To eat for another: taboo and the elicitation of bodily form among the Kamea of Papua New Guinea

Bamford, Sandra

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511802782.007

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…He exists only insofar as he acts his role in the course of his relationships ' (1979 [1947]:153). More recently, similar claims have been made in regard to a number of Papua New Guinean groups (see Waiko 1982, Bamford 1998, Telban 1998. While I do not wish to collapse the differences in Strathern's, Leenhardt's and others' analyses of the Melanesian person, it is evident that 'relationality' is central to them all.…”

Section: Body Being and Foodmentioning

confidence: 65%

“…It is now generally argued of Melanesia that people build relationships rather than societies (Strathern 1990, Bamford 1998:169, Robbins 2004:187, Van Heekeren 2004b. Without adhering strictly to Strathern's formulation, I agree with Gell who suggests that the strength of her model is its ability to destabilize many of the assumptions of social analysis, for example; that society is opposed to the individual, male to female, things to persons, nature to culture (1999:74).…”

Section: Body Being and Foodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although it is food which is the medium through which incorporation is enacted, I follow Strathern in arguing that 'It is not the food as such that must be analyzed, but the feeding relationship... [and further that] The effect of the food will vary according to the source from which it comes ' (1990:251, cf Sexton 1995, Bamford 1998. For example, Lorraine Sexton states that in the case of Daulo marriage as she did at her menarcheal ceremony, the bride feeds people pork at her betrothal.…”

Section: Mythopoeia and The Feeding Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Feeding Relationship: Uncovering Cosmology in Christian Women's Fellowship in Papua New Guinea

Heekeren¹

2004

Oceania

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While the Christian doctrine to which Hula villagers of the south east coast of Papua New Guinea today subscribe claims that community is achieved contractually through membership in the Church, this paper suggests that, in practice, Hula sociality is shaped by other exigencies. As part of their program the members of the Iru-ale United Church Women's Fellowship undertake the incorporation of certain outsiders (in this case the ethnographer) through the ceremonial presentation of food and the act of feeding. A phenomenology of this imperative reveals important connections to pre-Christian mythology and cosmology. Incorporation seen in this context situates the 'feeding relationship' at the core of a Hula ontology in which body and food are consubstantial. The manipulation of food as body is shown to playa determining role in the constitution of various modes of existence; human and non-human, male and female, the living and the non-living. The feeding relationship thus facilitates continuity between past and present practices and suggests that the Hula have assimilated the introduced religion into their lifeworld largely on their own terms.

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Section: Body Being and Foodmentioning

confidence: 65%

Section: Body Being and Foodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mythopoeia and The Feeding Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Feeding Relationship: Uncovering Cosmology in Christian Women's Fellowship in Papua New Guinea

Heekeren¹

2004

Oceania

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“…Ethnographic reports the world around tell of relations of birth being largely discounted as kinship, sometimes totally ignored. Certainly as regards shared substance, the Kamea of New Guinea are not the only ones who know no such connection between children and those who conceived them (Bamford 1998; 2007; 2009). Parenting is likewise devalued in the reincarnation concepts of many circumpolar societies.…”

Section: Constructivismmentioning

confidence: 99%

What kinship is (part one)

Sahlins

2011

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

349

136

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A modest proposal for solving the 150‐year‐old problem of what kinship is, its specific quality, viz. mutuality of being: persons who are members of one another, who participate intrinsically in each other's existence. ‘Mutuality of being’ applies as well to the constitution of kinship by social construction as by procreation, even as it accounts for ‘the mysterious effectiveness of relationality’ (Viveiros de Castro), how it is that relatives live each other's lives and die each other's deaths. Involving such transpersonal relations of being and experience, kinship takes its place in the same ontological regime as magic, gift exchange, sorcery, and witchcraft. Résumé Une modeste proposition pour résoudre l’équation, vieille de 150 ans, de ce qu’est la parenté, sa spécificité, à savoir la mutualité d’existence : des personnes qui sont membres les unes des autres, qui participent à l’existence les unes des autres. La « mutualité d’existence » vaut aussi pour la constitution de lien de parenté par la construction sociale et la procréation, bien qu’elle tienne compte de « la mystérieuse efficacité de la relationalité » (Viveiros de Castro), de la manière dont les parents vivent les vies et meurent les morts des uns et des autres. La parenté, en mettant en jeu ces relations transpersonnelles d’existence et d’expérience, s’inscrit dans le même ordre ontologique que la magie, l’échange de cadeaux, la sorcellerie et la magie noire.

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“…I have published elsewhere on the issue of how this imagery of ‘containment’ comes to be played out within a diversity of contexts (Bamford 1998 b ; forthcoming a ). The Kamea men's cult, for example, is focused on the lengthy and arduous process of detaching a boy from the encompassing influence of his mother, a state that is understood to exist long after birth.…”

Section: Substantial and Insubstantial Identitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceiving relatedness: non‐substantial relations among the Kamea of Papua New Guinea

Bamford

2004

Royal Anthropological Inst

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This article considers the implications of imagining kinship as a non‐embodied relation. In recent years, it has become commonplace to argue that relatedness is a gradually acquired state that can be built over time and by non‐sexual means. In this view, relationships of consanguinity are not given at birth but are created through purposeful acts of feeding and caring. Here, I address a question that has been less commonly asked by anthropologists: need kinship always be imagined as entailing an embodied connection? Is there a way of thinking about cross‐generational relationships that does not ground them in bodily connectedness, or, at the very least, one that imagines contexts in which they are not embodied as a substantial link between people? Drawing upon data collected among Kamea of Papua New Guinea, I describe a world in which the parent‐child tie is conceptualized as one that is inherently non‐embodied.

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To eat for another: taboo and the elicitation of bodily form among the Kamea of Papua New Guinea

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Feeding Relationship: Uncovering Cosmology in Christian Women's Fellowship in Papua New Guinea

Feeding Relationship: Uncovering Cosmology in Christian Women's Fellowship in Papua New Guinea

What kinship is (part one)

Conceiving relatedness: non‐substantial relations among the Kamea of Papua New Guinea

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