This text, translated from the French original, explores the culture of the Yafar, a hunter-gatherer society in the West Sepik province of Papua New Guinea. It offers a detailed explanation of all aspects of a society whose material and cultural relations with its rain forest environment is based on a carefully negotiated relationship with natural forces and on the complementary relationship between the sexes. The author shows how these concepts can be found in the ritualized and institutional aspects of the Yafar's social life, as well as in their mythology. The book fully documents the Yafar's complex ritual involving a symbolic exchange with the spirit world, a secret cult, and curing rites presided over by hereditary religious officials. The author's analysis of Yafar ideologies reveals that sexual reproduction is the key to their society, the model for continuity and regeneration prescribed by nature.
- ISBN10 185973166X
- ISBN13 9781859731666
- Publish Date 1 September 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 July 2008
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Berg Publishers
- Format Paperback
- Pages 256
- Language English