Supernatural spirits – who

altered the form of the world to give it its

present shape – and ancestor spirits alike have

historically been worshipped and held in awe

for their possession of a mystical power known

as mana. Mana explains everything that seems

outside the control of humankind or the

normal natural processes of the world. Natural

and supernatural power are, moreover, often

interdependent. In the Caroline Islands, spirits

known as ani combine the roles of ancestors

and gods and have traditionally been seen as

dwelling in the bodies of specific beings – such

as birds, fish, animals, and trees.

OCEANIA

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