Among the people of Avatip, a community in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, the most prestigious and valued forms of wealth are personal names. In this intriguing study, Simon Harrison analyzes the significance of names in the context of Avatip ritual, cosmology, and concepts of the person, and shows how the Avatip system of names parallels the gift-exchange systems of many other Melanesian societies. In ritualized debates, which form the arena of Avatip political life, rival leaders and the groups they represent struggle in oratorical contests for the possession of strategic names, and...

Among the people of Avatip, a community in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, the most prestigious and valued forms of wealth are personal names. In this intriguing study, Simon Harrison analyzes the significance of names in the context of Avatip ritual, cosmology, and concepts of the person, and shows how the Avatip system of names parallels the gift-exchange systems of many other Melanesian societies. In ritualized debates, which form the arena of Avatip political life, rival leaders and the groups they represent struggle in oratorical contests for the possession of strategic names, and...