Syncretic Persons: Sociality, Agency and Personhood in Recent Charismatic Ritual Practices among North Mekeo (PNG)

Mosko, Mark S.

doi:10.1111/j.1835-9310.2001.tb00076.x

Cited by 21 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, to the extent that one's life is dependent on numerous prior exchanges and ingestions of ngaka, every person is constituted of the personal contributions of other people. Here you can detect the way in which my and other Melanesianists' discussions of personal partibility enters into the flow of ngaka vital essence throughout human life (Mosko 1985(Mosko , 1992(Mosko , 1995(Mosko , 1998a(Mosko , 2001a(Mosko , 2001b(Mosko , 2002Strathern 1988;Damon 1983;Battaglia 1986;Wagner 1986Wagner , 1991Munn 1986;Foster 1995).…”

Section: Ngaka Vital Essencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus it is vital significance to every human being that the transfers and transformations between the inside and outside of his/her body are properly regulated. And in many ways it is possible to envision the entirety of Mekeo culture and social organisation as extenuations of these bodily ins and outs-from the processes of cooking, ingestion, digestion, excretion, sexuality and reproduction, generally, to ceremonial gift exchange, mortuary feasting, sorcery practice and the wielding of chiefly agency (Mosko 1983(Mosko , 1985(Mosko , 2001a. In this paper, I will have the opportunity to touch lightly on only a few of these embodied contexts of territoriality and sociality.…”

Section: The Human Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interestingly, North Mekeo can be seen here to qualify as a coastal Melanesian instance of the 'fluid ontologies' characteristic of non-Austronesian groups in the Highlands of PNG Stewart and Strathern 2001) and the 'flow of life' which has been reported widely for Austronesian-speaking societies of South-East Asia, particularly Indonesia . In this context, I focus on the implications of processes and transactions involving ngaka in accordance with other writings concerning 'partible personhood', sociality and agency among Mekeo specifically and in Melanesia generally (Mosko 1985(Mosko , 1992(Mosko , 1995(Mosko , 1998b(Mosko , 2001a(Mosko , 2002Strathern 1988;Wagner 1986Wagner , 1991. In short, the critical element of interpersonal exchange and elicitation of which North Mekeo people and social relations are composed and decomposed is the substance, ngaka acquired originally from resources and beings of the territorial world, incorporated into the bodies and relations of human beings and, on death, returned to the ground in human burials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as I have described about North Mekeo culture earlier (Mosko 1985), space and time, society and the body are conceived as homologous and interconnected. Moreover, in recent publications (Mosko 1992(Mosko , 1997(Mosko , 1998a(Mosko , 2001a(Mosko , 2000b(Mosko , 2002, I have been investigating additional related dimensions of North Mekeo sociality, particularly the dynamics of personhood, chiefly agency and socio-cultural change, which may now shed considerable new light on North Mekeo notions of territoriality. I thus begin within some of the parameters of my original accounts of North Mekeo culture, social organisation and embodiment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land : Land and territory in the Austronesian world

Reuter¹

2006

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Section: Ngaka Vital Essencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Human Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land : Land and territory in the Austronesian world

Reuter¹

2006

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“…These observations provide initial insights into how social networks and cultural practices in the native place mediate changes arising from national development and the capitalist economic system (Fox and Sather 1996;Jolly and Mosko 1994;Mosko 1999Mosko , 2001). I observe how resources and support are mobilised, how remittances are distributed and spent, and how migrants are helped to settle down in and adapt within migrant contexts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration and homemaking practices among the Amis of Taiwan

Yeh¹

2017

Mobilities of Return: Pacific Perspectives

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The research observes how Amis migrants reconstruct their homelands as the source of feelings of stability and identity under pressure from the wider politico-economic and sociocultural context of Taiwan. Amis homemaking practices in their homelands play important roles in migrants' self-understanding, for practices anchored in the place of origin provide a sense of security to move in the world. The maintenance and reproduction of this place of origin, and ongoing exchanges within extended family and village networks, also express the Amis's consciousness of their increasing links with the wider world. This study begins by considering the 'native' place of migrants, focusing on how the Amis people construct and imagine their home community through translocal processes. These observations provide initial insights into how social networks and cultural practices in the native place mediate changes arising from national development and the capitalist economic system. It discusses how migrants maintain and make visible their ongoing commitment to homelands through material displays of wealth, in houses, cars, pig feasts, etc. By contrast, people who remain in the villages use the collective context of prayer and church to communicate with the migrant members. MoBILITIEs of RETURN 190

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Totem and Transaction: the Objectification of ‘Tradition’ Among North Mekeo

Mosko

2002

Oceania

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Most recent treatments of Melanesian post‐contact change have presumed that objectifications of ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ have intensified and proliferated in response to the forces of colonialism and the penetration of the nation‐state. Harrison (2000) has recently argued, however, that in pre‐colonial times too Melanesians characteristically objectified their cultural practices and identities as ‘possessions’ that could be readily exchanged or transacted. Supposedly, the key difference between the two eras has accorded with different formulations of ‘property’: ‘private property’ and the logic of ‘possessive individualism’ in the post‐contact era; and ‘trading and gift‐exchange systems’ or ‘prestige economies’ in pre‐contact times. In this article I examine Harrison's portrayal of Melanesian cultural practices as ‘possessions’ and the notions of ‘property’ that he sees as key to the cultural objectification in both pre‐ and post‐colonial settings with reference to ethnographic and historical information regarding the North Mekeo peoples of Papua New Guinea. I argue from the perspective of the New Melanesian Ethnography that Harrison's view of pre‐contact prestige economies and trade and gift exchange systems retains several misleading a priori assumptions about ‘commodity exchange’ and, illustrating the potential of the New Melanesian Ethnography for historical applications, that he overemphasizes the extent to which post‐contact changes in cultural objectification have involved individualised and commodified forms of property. Consequently, in the case of North Mekeo, both the continuities and the changes between pre‐ and post‐contact cultural objectifications may have proceeded differently from the ways Harrison has outlined for Melanesia generally.

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Syncretic Persons: Sociality, Agency and Personhood in Recent Charismatic Ritual Practices among North Mekeo (PNG)

Abstract: Slyncretism is not a contradiction of their culturalism-of the indigenous claims of authenticity and autonompbut its systematic condition. ( M . Sahlins 1993: 19)

Cited by 21 publications

References 14 publications

Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land : Land and territory in the Austronesian world

Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land : Land and territory in the Austronesian world

Migration and homemaking practices among the Amis of Taiwan

Totem and Transaction: the Objectification of ‘Tradition’ Among North Mekeo

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