Embodying Modernityand Post-Modernity

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Carolina Academic PressRitual Studies Monographs

Pamela J. Stewartand

Andrew StrathernSeries Editors

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Embodying Modernityand Post-Modernity

Ritual, Praxis, and Social Change in Melanesia

Edited bySandra Bamford

University of Toronto

Carolina Academic PressDurham, North Carolina

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Copyright © 2007Sandra Bamford

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Embodying modernity and postmodernity : ritual, praxis, and social change inMelanesia / edited by Sandra C. Bamford.

p. cm. -- (Ritual studies monograph series)“Many of the chapters in this collection were first presented in a session at the

annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association in November1999”--Ack.

Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 10: 0-89089-476-0 ISBN 13: 978-0-89089-476-7

1. Body, Human--Social aspects--Melanesia--Congresses. 2. Body, Human--Symbolic aspects--Melanesia--Congresses. 3. Politics and culture--Melanesia--Congresses. 4. Culture and globalization--Melanesia--Congresses. 5. Sexrole--Melanesia--Congresses. 6. Social change--Melanesia--Congresses.7. Melanesia--Social conditions--Congresses. I. Bamford, Sandra C., 1962- II. American Anthropological Association. Meeting (98th : 1999 : Chicago, Ill.)III. Title. IV. Series: Carolina Academic Press ritual studies monographs.

GT497.M45E43 2005306.4'0995--dc22

2005003373

Carolina Academic Press700 Kent Street

Durham, NC 27701Telephone (919)489-7486

Fax (919)493-5668www.cap-press.com

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

Series Editors’ Preface ix

Acknowledgments xxi

Chapter 1 Bodies in Transition: An Introduction to Emerging Forms of Praxis in the Pacific, Sandra Bamford 3

References 12

Chapter 2 Producing Ömie Locality, Marta A. Rohatynskyj 17

Abstract 17

An Expanded Geography 19

Body and Place 21

Village Consolidation and Traditional Embodiment 25

Localized and Delocalized Bodies 30

The Delocalized Body and the Strategy of Modernity 33

References 34

Chapter 3 “Our Skins are Weak”: Ipili Modernity and the Demise of Discipline, Jerry Jacka 39

Abstract 39

Introduction 39

The Ethnographic Background 41

The Notion of Biodegradability in Ipili Cosmology 44

Traditional Practices of Disciplining Bodies 45

The Biodegradation of Land and Its Renewal 49

Cyclical Society, Cyclical Earth 54

Contemporary Concerns over the Demise of Disciplinary Practices 55

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Conclusions 61

Acknowledgments 62

References 63

Chapter 4 Machine-Thinking: Changing Social and Bodily DivisionsAround the Ok Tedi Mining Project, Dr. Tony Crook 69

Abstract 69

Machine-Thinking 1 70

Iteration 1. Reflexivity. Two Observations on Anthropology’sOwn ‘Machine-Thinking’ 73

Iteration 2. Alternatives. Two Observations from Thinkers on Machines 76

Iteration 3. Ok Tedi. ‘A Community and Not Only a Mining Operation as Many People Think’ 77

Machine-Thinking 2 78

Iteration 4. Conception. Two Observations from Ankaiyakmin Men and Women 83

Iteration 5. Knowledge. Two Observations from Ankaiyakmin Perspectives 84

Iteration 6. Cultivation. Two Observations on Ankaiyakmin Cult and Horticulture 87

Machine-Thinking 3 88

Iteration 7. Two Concluding Observations on Machine-Thinking 96

Recapitulation 98

Acknowledgments 100

References 101

Chapter 5 “Dying Culture” and Decaying Bodies, Thomas Strong 105

Abstract 105

Bones and Stones 113

References 120

Chapter 6 Modalities of Modernity in Maisin Society, John Barker 125

Abstract 125

The Youth Fellowship Movement among the Maisin 127

Contrasting Images of the Body, Personhood and Morality 131

vi CONTENTS

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Three Perspectives on Modernity 137

Incremental Modernity 139

Conjunctures and Continuities 143

Modernity Pluralized 147

Conclusion 152

Acknowledgements 154

References 154

Chapter 7 Unholy Noses, Sandra Bamford 161

Abstract 161

Ethnographic Background 162

Kamea Initiation 165

Embodiments of Detachment 168

Christian Bodies, Pagan Practices: Negotiating ‘Modern’ Lives 173

Resistance, Accommodation and Contemporary Ambiguities 178

Acknowledgments 180

References 180

Chapter 8 The Thickness of Blood: Kwoma Definitions of“Us” and “You,” Margaret Holmes Williamson 185

Abstract 185

References 207

Chapter 9 “Family Planning”: The Politics of Reproductionin Central New Ireland, Karen Sykes 211

Abstract 211

International Family Planning Initiatives 211

Ethnographic Background 213

Women’s Management of Procreation 219

Men’s Management of Procreation 224

The Government’s Work with the Health Service in the Mandak Region 226

Some Conclusions about State Interventions in Family Planning 233

References 237

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Chapter 10 Self-Decoration in Hagen and Duna (Papua NewGuinea): Display and Disjuncture, Pamela J. Stewartand Andrew Strathern 239

Abstract 239

Introduction 239

Hagen 240

Cultural Shows and Tourism 242

Duna 245

Modernity and After 250

References 252

Chapter 11 A Body of Postcards from Vanuatu, Lamont Lindstrom 257

Abstract 257

Postcards and Tourists 258

Poses 260

Bodies, Romantic and Picaresque 263

Body Parts 267

Painted Faces 268

Eyes 268

Breasts 269

Penises 273

Smiles 276

Postcard Mirrors 279

References 281

Afterword—Embodied Historicities, Eric Hirsch 283

Dilemmas of Embodiment 283

Views Across Time 284

What Kind of Subject? 286

Events 288

Rupture 289

Between Myth and History: Embodied Historicities 291

References 292

viii CONTENTS

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Series Editors’ Preface

Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart

We are pleased to inclu de the pre s ent set of e s s ays in the Ri tual Stu d i e sMonograph Series. As Editors of this Series we have sought to include man-uscripts that present diverse perspectives and that constitute a part of a widergeographical representation. The Pacific is one of the areas that we have our-s elves worked in and wri t ten mu ch abo ut , and the pre s ent ed i ted vo lume pro-vi des us with an opportu n i ty to make some com p a ra tive com m ents on thetopic here.

The subject of the body and embodiment theory has provided a vigorousstrand of theorizing in anthropology as well as in ritual and religious studies,p a rti c u l a rly since the 1990s, with the work of Ma r ga ret Lock , Nancy Sch eper-Hughes, Emily Martin, Thomas Csordas, and many other scholars, drawingon themes from phenomenology, medical anthropology, and the philosophyof cognition and experience. Apart from the by now well-known stress on re-conceptualizing mind-body relations that is central to this theoretical enter-pri s e , s ome of the most recent work has taken up the difficult qu e s ti on of s et-ting our studies into the con text of h i s torical ch a n ge . This was the ch i efpurpose of our co-edited volume of essays on Identity Work: Constructing Pa -cific Lives (Stewart and Strathern eds. 2000) which brought together chapterslooking at ideas of personhood across the Pacific region from the viewpointof life histories and wider contexts of historical change.

Our edited collection addressed questions such as: How have ideas of thepers on in soc i ety ch a n ged with co l onial and po s t - co l onial con d i ti ons? Howwell do academic stereotypes relate to the complexities of particular life sto-ries? How can we move beyond simplistic contrasts, such as a supposed shiftfrom collective to individual orientations, which have flowed from character-izing “Melanesian” sociality as a mirror opposite to that of “the West”? (Bothterms, “Melanesia” and “the West,” are artificial notions that are used to im-pose a certain definitional and ideological construct on people living in par-

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ticular geogra phical regi on s . See for example Ca rri er 1992 for an insigh tf u ldiscussion of this issue.)

The essays in Sandra Bamford’s volume can in many ways be seen as con-tinuing this enterprise of exploration, since they are all concerned to look atsocial changes through the lens of changing ideas about the body. The body,in Pacific cultures and elsewhere, is intimately connected with notions of self,person, identity, growth, decline, attachment to the land, emplacement, thef l ows of su b s t a n ce s , the co s m o s , the ef fects of n ew disciplines su ch as arebrought by government and missions, empowerment and dis-empowerment,the deva lu a ti on or re - va l ori z a ti on of c u s tom a ry practi ces su ch as wi tch c ra f tand sorcery, and ritual practices associated with the person’s place within thelandscape/environment and the cosmos. With these notions in mind, we se-lected Bamford’s edited collection to appear in the Series because its chaptersaim to address the above range of topics.

Si n ce these topics are all close to the interests of m a ny Pacific spec i a l i s t s(see for example Strathern et al. 2002), as well as having a broader cross-cul-tu ral rel eva n ce , we com m ent here furt h er on a nu m ber of t h em from our ownfieldwork and writings, especially on the Hagen and Duna areas in the High-lands of Papua New Guinea. Many comparative points could also be made inrel a ti on to the topics here with discussion on parts of So uth-East As i a , e . g. ,the ritual association of the python with Sky Beings and the cosmos in gen-eral (see for example Stra t h ern and Stew a rt 2000a). Here we bring out the sig-nificance of some of the more salient themes in the essays that are presented.At an earlier stage we also read and commented on the essays included in thisvolume.

One significant point is that historical changes have by no means broughta bo ut a uniform sense of em powerm ent among peop l e . Within Papua NewGuinea initi a ti on practi ces were in the past a prime means wh ereby yo u n gpeople were not on ly indu cted into the matu ra ti on cycle of devel opm en twithin their communities but were also given a local identification with theirplace through various food taboos or preferences and by their adaptation tot h eir envi ron m en t . Food taboo s , for ex a m p l e , m i ght tie them in with thei rkinsfolk as well as with their place, doubling and joining these senses of iden-ti fic a ti on . While initi a ti on as su ch was not practi ced in the Ha gen area (We s t-ern Hi ghlands Provi n ce) in histori c a lly rem em bered ti m e s , s p i rit “c u l t” h o u s e sinvariably partook of the forest environment as a source of power. Houses ofthis sort were fe s toon ed with silvery - grey and ru s ty - red leaves from the for-e s t , and special plants repre s en ting good health, the purging of d a n gerous ma-teri a l s , and long life , were pre s en ted to the participants by ri tual ex pert s .

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Young boys were inducted into these rituals organized by their seniors withint h eir com mu n i ty (on these ri tual practi ces see Stra t h ern and Stew a rt 2000a;Stewart and Strathern 2002a).

Am ong the Duna people of the So ut h ern Hi ghlands Provi n ce in Papua NewGuinea, cohorts of such boys were formally secluded in the forest for periodsof time under the tutel a ge of s en i or bach el or ri tual ex perts who taught theboys the magic of making their head hair grow long and how to tend to andm a ke them s elves appear large and attractive . The house in wh i ch they liveddu ring the time was call ed the “gi n ger house” (pa l ena anda) , and the sen i orbachelors were said to be linked to the Female Spirit of the environment, thePayame Ima, as her ritual “husbands.” The Payame Ima was said to transmitri tual knowl ed ge to the sen i or ri tual leaders so that they could prep a re the boysfor the ri gors of adult life (on these ri tual practi ces among the Duna see Stew-a rt and Stra t h ern 2002b; S tra t h ern and Stew a rt 2004a). This was also the casefor the cohorts of men who celebrated the Female Spirit “cult” in Hagen.

These Hi ghland Papua New Guinea ri tual practi ce s , wh et h er spec i fic a lly fo-c u s ed on “ i n i ti a ti on” or otherwi s e , can be seen as tra n s form a ti ons of a par-ticular ri tual logic that links powers of growth to the forest areas and joi n smale and female powers together to ensure the maturation of a new genera-ti on within the loc a l i ty (see Stew a rt and Stra t h ern 1999). G iven this funda-mental aim, it is not surprising that, with the demise of such ritual practicesin colonial times or thereafter, we can see aspects of “deterritorialization,” inArjun Appadurai’s terms, emerging (Appadurai 1996).

L a bor ex peri en ce el s ewh ere , o ut s i de of the local com mu n i ty, m ay hel pyoung men or women to learn more about the outside world and so to ma-ture in that sense, but it cannot replace the symbolic tie to the locality, and itmust in some ways contribute to the weakening of that tie. Since the localitywas seen as the source of growth for the new gen era ti on , we might well ex-pect what we do actually find in many cases: that people’s bodies, in spite ofi n trodu ced “health care” and new sources of nutri ti on , i n cluding pro tei n(often uncertainly available in any case), are seen by themselves as becomingweaker or smaller, or as maturing at an “inappropriate” pace.

In the Duna case, this idea is further tied up with notions of cyclical timereckoned over a span of fourteen generations. The social disorders resultingf rom a bre a k down of com mu n i ty con trol by sen i ors over ju n i ors are said tobe signaled also by young people growing up too fast (and by implication notproperly or fully) and entering into sexual relationships too early: somethingthat the earlier ritual practices regulated, producing adults in a fashion con-sidered timely. More recently the times are seen as “out of joint.”

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Control over bodily growth and also over the creation of new bodies was avery marked fe a tu re of m a ny Hi ghland Papua New Guinea soc i eti e s . In theHa gen area proper times and occ a s i ons for the mixing of s exual fluids so asto make another human being were caref u lly pre s c ri bed . Repe a ted acts of s ex-ual interco u rse were thought nece s s a ry to build up the child in the wom balong with the mother’s blood (Strathern and Stewart 1998a). After a child’sbirth, its placenta and part of the umbilical cord were buried in the local soilof the group wh ere the child was born to root its iden ti ty there within the land.A post-partum taboo on sexual intercourse was observed for a period of twoto three ye a rs to en a ble the child to imbi be the mother ’s milk wi t h o ut wh a twas seen as interference from, or undesirable further mixing of the mother’ssu b s t a n ces with the father ’s sem en , u n til the child was re ady to be fullywe a n ed . While this cl e a rly was a devi ce to safeg u a rd social rel a ti on s h i p s , it wasalso clearly designed to allow the child to grow and as a conscious method ofpop u l a ti on con trol by the gro u p, a i m ed at producing a healthy child beforethe mother became pregnant aga i n . Loss of su ch practi ces caused va ri o u shealth rel a ted probl ems in terms of child and mother well n e s s . Health careprograms or family planning proj ects need to take factors of i n d i gen o u sk n owl ed ge of this sort into con s i dera ti on before implem en ting new po l i c i e s(on indigenous knowledge see Bicker, Sillitoe, and Pottier 2004, for example;on anthropology and consultancy work see Stewart and Strathern 2004a).

A percepti on of u n f avora ble bod i ly ch a n ge easily goes with the devel op-m ent of n o s t a l gic percepti ons of the past. Su ch a nostalgi a , as Jef f rey Cl a rki den ti f i ed it for the Wi ru people of Pa n gi a , m ay pertain to the pre - co l on i a lpast (Clark 1989) in cases where that past is relatively recent and well withinthe memories of most adults. The Pangia area was brought into colonial ad-m i n i s tra ti on on ly after 1960 and Cl a rk’s work there was done in the 1970s andthe 1980s. Sharp changes in people’s lives probably induced them to perceivea con s i dera ble ru ptu re in their history and to ex peri en ce a marked disem-powerment over their own activities, which was then signaled in the idea thattheir bodies were smaller and weaker than those of their ancestors.

In the Hi ghlands of Papua New Gu i n e a , decora ti ons are thought magi c a llyto add to the size and impre s s iveness of t h eir we a rers (see our essay in the pre s-ent volume). In the past the discouragement by missionaries of ritual growthpractices, as discussed above for the Hagen and Duna areas, and of the deco-rations that went with these took away from people this periodic method ofpers onal bod i ly en h a n cem en t , wh i ch over time had to be rep l aced by otherritual practices and methods of bodily decoration.

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In other areas in Papua New Guinea where there had been a longer expe-ri en ce of ch a n ge , fo ll owing In depen den ce in 1975 and the many ch a ll en ge sthat en su ed , a second stage of n o s t a l gia devel oped cen tered on the co l on i a lera itself. Post-Independence economic and political complexities multiplied,and in many areas there has been both a perceived breakdown of social serv-i ces to ru ral pop u l a ti ons and an increase in rel a tively en demic outbreaks ofvi o l en ce within the Hi ghlands regi on (Stew a rt and Stra t h ern 2002c; S tra t h ernand Stew a rt 2003). In these circ u m s t a n ces older people who came to adu l t-h ood in co l onial times or short ly there a f ter may speak nostalgi c a lly of t h etimes of co l onial “p ac i fic a ti on ,” road - bu i l d i n g, and the first introdu cti on ofhealth services and schools in their areas. Outsiders from Australia and else-wh ere are som etimes assoc i a ted with this idea of “p ac i f i c a ti on lost.” In theDuna area in the 1990s older people occasionally said that they were pleasedto see su ch Out s i ders because they thought that their own govern m ent had“ch a s ed them all aw ay,” l e aving people to their own devi ces (Stra t h ern andStewart 2000b). This “second wave” of nostalgia is clearly different in its im-p l i c a ti ons from the “first wave ,” in wh i ch Out s i ders were seen as having hadpri m a ri ly del eterious ef fects on peop l e’s senses of t h eir bod i ly strength andproper maturation.

The manifold, and sometimes contradictory, impacts of Christianity havecome into play here , at both con ceptual and practical level s . People in the pastin Papua New Guinea, at least in the Hagen area, certainly had ideas of a dis-tinction between inner thoughts and the outward presentation of the person,even though in the lon ger term su ch thoughts were said to be evi den ced onpeople’s skins because of the linkages of substances in the body (Stewart andS tra t h ern 2001a). But what would have been new to them , in many ways , w a sthe concept of the “Christian body,” in which the signs of maturity and socialacceptability were altered from those of before. New clothing was made intoa mark of the new affiliation into the Christian world of ritual practices andbeliefs.

Ba ptist mission a ries in the 1960s in the Ba iyer Va ll ey west of Mount Ha genexplicitly said that they did not want people to wear their “traditional” deco-ra ti ons because Ch ri s tians needed to dress in the introdu ced new styl e . Asl ocal people have joi n ed the chu rches we find a hei gh ten ed ambiva l en ce to-w a rds the indigenous cultu ral patterns of beh avi or wh i ch stems from bo t hgovernment and missionary influence, often most immediately from the lat-ter in the case of ri tual practi ce s . Here is the source of the fear of ten ex h i bi tedtowards former sacred objects of power such as stones or woven figures em-bodying the forcible strength of non-Christian spirits (Stewart and Strathern

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2001b). It is not really that church teaching managed to reduce such objectsto a state of being meaningless or powerless. More frequently, the objects areheld to retain their power, but this power is often rhetorically claimed to beSa t a n i c . Som etimes obj ects tu rn up that were previ o u s ly thought to have ben-eficial influences, e.g., being used in magic to increase the number of healthypigs that a person had, but now they may be said to be objects that producen ega tive and harmful ef fects because of t h eir new assoc i a ti on with “evi l ”through Christian teachings. Thus, symbols from the non-Christian “pagan”world may become a nega tive met a ph orical re s o u rce or a back d rop aga i n s twh i ch to proj ect Ch ri s tian ideas of “good ” and “evi l .” The overa ll ef fect s , h ow-ever, a re of ten patchy. Di f ferent Ch ri s tian den om i n a ti ons had and con ti nu eto have different and evo lving ways of dealing with “trad i ti on a l ” practi ce s .Catholic mission a ries in the Hi ghlands were gen era lly accom m od a ting tow a rd sindigenous forms of body decorations, although they were not necessarily sof l ex i ble wh en it came to non - Ch ri s tian ri tual practi ces and ideas abo ut thecosmos that went along with these (see Strathern and Stewart 2000c for dis-cussions on this point from the Hagen area).

In the part of the Duna area wh ere we con du ct our re s e a rch , people saidthat the Ba ptist mission a ry who first eva n gel i zed to them in the 1960s had to l dthem to adhere to their practices regarding rules centered around menstrua-ti on . Va ri a ti ons of ri tual re s tri cti ons that occ u rred thro u gh o ut Papua NewGuinea play differently into the subsequent construction of regional or evennational identities, which can also vary with the historical time period.

Gre a t ly at issue in all domains of ch a n ge is the rh etoric by wh i ch peop l ea re persu aded , or persu ade them s elve s , to see their lives as irrevoc a bly altered ,wh et h er for bet ter or wors e . Ch a n ge is alw ays happen i n g, as it did in pre - co l o-nial times wh en Hi ghlands groups within Papua New Guinea adopted new ri t-uals, suffered through tribal fighting, or were impacted by various epidemicsand natu ral disasters . The co l onial peri od bro u ght mu ch ch a n ge as has thepost-colonial period. Anthropologists have indicated this sense of contempo-rary change through terms such as modernity and post-modernity. However,in spite of the somewhat monolithic rhetorics of change that are the legacy ofco l onial and po s t - co l onial influ en ce s , t h ere has also been a growing re a l i z a-ti on that the sheer ra n ge of va ri a ti ons in historical tra n s form a ti ons ex po s e sthe actual mu l ti p l i c i ty ra t h er than the uniform i ty of va ri a bles in con s t a n tchange. Modernity is not one thing, but many, it does not have a specific ori-gin or terminus, and thus we cannot use it as a master trope to index all thecross-cultural patterns that we observe.

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We ourselves have suggested that it is better to rely on the concepts of his-tory and contemporaneity rather than on the package of notions and valuesen c a p su l a ted in the term modern i ty (Stra t h ern and Stew a rt 2004b). This isnot to deny that from time to time people themselves may adopt this kind ofrhetoric, as in Paliau Wantoat’s movement in Manus (Mead 1956) or TommyKabu’s movement in Papua (Maher 1961). In one place, modernity may pri-marily refer to Christianity, in another to business activity, in another to newforms of politics, in yet another to all three; but the permutations of empha-sis even within such categories can be numerous. Nor should we assume thatt h ere is a uniform directi on of ch a n ge ; for all the hom ogenizing influ en ce s ,there are equally as many that promote heterogeneity just below the apparentpublic surface of social life.

The same point applies to the issues of ch a n ging noti ons of pers on h ood ,s el f , and rel a ti on a l i ty in the con tem pora ry con tex t . Put a tive universal con-trasts between “Melanesia” and “the West” in this regard have had the unfor-tu n a te ef fect of both stereo typing the de s c ri pti ons of peoples living within theSo ut h - West Pac i fic and of pre - em pting the analysis of p a t terns of ch a n ge inthis part of the world in terms of a supposed transition from communalisticto individualistic modes of conduct. The earlier argument about this matterwas fo u n ded on what was essen ti a lly a vi s i on of su b s t a n ce s , the com po s i tesu b s t a n ces that are thought to make up the human body. But agency is notthe same as su b s t a n ce . A pers on may repre s ent a com po s i te of f a t h er ’s su b-s t a n ce (“gre a s e”) and mother ’s su b s t a n ce (“bl ood ” ) , but nei t h er in Papua NewGuinea nor any wh ere else do people assume that this means their agency isequ a lly circ u m s c ri bed . It does mean that they are likely to take this dual iden-ti ty for given and to act upon it; but it does not mean that their agency is com-pletely equated with their social ties as these are constructed. The debates onpers on h ood that have occ u p i ed the litera tu re need to be con s i dered in the ligh tof this point. We have earlier offered the concept of the relational-individualas a way of resolving the now well worn debates about models of personhoodand of a ll owing for indivi dual agency as well as rel a ti on a l i ty (Stra t h ern andStewart 1998b).

More fruitful than this old classificatory debate is the study of contempo-ra ry patterns of ch a n ge in all their com p l ex i ti e s , i n cluding tra n s n a ti onal flowsof i deas and bel i efs , l oc a l i zed vers i ons of i n trodu ced ideas and bel i efs , and lo-c a lly gen era ted new patterns of beh avi or and bel i ef ( s ee Lewell en 2002; a l s oS tra t h ern and Stew a rt n.d.). In terms of overa ll theory, a com bi n a ti on ofstudying “glocalization” —that is, the realization of global influences in localcon texts and the local tra n s form a ti ons of su ch influ en ce s — and em bod i-

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m en t — that is, h ow ch a n ge is va ri o u s ly inscri bed , ex peri en ced , and actedupon by the whole embodied person through time —can tell us much aboutthe South-West Pacific and other areas as well. In this regard one should not,and actually cannot, deny history by attempting to subsume it under the re-cursiveness of concepts of time and sociality. How history is defined by peo-ple locally will of course vary in any region, whether one is considering dif-ferent senses of h i s tory as repre s en ted by the “ Eu rope a n s” that we ours elve sh ave worked with in Scotland and Ireland or among local peoples in theSo ut h - West Pac i f i c . Within Scotland many different senses of h i s tory ex i s t ,and the local context has to be used as the point of reference (Strathern andS tew a rt 2001). As suming that all people living in a vast geogra phic regi on havethe same noti ons of h i s tory is a fundamental logical flaw. Even within thePapua New Guinea Hi gh l a n d s , Ha gen and Duna ideas of h i s tory va ry con-siderably. There is no general South-West Pacific “philosophy of history”; butthere are local philosophies based on indigenous knowledge and experience.

To retu rn to our Duna ex a m p l e : The Duna do have a rec u rs ive theory oftime, spanning fourteen generations, as we have noted. They are also, how-ever, well aware that change (arikena) continues to come up in their lives inw ays that they can nei t h er pred i ct nor fully con tro l , and that their futu re isuncertain. While they may have wished to encompass the arrival of Outsidersi n to their lives by arguing that this arrival was pred i cted by their ance s tors andin some sense therefore bel on gs to their “own” h i s tory, t h ey do not, of co u rs e ,say that their ancestors predicted the development of the nation-state and itsprobl em s . What is clear is that re s i s t a n ce , accom m od a ti on , and accept a n ce ofthe factors from the Outside world in general are best expressed by the Dunain their own term s , as wh en they dem a n ded com pen s a ti on from an oil dri ll i n gcom p a ny in terms of a new “myt h” / s tory / n a rra tive abo ut harm done to a pow-erful under ground spirit (Tindi Auwene) who figures in their “trad i ti on a l ”mythology (Stewart and Strathern 2002b). Their concern with the body, andthe aptness of em bod i m ent theory here , a re shown by the image they pre-s en ted in their narra tive of this spiri t’s body being men aced and harm ed bycom p a ny dri lls that bored into the spiri t’s body in the search for natu ral re-s o u rces to ex tract from the gro u n d . The narra tive goes on to say that thes p i ri t’s body stretches out ac ross Papua New Gu i n e a , with the cen ter of i t sbody being loc a ted in the Duna are a . It was said that the spirit directed a loc a lboy, with the aid of local female spirit (Payame Ima) entities, to journey un-derground so as to be able to knock aside the drilling bit that was threateningto pierce the spirit’s chest.

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Equ a lly, the fear of oil being ex tracted from the ground was ex pre s s ed interms of an idea that the oil repre s en ted the “gre a s e” / su b s t a n ce of the Du n aa n ce s tors that had acc u mu l a ted there over the age s . These images both ac-k n owl ed ge the keen aw a reness of the Duna of u n a n ti c i p a ted ch a n ge anddem on s tra te their cre a tive acts of a gency to cope with their history as theythemselves present it. The same might be said of indigenous tropes by whichpeople explain the workings of machines.

History always contains a fluidity that may be solidified or altered in waysthat are ex trem ely con text depen den t , wh et h er in the So ut h - West Pac i fic orel s ewh ere . [Our current re s e a rch in Ta iwan among both the Han and the Au s-tron e s i a n - s peaking pop u l a ti ons dem on s tra tes this point cl e a rly, as we havewritten about recently (Stewart and Strathern n.d)]. One could add here thatphilosophical questions of temporal recursiveness are ones that can be posedfor any geogra phical clu s tering of peoples and are , l i ke all exercises of t h eimagination, interesting to think about.

We retu rn here to an example from the Ha gen area wh ere people in the1970s would of ten discuss the bre a k down of c a rs in terms of the po s s i bl ea gency of t h eir ance s tors , and would also perform ri tual cerem onies call edkela memb on new vehicles by decorating them with flowers and wiping redocher on them, an action which resembled the ritual acts of wiping red ocheron pigs marked for sac ri fice . (Kela mem b is an old term in Ha gen , referri n gto va rious acts of ri tu a lly requ e s ting pro s peri ty, ferti l i ty, s a fety, and su cce s sfor an activi ty. Red och er was used for facial adorn m ent at important cel e-bra ti ons and wh en decora ting the va lu a ble pe a rl shell s , u s ed in the past form ok a exch a n ges.) The autom obi l e , as a com p l ex piece of m ach i n ery, w a sbro u gh t , by this ri tual activi ty, m ora lly and po l i ti c a lly into the Ha gen ers’ ownsu b s t a n ce - ori en ted worl d . But this does not prevent them from simu l t a n e-ously realizing that if the machine develops a fault, it needs to be repaired bym ech a n i c s . In ef fect , people are able to think, at least within the limits of t h ei racquired knowledge, in more than one thought-world. Challenges and diffi-culties arise when these thought-worlds definitively clash.

The co s m o l ogical em p l acem ent of the body and its som etimes mu l ti p l emanifestations of representation can clearly be seen in ideas about witchcraftand sorcery. These sorts of i deas of a t t acks on the body and life - force are on e sthat are found in the So ut h - West Pac i fic as they are found in va rious tra n s-forms gl ob a lly (see Stew a rt and Stra t h ern 2004b for examples from Papua NewGuinea, Africa, Indonesia, Europe, etc.). Violence against persons accused ofwitchcraft or sorcery represents another turn of embodied politics that arisesin times of social tensions and has an extensive historical time depth. It also

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represents just one of the recurring problems, manifest in altering historicalforms, in localities in Papua New Guinea, that are scarcely anticipated by or-thodox theories of “modernity.”

It is useful to look at the interplay between the body, substances, powers,cosmologies, and historical contexts when considering how people structuret h eir imagi n ed and their lived worlds (Stra t h ern and Stew a rt 2004c). Al s o, t h erole of the imagination is a factor that must not be overlooked. The imagina-tion is pivotal in the expression of agency in either curbing one’s actions, be-cause of various fears, or motivating one to act after imagining particular de-s i red outcom e s . The world of the imagi n a ti on inclu des “ i conic code s”, i . e . ,codes that are em bod i ed or ex pre s s ed “o ut s i de language” ( Aij m er 2003: 3 ) .Vi n cent Cra p a n z a n o’s con cept of “ i m a gi n a tive hori zon s” and “f ron ti ers” is ap-plicable here, especially when considering frontiers “that postulate a beyondthat is, by its very natu re , u n re ach a ble in fact and in repre s en t a ti on” ( 2 0 0 4 :14). Imaginative capacities direct and drive actions that result from a processof i n teracti on with the world as well as with the co s m o l ogical em p l acem en tin which local people live their lives.

December 2004 – January 2005Hualien/Taipei, Taiwan

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Lewellen, Ted. 2002. The Anthropology of Globalization. Westport Conn.and London: Bergin and Garvey.

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Stewart, Pamela J. and Andrew J. Strathern. 1999. Female Spirit Cults as aWindow on Gender Relations in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5 (3): 345– 60.

——— eds., 2000. Identity Work: Constructing Pacific Lives. ASAO (Asso-ciation for Social Anthropology in Oceania) Monograph Series No. 18.Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

——— 2001a. Humors and Substances: Ideas of the Body in New Guinea.Westport, Conn. and London: Bergin and Garvey.

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——— 2002b. Remaking the World: Myth, Mining and Ritual Changeamong the Duna of Papua New Guinea. Smithsonian Series in Ethno-graphic Inquiry. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

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——— forthcoming. Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors and Gossip. Contempo-rary Issues. In A. Strathern and P. J. Stewart, Rumor, Imagination, TheBody, and History. Beijing: Chinese Renmin Press

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——— 2000a. The Python’s Back: Pathways of Comparison between In-donesia and Melanesia. Westport Conn. and London: Bergin and Garvey.

——— 2000b. Custom, Modernity and Contradiction: Local and NationalIdentities in Papua New Guinea. The New Pacific Review 1 (1): 118–26.

——— 2000c. Arrow Talk: Transaction, Transition, and Contradiction inNew Guinea Highlands History. Kent, Ohio and London: Kent State Uni-versity Press.

——— 2001. Minorities and Memories: Survivals and Extinctions in Scot-land and Western Europe. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.

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——— 2004a. Cults, Closures, Collaborations. In Women as Unseen Char-acters. Male Ritual in Papua New Guinea. Pascale Bonnemere ed. pp.120–38. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press.

——— 2004b. Empowering the Past, Confronting the Future: The DunaPeople of Papua New Guinea. Contemporary Anthropology of ReligionSeries. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan.

——— 2004c. Afterword: Substances, Powers, Cosmos, and History. In InDarkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witch-craft in Amazonia. Neil Whitehead and Robin Wright eds. pp. 314–20.Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

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Strathern, Andrew, Pamela J. Stewart, Laurence Carucci, Lin Poyer, RichardFeinberg, and Cluny Macpherson. 2002. Oceania: An Introduction to theCultures and Identities of Pacific Islanders. Durham N.C.: Carolina Aca-demic Press.

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Acknowledgments

Many of the chapters in this collection were first presented in a session atthe annual meeti n gs of the Am erican An t h ropo l ogical As s oc i a ti on in Novem-ber 1999. I would like to thank Bruce Knauft and Jimmy Weiner for their ex-trem ely hel pful and provoc a tive com m ents on that occ a s i on . I would also liketo express my deep appreciation to Pamela Stewart and Andrew Strathern fortheir unfailing patience and gentle guidance in steering this volume from be-ginning to en d . I am also gre a t ly indebted to Eric Hi rs ch who took on the ro l eof serving as a discussant for this collection on relatively short notice. Eric'sinsightful writings on tradition and modernity in Melanesia have served as asource of intellectual inspiration for many of this volume's contributors. Fi-nally, I wish to record my appreciation to Laurie Zadnik for her careful andpainstaking work on preparing this manuscript.

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