Melanesian Journal of Theology 3-1 (1987) 74 GOD AS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH (original) (raw)

Abstract

There are no primal (or so-called “primitive”) societies which fail to celebrate their material blessings. When the animals are plentiful; when the tubers grow fat in the ground, or the maize tall and strong in the field; when the women are pregnant, and the men vital in war or negotiation, a small people has the elbow-room to be confident. It is a guarantee of self-respect if one has beasts and harvests good enough to meet one’s round of obligations, or answer the needs of a feast, and it is the fruit of a group’s identity that its members delight, shame, or frighten, out-bargain, or satisfy, its natural competitors. Wealth in primal society is group wealth. There are undeniably individuals, families, or castes more noticeably well-off, and “primitive capitalism ” can indeed exist, so that, among the Tolai of New Britain, for example, it is harder for a native rope to pass through the eye of a bone needle than for a poor man – a man who has failed to accumulate shell-money – to ent...

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References (17)

  1. See also Matt 6:19, 20, 33, etc., Luke 6:21, 24, 1 Tim 6:10, James 5:1ff, etc. 25 That is, as "results", not just food; cf. Gernot Fugmann, "Salvation Expressed in a Melanesian Context", in James Knight, ed., Christ in Melanesia: Exploring Theological Issues, Point (1&2/1977), pp. 122ff (for background).
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