Pulotu: Database of Austronesian Religions

Pulotu, the proto-Polynesian word for the abode of the gods, is a database of supernatural beliefs and practices across Austronesian cultures. The database includes 137 Austronesian cultures and 63 variables on religion, history, society, and the natural environment. This database is specifically designed to test evolutionary hypotheses of religious belief and practice, with a primary focus on the traditional state of cultures. A major advantage of Pulotu is that robust language phylogenies are available for Austronesian cultures. This enables the use of phylogenetic comparative methods which provide the ability to reconstruct the states of proto-cultures, account for common ancestry in cross-cultural analysis, and test for correlated evolution between traits.

Project team: Oliver Sheehan, Joseph Watts, Russell D. Gray, Simon J. Greenhill, Quentin D. Atkinson, Joseph Bulbulia, Carlos A. Botero, Stef Gomes-Ng, Angeline Song, Joanne Ong, Sam Passmore, Kirsty Maurits, Goldie Hamilton, Kelsey Buntain, Alex Thomson

Publications from this project

• Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity

  Watts J, Greenhill SJ, Atkinson QD, Currie TE, Bulbulia J & Gray RD. 2015. Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity in Austronesia. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 20142556.

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• Pulotu: Database of Austronesian Supernatural Beliefs and Practices

  Watts J, Sheehan O, Greenhill SJ, Gomes-Ng S, Atkinson QD, Bulbulia J & Gray RD. 2015. Pulotu: Database of Austronesian Supernatural Beliefs and Practices. PLoS ONE 10(9): e0136783.

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