The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers

270 Pages·2005·2.484 MB·English

by  Edward L. Schieffelin (auth.)

The
Sorrow
of the Lonely
and the Burning of
the Dancers

Edward L. Schieffelin
The
Sorrow
of the Lonely
and the Burning of
the Dancers
Second Edition
THE SORROW OF THE LONELY AND THE BURNING OF
THE DANCERS (SECOND EDITION)
© Edward L. Schieffelin, 1976, 2005
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 2005 978-1-4039-6789-3
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles
or reviews.
First published in paperback in 1976 by St. Martin’s Press
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ second edition: January 2005
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ISBN 978-1-4039-6606-3 ISBN 978-1-4039-8179-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403981790
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
from the Library of Congress.
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Design by Newgen Imaging Systems, Inc., Chennai, India.
Frontispiece: The author and Sialo in 1968
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN second edition: January 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition viii
Bibliography to Preface xx
Kaluli Pronunciation xxvi
Introduction 1
1 Ceremonies and Reciprocity 18
The Gisaro Ceremony 20
Ceremonies and Reciprocity 25
2 In the Shadow of the Mountain 29
The Longhouse Community 32
Identification with Locality 41
3 I’m Sorry, Brother, I Don’t Eat That 45
Food and Social Relationships 45
Kinship Terminology and Relationships 51
Marriage 57
Affinal Exchange of Food 60
Food and the Manipulation of Social
Relationships 62
Food Taboos 63
Summary 70
4 Organizing Actions: Those at the House and
Those Who Came 72
Formation of Cooperative Groups 72
Formation of Groups in Opposition 75
v
vi / CONTENTS
Opposition in Conflict: The Scenario of
Retaliation 77
Opposition in Friendship: Weddings and
Prestations 87
5 The Unseen World and the Opposition Scenario 93
Inhabitants of the Invisible 96
The Unseen in Everyday Life 102
The Medium’s View of the Unseen 104
The Nature of Opposition 106
Oppositions and Social Process 114
6 Assertion and Appeal 116
Kaluli Assertiveness 117
The Vitality of Men 120
Achieving Cooperation 127
7 Anger, Reciprocity, and the Rhythms of
Experience 134
Anger and a Sense of Proportion 135
Reciprocity and the Sense of Time
and Events 139
8 The Perception of a Human Condition 147
Warmth and Sentimentality 147
Exuberance and Violence 153
Reactions to Death 156
9 Ceremonial Occasions and Preparations 160
10 The Gisaro 171
The Songs 177
The Violence 188
Denouement 194
Aftermath 194
11 Gisaro and the Opposition Scenario 196
A Drama of Opposition 197
A Sense of Proportion 203
CONTENTS / vii
Payment of Compensation 205
The Significance of Gisaro 207
Gisaro and the Unseen 211
Appendix I Dances and Ceremonies Performed by
Bosavi People 225
Appendix II Selected Bibliography of
Bosavi since 1968 230
References 233
Index 235
Preface to the Second Edition
T
he material for this ethnography was gathered over a period
of 26 months of doctoral research undertaken in Papua New
Guinea in 1966–68. The first edition was published in l976 and
remained in print for 25 years. Over that time, the discipline
of anthropology has gone through many changes and it is worth
pausing at the beginning of the second edition to consider the
book from the perspective of its time and from the present.
What were the questions that inspired it? What kind of context
motivated it? What tasks did it set itself to accomplish? and
finally, What does it still have to offer?
Origins and Motivations
Before I came to the field of anthropology I studied science and
philosophy. The questions that eventually led me to travel to
New Guinea came originally from this context. Simply stated
they came down to two: The first question arose from a keen
interest in epistemology, the inquiry into the nature of human
knowledge and the conditions that make knowledge possible.
Could a single universal theory of knowledge account for all
human knowing, as Kant believed when he proposed his uni-
versal categories of the understanding? Or did people of differ-
ent cultures not only have differing customs, beliefs, and bodies
of knowledge, but fundamentally different modes of organizing
viii
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION / ix
their understanding as well—derived, say, from the structure of
their societies (as Durkheim believed) or the organization of their
languages (as Whorf and Sapir hypothesized)? Or could it be,
as Jung’s work suggested, that the basic categories of knowledge
were not wholly cognitive or even logical at all? These questions
were not entirely new to scholars in anthropology, but in the
early 1960s, they had not been actively pursued for a long time.
The second question derived from my interest in existential
philosophy, with its focus on fundamental human concerns: the
problem and meaning of freedom, the life of the spirit, moral
responsibility, love, the encounter with Others, with the Gods,
and with Death. Surely, I thought, these issues must be shared
and basic for all humankind—yet it seemed clear that people
in different cultures framed and lived them very differently. These
reflections, seen in the light of my first question, gave rise to
the second: Was there a connection between different modes of
apprehending reality on the level of the organization of thought
and the different ways in which people lived out the funda-
mental concerns of their everyday lives? How did a people’s
basic mode of knowing affect their fundamental concerns in
life—and how, conversely, did their life experience affect their
fundamental frameworks of thought?
While these questions were important philosophically in their
own right, I found myself much more drawn to what they might
mean for actual human beings trying to live real lives in the
world. Anthropology, with its close, long-term scrutiny of every-
day human life in different cultures, seemed the proper (and
perhaps the only) place to pursue them.
I started graduate study in anthropology in the early 1960s.
These were restless times in the United States. The Cold War
was at its height. America had recently risked a nuclear war
with the Soviet Union over the Cuban missile crisis. Not long
afterward the president was assassinated. The Johnson adminis-
tration was now embarking on a serious escalation of the Vietnam
War. At the same time, young people were joining the Peace
Corps and fanning out across the third world to help the poor—
while at home, the Civil Rights movement was resolutely forcing
liberal reform. A counter-cultural movement was taking shape