A01=Susanne Kuchler
Alstonia Scholaris
Ancestral Domain
Areca Nut
Author_Susanne Kuchler
Bismarck Archipelago
Bridewealth Payment
Calendrical Rites
Category=AGA
Category=JHM
Category=QRVJ1
Category=YX
Coconut Palm
cognitive anthropology
cognitive models in Pacific rituals
Colonial Administration
Commemorative Work
Endogamous Group
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eq_childrens
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ethnographic museum
Funerary Effigies
Funerary Enclosure
funerary rites analysis
Hortense Powdermaker
Ine Si
kinship systems
Malanggan collections
material culture studies
Mauss's Essay
Mauss’s Essay
Opposite Parts
Pacific ethnography
Pacific's classic puzzles
Pandanus Palm
Ritual Garden
ritual symbolism
Ritual Work
Sibling Units
Taro Garden
Taro Plants
Taro Tubers
Wild Ginger
Younger Men
Product details
- ISBN 9781859736173
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 01 Nov 2002
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folkore Award 2003 Malanggan are among the most treasured possessions in the Pacific, yet they continue to confound anthropologists. Central to funerals in New Ireland, these ‘death' figures are intended to decompose as symbolic representations of the dead. Wrapped in images that are conceived of as ‘skins', they are both visually complex and intriguing. This book is the first to interpret these mysterious agents of resemblance and connection as having a cognitive rather than a linguistic basis. Found in nearly every ethnographic museum in the world, Malanggan collections have been left virtually untouched. This original study begins by tracing the history of the collections and moves on to consider the role these artefacts play in sacrifice, ritual and exchange. What is the relationship between Malanggan and memory? How can Malanggan be understood as a life force as well as a vehicle for thought? In an analysis of the cognitive aspects of Malanggan, Küchler offers a highly original conceptualization of the centrality of the knot as a mode of being, thinking and binding in the Pacific. Malanggan: Art, Memory and Sacrifice is a groundbreaking study. Based on fifteen years of fieldwork and collection research, it provides an incisive new take on one of the Pacific's classic puzzles, as well as a wealth of new information and resources for anthropologists, collectors and curators alike.
Susanne Küchler is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University College London.
