SOAS Research Online

Abstract

We can learn a lot about religious ideas by studying not just the impact on them of missionization but also how religious beliefs and practices are translated into local religious forms. In this article I draw attention to the case of the Baha’i faith in the Nalik area of northern New Ireland (Papua New Guinea). In discussing how the faith became strongly associated with the ability to harness ancestral power, I argue that this relationship emerged through Nalik people's ability to think through images, in other words through transforming forms in order to create new understandings. This study not only underlines the importance of localized studies into the technology of image production but also fills a gap in anthropological studies that, up until now, have systematically ignored the Baha’i movement and its place in the contemporary Pacific.