Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. With a new foreword by his daughter Mary Katherine Bateson, this classic anthology of his major work will continue to delight and inform generations of readers.

"This collection amounts to a retrospective exhibition of a working life. . . . Bateson has come to this position during a career that carried him not only into anthropology, for which he was first trained, but into psychiatry, genetics, and communication theory. . . . He . . . examines...

"Naven" is the name of a peculiar ritual practiced by Iatmul, a head-hunting tribe of New Guinea.Th e ceremony is performed to congratulate members of the tribe upon the completion of notable accomplishments, among which homicide ranks highest. Ordinarily this tribe insists upon an extreme contrast between the sexes, but in the "naven" ceremony, tranvestitism and ritual homosexuality are represented. The "naven" serves in this book as a motive around which the author has constructed one of the most influential works of field anthropology ever written.

-Naven- is the name of a peculiar ritual practiced by Iatmul, a head-hunting tribe of New Guinea.Th e ceremony is performed to congratulate members of the tribe upon the completion of notable accomplishments, among which homicide ranks highest. Ordinarily this tribe insists upon an extreme contrast between the sexes, but in the -naven- ceremony, tranvestitism and ritual homosexuality are represented. The -naven- serves in this book as a motive around which the author has constructed one of the most influential works of field anthropology ever written.

Nach Geist und Natur. Eine notwendige Einheit hat Gregory Bateson an dem vorliegenden Buch gearbeitet, das er zu Lebzeiten aber nicht mehr zum Abschlu bringen konnte und das von seiner Tochter Mary Catherine fertiggestellt wurde.Ausgehend von dem, was wir ber die biologische Welt wissen, sowie davon, was wir ber das Erkennen zu begreifen vermgen, mchte Bateson erklren, was unter dem Heiligen zu verstehen sein knnte. Neben dem Heiligen spielen zwei weitere integrative Erfahrungsdimensionen eine wichtige Rolle: die des sthetischen und die des Bewutseins. Es ist diese Konstellation von...