The magical body : power, fame and meaning in a Melanesian society / Richard Eves.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Eves, Richard, author.

Series:

Studies in anthropology and history ; Volume 23.

Studies in anthropology and history

Studies in anthropology and history The magical body

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mandak (Papua New Guinean people)--Rites and ceremonies.

Mandak (Papua New Guinean people).

Mandak (Papua New Guinean people)--Food.

Mandak (Papua New Guinean people)--Agriculture.

Human body--Social aspects--Papua New Guinea--New Ireland Province.

Human body.

Human body--Symbolic aspects--Papua New Guinea--New Ireland Province.

Magic--Papua New Guinea--New Ireland Province.

Magic.

New Ireland Province (Papua New Guinea)--Social life and customs.

New Ireland Province (Papua New Guinea).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (325 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

An intriguing exploration of the role and significance of the body in the world of a Pacific Islands People, the Lelet of New Ireland (Papua New Guinea). In vivid ethnographic detail, the monograph captures the fluidity and complexity of Lelet conceptions of corporeality and their significance to identity as they encounter the influences of modernity, in the form of colonialism, Christianity and cash-cropping. The author examines the importance of the body to constructions of identity and difference, and its role in the constitution of place and space. The book provides a richly detailed ethno

Contents:

Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; List of Illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgements; Language Notes and Conventions; Glossary; Introduction; Ethnographic emplacements and encounters; The Lelet imagining their world; Magic and the anthropological imagination; The body and the anthropological imagination; The power of movement and the movement of power; Outline of book; One Empowering Bodies, Engendering Bodies; Mapping the body; Person, products and the creation of value; Embodiment; Movement, power and the dance; The vulnerable body

Two From Colonialism to Cash CropsColonial governance; From coconuts to cash cropping; Developing roads, developing cash cropping; Three Christianity, Conversion and Magic; 'We are in darkness and many are dying. When is the light coming?'; The-culture hero Moroa who became God; From 'heathen darkness' to Holy Spirit movement; Magic and the baptism of the Holy Spirit; Four Embodying Kinship: Shame, Sex and Shell Valuables; Moieties, clans and lineages; Avoidance relationships and bodies in space; Shame, secrecy and sexual revelations; Valuables, desire and movement; Having somewhere to sit

Five Other Bodies, Other Powers: The World of Non-Human BeingsThe multiple bodily forms of larada; Refiguring the human form in lagas; Larada, seating and movement; The movement of lagas to peripheral spaces; Illness, death and vulnerable bodies; Revelatory, magical and innovative powers; Six The Origins of Taro and the Culture of Famine; Food staples and travelling food; Nirut and the mythic origins of taro; Famine and the flight of food; Countering famine; Seven The Magical World of the Garden; The taro gardening cycle; Garden magic; Lemeravas and seating the place

Regimes of abstinence and bodily regulationEight Feasting and Fame: Finishing the Dead and Lifting up the Names of the Living; The feasting cycle; Finishing the head of the deceased; Making power manifest, making the place heavy; Fame, movement, memory; Epilogue; Archival Sources; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

First published 1998 by Harwood Academic.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed January 30, 2014).

ISBN:

1-134-41057-3

1-315-07922-4

1-134-41050-6

9781315079226

OCLC:

958106682