By Mark S. Mosko
Regardless of nearly a century of touch with Europeans, the Bush Mekeo humans of Papua New Guinea are nonetheless basically unknown to the anthropological global. This publication used to be the 1st special, accomplished learn of Bush Mekeo tradition and society. utilizing a rigourous structuralist method of interpret in a constant and systematic means the significant meanings and social practices of this South Seas lifestyle, Mark Mosko offers a resounding portrayal of Bush Mekeo tradition and society as a unified, coherent and logical 'whole'. the most strength of the booklet is to discover empirically the common sense during which Bush Mekeo symbols are hooked up. starting with local symbolic structures of house and time, Professor Mosko rigorously unfolds the linked ideals and practices referring to the physique, to the kin among genders, to the procedure of social business enterprise and to the dramatic and resplendent Bush Mekeo mortuary ceremonial.
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Additional info for Quadripartite Structures: Categories, Relations and Homologies in Bush Mekeo Culture
Sample text
They were never required to plant either coconuts or rice for government or mission. Introduction 17 Map 2. The Bush Mekeo and their neighbors. Villagers were supposed to dig and maintain latrines and to bury their dead in cemeteries away from the village, but for many years these policies and others were neither regularly practiced nor enforced. After nearly thirty years of contact, one patrol officer noted that the government still lacked much control among the Bush Mekeo (Humphries 1923:233).
During the remaining hours of evening and into the night, with the stock of resources replenished, the village and its inhabitants begin the process of accumulating new rubbish and wastes in their respective abdomens for bush disposal the next day. Women rekindle their hearths and prepare the evening meal. Married men gather on chiefs' clubhouses discussing events of the day while they wait for their wives to serve them their food. Bachelors haunt the margins of the village together hoping for the chance to impress their loves, and young children play.
As the afternoon wears on, those who left earlier begin straggling out to the village burdened with their Between village and bush 25 quarry: vegetables, meat and fish, firewood, and various materials for house and canoe manufacture or other village industries. During the remaining hours of evening and into the night, with the stock of resources replenished, the village and its inhabitants begin the process of accumulating new rubbish and wastes in their respective abdomens for bush disposal the next day.