Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T19:36:32.334Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2009

Simon J. Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Ulster
Get access

Summary

Introduction

This is a study of cosmology and political life among the Manambu, a people of the Sepik River in northwestern Papua New Guinea. When I was planning my fieldwork early in 1977, there was little published material on the Manambu apart from an outline of their language (Laycock 1965) and a brief but fascinating ethnographic sketch by Newton (1971). These suggested close cultural links between the Manambu and their downriver neighbours, the Iatmul, whose culture had been the subject of one of the most original monographs in the ethnographic literature (Bateson 1958).

Before I had ever been to Papua New Guinea, I had been intrigued by Bateson's references to ceremonial debates, in which Iatmul descent groups disputed the ownership of ancestral names and totems, and by his characterisation of the Iatmul as a people among whom personal names formed ‘a theoretical image of the whole culture’ (Bateson 1958: 228). But I had no plans to make such matters the focus of my own research. I hoped to study a more familiar theme in Melanesian ethnography: the ceremonial wealth-exchanges which tend to be an important feature of traditional Melanesian politics, and the self-made leaders, or Big Men, who earn their status and influence in these transactions.

But it was clear from the start of my stay among the Manambu that the villagers had an intense, and highly disputatious, preoccupation with the ownership of personal names.

Type
Chapter
Information
Stealing People's Names
History and Politics in a Sepik River Cosmology
, pp. 1 - 11
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Simon J. Harrison, University of Ulster
  • Book: Stealing People's Names
  • Online publication: 08 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521096.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Simon J. Harrison, University of Ulster
  • Book: Stealing People's Names
  • Online publication: 08 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521096.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Simon J. Harrison, University of Ulster
  • Book: Stealing People's Names
  • Online publication: 08 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521096.001
Available formats
×