Award Date

1-1-1998

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Anthropology and Ethnic Studies

First Committee Member

William Jankowiak

Number of Pages

67

Abstract

Christian missionaries came to Tonga in the 19th century with the intention of converting the Tongans to Christianity and transforming Tongan society to fit with European-Victorian ideals. The missionaries were successful in their conversion efforts. However, traditional Tongan society was not merely replaced: cultural ideals blended. How this occurred, and the degree to which cultural features were affected, was based in part on the role of cognition. Cognitive and psychological concepts of culture change are applied to existing literature in an attempt to clarify the picture of culture change in Tonga. In addition, schema tendencies are identified through the proposed models of schema centrality and schema replacement. These new concepts are discussed as they affect the form and shape of culture change.

Keywords

Christian; Cognition; Internalization; Motivation; Reformulation; Schema; Tonga

Controlled Subject

Ethnology; Religious history

File Format

pdf

File Size

1710.08 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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