MANA is a word meaning "occult power" and occurs in many languages of Oceania. It is of uncertain origin, though probably introduced by immigrants from the West. While having also a wider and vaguer application, it stands for the "divine right" of the aristocratic class to wield authority and to enforce religious prohibitions ; the sanction behind the taboo being the mana of the governing class, while conversely that taboo serves to keep the tribal mana intact, that is, ensures the good luck for all that waits on sound government. As a term of general anthropology mina may be treated as the positive, while taboo is the negative aspect, of the occult. In other words the occult as such is taboo, or "not to be lightly approached," because it is mana, or charged with wonder-working power.
In the Pacific region the word noa is used to signify the opposite kind of object or situation which is "common," that is, ordinary. The man who wields mana with impunity must abstain from all that is sordid. There are two worlds, a low-level and a high-level condition of spiritual activity, and a man cannot dwell in both at once. Thus by the very virtue of his profession the medicine man or the divine king must hold himself apart from those who by status or by choice are noa, laymen. The latter may live in brutish contentment ; but to the end they lack enlightenment, participating in the highest mysteries at best from without. Every member of a primitive society is in some degree versed in experience of the occult, though for the most part some better qualified person is present to help him through it.
The initiation of youths, puberty, mar riage, a battle, a hunt may all lead to privations whereby one may acquire mana, "a strong heart," "uplift." Tradition has devised very efficient means of coping with crises, whether of organic origin or due to circumstance, by laying down a prescribed disci pline which as it were enables the sick soul to go into retreat, so as by concentration on its inner resources to obtain an access of strength and comfort. (See PASSAGE RITES.) Maria and Ritual.-01d-world religion is inarticulate, and mana stands for the power set in motion by ritual (q.v.), almost regardless of the intention behind the ritual; which among sav ages is always apprehended rather than comprehended. Thus when the ritual is of a public nature and guaranteed by custom and tradition, the mana therefrom resulting is felt by all to be a good mana. Such and such is known to be the ceremony proper
to the occasion, and everyone is sure that the society will be the better for it. If, on the other hand, a private individual in overt and sinister fashion trafficks with the occult everyone is equally sure that a bad mana liable to afflict all and sundry will be unloosed. Sometimes, too, it is rather difficult to know which way a professional wonder-worker will use his power; for if he can heal he can also hurt, and it might occur to him to hurt if one did not make it worth his while to play the healer. Or, again, a man in authority will certainly use his mana to blast the public enemy, or even to suppress the unruly within his own society, and so far he will be acting legitimately.
Mana, then, is, as Freud would say, an "ambivalent" notion; it cuts both ways, implying alike divine and diabolic effects as possible manifestations of the awful power lurking in the occult. It is thus equally the root-idea of religion and of black magic, since both equally use rites that, duly per formed by the expert, bring mana into play; and the procedure will electrify or electrocute according to the will of the operator. In a dim way the primitive mind perceives, if it hardly conceives, that intention or will has to be incorporated in the notion of mana before its moral value can be expressed. Thus not only from the Pacific but from many other parts of the world, Aus tralia, for example, and North America, evidence is forthcoming of a tendency to split the notion into two, and distinguish a good and a bad kind of mana; as, for instance, orenda and otgon in the Huron dialect. For the Huron everything had its modicum of orenda, the deer, for instance, that might be clever enough to escape the hunter and thus outmatch his luck by greater luck of its own ; but in this world of relative powers there were some that transcended man's so completely that in regard to them he must "lay down his orenda," which simply meant that he must "pray." Moreover, in such a warfare of competing agencies many might be expected to display otgon, the bad kind of orenda. If the primitive mind were clearer about the direction in which to turn for help in what is a pandaemonic rather than a pantheistic universe, the moralization of religion would corre spondingly be brought about. As it is, the notion of the divine power would seem to be historically prior to that of the divine goodness, whether displayed as justice or as love.