Download or read book Ceremonial Houses of the Abelam Papua New Guinea written by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin and published by Grawford House. This book was released on 2016 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ceremonial houses of the Abelam people (East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea) rank as architectural masterpieces. This book offers a unique documentation of the architecture of the different styles of ceremonial houses according to region, their mode of construction and the impressive facade paintings. It goes on to explain the social networks responsible for the construction and main- tenance of such ceremonial houses; a crucial agent of social formation. The integrative and consolidating force that emanated from a ceremonial house and the ritual arena associated with it, not only shaped social life in the village but also defined the communion between humans, clan ancestors and mythical creative forces. Up to the late 1980s, knowledge concerning the construction and meaning of ceremonial houses was passed on to the next generation by means of practice (learning by doing). However, since then the Abelam have converted to Christianity and turned their backs on traditional belief and knowledge: they no longer build ceremonial houses, initiations are a matter of the past, and pigs, domesticated as well as semi-wild, which used to be focal to religious life in earlier days have been discarded. All this has changed the face of Abelam culture radically and the knowledge concerning the construction of ceremonial houses is now all but lost. The author presents an extensive description and analysis of Abelam society at a time when the people were still building ceremonial houses, staging initiations and sacrificing pigs. The magnificent edifices constituted the spatial, social and religious pivot of Abelam culture. This work presents a cultural record of what on longer exists. An essential book for all architects and anthropologists interested in traditional methods and style.
Download or read book The Abelam written by Diane Losche and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Spirit Structures of Papua New Guinea written by Michael Hirschbichler and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-21 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the art and architecture of Papua New Guinean spirit structures with a multi-perspectival approach that combines cultural and social sciences with building, architectural, and spatial research. It offers the first comprehensive study of the spirit houses of New Guinea that exists to date. The book’s aim is twofold: First, it aims to investigate the spirit structures and their associated cultural cosmos in detail. For this purpose, a representative selection of traditional buildings and artworks from different regions of Papua New Guinea is documented and analyzed, and theories for their understanding are formulated. In this course, the author develops a spatial theory of anthropological concepts – such as myths, signs, persons, and rituals. Secondly, this analysis is then situated in the broader context of the Anthropocene/Kaiaimunucene. Transforming the historical spirit structures into models for future-oriented cultural imagination, the consequences for contemporary productions of space and ways of worldmaking in light of existential challenges are traced. The book thus offers more-than-human and more-than-secular concepts for building, art, and worldmaking that are of critical importance in the ongoing Anthropocene/Kaiaimunucene. It will be of interest to researchers and students of architecture, anthropology, cultural studies, environmental humanities, and adjacent disciplines. Part I of the book was translated from German by Melanie Janet Sindelar.
Download or read book Abelam people History and Culture written by James Cloude and published by James-Cloude-Printing. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abelam people tradition and culture from their origin to present, Abelam art Oceania culture and history, find out more about Oceanic environment and Abelam people, the book titled Abelam people History and Culture will give you all the information
Download or read book The Haus Tambaran of Bongiora written by Godfried Johan Marie Gerrits and published by Casagrande-Fidia-Sapiens. This book was released on 2012 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will be the fourth issue of the "Antropunti" series and explains the results of a long-term research project which Gerrits started in 1972, and conducted with the help of his wife and a group of leaders of the Abelam villages Bongiora and Kuminibis in Papua New Guinea. They devoted their research to the ideological system which intimately connects ceremonies and traditional art, and documents the historical last moments before a man's death.
Download or read book Time and Its Object written by Paolo Fortis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the way objects and images relate to and shape notions of temporality and history. Bringing together ethnographic studies from the Lowlands of Central and South America and Melanesia, it explores the temporality inhering in images and artefacts from a comparative perspective. The chapters focus on how peoples in both regions ‘live in’ and ‘navigate’ time each through their distinctive systems of images and the processes and actions by which these come to be manifest in objects. With original theoretical and ethnographic contributions, the book is valuable reading for scholars interested in visual and material culture and in anthropological approaches to time.
Download or read book A Return to the Object written by Susanne Kuechler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book draws on the work of anthropologist Alfred Gell to reinstate the importance of the object in art and society. Rather than presenting art as a passive recipient of the artist's intention and the audience's critique, the authors consider it in the social environment of its production and reception. A Return to the Object introduces the historical and theoretical framework out of which an anthropology of art has emerged, and examines the conditions under which it has renewed interest. It also explores what art 'does' as a social and cultural phenomenon, and how it can impact alternative ways of organising and managing knowledge. Making use of ethnography, museological practice, the intellectual history of the arts and sciences, material culture studies and intangible heritage, the authors present a case for the re-orientation of current conversations surrounding the anthropology of art and social theory. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars in the social and historical sciences, arts and humanities, and cognitive sciences.
Download or read book Naturalist Histories written by Jamon Alex Halvaksz and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2024-03-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From early explorers to contemporary scientists, naturalists have examined island flora and fauna of Oceania, discovering new species, carefully documenting the lives of animals, and creating work central to the image of Oceania. These “discoveries” and exploratory moves have had profound local and global impacts. Often, however, local knowledge and communities are silent in the ethologies and histories that naturalists produce. This volume analyzes the ways that Indigenous and non-Indigenous naturalists have made island natures visible to a wider audience, their relationship with the communities where they work, as well as the unique natures that they explore and help make. In staking out an area of naturalist histories, each contributor addresses the relationship between naturalists and Oceanic communities, how these histories shaped past and present place and practices, the influence on conservations and development projects, and the relationship between scientific and indigenous knowledge. The essays span across colonial and postcolonial frames, tracing shifts in biological practice from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century focus on taxonomy and discovery to the twentieth-century disciplinary restructurings and new collecting strategies, and contemporary concerns with biodiversity loss, conservation, and knowledge formation. The production of scientific knowledge is typically seen in ethnographic accounts as oppositional, contrasting Indigenous and western, local and global, objective and subjective. Such dichotomous views reinforce differences and further exaggerate inequities in the production of knowledge. More dangerously, value distinctions become embedded in discussions of Indigenous identity, rights, and sovereignty. Contributors acknowledge that these dichotomous narratives have dominated the approach of the scientific community while informing how social scientists have understood the contributions of Pacific communities. The essays offer a nuanced gradient as historical narratives of scientific investigation, in dialogue with local histories, and reveal greater levels of participation in the creation of knowledge. The volume highlights how power infuses the scientific endeavor and offers a distinct and diverse view of knowledge production in Oceania. Combining senior and emerging international scholars, the collection will be of interest to researchers in the social sciences, history, as well as biology and allied fields.
Download or read book Power from Below in Premodern Societies written by T. L. Thurston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume challenges traditional narratives on power, moving away from elite-centered models and focusing instead on the archaeology of commoners.
Download or read book Art and Creativity in a New Guinea Society written by Ross Bowden and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-07-26 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kwoma, the subject of this book, are one of a number of peoples in the Sepik River region of northern Papua New Guinea who have created some of the most distinctive visual art in the Pacific. Through case studies of their painting, sculpture, architecture and ritual this book examines in detail how people in this society understand their art as a cultural phenomenon. This includes how they understand its origins in the spirit world, how they judge quality in art and how they understand artistic creativity. The book contrasts Kwoma beliefs with the radically different approach to art found in the modern West. The modern Western concept of art first emerged not in the eighteenth century in the Enlightenment, or even later, as anthropologists and art historians often assume, but several centuries earlier in the Renaissance. The book gives an account of radical changes that took place culturally in Europe between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries in the way human intellectual creativity was understood, and how this gave rise to a new concept of art, one that remains unchanged in the modern West today.
Download or read book Trade before Civilization written by Johan Ling and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-15 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trade before Civilization explores the role that long-distance exchange played in the establishment and/or maintenance of social complexity, and its role in the transformation of societies from egalitarian to non-egalitarian. Bringing together research by an international and methodologically diverse team of scholars, it analyses the relationship between long-distance trade and the rise of inequality. The volume illustrates how elites used exotic prestige goods to enhance and maintain their elevated social positions in society. Global in scope, it offers case studies of early societies and sites in Europe, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Mesoamerica. Deploying a range of inter-disciplinary and cutting-edge theoretical approaches from a cross-cultural framework, the volume offers new insights and enhances our understanding of socio-political evolution. It will appeal to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, conflict theorists, and ethnohistorians, as well as economists seeking to understand the nexus between imported luxury items and cultural evolution.
Download or read book The Manambu Language of East Sepik Papua New Guinea written by Alexandra Aikhenvald and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-06-17 with total page 992 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive description of the Manambu language of Papua New Guinea and is based entirely on the author's immersion fieldwork. Manambu belongs to the Ndu language family, and is spoken by about 2,500 people in five villages: Avatip, Yawabak, Malu, Apa:n, and Yambon (Yuanab) in East Sepik Province, Ambunti district. Manambu can be considered an endangered language. The Manambu language has many unusual properties. Every noun is considered masculine or feminine. Feminine gender - which is unmarked - is associated with small size and round shape, and masculine gender with elongated shape, large size, and importance. The Manambu culture is centered on ownership of personal names, and is similar to that of the Iatmul, described by Gregory Bateson. After an introductory account of the language and its speakers, Professor Aikhenvald devotes chapters to phonology, grammatical relations, word classes, gender, semantics, number, case, possession, derivation and compounding, pronouns, morphohology, verbs, mood and modality, negation, clause structure, pragmatics, discourse, semantics, the lexicon, current directions of change, and genetic relationship to other languages. The description is presented in a clear style in a framework that will be comprehensible to all linguists and linguistically oriented anthropologists.
Download or read book Women in Kararau written by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin and published by Göttingen University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book offers a glimpse back in time to a Middle Sepik society, the Iatmul, first investigated by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson in the late 1920s while the feminist anthropologist Margaret Mead worked on sex roles among the neighbouring Tchambuli (Chambri) people. The author lived in the Iatmul village of Kararau in 1972/3 where she studied women’s lives, works, and knowledge in detail. She revisited the Sepik in 2015 and 2017. The book, the translation of a 1977 publication in German, is complemented by two chapters dealing with the life of the Iatmul in the 2010s. It presents rich quantitative and qualitative data on subsistence economy, marriage, and women’s knowledge concerning myths and rituals. Besides, life histories and in-depth interviews convey deep insights into women’s experiences and feelings, especially regarding their varied relationships with men in the early 1970s. Since then, Iatmul culture has changed in many respects, especially as far as the economy, religion, knowledge, and the relationship between men and women are concerned. In her afterword, the anthropologist Christiane Falck highlights some of the major topics raised in the book from a 2018 perspective, based on her own fieldwork which she commenced in 2012. Thus, the book provides the reader with detailed information about gendered lives in this riverine village of the 1970s and an understanding of the cultural processes and dynamics that have taken place since.
Download or read book The Pacific Islands written by Moshe Rapaport and published by Bess Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forty-five contributors offer information on the physical environment, history, culture, population, economy, and living environment of the Pacific islands.
Download or read book Sepik Heritage written by Nancy Lutkehaus and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Seized Collections of the Papua New Guinea Museum written by Papua New Guinea Museum and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Oceania The Shape of Time written by Maia Nuku and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The visual arts of Oceania tell a wealth of dynamic stories about origins, ancestral power, performance, and initiation. This publication explores the deeply rooted connections between Austronesian-speaking peoples, whose ancestral homelands span Island Southeast Asia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and the island archipelagoes of the northern and eastern Pacific. Unlike previous books, it foregrounds Indigenous perspectives, alongside multidisciplinary research in art history, ethnography, and archaeology, to provide an intimate look at Oceania, its art, and its culture. Stunning new photography highlights more than 130 magnificent objects, ranging from elaborately carved ancestral figures in ceremonial houses, towering slit drums, and dazzling turtle-shell masks to polished whale ivory breastplates. Underscoring the powerful interplay between the ocean and its islands, and the ongoing connection with spiritual and ancestral realms, Oceania: The Shape of Time presents an art-focused approach to life and culture while guiding readers through the artistic achievements of Islanders across millennia.
