Building on an incipient tendency to make comparisons between Indonesian and Melanesian cultural themes, this study makes a fresh comparison of themes that interrelate ethnographies of eastern Indonesia (for example, Sumba, Flores), Irian Jaya (the Bird's Head), and the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (Melpa, Duna). The themes chosen include slavery and personhood, kinship and commoditization, cassowary myths, sky beings, witchcraft, female spirits, and historical changes.
Such a comparative sweep of themes has not been attempted before for this part of the world, and the thematic...
Building on an incipient tendency to make comparisons between Indonesian and Melanesian cultural themes, this study makes a fresh comparison of the...
This book considers in depth the emergent theme of concerns over bodily fluids in health and wellness through an examination of a rich set of ethnographic materials from the Pacific islands of New Guinea. The particular structure of the book draws together otherwise disparate observations made by ethnographers on ideas of the body. It helps to reveal how these are related to ideas of sickness and curing, of witchcraft, of cannibalism, of gender relations, and of ecology and ritual. It facilitates cross-cultural comparisons with other parts of the world, as well as making clear the...
This book considers in depth the emergent theme of concerns over bodily fluids in health and wellness through an examination of a rich set of ethno...
For courses in Social Organization, Kinship, and Cultural Ecology. Kinship has made a come-back in Anthropology. Not only is there a line of noted, general, introductory works and readers in the topic, but theoretical discussions have been stimulated both by technological changes in mechanisms of reproduction and by reconsiderations of how to define kinship in the most productive ways for cross-cultural comparisons. In addition, kinship studies have moved away from the minutiae of kin terminological systems and the "kinship algebra" often associated with these, to the...
For courses in Social Organization, Kinship, and Cultural Ecology. Kinship has made a come-back in Anthropology. Not only is there...
Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both within and beyond the domain of religion. Ritual can be both secular and religious in character. There is renewed interest in questions such as: Why do rituals exist at all? What has been, and continues to be, their place in society? How do they change over time? Such questions exist against a backdrop of assumptions about development, modernization, and disenchantment of the world.
Written with the specific needs of students of religious studies in mind,...
Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both within and beyond ...
Drawing on both their own fieldwork from 1991 to 1999 and older written sources, Stewart and Strathern explore how the Duna have remade their rituals and associated myths in response to the outside influences of government, Christianity, and large-scale economic development, specifically mining and oil prospecting. The authors provide in-depth ethnographic materials on the Duna and present many detailed descriptions of ritual practices that have been abandoned. Remaking the World is a timely contribution to the literature on agency and the making of cultural identity by indigenous peoples...
Drawing on both their own fieldwork from 1991 to 1999 and older written sources, Stewart and Strathern explore how the Duna have remade their rituals ...
