Marqueas Thesis

Marquesas Thesis

The early Marquesans did many things that are outrageous and extreme. Their views and takes on their environment and their existence seemed natural and common to them as their societal norm. What they believed in played a heavy role in their culture because they didn 't have much knowledge of their world. They needed to have faith in things such as religion. The ancient Marquesans believed the gods controlled everything and were a part of people 's daily lives, dead people became spirits, and even minor spiritual things were important. The ancient Marquesans, like many other traditional cultures, had strong religious beliefs. The Marquesan 's lives revolved around mainly the gods, and less about themselves. This is

Another reason that they believed things other than reality and life was that they believed in their own spiritual beings and the idea of sacredness. They had ceremonies and chants for their inner spiritual beings. They had a lot of sacred things too, such as chants for the powerful leaders, and land that they couldn 't just do whatever they wanted on. Most of those were special religious grounds that they were supposed to respect. They were taught not to go on these places because they are considered sacred and special. Things like tapu, or the sacredness of the land, were also important. Their arts were especially sacred too. It was important to them because, "The act of artistic creation was itself sacred, or tapu… some tuhaka such as tattooissts and ear ornament makers, were essentially professional artists." (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 4) The ancient Marquesans believed that they would die in effect of breaking the tapu. Evil spirits and sorcery were also a main cause of death. These aren 't real, but they were assumed to be very real in traditional Marquesas. In conclusion, the people in ancient Marquesas believed strongly in things that were spiritual, religious, and sacred only based on belief. They believed in the supernatural because it was their only way of having an idea of what there was around them and who they were. Because they didn 't know much, they had to guess. The Marquesans were very interesting, and their societal norm was different