Of humans, pigs, and souls : an essay on the Yagwoia Womba complex / Jadran Mimica.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mimica, Jadran, author.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Series:

Essays in ethnographic theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Yagwoia (Papua New Guinean people)--Folklore.

Yagwoia (Papua New Guinean people).

Yagwoia (Papua New Guinean people)--Religion.

Religion.

Folklore.

Genre:

Folklore.

Physical Description:

xvii, 160 pages : illustrations, maps ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : Hau Books, [2020]

Summary:

Anthropology --

For the Yagwoia-Angan people of Papua New Guinea, womba is a malignant power with the potential to afflict any soul with cravings for pig meat and human flesh. Drawing on long-term research among the Yagwoia, and in an analysis informed by phenomenology and psychoanalysis, Jadran Mimica explores the womba complex in its local cultural-existential determinations and regional permutations. He attends to the lived experience of this complex in relation to the wider context of mortuary practices, feasting, historical cannibalism, and sorcery. His account of womba illuminates the moral meanings of Yagwoia selfhood, and associated senses of subjectivity and agency. Mimica concludes by reflecting on the recent escalation of concerns with witchcraft and sorcery in Papua New Guinea, specifically in relation to a new wave of Christian evangelism occurring in partnership with the state --

This book is an embarrassment of riches both ethnographic and theoretical. The depth and scope of Mimica's ambition are rare. His inimitable writing style carries the reader forward headlong, at times breathlessly. His choice and treatment of topics-Christianity, shamanism, mind, personhood, and subjectivity--are very much of the moment. The presentation and analysis of Yagwoia men's dreams demonstrates why psychoanalysis, skilfully deployed, remains indispensable in ethnography, especially the notion that the outsider, self-aware, steeped in knowledge of and sympathy for the other, is often well-equipped to represent the other's subjectivity. Mimica's fine-grained portraits of individual Yagwoia and their milieux, created over many years, add to the authority of his insights into the Yagwoia life-world --

Gillian Gillison, author of She speaks her anger: Myths and conversations of Gimi women: A psychological ethnography in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea and Between culture and fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands mythology --

This is a remarkable text. It is evident that we are in the hands of both a major intellect and a masterful ethnographer. The work is a powerful one --

Michael Lambek, author of The ethical condition: essays on action, person and value and Island in the stream: An ethnographic history of Mayotte --Book Jacket.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 The womba condition of the soul

The causes and attributes of womba soul affliction and shamanistic treatment

The case of Qang

The desire for pig-meat

ch. 2 Men and women as womba

The case of Qwoqwoldate

The case of WoGaye

A specifically female aspect of the womba complex

Womba killing

ch. 3 Womba self-experience

The case of OMitane

The case of OAp

ch. 4 The spectrum of Yagwoia cannibalism

An inside perspective

Exo- and endo- modes

Experience of necrophagy

ch. 5 On ki'nye (sorcery) and the mother's breast's malediction

The mirror-circuit of the mother's breast's malediction

Sorcery in hindsight

ch. 6 The womba complex in regional perspective

The non-Angan outsiders

Reverberations of the complex among neighboring Angan groups

A comparative amplification

Ankavi ombi and the Yagwoia womba

The womba imaginary and the body: closure and opening

Concluding reflections: A new wave of Christianization

A Melanesian befit (covenant)

Metamorphosis of the imago Dei and the spirit of the global Evangelion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 147-160).

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781912808311

1912808315

OCLC:

1159844794

Publisher Number:

99989843412