McAra, Sally A. (2000). "The Land
of the Stupa and Sacred Puriri": Creating Buddhism in the
Tararu Valley, New Zealand. Department of Anthropology. The University
of Auckland; 133pp; 9 plates
Anthropological studies of religion have for a long time focussed
on small-scale societies, the cultural Other of Western imaginings.
In considering cross-cultural interactions resulting in syncretism
or indigenisation of alien religions, recent studies have focussed
on the unequal power relations between colonising and colonised
peoples. Attempting to avoid portraying the colonised simply as
victims, anthropologists have highlighted the ways that indigenous
peoples appropriated the Christianity imposed on them, converting
it into expressions of cultural resilience. By way of contrast,
this work focuses on Westerners who seek to appropriate knowledge
from an "Eastern" tradition in order to create an alternative
society within their own region, highlighting the ways that the
"West" is no more of a unitary whole than the Other.
Members of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) draw
on various cultural expressions to transform their property into
what they call a "spiritual home". Their adoption of
alien knowledge can be read as a critique of their wider socio-cultural
situation, especially what they see as Western society's characteristic
alienation from the Truth, and its consequent spiritual lacunae.
FWBO members deploy discourses of transformation
and personal growth, a feature of parts of Western society concerned
with the project of the self (Bell 1996, cf. Mellor 1991). Key
individuals involved in this New Zealand case study consciously
make use of narratives about what they call the "mythic dimension",
and about the linked transformation of self, society and land.
In particular, I investigate members' narratives about their transformative
relationship with the land. I analyse these discourses and the
FWBO's transformative project through a thematic focus on several
key landmarks at Sudarshanaloka, as well as the place itself,
to "think with" about their Buddhist project in general,
and their specific relationship with the land. An old kauri log
is a relic from a bygone era of destructive milling and mining,
while an old puriri tree passes through several re-definitions,
first as a Buddhist shrine and then as a "pagan" one.
A devotional monument known as a "stupa" is seen to
act as a bridge, enabling people to relate to the inconceivable
Buddhist ideal of Enlightenment. In its central place in FWBO
discourse, the stupa also highlights the ways in which members
act to create a particularly New Zealand identity within the global
In their use of both "native"
FWBO and "alien" knowledge, they engage in a bricolagic
creation of a Buddhist environment and community. Through these
practices, members are inventing a Buddhist "sacred place"
while creating themselves as a community.
Buddhism in New Zealand; Friends of
the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO);
syncretism; material culture; place; stupas; Western Buddhism