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Myths are best understood as a convergence of voices from across times and cultures. They are the instruments through which authors and audiences seek to grapple with questions about the fundamental nature of the universe. The answers, however, constantly change in light of changing circumstances such as the interface between western and non-western cultures, or cataclysmic events. The authors argue that these societies' worldviews assume that the process of flow between events, rather than the nature of the events, is critical to a model of human sociality.
Boundaries, whether of a ritual, physical, or social nature, are perceived as constantly broken by the exchange of ideas across time, space, and peoples. Our understanding of such issues as gender relations and the body, social change, imagination, play, and the conceptualization of power is furthered by probing how it is that myth is both expressive as well as constitutive of human thought on these topics.
List of contents
Preface by C. Ballard and L.R. Goldman
Introduction: Fire and Water: Fluid Ontologies in Melanesian Myths by L.R. Goldman, J. Duffield and C. Ballard
Hand, Voice and Myth in Papua New Guinea by J.F. Weiner
Sacrifice and Sociality: A Duna Ritual Track by A. Strathern
Sacrifice and Regeneration Among Ipilis: The View from Tipini by A. Biersack
The Sun by Night: Huli Moral Topography and Myths of a Time of Darkness by C. Ballard
A Trickster for All Seasons: The Huli Iba Tiri by L.R. Goldman
Myths of Containment, Myths of Extension: Creating Relations Across Boundaries by L. Josephides
How the World Turns Upside Down: Changing Geographies of Power and Spiritual Influence Among the Gebusi by B.M. Knauf
Index
About the author
LAURENCE R. GOLDMAN is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Queensland, Australia./e
