The History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic

http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/4/the-history-of-mana-how-an-austronesian-concept-became-a-video-game-mechanic

by chesterfield • 12 years ago

129 47 12 years ago

theappendix.net

Pxtl• 12 years ago

Long article is long. Funny, I was a huge fan of Niven when I was a kid but only read his SF books, never his fantasy.

egypturnash• 12 years ago

Hah, I guessed "Niven's fantasy books" would be an important part of this story.

The back of my head is saying "but what about JRPGs using the term since forever" when he only discusses M:TG and Warcraft but I could be wrong.

pyre• 12 years ago

but what about JRPGs using the term since forever

Before MTG though? I just remember magic depending on "MP" was "magic points/power" just like "HP" was "hit points" (i.e. 'life'). What's the earliest JRPG to call it 'mana?'

jcl• 12 years ago

The article implies that Final Fantasy was inspired to use "MP" from Ultima III, which used it as an abbreviation of "magic points". The article then goes on to say that the first game to explicitly use "MP" to mean "mana points" was Dungeon Master, which came out the same year as Final Fantasy, but was not a JRPG.

joe_the_user• 12 years ago

I remember playing home-brew D&D games in the late seventies. MP were manna points.

Whether it mana from polynesia or manna from Exodus is was ambiguous for broadly but spottily educated seventeen year olds.

But yes, I am sure that any rigid tracing of the term in role playing to 2 or 5 sources is going to fail.

scott_karana• 12 years ago

Squaresoft's Secret of Mana came out the same year at M:TG, 1993.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

Before MTG though?

Don't know about JRPGs, but at least some American tabletop RPGs used the term "mana" relating to magic earlier than M:tG -- e.g., GURPS used "mana levels" to describe the strength of the ambient magical field (not as "magic points") since at least the publication of the first edition of GURPS Fantasy in 1986.

bcoates• 12 years ago

DikuMUD came out before M:TG and had mana, and is the CRPG ancestor of World of Warcraft (by way of EverQuest).

Scarblac• 12 years ago

Is there any source that says that it was specifically Diku that led to EverQuest? LPMud etc also dates from 1989/90 and also had mana, as had Populous as someone else mentions.

There must be a game before that that also used mana, I think GURPS is the most likely mentioned so far.

ekianjo• 12 years ago

JRPG are not that ancient. Akalabeth (running on a band of paper with holes!), Ultima on early computers are way before any JRPG came out.

Taniwha3• 12 years ago

Well I live in New Zealand - "mana" is a Maori word that's sometimes used when referring to people - it doesn't really have a "supernatural" meaning, more one of "well earned importance and respect" - someone with great mana has the respect of their peers/community/tribe and deserve respect by others for this reason

fit2rule3• 12 years ago

I believe your understanding of the contemporary definition of mana is through a Christian lens. What the Maori thought it means, and what Christian missionaries allowed contemporary culture to understand it to be, are two different things. It wouldn't have served the Christian purpose to allow for a kind of spirituality to prosper that was more willing to pander to the supernatural in life - this is supposed to be Christs' job, after all. I think the definition as you have stated it is far from what the originators of the language intended .. but who knows? Maybe we're both wrong, and its indeed a harvestable spiritual substance that can be used to make yourself more powerful in the physical world.

Taniwha3• 12 years ago

I'm just trying to explain how the word is used today, AFAIK that christ guy is dead already - I'm not at all religious and I hear the word being use in secular, political contexts in modern New Zealand - I was just trying to explain its modern meaning

EdwardDiego• 12 years ago

What the Maori thought it means, and what Christian missionaries allowed contemporary culture to understand it to be

You are committing a common error in portraying the Māori and their culture as being crushed and suppressed by colonialism. Hapless victims. The reality of the interplay between missionary and Māori is far more nuanced than that and you a strong disservice to Māori in your portrayal.

I'd ask what basis you have for your assertions about the 'lost' definition of mana, when the definition of mana in the Māori Dictionary specificially states:

2. (noun) prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, spiritual power, charisma - mana is a supernatural force in a person, place or object.

It goes on to explain how mana originates from the Atua and propagates down. It also discusses the close relation between mana and tapu. http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/word/3424

205guy• 12 years ago

I wanted to say the same thing as Taniwha. My understanding of mana in Hawaiian pre-contact usage was a combination of the qualities we would call leadership, charisma, and popularity. People with mana made good chiefs, led their warriors in battle and earned respect. They would be good politicians nowadays.

I'd be very interested in any further explanation from fit2rule about the missionary influence on the term. What you say is plausible, but is it based on real sources or just your interpretation? Most Polynesian societies were not secular in the sense that the chiefs consulted with the priests who interpreted the signs of their deity and both acted accordingly. So the chiefs ruled somewhat by divine authority, and the social taboos were couched in religious meaning. So mana could have had a meaning of divine grace or chosen by the gods, yet a modern-day Hawaiian shaman did not explain it to me that way.

Taniwha3• 12 years ago

I probably should expand a bit - "mana" in the modern NZ context is a bit more fluid - you can also carry the mana of a group when you represent them (and do damage to it when you represent them poorly)

Probably "reputation" is the best pakeha (western) equivalent to the concept

GrumpySimon• 12 years ago

Yes, words change meaning, especially when they're imported across language boundaries. Originally mana DID mean something like spiritual power, and is heavily linked to terms for thunder, lightning etc.

Currently it's used in NZ to mean prestige, but it's original sense was much broader - a tree that grows well has mana. Gods have mana. People get mana through (1) their heritage (i.e. high status families have more mana), (2) from other people i.e. we give a sportsperson mana because we respect their ability to kick a ball, and (3) via the group (e.g. if I'm part of a prestigious group, some of thir mana reflects onto me).

There's a good article on it here: http://www.justice.govt.nz/publications/publications-archive...

dwd• 12 years ago

The Force (Star Wars) was inspired very much by this spiritual meaning as places could have strong mana as well.

While the etymology is supposedly Proto-Oceanic, there's an interesting parallel with Kriyamana karma, particularly in the more modern usage of gaining/losing mana/karma through your actions.

twic• 12 years ago

Going by (the abstract of) a paper i came across [1], it's possible-to-likely that this was the original meaning of 'mana', and that the use to refer to some kind of abstract supernatural charge is either a derivation or a misunderstanding.

The abstract begins:

Comparative data are assembled to suggest that in Proto-Oceanic, mana was canonically a stative verb meaning 'be efficaceous, be successful, be realized, "work"'. Where mana was used as a noun, it was (and in most daughter languages is) not a substantive but an abstract verbal noun: 'efficacy', 'success', 'potency'.

[1] http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3629696?uid=3738032&ui...

fit2rule3• 12 years ago

What, no "Magic Carpet"? Pfftt ..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Carpet_(video_game)

I was very amused when this game was released and there was 'mana everywhere', but as an Australian I guess I kind of already knew what mana was by then .. what fascinates me about this article is that it seems that we're finally looking beyond the prejudice and realizing - contemporaneously - that we lost a lot of value in life because our forefathers were racist, intolerant assholes.

liotier2• 12 years ago

What, no mention of Populous ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populous

joshu2• 12 years ago

What, no mention of every random game that had the concept of mana?

jpatokal• 12 years ago

Populous was a blockbuster game and it predates both Warcraft and Diablo by half a decade (released 1989), so it is indeed a striking omission. It's also the first game I can remember that used the concept by that name.

swayvil• 12 years ago

Mana == Prana (yoga) == Chi (I dunno, karate or something) (== attention, maybe). People have been talking about this stuff forever.

Generalized cosmic power.

People scoff, but I think that modern people are just different. A shift in sensitivities happened. We're all about ideas now.

Consider the classic case of the geek who can't get laid. It's like he's blind to something.

hosh• 12 years ago

I can quibble with that -- mana would be more like refined jing, or shen in the "three treasures" schema (jing-chi-shen).

The sensitivity has always been here, though it has been suppressed (among some other weirder phenomena) Some interesting readings:

* http://earthweareone.com/what-a-shaman-sees-in-a-mental-hosp...

* Ken Wilber's arguments about the "dignity" and "diasaster" of modernity (_The Marriage of Sense and Soul_)

It's less about modern people and more about modernity itself. Modernity currently treats anything woo woo (pre-modern) as childish, wishful thinking (think, "The Secret"), and as a result, there has been pathological disassociation with wisdom traditions.

GlennS• 12 years ago

Mojo?

yawaramin• 12 years ago

... A shift in sensitivities happened. We're all about ideas now.

Nah, we're all about Stack Overflow rep now.

acheron• 12 years ago

Just so you know, it's pronounced "monna". http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/06/16

mhurron• 12 years ago

contingencies• 12 years ago

Pacific Island cultures are the origin of the concept of mana, and yet more people in the world have learned about the concept from WoW or other fantasy games. At its height, there were more players of World of Warcraft than Pacific Islanders.

Goddamn we need more online anthropology!

benbreen• 12 years ago

We need more of both! I know more than one anthropologist in training whose "field work" involves lurking on online message boards and fora - guessing that online anthropology will become an increasingly hot topic in the next couple years.

partomniscient• 12 years ago

A subset is already covered by the http://knowyourmeme.com site.

diziet• 12 years ago

Another question: Why is mana almost always blue?

melloclello• 12 years ago

I would say that's in order to contrast with the typical HP bar, which goes from green to red as you lose health.

thro2• 12 years ago

playing the devil's advocate here, the name "mana" for the concept in question came much later than its incorporation into video games (as "MP"), which argues against the concept having been borrowed from the culture that had the word "mana". and at least after the fact, MP are an obvious solution for the problem of rate limiting spells - so it's plausible to argue that the inherent concept probably would have shown up in games independently of any particular tribal society using it in their formulation of magic or not.

programminggeek• 12 years ago

What about the bible? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna

polemic• 12 years ago

Did you know: as pointed out here, "mana" is used in New Zealand (not just by Māori) and means something like "status" or "honour" (to drastically simplify a nuanced and powerful word[1]). Its also the name of a left wing party that Kim Dotcom has allied his Internet Party with for the upcoming election. The joint party is called "Internet Mana Party"[2] and is likely to achieve at least two seats on the new parliament.

1. http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&prove...

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana_Party#Internet_Mana_Party....

jkldotio• 12 years ago

It seems remiss of the article to not mention the word 'manna' meaning a mystical food or a spiritual nourishment. The OED has it as a Hebrew word, possibly coming from Aramaic word. Most often rendered in English with two N's, following the Greek μάννα, it is sometimes spelled with one. It appears not only in the bible but is used in English in multiple senses in every century from the 13th to the 21st.

I'm not saying there isn't a Austronesian connection, I just think an academic piece would do well to mention a credible second hypothesis. I'm not a linguist but without very clear and direct evidence my working hypothesis would be that both words probably had an influence on the fantasy version. "Manna from Heaven" would have been heard in conversation by almost every single person he names in the article. Shakespeare, Milton and Dickens all use it.

nnq• 12 years ago

There's also a "mana" word in Eastern European languages ( http://dexonline.ro/definitie/mana - it's an archaic-regional word, not new or imported from French/English!), VERY polysemantic, with some distantly similar meanings, and with some negative connotations, usually listed everywhere as having either a Greek or a Slavic root (мана), but also fond in older Bible translations... so a Hebrew -> Slavic -> (...) route might be possible. And this is way older than Mircea Eliade's rediscovery and popularization of the Austronesian word.

99% coincidence, but who knows, we might even have a common origin of Indo-European and Austronesian languages showing up it's head here...

Reminds me of the 2000+ years old Sanskrit word "avatar" that also got a whole new meaning in the digital world :)

thaumasiotes• 12 years ago

99% coincidence, but who knows, we might even have a common origin of indo-european and Austronesian languages showing up it's head here...

This isn't possible given the timescales involved. Constant language change means there's no way to distinguish hypothetically identical-by-descent words that diverged so long ago from unsurprising identical-by-coincidence words. What cannot be detected in theory cannot usefully be said to exist at all.

In sum, an even more ancient common origin of ancient language families cannot be described as "showing itself" anywhere, since there's nothing left to be seen.

CurtMonash• 12 years ago

Did they write a whole article on the subject without mentioning Larry Niven's role?

Per Wikipedia, "Not Long Before the End" was first published in 1969. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Goes_Away

That said, I must confess that there was a difference between his concept and the modern computer-RPG one -- his mana was present in the environment in general, rather than being specific to any one spellcaster.

(I am permanently ashamed that I didn't see the close connection to Nevinyrral's Disk until it was pointed out, but the I generally don't quickly see backward spellings. E.g., it took me about a week to understand the name of the "Alucard" vampire build in Elder Scrolls Online.)

throwaway283719• 12 years ago

Did you try searching the article for the phrase "Larry Niven"? He is mentioned about halfway down.

The History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic

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