Author : Alfred Gell
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000320944
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)
Book Synopsis Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries by : Alfred Gell
Download or read book Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries written by Alfred Gell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-09 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this substantial book, Gell guides the reader systematically through an analysis of the social structure, language and ritual of the Umedia-Punda connubium of the West Sepik district. One of the central areas explored is the ida fertitility ritual and the decipherment and the unravelling of symbolic relationships between words of similar construction. One one side is the anaylsis on the temporal sequence of events (or ritual roles) metamorphosing the casswary (nature) into the 'new man' (culture) and the on other side, the associated 'harmonic levels' which allude to body painting, choreography and social status. His approach substantiates the view that the ritual is not so much about the establishing of linear causality in the relationship between a society and its environment, but with the 'an act of poetic legislation over the course of nature'.