Karavar : Masks and Power in a Melanesian Ritual / Frederick Karl Errington.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Errington, Frederick Karl, Author.

Series:

Symbol, myth, and ritual series.

Symbol, Myth and Ritual

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Kerawara Island.

Ethnology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (259 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This interpretation of the cultural and social life of the inhabitants of a small island in the territory of Papua and New Guinea offers important new perspectives for the study of other societies. Focusing on Karavaran society's preoccupation with achieving stability, Mr. Errington first describes the principal relationships among men and between men and women. He then turns to ritual activities, where the Karavarans find answers to the fundamental questions about power and social order that arise in their nonritual life. With particular stress on the masked figures of the mortuary ceremony, he analyzes the meaning of the symbols and their effectiveness in a ritual context.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface: The Art of Being Free

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Making Space for Politics

2. Disturbing Democracy: Reading (in) the Gaps between Tocqueville's America and Ours

3. (Con)Founding Democracy: Containment, Evasion, Appropriation

4. Reading Freedom, Writing Marx: From the Politics of Production to the Production of Politics

5. Acting (Up) in Publics: Mobile Spaces, Plural Worlds

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-256) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

1-5017-3427-X

OCLC:

1121056425