Note 6.1 — PSYCHE’S TASK

Superstitious respect for chiefs in Melanesia. Among many peoples the task of government has been greatly facilitated by a superstition that the governors belong to a superior order of beings and possess certain supernatural or magical powers to which the governed can make no claim and can offer no resistance. Thus Dr. Codrington tells us that among the Melanesians “the power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief in their supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in the Banks’ Islands for example some time ago, the position of a chief has tended to become obscure; and as this belief is now being generally undermined a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to begin.”6.1 According to a native Melanesian account, the authority of chiefs rests entirely on the belief that they hold communication with mighty ghosts and possess that supernatural power or mana, as it is called, whereby they are able to bring the influence of the ghosts to bear on human life. If a chief imposed a fine, it was paid because the people firmly believed that he could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as resisted him. As soon as any considerable number of his subjects began to disbelieve in his influence with the ghosts, his power to levy fines was shaken.7.1 It is thus that in Melanesia religious scepticism tends to undermine the foundations of civil society.