Fredrik Barth: Oceania Flashcards
What does Barth attempt to do in ‘Cosmologies in the making’ (1987)?
‘…to analyse variations in ritual between cognate and cintiguous Mountain Ok communities in a way that will provide insights into the forms of religion and society in the area, and raise theoretical questions as to how these can best be perceived and anlysed.’ (Barth 1987:1)
Name the eleven chapters of Barth’s Cosmologies in the Making (1987).
- The problem
- An attempt at systematic comparison: descent and ideas of conception
- The possible interrelations of sub-traditions: reading sequence from distribution
- The context for events of change
- The results of process - variations in connotation
- Secret thoughts and shared understandings
- The stepwise articulation of a vision
- Experience and concept of formation
- The insights pursued by Ok thinkers
- General and comparative perspectives
- Some reflections on theory and method
Which people did Poole (1976, 1982) study?
Poole studied the Bimin-Kuskusmin.
What people did Dan Jorgensen study?
The Telefolmin.
features of social organization
Which features does Barth include in the sketch of social organization he presents early in his chapter on descent and conception (Barth 1987:11)?
- Kinship
- Primary political units
- Organization of groups and steps in initiation
Where, within the region Barth studies, is descent reckoned patrinileally?
- Along the east-west axis of the southward-facing slope of the cordillera, descent is reckoned patrinieally in the east.
- Baktaman, Bimin-Kuskusmin and neighbours have exogamous patrinileal clans.
In order to see the force of Nadel’s approach to co-variation for uncovering a deeper structure of connection and order behind surface variations, Barth explores (in Ch. 2) the connection between theories of conception and the organization of descent accross three populations.
- What three peoples does he include in this comparison?
- What are their respective beliefs about the progeny of the foetus?
- The eastern partinileal, exogamous Baktaman who hold that the child springs from male semen as from a seed
- The western, bilateral Telefolmin who hold that the child is created from a fusion of male and female sexual secretions (though Telefolmin women hold that the bones are created entirely from menstrual blood)
- The patrilineal Bimin-Kuskusmin who subscribe to ‘a tortuously complex theory of procreation (…) which resolve the various themes of bilateral transmission, agnatic blood and female life force.
Bone substance (sacra)
How can Barth say that the Bimin-Kuskusmin’s views on bone substance is a reversal of the view of the Telefolmin (1987:15)?
- Telefolmin (women) hold that the bones are created entirely from the mother’s menstrual blood.
- Bimin-Kuskusmin hold that bony structure (like essential sensory organs) are made from the male contribution, while the soft parts which decompose quickly at death derive from female contributions.
The better justification for patrilineality
Which of the Baktaman and the Bimin-Kuskusmin does Barth hold that has the most compelling self-evident justification for patrilineal descent?
The Baktaman (p. 16)
What feature of Kuskusmin marriage rules does Barth hold that their conceived plurality of agnatic blood lines fail to explain?
Their organization into exogamous moieties.
Why does Barth find it difficult to subject the materials (ideas of conception and descent of Baktaman, Bimin-Kuskusmin and Telefolmin) to a systematic comparision in a search for institutional co-variation?
The things he wishes to compare are not of one piece in each of the communities
- They are differently connected to different other aspects
- They articulate with wider syndromes
And several more reasons (on pages 16-17).
“The data we are handling do not seem to have the properties they must have, if this methodology of studyng co-variation were to serve us.” (p. 17)
What is the main function of Barth’s chapter on descent and conception in his Cosmologies monography?
To test the usefulness of Nadels model of co-variation (nadel 1951).
- Searching for a comparative methodology, Barth holds that Nadel’s approach comes closest to defining a procedurally clear and rigourous methodology.
- Barth then explores the connection between theories of conception and the organization of descent, among three Ok subgroups.
- Barth finds that the approach leaves him at an impasse:
- operating at a sufficiently high level of concreteness, description becomes an unending task, while
- a structuralist approach would on the other hand require him to construct highly abstract renderings of a few select features before comparison:
- ‘Thus our comparative analysis would only succeed by moving away from the complexity and reality of people’s lives and thought**s*.’
Of what two dominant anthropological approaches to the analysis of ritual meaning was Barth skeptical when he embarked on this New Guinea fieldwork in 1968?
(Source: Barth 2007:10)
1. Lévi-Strauss
The highly intellectual and abstract theory of Lévi-Strauss…
…modeled on structural analysis in linguistics and emphasizing myth.
2. Geertz
The loosely theorized “thick description” of Clifford Geertz…
…which sougt to arrive at a cultural interpretation of meaning by piling up data on a mass of local cultural institutions…
…in the hope that an inherent systematic would gradually emmerge.
Who was Nulapeng?
- Intelligent young man from previously contacted community
- Had lived for a while as child in fosterage among the Baktaman
- Knowledgeable in both the Baktaman Faiwol dialect and the Neo-Melansesian/Pidgin.
- What meta-message did Barth sense that the whole Baktaman initiation sequence contained?
- To what did he sense that the initiation sequence led?
- (Source: Barth 2007:12.)*
- The initiation sequence contained:
‘…a meta-message of the ambiguity of any and every claim…’
- The initiation sequence led to:
‘…the final embracement of mystery as the most valid way of knowing these awesome truths.’
