Stealing People's Names

History and Politics in a Sepik River Cosmology

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Hardcover | 19 November 1990

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Hardcover
238 Pages

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22.86 x 15.24 x 1.75

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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 analyses 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 public arena of Avatip political life, rival leaders and the groups they represent struggle in oratorical contests for the possession of strategic names, and, as they do so, continually manipulate possibilities of this symbolically constituted economy, these competitive processes over the past century have been progressively egalitarian type to one based on hereditary inequality and rank. The author offers a critique of the analytical arguing that it obscures the processes of political evolution in Melanesia and disguises the fundamental similarities underlying the sociocultural diversity of the region.

Industry Reviews

"A short review cannot do justice to the complex and subtle analysis Harrison provides. This is a very rich ethnography that makes substantial contributions to important theoretical discussions in anthropology. Read it to appreciate it." Nancy McDowell, American Anthropologist

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Non-Fiction Politics & Government Sociology & Anthropology Anthropology Social & Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography History Regional & National History Australasian & Pacific History Science Astronomy, Space & Time Cosmology & The Universe

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Paperback

Published: 1st June 2006

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Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Manambu
Avatip
Magic and the totemic cosmology
Ceremonial rank
Male initiation
Treading elder brothers underfoot
The debating system
The rise of the subclan Maliyaw
Symbolic economies in Melansia
Bibliography
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Stealing People's Names

History and Politics in a Sepik River Cosmology

At a Glance

Hardcover

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

Other Editions and Formats

Paperback

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