Ceremonial Houses of the Abelam, Papua New Guinea

Ceremonial Houses of the Abelam, Papua New Guinea PDF Author: Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin
Publisher: Grawford House
ISBN: 9781863333443
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
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.

Ceremonial Houses of the Abelam, Papua New Guinea

Ceremonial Houses of the Abelam, Papua New Guinea PDF Author: Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin
Publisher: Grawford House
ISBN: 9781863333443
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Abelam people History and Culture

Abelam people History and Culture PDF Author: James Cloude
Publisher: James-Cloude-Printing
ISBN: 3963619511
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
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

Spirit Structures of Papua New Guinea

Spirit Structures of Papua New Guinea PDF Author: Michael Hirschbichler
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040035590
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
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.

A Return to the Object

A Return to the Object PDF Author: Susanne Küchler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000185524
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
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.

Time and Its Object

Time and Its Object PDF Author: Paolo Fortis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000366944
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
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.

Naturalist Histories

Naturalist Histories PDF Author: Jamon Alex Halvaksz
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824888790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
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.

Power from Below in Premodern Societies

Power from Below in Premodern Societies PDF Author: T. L. Thurston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316515397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This volume challenges traditional narratives on power, moving away from elite-centered models and focusing instead on the archaeology of commoners.

Art and Creativity in a New Guinea Society

Art and Creativity in a New Guinea Society PDF Author: Ross Bowden
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793611378
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
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.

Trade before Civilization

Trade before Civilization PDF Author: Johan Ling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316514684
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
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.

Oceania: The Shape of Time

Oceania: The Shape of Time PDF Author: Maia Nuku
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588397661
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
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.