Two Forms of Masculine Ritualized Rebirth: The Melanesian Body and the Amazonian Cosmos

Bonnemère, Pascale

doi:10.1525/california/9780520228511.003.0002

Cited by 8 publications

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“…In particular, they go through the second phase of the initiations, which consists in being made to pass through a corridor of branches at the end of which men smear their face and shoulders with cooked red pandanus seeds, hence the name of the ceremony, chemazi'ne (see above). As I have shown elsewhere (Bonnemère 2001 b ), this ceremony enacts a rebirth, the red of the plant representing the blood that often coats the body of a newborn child.…”

Section: The Ankave and Their Ritualsmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…But there exist secret male spaces where other dimensions are valued (preparation for self‐control, battle, access to secret myths, etc.) and where certain practices are clearly male appropriations of female functions and physiological powers (Bonnemère 2001 b ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although everyone officially respects it, the prohibition on red pandanus is in reality violated by the boys (see Bonnemère 2001 b : 24 for an interpretation of this false taboo).…”

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confidence: 99%

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A relational approach to a Papua New Guinea male ritual cycle

Bonnemère

2014

Royal Anthropological Inst

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The article analyses the male ritual cycle of the Ankave‐Anga in Papua New Guinea. In the 1980s, male initiations in this region were interpreted as institutions for the reproduction of male domination. And yet, looking at the ritual gestures performed at the same time by the men in the forest and by the women in the village, it becomes possible to offer another interpretation, one that, following Marilyn Strathern, underscores a relational dimension. But, whereas Strathern saw these rituals as times when boys went from a ‘cross‐sex’ state to a ‘single‐sex’ state capable of reproduction, following a process of extraction, the article argues that the Ankave ritual cycle can be read as an ordered series of transformations of the relations between the boys and their mothers and sisters, in the presence of these female relatives. At the heart of these initiations lies the boys' accession to the capacity to act for others. Such an analysis of specific ethnographic Melanesian material makes possible a critical appraisal of the Strathernian notions of partibility and detachability, which have often been taken as given by researchers outside the region.

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Section: The Ankave and Their Ritualsmentioning

confidence: 82%

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confidence: 99%

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A relational approach to a Papua New Guinea male ritual cycle

Bonnemère

2014

Royal Anthropological Inst

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“…Although the taboo on red pandanus is officially respected by all, boys (unbeknownst to the women) do transgress it, as if ensuring in secret their own growth (Bonnemère , Chapter 5, Note 7), which I have shown elsewhere is modelled on gestation (Bonnemère :24).…”

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confidence: 99%

Actions, Relations and Transformations: The Cycle of Life According to the Ankave of Papua New Guinea

Bonnemère

2018

Oceania

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Among the Ankave of Papua New Guinea, the important moments in men's and women's lives (birth, initiation, marriage and death) are marked by rituals and exchanges. Analysis of these moments reveals four major principles that organize how the Ankave think about human existence and its continuity: (1) a radical asymmetry between men and women in how they reach physical and reproductive maturity; (2) symbolic proximity between bodily substances and certain plants and minerals; (3) the power of life and death that maternal kin have over their nephews and nieces on account of their shared blood; and (4) the distance between the agent of an action and the action's beneficiary ('action for another'). This article explores the registers in which these principles operate in order to grasp the Ankave understanding of life. The register of substances predominates in Ankave discourse about good health and growth, while the register of daily activities dominates when it comes to marking gender distinctions during infancy and childhood. The register of transformations and relations is dominant during male initiationsit is during these rituals that relations between novices and specific categories of kinswomen are transformedand in discourse about what happens to boys' bodies during these rituals. Analyses of Ankave discourse on life and on the rituals and exchanges that accompany life-cycles show how these four principles operate concretely and how the registers of substances, activities, transformations and relations are articulated to form a specific way of understanding human existence and its continuity.

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“… 6 Other recent ethnographic studies of Angan people include Bonnemère (1993; 1996; 2001), Lemonnier (1991), and Mimica (1981; 1988; 1991). See also Blackwood (1939 a ; 1939 b ; 1940; 1950; 1978), Fischer (1968), Simpson (1953), and Sinclair (1961; 1966).…”

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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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Two Forms of Masculine Ritualized Rebirth: The Melanesian Body and the Amazonian Cosmos

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

A relational approach to a Papua New Guinea male ritual cycle

A relational approach to a Papua New Guinea male ritual cycle

Actions, Relations and Transformations: The Cycle of Life According to the Ankave of Papua New Guinea

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

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