The Religions of Oceania: Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices

THE RELIGIONS OF OCEANIA: Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices. By Tony Swain and Garry Trompf. London (England): Routledge. 1995. 244 pp. (Maps.) 13. 99, paper. ISBN 0-415-0619-2.

WHILE BOOKS on the religions of Africa, South America or aboriginal Australia are fairly common, overviews of Oceania (Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia and Australia) are extremely rare. Swain and Trompf's survey is easily the most ambitious attempted for they consider not only the familiar subjects of "traditional" religions and later religious movements, but also contemporary Pacific Christianity and neotraditional religious ideologies. The authors write clearly and engagingly, never losing sight of the complexity of their subject. Quite an accomplishment in two hundred pages of descriptive text.

After a brief jointly written introduction, the two authors present separate essays on Australia and on the Pacific islands. Each essay is organized into three parallel sections. In the first, "Tradition," the authors consider...