The myths of all known Melanesian peoples are subtly, intricately, and often tacitly bound to fundamental matters of worldview, ethos, and personhood in religious systems of meaning. Yet the study of myth in Melanesia has a long, largely unvaried tradition of being descriptively rich but analytically impoverished. Indeed, this fascinating field of study remains a vast terra incognita in important respects and lags significantly behind the study of Melanesian ritual, in which significant theoretical and comparative advances have been made. Relatively few ethnographies of Melanesian cultures and societies have focused exclusively or even primarily on making theoretical or comparative sense of the marked diversity and remarkable intricacy of the mythology of this area. Most ethnographic studies contain some references to myth, but in general, myth tends to be merely a secondary feature of the central analytic endeavor and is explored—if at all—largely to enhance...