Ancient Religions of the Austronesian World

'Julian Baldick seeks to do for the "Austronesian" world, which ranges from Taiwan to Australasia, what Georges Dumezil sought to do for the Indo-European world: show a once unified culture. Like Dumezil, who is his inspiration, Baldick starts with language but then extends language to culture as a whole, and to religion in particular. Again following Dumezil, Baldick offers a tripartite scheme, but one that fits the distinctiveness of Austronesia: mortuary rituals, headhunting, and agrarian rituals tied to the calendar. Baldick is not the first to propose a unified culture for this area, but he systematically brings together the many disparate studies of individual peoples to make the strongest case to date for a uniquely Austronesian cultural domain.' Robert A Segal, Sixth Century Professor of Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen 'This is a book inspired by the great French Indo-European comparativist, Georges Dumezil. It is an attempt to identify central features of early Austronesian religious life: first, a deep concern with incorporative mortuary rituals that generally included secondary burial; second, an associated commitment to headhunting to bolster prosperity and community prestige; and third, the performance of agrarian rituals linked to hunting whose emphasis was on human fertility. To illustrate these ancient Austronesian religious ideas, Julian Baldick has selectively surveyed a considerable ethnographic literature covering the Austronesian populations from Madagascar to Hawaii to document the diverse and varied evidence that can be considered as lingering refractions of an earlier Austronesian way of life. This is a book with a broad sweep that retains its clear focus. It is a welcome endeavour and will undoubtedly stimulate further comparative Austronesian research.' James J Fox, Professor, Research School of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University