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E-book Of Humans, Pigs, and Souls : An Essay on the Yagwoia Womba Complex

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Penilaian

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The Yagwoia-Angan people, whose selfhood I explore, live in a rugged mountainous region that stretches across the Eastern Highlands, Morobe, and Gulf provinces of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The Yagwoia population is approximately 13,000 in size, and my long-term ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork was primarily with two major groups, the Iqwaye and Iwolaqa-Malyce.1 My concern here is to unravel from within the Yagwoia cultural imaginary their womba complex, a malignant condition of the soul that involves cannibalistic cravings. This condition could be easily identified as an example of “witchcraft” phenomena reported in numerous ethnographies of Melanesian lifeworlds (e.g., Stephen 1987; Reay 1976; Róheim 1948; Steadman 1975, 1985; Strathern 1982 “Womba” as term subsumes the experience, its power, the ensuing soul-condition and transformation, and the person subject to it. I refer to all these aspects as “wombacomplex.” The phenomena known as “witchcraft” and “sorcery” have in recent years received much coverage in international media and in anthropological debates on the PNG Highlands. However, the violence typical of reported cases of witch (and sorcerer) murder does not apply here: unlike among other groups located close-by and such elsewhere in PNG, being recognized as a wombaamong the Yagwoia has no lethal consequences for such a person. The critical aspect of this dynamic is that it arises from dream experience and concomitant self-recognition, not from being identified or accused by others of being a womba. In the first four chapters, I explore the womba complex in its local cultural-existential determinations and its regional permutations in relation to shamanism. My focus is on the lived experience of the womba complex in relation to the wider context of the historical cannibalistic and mortuary practices in the Yagwoia lifeworld. I then provide an outline of how the complex relates to practices of sorcery and the mother’s brother’s malediction, and what these reveal about a moral sense of the self. Following a chapter that places the womba complex into a regional perspective, the study concludes with reflections on the recent escalation of witchcraft and sorcery in the PNG body social, specifically in relation to the new wave of Christian evangelism occurring in partnership with the PNG state.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

398.2 MIM o

Penerbit

USA : HAU Books., 2020

Deskripsi Fisik

179 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781912808359

Klasifikasi

398.2

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Folk Literature, Fairy Tales, Myth, Mythology

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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