24 research outputs found
Hiding behind the church : towards an understanding of sorcery in Christian Papua New Guinea
No full textThis paper considers the assumption that the long-term success of the Christian Churches in some parts of Papua New Guinea (PNG) will eliminate or even regulate the magical practices that are nowadays commonly described as 'sorcery'. Among the Vula'a of PNG men seeking prestige and influence turn to the Church, and some of them are said to be sorcerers who 'hide behind it'. Most deaths continue to be attributed to sorcery, and fear of sorcery and the need to counter it with other sorcery eclipses Christian proscriptions. It is power - rather than the introduced concepts of 'good' and 'evil' brought by Christian colonizers that dominates current discourse - that contributes to the persistence of sorcery albeit in a variety of new and introduced forms. Sorcery is effective because it creates a culture of fear. I conclude, then, by applying Heidegger's analysis of fear to Vula'a sorcery to suggest that an anthropology of fear will contribute to a better understanding of sorcery in contemporary PNG.16 page(s
Gesturing to the Past: The Case for an Ethnography of Melanesian Poetics
Get PDFThe driving theme of this article is the loss of poetics in the language of the Vulaâa people of southeastern Papua New Guinea, in particular the relationship between language loss and knowledge lossâthe type of knowledge that connects people to ancestors and is central to a groupâs identity. Drawing on examples from my fieldwork, I argue for the value of an ethnography of poetic language and for rethinking approaches to the study of Indigenous languages beyond instances when endangerment is imminent. My approach is influenced by Martin Heidegger and sits comfortably with recent theoretical perspectives that draw on the work of Edward S Casey (1996) and Tim Ingold (2000). Poetic language is not only prevalent in immediately recognizable genres; it also plays a significant role in many other oral traditions as well as in day-to-day life. Consequently, there is a pressing need to pay attention to disappearing poetic forms if we are to comprehend past and present lifeworlds. To this end, we should not be distracted by models that would reduce language to types of expression or to component parts. After presenting examples from my own research, I explore the work of other Melanesian ethnographers to reveal the relationship between poetic language, place, and Indigenous ways of knowing
Singing it 'local' : the appropriation of Christianity in the Vula'a villages of Papua New Guinea
No full textThe Vula'a people of south-eastern Papua New Guinea have been Christians for more than a century. Through a phenomenology of the transformation of their song and dance styles, this paper sheds light on the nature of the engagement between globalising religions and localised practice. It draws attention to the importance of the appropriation of the Polynesian prophet songs (peroveta), initially as part of the process of conversion undertaken by the London Missionary Society, and presently as an expression of local Christian identity that is shaped by âtraditionalâ exigencies. Song connects the living community and extends the bounds of that community to the non-living, promoting an existential plenitude. I argue that the Christian song styles which replaced traditional dances reproduce a distinctly Melanesian ontology. Further, the instrumental position of early Polynesian mission teachers, both as agents for the new religion and their self-representation as geographically distant âkinâ of the Vula'a problematises any easy division between the local and the global.16 page(s
The Shark warrior of Alewai : a phenomenology of Melanesian identity
No full textThe first anthropological monograph published on the Vula'a people of south-eastern Papua New Guinea, The Shark Warrior of Alewai considers oral histories and Western historical documents that cover a period of more than 200 years in the light of an ethnography of contemporary Christianity. Van Heekeren's phenomenology of Vula'a storytelling reveals how the life of one man, the Shark Warrior, comes to contain the identity of a people. Drawing on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, she goes on to establish the essential continuities that underpin the reproduction of Vula'a identity, and to demonstrate how these give a distinctive form to Vula'a responses to historical change. In an approach that brings together the fields of Anthropology, History and Philosophy, the book questions conventional anthropological categories of exchange, gender and kinship, as well as the problematic dichotomization of myth and history, to argue for an anthropology grounded in ontology. Deborah Van Heekeren is a lecturer in Anthropology at Macquarie University Sydney. Her research interests include the cosmology, myth, history and Christianity of the Vula'a of Papua New Guinea.211 page(s
Why Alewai village needed a church : some reflections on Christianity, conversion, and male leadership in south-east Papua New Guinea
No full textIn the Vula'a villages of south-east Papua New Guinea, the experience of more than a century of Christianity has been incorporated into local understandings of identity and tradition. Church-building (in both the architectural and ideological sense) is at the centre of village life. Even though it was a general policy of the London Missionary Society to build a church in every village in which conversion was undertaken, they did not build a church in the Vula'a village of Alewai. In 2001 the fact that Alewai did not have a church initiated a chain of events that draws attention to a situation of current relevance for Papua New Guinea, as evangelists no longer work to convert the 'heathen' but to convert Christians from one denomination to another. As a case study the article is focused on the pastors and deacons of the United Church and thus also serves to document some of the changes that have occurred in male leadership since the early colonial era.21 page(s
