The Hidden Power of the Whites. The Secret Religion Withheld from the Primal Peoples / Le Pouvoir caché des Blancs. La religion secrète dissimulée aux peuples primitifs. - article ; n°1 ; vol.46, pg 41-55

Harold W.Turner.

Description

Archives des sciences sociales des religions - Année 1978 - Volume 46 - Numéro 1 - Pages 41-55
15 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Archives-des-sciences-sociales-des-religions
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1978
• Nombre de lectures: 34
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Harold W. Turner
The Hidden Power of the Whites. The Secret Religion Withheld
from the Primal Peoples / Le Pouvoir caché des Blancs. La
religion secrète dissimulée aux peuples primitifs.
In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 46/1, 1978. pp. 41-55.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Turner Harold W. The Hidden Power of the Whites. The Secret Religion Withheld from the Primal Peoples / Le Pouvoir caché
des Blancs. La religion secrète dissimulée aux peuples primitifs. In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 46/1, 1978.
pp. 41-55.
doi : 10.3406/assr.1978.2156
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/assr_0335-5985_1978_num_46_1_2156Are/i 5c soc des Rel. 1978 46/1 juillet-septembre) 41 55
Harold TURNER
THE HIDDEN POWER OF THE WHITES
The Secret Religion Withheld from the Primal Peoples
La transmission de la culture occidentale et de sa tradition
chrétienne aux peuples des sociétés primitives accompagne inévi
tablement de choix et de modifications qui conduisent des inter
prétations inattendues Ainsi par exemple les primitifs croient
généralement que les Blancs ont pas partagé tout leur savoir ni
le vrai christianisme Parmi les nombreuses raisons possibles
évoque plus spécialement le point de vue des primitifs sur les
sources du pouvoir les traditions locales relatives une sagesse
perdue et celles qui interprètent écriture comme un acte rituel
chargé de pouvoir De surcroît les peuples primitifs doutent que
les missionnaires leur aient apporté traduit et enseigné la Bible
dans sa totalité et les rites chrétiens authentiques Ces doutes sont
renforcés par la découverte des apocryphes de la Bible et une
certaine littérature occulte importée ainsi que par interprétation
de certains textes bibliques évoquant un pouvoir plus étendu et
une connaissance plus éclairée Une des conséquences les plus signi
ficatives est apparition fréquente de nouveaux livres sacrés pré
tendument révélés ou transmis aux fondateurs de nouveaux mou
vements religieux ainsi que la mise au point de nouvelles méthodes
pour interprêter la Bible occidentale aide de prophètes locaux
de visions et de drogues
Thé interaction between Western culture and its Christian religion and
the primal cultures of the world has been proceeding with ever accelerating
speed ever since the era of European expansion commenced late in the fifteenth
century In this interaction it is inevitable that the stronger and more sophisticat
ed culture is encountered assimilated and understood only in selective fashion
On the part of the stronger culture which becomes more donor than recipient
this selection and modification are partly unconscious and partly matter of
policy where certain elements are withheld for reasons of political control
prestige paternal kindness or desire to minimize the culture shock arising from
the encounter The weaker primal culture also makes its own selection from
what is offered to it and adds its own interpretation The interaction process
therefore in the contact of cultures is exceedingly complex no one ever knows
exactly what is happening and serious misunderstandings occur on both sides
without anyone realizing that they are
41 ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS
Western cultures are never received as integral wholes but only through
selections from their political judicial commercial educational and religious
systems and from their technologies selections abstracted from the histories
values and meanings of the total context in which they can be understood and
from which these systems receive their power When the selected aspects of
white culture transplanted into primal societies do not speedily bring the full
knowledge and power of the whites to the primal peoples the latter may
explain the mystery in way that is rational and quite correct there must
be more to it than we have seen and the whites are withholding something
important from us This situation has occurred in all five continents of white
Christian expansion and missionary activity and is expressed in beliefs to be
found in primal societies across the world and especially in their own new
religious movements beliefs that the whites have neither revealed the full secrets
of their Christianity nor given the local peoples the full or the true Bible
The suspicions are focussed on these the spiritual dimensions of white culture
since for most primal cultures the ultimate sources of power are magical and
ritual mystical or spiritual it is only through full access to the white
religion therefore that the local people can both explain and share in the
power of the whites
recognise that there are many exceptions to this thesis as for example
the Niger Delta people who as early as the 1870s petitioned for secular subjects
rather than religious teaching in mission schools But this religious interpretation
of the sources of power is only the first of many ways in which primal cultures
are strongly preconditioned to misunderstand the Christian religion of the white
peoples As further cultural factor there is the common belief that power
is related to secret knowledge possessed only by the magician or the priest
or by those who have been initiated into one of the secret societies so often
found among primal peoples
It was only to be expected therefore that the source of this impressive
power of the Europeans would be most closely guarded or known only to the
few We are told for instance of an old and serious minded Maori warrior
in New Zealand who consulted W.E Gudgeon on the subject of the Scriptures
After forty years studying them he had concluded there was nothing in them
available to him and that the key to the great book was in the hands of the
bishops who selfishly kept to themselves all that was of real value When
Gudgeon protested that he had never heard of any such thing he was cut off
with the sarcastic remark that since he was not bishop it was hardly likely
that he would know anything about it For said the old warrior it is not
the Maoris only who are being defrauded but the Europeans also The
reasoning is clearly culturally based the Maori tohungas or medicine-men
kept their powerful incantations in their own hands and likewise the bishops
as superior class of tohunga would keep the really powerful parts of the
Bible from the lower clergy and the laity 1)
W.E GUDGEON The Maori his Customs and Folklore n.d 1905 section on
Maori superstition pp 2-3
42 THE SECRET RELIGION
From Papua New Guinea we have current reports of the same explanation
being found for any successful secular activities on the part of an individual
In Bougainville in the 1960s Paul Lapun who had long been Catholic teacher
became successful political leader in the national assembly by his own abilities
and the ordinary processes many of his supporters however attributed
his success to secret knowledge and magic powers he had learned as school
teacher from the Catholic missionaries and the sacred Christian books Like
wise the same explanation was offered when another ex-teacher in Catholic
school in the Madang District made conspicuous success of his trade store
instead of failing as so many local entrepreneurs had done it was not matter
of rational organization hard work or business acumen but of spiritual and
secret knowledge leamt from the priests 3)
This notion of secret wisdom or of knowledge as yet undiscovered
that would provide the way to success or the answer to current misfortunes
pervades many primal cultures it provides striking testimony to belief
that is life can and should be better than it is and supplies some of the
dynamic for innovation even in the apparently conservative primal societies
As third cultural factor leading to this interpretation there is common
belief in an original wisdom or knowledge sometimes even contained in book
that was given by the gods at the creation and included all the things known
to the whites and more but which has been the victim of some primeval mis
fortune or subsequent human wrongdoing Among one group of Karen hill
peoples of Burma the sacred book was believed to have been preserved but
they had forgotten how to read the script when in 1828 the first Christian
missionary entered their area they hopefully approached him with what turned
out to be much revered copy of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer
Even more pathetic is the current belief of the Telakhon cult among these
same Karen that Ywa the High God had in the beginning set aside the Book
of Gold for the Karen They however were too busy with mundane affairs
to come and collect it and so it was entrusted instead to their younger white
brothers who had profited from it in the meantime but would in the end return
and share it with the Karen There was great excitement in the 1960s when
formal invitation went forth from the cult to missionaries in Thailand to bring
their Bible which was undoubtedly the Book of God to the cult leaders and
even greater disappointment when it was discovered that