Author: Robert Dean Craig
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313069468
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 462
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Book Description
Prior to 1500 A.D. the Polynesians were the most widely spread people on earth, having settled an area of the Pacific, the Polynesian Triangle, twice the size of the United States. In this first reference guide to the mythology of these Vikings of the Pacific, Craig reviews Polynesian legends, stories, gods, goddesses, and heroes in hundreds of alphabetical entries that succinctly describe both characters and events. His wide-ranging and thorough introduction sets the subject in its geographic, historical, anthropological, and linguistic contexts, offering an illuminating overview of the origin of the Polynesians as a distinct people and tracing their voyages and settlements from Indonesia to Malaysia, Tonga, Samoa, the Marquesas, the various islands of eastern Polynesia, including Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand. The introduction presents fascinating information on Polynesian navigational skills and the voyages themselves, as well as a chart that details the evolution of the thirty Polynesian languages and compares cognates from several of these languages. A simplified pronunciation guide and a selected list of Polynesian dictionaries and/or grammars are provided for those interested in pursuing the richness of the Polynesian languages. This introductory survey gives readers the necessary background to understand the origin, development, and dispersion of the myths throughout the Pacific basin. The Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology is the result of many years of research. The individual entries were gleaned from nearly 300 sources in English, German, French, and Polynesian languages with the majority extracted from a number of primary sources that date generally in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The printed source materials for this volume are fully described and listed by geographical group, including Maori, Cook Islands, Tahitian, Marquesan, Hawaiian, Samoan, and Tongan. General collections that retell the Polynesian stories are also surveyed. The entries are alphabetically arranged by major mythological figure; lesser characters can be located in the index. Short bibliographical citations--author, date, and page number--are included at the end of each main entry to direct readers to fuller information contained in the printed sources. An appendix provides valuable supplemental information on Polynesian gods and goddesses. This dictionary is sure to become a basic reference tool for libraries, students, and scholars of Pacific history and culture, as well as for courses in mythology, religion, and philosophy.
Author: Robert D. Craig
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810842373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
Alphabetically arranged entries, ranging in length from a paragraph to several pages, describe the important people, food, native animals, politics, history, and culture of Polynesia, which is made up of more than a dozen countries, including American Samoa, French Polynesia, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Tonga. The book includes a four-page list of acronyms, an extensive chronology, and appendices with the names of Polynesian islands and lists of political rulers of the various states through history. Author Craig (emeritus, history, Alaska Pacific U.) has created several other dictionaries on Oceania, Polynesian mythology, and Hawaii. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Author: Edward Tregear
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dictionaries. Maori-Polynesian
Languages : en
Pages : 710
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Book Description
"Māori dictionary with English definitions and Polynesian comparisons"--BIM.
Author: Jan Knappert
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
Entries discuss the myths and traditions of Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Phillipines, and the islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia.
Author: Michael Jordan
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438109857
Category : Goddesses
Languages : en
Pages : 417
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Book Description
Presents brief entries describing the gods and goddesses from the mythology and religion of a wide variety of cultures throughout history.
Author: Edward Tregear
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780331886726
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 706
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Book Description
Excerpt from The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary An original part of the lexicon is that treating of the gods, heroes, &c., being short abstracts of the principal events for which their worship or their histories were famous. Want of space forbade lengthy notice or full repetition of legend, but where the tradition was too long for detailed relation, copious references have been given to the small class of books bearing on the subject. No small proportion of the labour expended upon this work was exerted in providing examples of the use of words, both in Maori and Polynesian. Many thousands of lines from old poems, traditions, and ancient proverbs have been quoted. The examples might more easily have been given by the construction of sentences showing the use of the particular words, but, rejecting made-up examples as being in practice always open to adverse criticism, preference has been given to passages by well-known authors, where the words can be verified and the context consulted. To have given a quotation in this manner for every word would have been impossible; some of the words are not to be found in any printed record, and to have devoted a still greater length of time to the collection of examples would not have produced a result commensurate with the loss of time occasioned by long delay before publication, or even, perhaps, with the chance of the work never being finished at all. Although the dictionary relates to the classification of Polynesian dialects proper, Malay, Melanesian, and Micronesian vocabularies have also furnished comparatives. These vocabularies are mostly in a very imperfect state, and the phonography full of variations; but the words are suggestive both as to letter-changes and meanings. It does not follow that any of these words are related to Polynesian, but the coincidences are many, and until the laws by which all languages are governed are more fully explored, it would be mischievous to exclude these apparently similar forms from comparison with each other. Farther on I have thanked those authors and those friends from whom I have received assistance. This refers to the raw material only. In collecting the vocabularies, in searching for comparisons, in making quotations for examples, in the compilation, in the whole of the philological and literary work I have been unassisted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Author: Philip Wilkinson
Publisher: DK Children
ISBN: 9780756620172
Category : Mythology
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Identifies key gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, themes, and symbols from the mythologies of the world.
Author: Robert Dean Craig
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1576078957
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
An accessible, concise reference source on Polynesia's complex mythology, product of a culture little known outside its home. Encounters with the West introduced Polynesian mythology to the world—and sealed its fate as a casualty of colonialism. But for centuries before the Europeans came, that mythology was as vast as the triangle of ocean in which it flourished, as diverse as the people it served, and as complex as the mythologies of Greece and Rome. Students, researchers, and enthusiasts can follow vivid retellings of stories of creation, death, and great voyages, tracking variations from island to island. They can use the book's reference section for information on major deities, heroes, elves, fairies, and recurring themes, as well as the mythic implications of everything from dogs and volcanoes to the hula, Easter Island, and tattooing (invented in the South Pacific and popularized by returning sailors).
Author: Gertrude Jobes
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810816978
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
A timeless classic.
Author: Shelley A. Kaehr
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738771848
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
Your Complete Guide to Hundreds of Goddesses Around the World Meet the many incarnations of the divine feminine, past and present, with this comprehensive reference guide by bestselling author Shelley A. Kaehr, PhD. Featuring more than five hundred goddesses, over forty exercises and journal prompts, and guided journeys for understanding yourself at the soul level, this book connects you with ancestral energy and can bring peace and balance to your life. Shelley first introduces you to goddesses of the ancient world, exploring Egyptian, Celtic, Greek, Norse, and Mesoamerican pantheons. She then shares the living goddesses of modern world religions—African, East Asian, Hindu, and Indigenous peoples. Each goddess entry features her keywords, categories, history, and lore. In discovering these deities, you can enliven goddess energy within you and even uncover past lives.
