Mekeo Chiefs and Sorcerers: Metaphor, Ideology and Practice

Abstract

This paper evaluates two English expressions used by Michelle Stephen to translate the Mekeo terms lopia and ungaunga, traditionally rendered as “chief” (or “peace chief”) and “sorcerer” (Seligman 1910; Hau'ofa 1971, 1981; Mosko 1985). Stephen suggests that more “literal” translations are “man of kindness” and “man of sorrow”. I argue that the expressions proposed are only literal if we accept postulated etymologies based on Stephen's reading of the Desnoës Mekeo‐French Dictionary (1941) and a grammatical analysis Stephen puts forward as unproblematic. I use authentic texts from Desnoës and my own grammar of Mekeo to challenge Stephen's suggested translations, and suggest that the use of conventional labels for key cultural terms is preferable to searching for non‐existent “literal” meanings. More generally, I discuss the use of etymologies that are unverifiable, and often from a linguistic viewpoint unlikely, in ethnographies of the Mekeo and to some extent elsewhere. I outline linguistic processes whereby metaphors and other associative tropes rapidly become conventionalized, and lexical items become grammaticalized. I evaluate the role of metaphor and metonymy in the formation of concepts and belief systems, and sketch an interpretative framework capable of accounting for the different effects and uses of polysemy and homonymy.

Disparate dimensions of a Mekeo socio‐moral order: Values, emotions and dispositions in language, discourse and practice

“…As such they strained or disrupted the more or less orderly intersection of structures, relations and interactions, based on custom and convention, that sustained chiefly rule. On the other hand, however, by foregrounding questions of individual action and motive, they ensured that the community would forget to query—let alone challenge—the socio‐political status quo (Jones ) . They also gave rise to a panoply of informal, precautionary and compensatory transactions to everyday village life which, even though they had originated as reactions to sorcery, secrecy and distrust, contributed an additional layer of socio‐moral cohesion and functionality to the Mekeo lifeworld.…”

The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics

“…The data in the ABVD has been used by the linguistic community in a number of publications (e.g. Atkinson et al 2008; Blevins, 2007; Jones, 2007; McMahon and McMahon, 2008; Neeleman and Szendröi, 2007).…”