The gender of the cosmos: totemism, society and embodiment in the Sepik River.

The gender of the cosmos: totemism, society and embodiment in the Sepik River. INTRODUCTIONThis article interprets gender and bodily imagery in the cosmology,totemic system and formation of social groups in the Eastern Iatmulvillage of Tambunum, middle Sepik River, Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea(păp`ə, –y (Map 1).[1].On an empirical level, my goal is to clarify the local conceptualization con��cep��tu��al��ize?v. con��cep��tu��al��ized, con��cep��tu��al��iz��ing, con��cep��tu��al��iz��esv.tr.To form a concept or concepts of, and especially to interpret in a conceptual way: of descent groups and offer new data on a culture that has been centralto anthropological and Melanesian studies since the 1930s. On atheoretical level, the Tambunum material refines in two waysHarrison's (1989; see also 1990) insightful framework forunderstanding a fundamental difference in the foundation of Melanesiansocial groupings. This refinement pivots on, first, the status of localstatements concerning the cosmos, and, second, the symbolic equivalencebetween totemism totemismComplex of ideas and practices based on the belief in kinship or mystical relationship between a group (or individual) and a natural object, such as an animal or plant. The term derives from the Ojibwa word ototeman, signifying a blood relationship. and reproduction, or, male ritual-politics and thecultural symbolism of the maternal body. In Harrison's terminology, `magical' polities such asthe Manambu of Avatip are locally understood to be constituted on thebasis of totemic categories. These categories, encoded in names, areimagined to exist a priori a prioriIn epistemology, knowledge that is independent of all particular experiences, as opposed to a posteriori (or empirical) knowledge, which derives from experience. , in other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , unaffected by thevicissitudes and even the existence of society and history. Descentgroups such as clans and subclans are `refractions' (Harrison1989:17) of a timeless cosmos. Politico-ritual action, namely, totemictheft and debating, as well as demographic flux, alter society. But inlocal ideology these human behaviors are unable to reorganize theultimate reality that is the foundation for action and society -- thedivision of the cosmos into immutable IMMUTABLE. What cannot be removed, what is unchangeable. The laws of God being perfect, are immutable, but no human law can be so considered. totemic categories. Thus we could say that Manambu are Frazerian rather thanDurkheimian since they envision their social groupings ultimately tomirror the totemic categories of the world, and not vice versa VICE VERSA. On the contrary; on opposite sides. .[2]Cosmological categories and corresponding descent groups, in fact, aresaid to exist regardless of whether or not they have living members.Although totemic clans are in this sense ahistorical a��his��tor��i��cal?adj.Unconcerned with or unrelated to history, historical development, or tradition: "All of this is totally ahistorical. or timeless,"the actual human descent groups those clans contain, are subjectto ongoing change (Harrison 1989:6). Human history is the negotiablerelationship between descent groups `and the categories of the totemicsystem ... not the organization of the totemic system itself' whichis fixed, prehuman and therefore non-negotiable (Harrison 1984:7).Magical polities, Harrison (1989) writes, are realist. By contrast, Harrison suggests, Highland New Guinea`material' polities are locally understood to be constitutedprimarily on the basis of human activity. They are nominalist nom��i��nal��ism?n. PhilosophyThe doctrine holding that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names. . Whetherby filiation fil��i��a��tion?n.1. a. The condition or fact of being the child of a certain parent.b. Law Judicial determination of paternity.2. A line of descent; derivation.3. a. , descent, residence or other forms of association, societyis not envisioned by its members to exist in some a priori form but onlyinsofar in��so��far?adv.To such an extent.Adv. 1. insofar - to the degree or extent that; "insofar as it can be ascertained, the horse lung is comparable to that of man"; "so far as it is reasonably practical he should practice as there are persons who interact as a corporate group. On thelevel of objective behavior, both Highland and Manambu polities are, ofcourse, formed through political action. The crucial difference thatHarrison addresses occurs on the level of self-representation, that isto say, how indigenous actors perceive the basis for their society. Inthe absence of persons, there are no cosmic or totemic categories thatenable a Highland group to perdure per��dure?intr.v. per��dured, per��dur��ing, per��duresTo last permanently; endure.[Middle English perduren, from Old French pardurer, from Latin since human action alone isunderstood to produce social and cosmological categories. Among theManambu, the lack of persons merely dissolves a social group but not thefoundation for society and the group, which still exists as a cosmiccategory. In Avatip, these categories are the `preconditions'(Harrison 1989:8) for human action rather than the product of action,which is the case in the Highlands. However different, both magical and material polities rest on amoral ethic of reciprocity The ethic of reciprocity or "The Golden Rule" is a fundamental moral principle which simply means "treat others as you would like to be treated." It is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights. . Avatip and other magical societies cohere cohere (kōhēr´),v to stick together, to unite, to form a solid mass. around exchanges of, and debates over, totemic names, magic and ritualesoterica esotericaMedtalk A synonym for 'oddballs'–unusual causes of common complaints. See Anecdotal, Fascunomia. . Persons act on a fixed cosmology that is divided intocategories. But in the Highlands society emerges from exchanges of pigs,wealth and material resources. In these polities, human action ismotivated by the exigencies of physical resources. Ethnographically, Harrison's framework is an insightfulcontribution to the anthropological discourse on social representationsin Melanesia. More generally, Harrison addresses a crucial theoreticalquestion in social thought: what is the foundation of society? Hisanswer, however, as condensed above, encourages further elaborationalong two axes. First, the Eastern Iatmul or Tambunum data reveal thatHarrison's mutually exclusive categories of magical and materialpolities need to be refigured. The dynamics that underlie theontological foundations of Melanesian polities, as envisioned in localideologies, are too complex to be adequately encompassed within adichotomy. I argue that society in Tambunum is locally represented bytotemic names and cosmic divisions. It is a decidedly magical ratherthan material polity. At the same time, society requires human agents toembody these mystical and cosmological categories. Persons become thetotemic referents of their names and in this way (re)constitute thecosmos through human action. Yet the ideology of Eastern Iatmul societytacks between realism and nominalism nominalism,in philosophy, a theory of the relation between universals and particulars. Nominalism gained its name in the Middle Ages, when it was contrasted with realism. . In some contexts the cosmos isalleged to be fixed and separated entirely from social life. In othercontexts human action is acknowledged to create totemic categories. Inall cases, however, these claims, whether realist or nominalist, areultimately political rather than ontological. That is to say, statementsconcerning the structure of the cosmos and the totemic system are tiedto specific politico-ritual disputes and strategies. How men and descentgroups perceive any particular situation determines whether they affirma static, non-human cosmology or a totemic system that alters inaccordance with human politics. In this regard Eastern Iatmul ideologydiffers from that of Manambu. Second, we need also to examine the key relationship betweenidioms of the body, the cultural construction of reproduction and themoral representation of society. Cross-culturally, society and thecosmos are often represented through a semiotics of the body. Thisperspective draws on a time-honored and viable tradition in socialthought that includes, among others, Hobbes (1958 [1651]), Durkheim(1915 [1912]), Hertz (1960 [1909] and Douglas (1966; see also Lipset andSilverman n.d.). It is from this perspective, one that is admittedlysymbolic rather than materialistic, that my analysis proceeds. As I willdemonstrate, there is a symbolic homology between the human body, thebody politic BODY POLITIC, government, corporations. When applied to the government this phrase signifies the state. 2. As to the persons who compose the body politic, they take collectively the name, of people, or nation; and individually they are citizens, when considered or society, and cosmology. Moreover, the gender of theEastern Iatmul cosmos, to invoke M. Strathern (1988), is androgynous an��drog��y��nous?adj.1. Biology Having both female and male characteristics; hermaphroditic.2. Being neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine, as in dress, appearance, or behavior. ,combining a poetics of female fertility with the sociopolitical so��ci��o��po��li��ti��cal?adj.Involving both social and political factors.sociopoliticalAdjectiveof or involving political and social factors actionsof men. Overall, I am suggesting that Eastern Iatmul differs from both theHighlands and Avatip in Harrison's scheme of materialist andmagical, or realist and nominalist, polities. This difference does notoccur on the level of etic practice but on the level of eticrepresentation in which local images of society are contextual andgendered. The wider theoretical message of this essay is that idioms ofreproductive power and the body are important considerations whencomparing Melanesian ideologies of social formation and cosmology. TOTEMISM, COSMOLOGY AND POWERTambunum (Map 1) is a prosperous and largely endogamous en��dog��a��my?n.1. Anthropology Marriage within a particular group in accordance with custom or law.2. Botany Fertilization resulting from pollination among flowers of the same plant.3. village of900-1100 people. It is the largest middle Sepik village, comprising some120 extended-family dwellings. In order to understand the jural The principles of natural and positive rights recognized by law.Jural pertains to the rights and obligations sanctioned and governed by positive law or that law which is enacted by proper authority. organization and totemic system of Tambunum it is necessary to beginwith the origin of the world. The primordial cosmos was featureless andaquatic. Stiffed by wind, land arose. Then appeared the tsagi wangu ortotemic pit, located near the Sawos-speaking village of Gaikarobi. Fromthis pit emerged ancestors and spirits, who then created the world andculture. This collective, unified origin gave rise to the `monism' ofthe Iatmul cosmos (Bateson 1936:235). After the chthonic chthon��ic? also chtho��ni��anadj. Greek MythologyOf or relating to the underworld.[From Greek khthonios, of the earth, from khth emergence,unity ended and the pluralism of totemism, cosmology and society beganas the ancestor heroes of each descent group embarked on a unique mythichistory and created specific paths (yembii) of the world. During thecourse of these primordial migrations, predominantly male ancestorheroes engaged in a variety of actions. They planted gardens and trees,traded and fought with neighbors, inaugurated rituals and learned tosculpt sculpt?v. sculpt��ed, sculpt��ing, sculptsv.tr.1. To sculpture (an object).2. To shape, mold, or fashion especially with artistry or precision: woodcarvings. Villages and cult houses were built, abandoned anddestroyed. Each action and event, specific to particular ancestorheroes, was enshrined in and created through totemic names. All namesand phenomena that originated with an ancestor are now claimed by aliving descent group as their section of reality. Names or totems arereferred to as grandfathers (nggwail) and fathers and grandfathers(nyai,nggwail). Overall, there is a correspondence between paths ofancestral names, the divisions of society into descent groups, and thetotemic categories of the universe.[3] The village today consists of three major patricians, eachpartitioned into between two and ten named patrilineages (yarangka),which themselves are divided into unnamed branches (tsai). Two clans,Shui Aimasa and Mboey Nagusamay, tolerate clan endogamy endogamy(ĕndŏg`əmē): see marriage. , except withinthe same lineage. The third clan, Mogua, is believed to be the smallestclan in the village and is therefore entirely exogamous ex��og��a��my?n.1. The custom of marrying outside the tribe, family, clan, or other social unit.2. Biology The fusion of two gametes that are not closely related. . This notionarises, in part, from the mythic-historic origin of Mogua in what islocally understood to be the culturally-inferior region of the lower asopposed to middle Sepik River. Each clan, lineage and branch owns unique totemic paths thatdefine the group as a legitimate category in society and cosmology.[4]Each path of mythic history consists of long chains of paired,polysyllabic pol��y��syl��lab��ic?adj.1. Having more than two and usually more than three syllables.2. Characterized by words having more than three syllables. names (tsagi). Descent groups also own named and thereforemystically potent magic and sorcery sorcery:see incantation; magic; spell; witchcraft. SorcerySorrow (See GRIEF.)sorcerer’s apprenticefinds a spell that makes objects do the cleanup work. [Fr. (shiibu), men's houses(ngaigo), bamboo flutes (wainjiimot), ancestral masks and relatedwoodcarvings (nambunda), war and trading canoes (vara), war spirits(sabi) and other phenomena. A totemic foundation of names and sacra sa��cra?n.Plural of sacrum. isnecessary for a descent group to exist as a political entity and toactualize ritual prerogatives and mystical power. All totemic names and phenomena reference the mythic-historicactions, events and places of ancestor spirits as they named and createdthe natural and sociocultural universe. Each path of names is akin to achapter in the history of a descent group and is the basis for thegroup's claim over a portion of village cosmology. Since eachdescent group has its own totemism, the Eastern Iatmul universe isplural, containing multiple histories and truths. Bateson, it is worthnoting, was seemingly unprepared for this plurality. Perhaps itconflicted with his own vision, borne of the natural and biologicalsciences (Lipset 1982), in which the world conforms to a singlestructure. Iatmul thought was paradoxical to Bateson, characterized `notonly by its intellectuality, but also by a tendency to insist that whatis symbolically, sociologically, or emotionally true, is alsocognitively true' (Bateson 1936:232-33). This paradox, however, is actually a central principle of villagecosmology and social organization. Eastern Iatmul names codify codifyto arrange and label a system of laws. socialand natural reality -- much as Durkheim (1915 [1912]) argued forAboriginal Australia. Names, when grouped according to mythic-historicmigrations, form the paths of the world. Yet this is an essentiallyfluid world. The cosmology is constantly shifting as men compete for theownership, organization and hierarchy of names. Echoing Harrison (1989),the history of Tambunum is not a competition for control over thematerial conditions of life as Marx -- and perhaps inhabitants ofHighland New Guinea -- might put it. Rather, history is inscribed intotemic competitions whereby men and descent groups strive toconsolidate and to acquire mystically potent names. As the totemicsystem is altered, so too are the cosmic categories that differentiatesociety into groups. Correspondingly, as descent groups demographicallyand/for politically ascend, wane and eventually dissipate, the totemicsystem is likewise altered (see below). The line of causation betweensociety and cosmology in Tambunum is bidirectional The ability to move, transfer or transmit in both directions. -- both inrepresentation and practice. I return to this point in the finalsection. Harrison (1987; see also 1993) has demonstrated that totemic namesamong the Manambu engender both symbolic and material power. Namesdetermine access to natural resources such as fishing lagoons. Namesalso confer to each lineage hereditary trading privileges with specificnon-Manambu villages and language groups, from whom they acquire ritualesoterica and material goods. Lineages that trade with Western Iatmulvillages have access to the most potent magic and ritual forms in theregion, which helps maintain a ceremonial ranking system within theManambu male cult (Harrison 1990:80). The dispersed affinal Af`fi´nala. 1. Related by marriage; from the same source.Adj. 1. affinal - (anthropology) related by marriageaffine alliancesystem at Avatip prevented this ritual hierarchy from having generatedeconomic inequality (Harrison 1987:497). Still, Harrison argues that theceremonial ranking system was in transition at contact, moving towardsgreater stratification, which `would almost certainly have led to theemergence of economic inequalities of some sort' (1987:502). The system at Tambunum is different. Ownership of names does notcorrelate with economic inequality or trading rights to non-Iatmulsuppliers of sago, pottery, shell valuables and other goods. There is noevidence that the situation was dissimilar in the past. Moreover,Eastern Iatmul do not exchange ritual esoterica with other Iatmul andnon-Iatmul villages. This, too, was the case in the past. Although namesconfer use-rights to bush, gardens and waterways, men do not attempt tomanipulate the totemic system in order to increase their access tonatural resources or to deny access to social rivals. I am notsuggesting that totemic disputes are unrelated entirely to materialwealth. But in ideology and practice, the link between cosmologicalpower and material wealth is far less important than the link betweennames and symbolic prestige. This was largely true during Bateson'sfieldwork in the 1930s and remains so today. In fact, there has been remarkably little change in themorphology, politics and meanings of the totemic system in spite ofcolonialism. The only significant modifications that I could discernwere a general decrease in the number of disputes and attempts attotemic theft. Names remain central to village politics, ritual andsocial organization, and they are still largely peripheral for economicactivity. Success and failure in the monetary contexts of tourism andwage-labor and in other recent endeavors such as education and regionalelections are not attributed to totemic power. In turn, these newactivities have not altered significantly the totemic system. Althoughnon-traditional activities are alluring to some youth, other men areavidly learning the totemic system from village elders. I recognize theimportance of history for understanding contemporary life in the middleSepik (see Gewertz and Errington 1991). But I want to stress that therehas been considerable continuity in Eastern Iatmul cosmology over thepast 60 years. Furthermore, any posited link between totemic names andmaterial inequality is not supported ethnographically.[5] Thesignificance of local ideology is only partially explained through asociopolitical and economic framework. We need also to consider itssemiotics, to which I shortly turn. Both Eastern Iatmul and Manambu names, in addition to serving asthe ontological charters for descent groups (see next section), definejural obligations, politico-ritual prerogatives and differential accessto mystical power. For this reason, any configuration of the totemicsystem is inevitably contested. These disputes also shape male identityin terms of symbolic prestige and one's position in the ritualsystem. But, again, economic power is largely irrelevant in Tambunum forthis type of renown. The most prestigious men are not those who have thegreatest economic wealth or success in material pursuits. Instead,leaders are without exception elder men who possess extensive ritual andtotemic knowledge. Totemic names are patrilineally-inherited personal names.[6] Eachdescent group divides its names into two alternating lines (mbapma) thatrepeat every second generation.[7] One line of names pertains to a maleEgo and his FF, SS, and so forth; the other line applies to Ego'sS, F, etc. A man inherits the former set of names from his paternalgrandfather. He confers the latter set of names, which belonged to hisfather, to his children.[8] The system is identical for women, except afemale Ego receives her names from a FFZ FFZ Free Fire ZoneFFZ Far-Field Zone (antennas), which are later given to herBSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) The software distribution facility of the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California at Berkeley. . People and non-human totemic entities that have the same namesshare a common identity, what Harrison (1990:48) terms`consubstantiality Con`sub`stan´ti`al´i`tyn. 1. Participation of the same nature; coexistence in the same substance. .' A person and his or her namesake possess thesame soul (kaiek)[9]." The human body becomes the corporeal Possessing a physical nature; having an objective, tangible existence; being capable of perception by touch and sight.Under Common Law, corporeal hereditaments are physical objects encompassed in land, including the land itself and any tangible object on it, that can be vehiclefor the totem in much the same way that wooden objects embody spiritswhen carved by a descent group's sister's children (the objectmust also be ritually ensorcelled with coconut water and a totemicchant). Indeed, persons often act in ways that are deemed characteristicof their names and namesakes. It is common for Eastern Iatmul to becomeill or even die after incurring mystical retribution (vai) as a resultof, or in punishment for, a grandparent's sorcery or violation ofritual taboos. Since Ego and his/her grandparents have the same names,or at least names that belong to the same line, they are identified asthe same person. Totemism thus shapes personhood per��son��hood?n.The state or condition of being a person, especially having those qualities that confer distinct individuality: "finding her own personhood as a campus activist" as well as cosmology. Yetpersonhood in Tambunum presupposes a body that can act. Identity arisesto a large degree from names and their referents. But one must alsoengage in action, recall Bateson's (1936) discussion of navenceremonies. These rites, which celebrate cultural achievement, do notoccur when someone passively receives names. Rather, they occur onlywhen a person performs a significant act for the first time, e.g.,spears a fish or purchases an outboard motor. Similarly, totemic namesrequire material manifestations, notably, bodies, in order to becomereal. By the same token, a human body needs names in order to become aperson with full jural status. It is in this sense that I argue for theembodiment of Eastern Iatmul totemism. By embodiment I refer not only tothe general notion that the body is the existential ground ofculture' (Csordas 1990:5) but also to the ethnographic fact thatEastern Iatmul use idioms of the body (mbange), especially the fertilematernal body but also the paternal body, to organize their social lifeand cosmos. Eves (1995), in a recent article in this journal, understoodembodiment among the Lelet, New Ireland, in terms of incorporation. HereI use two related images. first, projection of the body onto the worldand, second, an equivalence between body and cosmos. This will becomeclear in the next section when I focus on the gendered semiotics oftotemism. NAMES AND REPRODUCTIONThe myth of the totemic origin of the universe occurring in anundifferentiated pit instances a broader reproductive model of societyand the cosmos. Here is the first indication that Eastern Iatmultotemism has gender. In Tambunum, actual somatic reproduction somatic reproductionn.Asexual reproduction by fission or budding of somatic cells. isunderstood to be the prerogative of fertile maternal bodies. Thereproduction of the cosmos and society, by contrast, is the prerogativeof men. Lacking wombs, they use names and various totemic accoutrements ac��cou��ter��mentor ac��cou��tre��ment ?n.1. An accessory item of equipment or dress. Often used in the plural.2. Military equipment other than uniforms and weapons. Often used in the plural.3. `Men play flutes,' Hogbin (1970:101) heard on Wogeo Island, `womenbear infants.' Eastern Iatmul men would readily agree. Local procreation PROCREATION. The generation of children; it is an act authorized by the law of nature: one of the principal ends of marriage is the procreation of children. Inst. tit. 2, in pr. ideology understands conception and gestation tobe essentially similar for all persons. Yet this somatic somatic/so��mat��ic/ (so-mat��ik)1. pertaining to or characteristic of the soma or body.2. pertaining to the body wall in contrast to the viscera.so��mat��icadj. unity ceaseswith birth, when individual qualities and achievements henceforth becomeimportant. This translates into the cosmology. The pit or chthonic wombthat gave birth to the world was undifferentiated. Creation was thedifferentiation and separation of entities from primeval void. Asancestor heroes and spirits wandered the primordial landscape and ocean,they created the world through the power of toponomy or naming, therebygenerating natural and social phenomena. Since existence and totemismare coterminous co��ter��mi��nous?adj.Variant of conterminous.Adj. 1. coterminous - being of equal extent or scope or durationcoextensive, conterminous , the absence of a totemic name implies nonexistence non��ex��is��tence?n.1. The condition of not existing.2. Something that does not exist.non . Anunnamed entity is outside the realm of cosmology, history and society. Totemic names therefore possess the power to create and, throughritual, recreate the universe. Consequently, totemic debates (see below)realign social and cosmic categories. Debates are not merelyconstitutive of human action, as they are at Avatip, and pertaintherefore only to history. They also in Tambunum re-arrange the totemiccategories that can be said, in a sense, to underlie history.Symbolically, debates are political arenas for unequal distributions offemale-like fertility among men and descent groups. For example, themale cult in Tambunum has a ranked hierarchy that is largely based ontotemic names (yet it lacks a formal structure such as named grades).High-ranking men and descent groups initiate and direct major ritualsthat re-enact cosmic creation. These men and groups, by identifying withancestors who created the most important paths of the world, are thefathers (nyait) of those paths and all phenomena that lie along them.The totemic system, I am suggesting, is not only hierarchical but alsogendered. It has an androcentric an��dro��cen��tric?adj.Centered or focused on men, often to the neglect or exclusion of women: an androcentric view of history; an androcentric health-care system. and paternal inflection. Yet totemismalso symbolically gives birth to the world. This embodiment of thecosmos by men through ritual and politics is locally recognized althoughnot expressly articulated. More than one Eastern Iatmul man, I shouldadd, has agreed with this interpretation. The symbolic equivalence between totemism and reproduction wascorroborated by a research assistant in 1989 when he claimed that theultimate determinants of human pregnancy are senior crocodile spirits(wai wainjiimot). As a proverb states, nian wangay, mbandi wangay, or,the crocodile spirits alone give birth to children (nian) and initiatedmen (mbandi). In this figuration fig��u��ra��tion?n.1. The act of forming something into a particular shape.2. A shape, form, or outline.3. The act of representing with figures.4. A figurative representation.5. , women are the agents for, rather thanthe agents of, reproduction, which is positioned in the superhuman realmof mystical beings or wai wainjiimot. Some myths recount how thesesenior crocodile spirits helped create the cosmos. Other myths have thecrocodile spirits floating on the primordial sea, supporting dry land ontheir backs (Schuster 1985). Generally speaking, wai wainjiimot arecritical for cosmological and human reproduction. Yet the crocodilespirits communicate only through men and their control of totemism,flutes, art and ceremony. Totemism is locally understood through amaternal idiom but it is still the realm of male ritual and politics. This interpretation was confirmed during the course of aconversation with Koski, a young married man. Young boys commonly playabout the village naked. Little girls rarely do likewise; they arealmost always clothed below the waist. After questioning Koski on thisgender difference, he replied in a mixture of pidgin pidgin(pĭj`ən), a lingua franca that is not the mother tongue of anyone using it and that has a simplified grammar and a restricted, often polyglot vocabulary. and vernacular `nogut ol i lukim tagwa wainjiimot.' In other words, it is improperfor men to view women's (tagwa) genitalia genitalia/gen��i��ta��lia/ (jen?i-tal��e-ah) [L.] the reproductive organs.ambiguous genitalia . But instead of speakingkitnya or vagina, Koski said wainjiimot, the word for spirits and, moreto the point, sacred flutes. He then added that women, of course, areunable to see men's flutes and related ceremonial paraphernalia.Koski's statement referred, I believe, to a central theme of theculture, namely, the transformation of female fertility into totemicnames and male ritual sacra. Human birth in Tambunum, which is the prerogative of women, isrelatively egalitarian. Significant social and politico-ritualdifferences result from achievement rather than ascription as��crip��tion?n.1. The act of ascribing.2. A statement that ascribes.[Latin ascr . Totemicbirth, which is the privilege of men, involves names rather than wombs,and creates differentiation and hierarchy. Somatic bodies, we could say,are overlain o��ver��lain?v.Past participle of overlie. with totemic identity. Herein lies a critical genderdistinction (see also Harrison 1985b). Women give actual birth tosomatic bodies whereas men, through their control of esoteric knowledgeand totemism, give symbolic birth to difference, identity and hierarchy. Moreover, since men control the distribution of names, totemismcan be interpreted as the displacement of female reproductive power ontothe plane of cosmology. Totemism converts the maternal body into thecosmic body, which then acquires a masculine form. Only men aretransformed in ritual through bodily adornment and masking into the maleand female spirits who created the world and its paths. In thesecontexts, the male body becomes endowed with the procreative pro��cre��a��tiveadj.1. Capable of reproducing; generative.2. Of or directed to procreation. powersresponsible for cosmic creation.[10] Likewise, somatic reproduction isfigured in terms of mystical production, that is to say, ancestralcrocodile spirits and their role in the male cult. The male cult, inturn, socializes non-reproductive boys into the world of reproductiveyet, ultimately, androgynous men.[11] The power of totemism in Tambunum is thus the power ofprocreation. Biological reproduction and female fertility is transformedinto the esoteric and masculine domains of onomastics, mysticalknowledge, ritual and politics. Men recreate and restructure theuniverse by chanting and debating totemic names, which enshrine en��shrine? also in��shrinetr.v. en��shrined, en��shrin��ing, en��shrines1. To enclose in or as if in a shrine.2. To cherish as sacred. cosmogony cos��mog��o��ny?n. pl. cos��mog��o��nies1. The astrophysical study of the origin and evolution of the universe.2. A specific theory or model of the origin and evolution of the universe. and cosmology. These activities typically occur under theaegis of senior crocodile spirits, through which men publicly claimtheir responsibility for cosmic creation. But as various rituals and legends attest, this role was oncedenied men, a common Melanesian myth (e.g., Hays 1988). It was onlythrough stealth and theft that men were able to acquire the ritual powerof reproduction that once belonged solely to women. In fact, theprimordial sea and the terrestrial birth of the universe symbolize theprimacy of female fertility and the maternal as opposed to paternalbody. This is locally recognized. Yet these symbols are contested bymale claims to reproductive superiority through the control of namesthat refer to mythic history, ancestor spirits, and the differentiationof society and the cosmos into categories. The reproductive power ofnames has both masculine and feminine embodiments. Totemism is notsolely a sociopolitical structure. It is also a system of meanings thatrelate to gender, cosmology and the body. SPATIOTEMPORALITYSocial groups are descended from primordial ancestor heroes whoemerged from the common pit and migrated around the world, eventuallyarriving at Tambunum. From the totemic pit, the Shui Aimasa and MboeyNagusamay patriclans travelled to Shotmeri (Map 1). Leaving Shotmeri,and following a single yet broad path, Shui Aimasa migrated to Tambunumin the region that is north of the Sepik River. Through a series ofdifferent routes, the lineages of Mboey Nagusamay travelled through theterrain that lies south of the river. These opposed regions are therespective totemic domains of the two clans, linked by totemic bridges(tagu) such as the Milky Way. The Mogua patriclan bypassed Shotmeri andinhabited a lower Sepik location, eventually arriving in Tambunum afterShui Aimasa and Mboey Nagusamay. The totemic domain of Mogua is the sea. There is a fourth patriclan in Tambunum, Wyngwenjap, the clan ofthe Sepik River itself. Wyngwenjap has only around 20 persons since mostof the clan migrated to Wombun after a dispute in the latter 19thcentury. This patriclan is politically and totemically marginal inTambunum. Through aquatic association, Wyngwenjap is subsumed for mostpractical and ritual purposes under Mogua. Wyngwenjap does not have thepopulation to assert its totemic heraldry heraldry,system in which inherited symbols, or devices, called charges are displayed on a shield, or escutcheon, for the purpose of identifying individuals or families. and thereby become a viableforce in village ritual and politics. The same is also true for smalllineages in other clans. Cosmological status, in other words, does notnecessarily translate into politico-ritual action. The inferior position of Wyngwenjap attests to the centrality ofhistory, demography and political action in other words, change andmovement -- in shaping the society.[12] At the level of social practicethere is no structure to the village that is divorced from humanaffairs. But, of course, this is true for Manambu and other magicalsocieties. Indeed, it is true for all societies. The uniqueness ofTambunum lies at the level of ideology. This I discuss in the finalsection. I want here only to draw attention to the local fact thattotemic names originated during mythic-historic migrations and thus arelocated in space and time see also Wassmann 1990; 1991:197-206). Pathsof names trace the temporal and spatial movement of ancestors andgroups. Eastern Iatmul totemism is `spatiotemporal' (Munn 1977)rather than static, arising from an inherent sense of history and motiona characteristic that does not seem to apply to Manambu totemism). Alldescent groups in Tambunum and their totemic phenomena aremanifestations of mythic time and space inscribed on the regionallandscape. In essence, totemic paths are spatiotemporal spa��ti��o��tem��po��ral?adj.1. Of, relating to, or existing in both space and time.2. Of or relating to space-time.[Latin spatium, space + temporal1. vectors. Spatiotemporality also inheres in the internal structure oftotemic chants (tsagi). Since a descent group's paths evokeancestral movements in mythic time and space, each name represents aparticular spatiotemporal moment or node. But individual names, too,signify a timeless sense of movement that lies outside the brackets ofmythic temporality tem��po��ral��i��ty?n. pl. tem��po��ral��i��ties1. The condition of being temporal or bounded in time.2. temporalities Temporal possessions, especially of the Church or clergy.Noun 1. . For example, the totemic path of the Kwassa lineageof the Mboey Nagusamay patriclan winds along the Karawari River (Map 1).Individual names are located in this spatiotemporal matrix. Yet,individual names translate as `vines that float down the river"floral detritus detritus/de��tri��tus/ (de-tri��tus) particulate matter produced by or remaining after the wearing away or disintegration of a substance or tissue. de��tri��tusn. pl. that floats down the river,' `wood that drifts downthe river,' and so on. These movements are not bound to anyparticular generational era. Each chant begins with the public names of a totem that is locatedin the topography of a descent group.(13) The chant then moves to a newspace within the landscape and concludes by returning to its originallocation. To illustrate, I again turn to the Mboey Nagusamay patriclan.Generally speaking, the totemic path of four related lineages of theclan begins along the Kangrime waterway (Map 1). Subsequent names referto logs and grass that drift along the waterway to the Sepik River,where they eventually flow out to sea. The final names return to theKangrime waterway, thus closing the path. In this way, totemic chantsare defined on the basis of three modalities of movement: timeless,spatial or vectorial, and cyclical. DEBATES AND AUTHORITY Totemic knowledge is a form of symbolic and ritual power thatcreates hierarchy and difference in the ritual system and village socialorganization (see also Lindstrom 1984; Harrison 1989). Totemicspecialists are preeminent leaders in the village who command authorityand respect, and direct ritual and political action. Specialists aremorally entitled to claim only the totemic names of their lineage and,in some instances, entire clan. They can learn the names of otherdescent groups but they are reluctant even to mention them withoutpermission lest they appear guilty of totemic indiscretion.(14) Thisprohibition applies to the recitation rec��i��ta��tion?n.1. a. The act of reciting memorized materials in a public performance.b. The material so presented.2. a. Oral delivery of prepared lessons by a pupil.b. of myth and magical spells,totemic chanting, and the adjudication The legal process of resolving a dispute. The formal giving or pronouncing of a judgment or decree in a court proceeding; also the judgment or decision given. The entry of a decree by a court in respect to the parties in a case. of disputes. There is a cleardistinction between knowledge and entitlement. A tsagi numba or totemic specialist has studied the esoterica oftotemism in a lengthy and arduous apprenticeship under the tutelage TUTELAGE. State of guardianship; the condition of one who is subject to the control of a guardian. of aclan elder.[15] In return for their instruction, ritual teachers receivefood, canoes, garden produce, sago and often a large domestic house.Totemic knowledge and the power of mystical reproduction is exchangedfor worldly productivity. These gifts, however, do not lend totemicteachers a material advantage over other men. Totemic specialists are frequently called upon to chant paths inorder to resolve disputes, alleviate illness, consecrate con��se��crate?tr.v. con��se��crat��ed, con��se��crat��ing, con��se��crates1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church.2. Christianitya. new houses andcanoes, and initiate rituals. Yet they receive no significant materialgain for their efforts, merely a small meal, betel-nut and tobacco. Infact, totemic specialists often complain about the amount of time theyspend chanting as opposed to gardening and other material orincome-generating activities. They seem to delight in recounting theordeals of their apprenticeship -- the long hours spent sitting on lowstools, memorizing names and suffering from back pains, not to mentionall the physical tasks they fulfilled for their teacher. But if not for material or economic benefits, why do men aspire tototemic authority? First, totemic knowledge is a primary route topolitical and ritual authority. Second, men and women are sentimentallyattached to their names since names represent the history and roots(angwanda) of the descent group. Finally, totemic knowledge is criticalfor protecting the mystical patrimony PATRIMONY. Patrimony is sometimes understood to mean all kinds of property but its more limited signification, includes only such estate, as has descended in the same family and in a still more confined sense, it is only that which has descended or been devised in a direct line from the of one's children andgrandchildren. Despite specialists' vigilance in defending names, totemicdisputes are common. They are usually triggered by doubts concerning themystical authority of rival descent groups. A common strategy is tochallenge the validity of competitors' mythic histories andancestors, and to claim that they have no legitimate genealogicalcustodianship over certain powerful names. Less frequently, debatesarise from namesakes (see also Bateson 1936:127-28; Gewertz 1977;Harrison 1990:140-46). Disputes are inevitable since the totemic systemis inherently shifting and interwoven in��ter��weave?v. in��ter��wove , in��ter��wo��ven , inter��weav��ing, inter��weavesv.tr.1. To weave together.2. To blend together; intermix.v.intr. for three reasons. First, themythic histories and migration routes of different descent groups oftenintersect and converge. This can occur for a number of reasons, e.g.,marriage, coresidence and exchanges of names. Many totemic paths, infact, contain names that correspond to several patrilineages. Thetotemic system itself prevents the formation of discrete sets of names,mythic histories, cosmological categories and descent groups. Thisindeterminacy in��de��ter��mi��na��cy?n.The state or quality of being indeterminate.Noun 1. indeterminacy - the quality of being vague and poorly definedindefiniteness, indefinity, indeterminateness, indetermination is recognized locally. All social and cosmic categoriesare blurred and, ultimately, disputed. Second, men try to acquire or tosteal additional names in order to increase their mystical power. Third,disputes arise from political action (see below). Since names partition the world into jural and cosmic categories,totemic disputes influence the social constitution of the village andthe surrounding region. The loss of names lessens the magical foundationof a descent group and its mystical or reproductive power. Similarly,the acquisition of names expands the descent group. Totemic challengesthat succeed can slowly deplete de��pletev.1. To use up something, such as a nutrient.2. To empty something out, as the body of electrolytes. the cosmological foundation of a descentgroup until it either collapses or is encompassed by another, morepowerful, lineage or clan. Through disputes, men continuously define theboundaries of their society and cosmology. But, again, as I arguedabove, this competitive and exclusively male political discourse alsocontains a semiotics of female fertility. Totemic debates occur inside a men's house (ngaigo). Thedisputants and audience sit on platforms, organized according to descentgroup. In the center of the building stands an orator's stool(kawa-lugiit). The speaker approaches the stool and grasps a bundle ofthree ginger leaves (kawa; see also Bateson 1936;125-25). He punctuateshis oratory by striking the bundle on the stool, at certain timesgently, at other times violently as he thunders his argument to theassembled men. Until the man at the orator's stool relinquishes the kawaleaves, he alone is entitled to speak and stand at the center of thefloor. Nevertheless, muted replies, heated comments and requests fortobacco and betel-nut resonate through the men's house during anyoratorical or��a��tor��i��cal?adj.Of, relating to, or characteristic of an orator or oratory.ora��tor performance. Sometimes men seated on the platforms engage inoutright conversation. Yet the din of the background noise rarelydistracts the central orator ORATOR, practice. A good man, skillful in speaking well, and who employs a perfect eloquence to defend causes either public or private. Dupin, Profession d'Avocat, tom. 1, p. 19.. 2. . The physical arrangement of a debate seemsto indicate that society, the totemic system and village cosmology allhave a definable center and periphery. But the low cacophony ofperipheral voices challenges any such orderly an arrangement of juralentitlement. Eastern Iatmul mnemonically represent names by inserting woodenpegs into the stems of palm fronds (tsagi ngau).(16) Each peg signifiesthe first pair of names of a totemic path. The length of the tsagi ngauand the number of pegs vary with each man's stock of names.Hereditary leaders, responsible for all the names All the Names (Portuguese: Todos os nomes) is a novel by Portuguese author Jos�� Saramago. It was written in 1997 and published in English in 2000 in an award winning translation by Margaret Jull Costa. of a patriclan, owntsagi ngau that exceed two meters, holding scores of pegs that signifyhundreds if not thousands of names. Leaders highlight their elite statusand the power of their totemic hegemony by capping the pegs of theirmost powerful names with orange Malay apples. In the course of a debate, disputants successively approach theorator's stool and, grasping the ginger leaves, present their case.Upon finishing, a speaker returns to his sitting platform. Totemicoratory assumes a variety of modes and strategies. Speakers recitemythic histories, construct genealogies, recount migrations and chantpaths. Orators skillfully mock the claims of rivals while trying tomuster support of kin and allied descent groups. Most oratory occurs inthe vernacular but it is common for men to slip into pidgin andoccasionally English. The debates are decidedly polyvocal. The ethos of Iatmul men is particularly evident during totemicoratory (Bateson 1932:260;1936). These lively debates are an indigenousform of theater. They are:noisy, angry and, above all, ironical. The speakers work themselvesup to a high pitch of superficial excitement, all the time temperingtheir violence with histrionic histrionic/his��tri��on��ic/ (his?tre-on��ik) excessively dramatic or emotional, as in histrionic personality disorder; see under personality. gesture and alternating in their tonebetween harshness and buffoonery. (Bateson 1936;126)Ritual specialists, who `carry in their heads between ten and twentythousand polysyllabic names' (1936:126), tend to rely on theirmystical knowledge.(17) Other, less erudite, men depend on pantomime andpersuasive flair. In spite of the frequency of debates, Bateson (1936:128) suggestedthat Iatmul men derive enormous pride from what they believe to be a`perfectly schematic and coherent' totemic system. As `a result ofthe overlapping mythology and the stealing of names,' however, `thesystem is in a terribly muddled state;' it is a mass of fraudulentheraldry' (Bateson 1936:128). But as I suggested earlier, it ismore insightful to understand the totemic system as an inherentplurality rather than a paradox or a `mass of fraudulent heraldry.' Any man may question the totemic structure of the society andcosmology. Yet, only senior or knowledgeable men resolve disputes, whichcan last from one to several hours and carry across days, months, evenyears and generations.(18) Truth is a negotiated concept, sanctioned bygerontocratic consensus, often in accordance with wider political aims.Resolution is never assured and always tenuous. It is useful to compare Eastern Iatmul and Manambu debates(Harrison 1989; 1990:140-76). In both Sepik societies, debates center onfiery oratory, theatrical displays and the recitation of myths andgenealogies. When these public arguments are exhausted, however, Manambudebates turn secretive. Contestants whisper totemic names to each otheruntil one man acknowledges that his rival has spoken the true esotericname. In practice, few debates end with a capitulation CAPITULATION, war. The treaty which determines the conditions under which a fortified place is abandoned to the commanding officer of the army which besieges it. 2. , and thusdisputes persist indefinitely. Ornamented women gather around the edgeof the male contest and often brawl. Strict rules govern the order oforatory. Exchanges and sacrifices of pigs, the display of symbolicregalia and a fixed system of affinal alliances also characterizeManambu debates. These practices are alien to Eastern Iatmul. More importantly, menin Tambunum are less concerned with divulging secret names than withswaying consensus. Manambu contestants recite increasingly secretesoterica until one opponent finally reveals knowledge of the essentialnames. In Tambunum, totemic debating is expansive and encompassing. Aman draws on a broad network of names, myths, migrations and genealogiesin order to argue that his ancestors alone were responsible for thedisputed name and its cosmic referent. Manambu debaters eventuallybecome silent and merely whisper. Eastern Iatmul orators tend to remainloud and engaging. For the most part, knowledge must be coupled todrama. Hushed discussion results from individual temperament rather thanthe structure of the debate. Whereas alliances during Manambu debatesare generally fixed along the lines of kinship (Harrison 1990:154-55),Eastern Iatmul alliances reflect contingent political strategies betweenindividuals, they are unstable. A man is said to be assured only of thesupport of his sister's sons, but, in actuality, even this isconditional. Disputes in Tambunum almost always occur between patrilineageswithin the same clan. For this reason, Eastern Iatmul debates have greatpotential to alter the existing social structure of the village and thetotemic categorization of the cosmos. Generally speaking, the totemicboundaries that separate clans are too apparent and fixed for a disputebetween them to blur substantially their respective cosmologicalcategories. This is not the case within patriclans, where there is oftena long history of disputes between certain lineages. This can ultimatelydissolve the totemic and social divisions within the clan. BODIES AND EMBODIMENT: DIFFERENCES IN THE CREATION OF SOCIETY The political organization of Tambunum is based on a rudimentaryprinciple of primogeniture primogeniture,in law, the rule of inheritance whereby land descends to the oldest son. Under the feudal system of medieval Europe, primogeniture generally governed the inheritance of land held in military tenure (see knight). . Ascribed leadership favors the eldest men ofthe senior branches and lineages within the patriclan. They control thedistribution of names that define descent groups and often initiateritual action. Yet in common with most Melanesian societies, potentialleadership in Tambunum only translates into actual authority whencoupled to persuasive action. Men are unable rightfully to claimauthority over the entire village,(19) only at the levels of clan,lineage and branch. Leaders justify their status to varying degrees with totemicknowledge. Names also, I mentioned earlier, determine the prestigeranking of descent groups. Yet totemic names are diffuse, unlike actualphysical insignia. In the Murik Lakes (Map 1), for example, authorityarises not from names but from the right to possess suman shell andboars tusk valuables and plaited plait?n.1. A braid, especially of hair.2. A pleat.tr.v. plait��ed, plait��ing, plaits1. To braid.2. To pleat.3. To make by braiding. baskets (Lipset 1990). Although EasternIatmul names have a thing-like quality (see also Harrison 1990:172-73),they are not physical emblems of jural office. In Murik politics, thegenealogical right to own, assemble and display suman is contentiousrather than the actual existence of the emblem itself, which is nevercalled into question (D. Lipset, pers. comm. 1992; see also Lutkehaus1990). Political insignia like Murik suman are alien to Eastern Iatmulpolitics since leadership in Tambunum arises from names rather thanobjects. Certain objects such as masks signify leadership and authoritybut only insofar as they are named. If the name is devalued de��val��ue? also de��val��u��atev. de��val��ued also de��valu��at��ed, de��val��u��ing also de��val��u��at��ing, de��val��ues also de��val��u��atesv.tr.1. To lessen or cancel the value of. , forgottenor lost, the object becomes mystically impotent. Village politicstherefore involve not only claims over the ownership of onomastic on��o��mas��tic?adj.1. Of, relating to, or explaining a name or names.2. Of or relating to onomastics.[French onomastique, from Greek onomastikos, from insignia but also challenges to the legitimacy and potency of the namesthemselves. It is insightful here to draw on Harrison (1989) and contrastleadership in Tambunum, which arises from esoteric knowledge and action,with Highland New Guinea practices. Although Harrison does notexplicitly draw on body symbolism, the body nevertheless emerges fromthe comparison as a focal symbol of social life. Leadership in Highlandbig-man societies is based solely in actions of the body such asoratory, warfare and particularly large-scale ceremonial exchange. Inother words, human bodies create society, both in ideology and practice.Leadership in the middle Sepik and `great man' societies (Godelier1986; Godelier and Strathern 1991) arises from totemic names and magicin addition to bodily actions. In these polities, human bodies alonecannot create society, at least in local ideation ideation/ide��a��tion/ (i?de-a��shun) the formation of ideas or images.idea��tional i��de��a��tionn.The formation of ideas or mental images. . Yet, as I have argued, the body in Tambunum is a metaphor fortotemism and cosmology, which influence identity (e.g., personal names)and the constitution of social groups. Here the body is projected ontothe cosmos, which in turn forms a mystical basis for society. Inpractice, of course, society is the product of human or bodily action.In ideology, however, society arises from the body as an agent as wellas the body as a projection onto the cosmic order. Hence, both the bodyand embodiment are part of local social process. In many Highlandpolities, by contrast, the body as a corporeal entity is only an agentthat creates identity and society.(20) The lives of men in the Highlands revolve to a considerable extentaround competitive exchanges of pigs, e.g., the Melpa moka (A. Strathern1971) and the Enga tee (Meggitt 1974). In these events, pigs arecorporeal symbols for the moral constitution of society and socialrelationships.(21) Men in Tambunum, by comparison, spend much of theirlives engaged in totemic politics and ritual, which center on names andmagical esoterica. They do not organize large-scale exchanges on theorder of Highland big-man distributions and feasts. Whereas pigs areactual bodies that symbolize the creation of society, totemic names aremetaphoric bodies that lack corporeality cor��po��re��al?adj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the body. See Synonyms at bodily.2. Of a material nature; tangible. . Generally speaking, thedifference in this formulation between Eastern Iatmul and the Highlandsconcerns the distinction between the body as an actual thing thatexchanges or is exchanged and the body as a projection -- hence, anembodiment -- in addition to an agent. RETHINKING REALISM AND NOMINALISM An Eastern Iatmul descent group becomes extinct upon the death ofits last male member. The lineages that sponsor his funerary fu��ner��ar��y?adj.Of or suitable for a funeral or burial.[Latin fner rite thenacquire the totemic names that defined the deceased group. Typically,names remain within the same patriclan, transferring only to otherlineages. But sometimes men from different clans jointly sponsor afunerary rite, dispersing the names throughout the village. Corporate groups in Tambunum require both persons and names forsocial existence. In the absence of human bodies, a descent groupdissolves in the realm of practical action. Like their Manambucounterparts, some Eastern Iatmul men assert that lineages can exist asvacant yet extant socio-cosmic categories, defined only by names. Butthese ideological claims are rare. If totemic paths are alleged to existprior to, or underneath (attndasiikiit), human action, these allegationsare arguments intended to further specific politico-ritual agendas. Theypersuade opponents that one's totemic claims are real, that is tosay, justified not by politics but by the actual structure of theuniverse. Eastern Iatmul do not ordinarily profess a static cosmologyoutside the context of specific ancestors, mythic histories and paths.In Tambunum, I am suggesting, men often recognize their ideology. Thereis no sense, moreover, as there is in Avatip, that totemic politics isthe means whereby men and descent groups align themselves into a true,non-human cosmological order. Since the names of a deceased Eastern Iatmul descent group areacquired by lineages that have living members, village cosmology ispreserved through ongoing social reorganization. This differs fromNyaura or central Iatmul villages. At Palimbei, Stanek (1983:423)writes:If a clan dies out it still continues to exist as a correspondingsection of mythology. Even if a clan no longer has any male members, theelders of the brother clans will continue to pass down the section ofthe mythical fabric linked with the extinct clan ... The Iatmul comparethis empty semantic construction to a mask: it is a dead frame waitingto be animated by real persons. If another clan in the same clanassociation grows substantially, the elders can decide that one or moreof its patrilineal patrilineal/pa��tri��lin��e��al/ (pat?ri-lin��e-il) descended through the male line. pat��ri��lin��e��aladj.Relating to, based on, or tracing ancestral descent through the paternal line. segments may slip into the empty spiritual shape thattradition has preserved and take over both the mythical motifs andaccompanying lands.Rather than dispersing, the totemic foundation of a deceased Palimbeilineage endures as a cosmic category that is likened to a mask.(22) In Tambunum, the totemic names of an extinct descent group rarelypersist as a socially and politically active category, devoid only ofpersons. Instead, the names are usually circulated to other lineages andclans within the village who then claim them as a part of theirlegitimate totemic heritage. After all, names enshrine mystical powerand politico-ritual prerogatives as well as rights to land andwaterways. The extinction of a lineage is sometimes viewed as anopportunity for men to consolidate and advance their power. Theseparation between ideology and practice in Tambunum, when it exists, iscontextual and political. In this regard, the village diverges fromHarrison's formulation of magical polities. Despite the difference between Tambunum and Palimbei, however, themask metaphor is revealing. The totemic foundation of a Palimbei descentgroup is akin to a mask, awaiting animation by human bodies. In theEastern Iatmul case, an individual's personal names are like a maskinsofar as they cover (aiwat, kapma) the human body with totemicidentity. Moreover, the absence of somatic bodies causes the social bodyto dissolve and the cosmic body to dissipate, at least to a greaterextent than in Palimbei. Manambu lineages, too, like those at Palimbei, can exist inpractice and ideology as vacant cosmological categories that lack humanagents (Harrison 1989:2-8; 1990). In local ideology, Avatip descentgroups and totemic categories exist in an eternal configuration thatlies outside the realm of human activity. For this reason, Harrisonlabels Manambu cosmology realist rather than nominalist. The totemic andcosmological systems constantly alter in accordance with ritual-politicsand debates, that is to say, ongoing attempts to align social groupswith cosmological categories (Harrison 1990). Yet these changes aremanifest only in the realm of human action. In the cosmologicaldimension of mystical power and spirits, the system is locally believedto be unchanging. Tambunum debates and disputes car into question anysuch pre-human cosmological distinctions. Despite some political andideological statements that the Eastern Iatmul cosmos comprises staticcategories, their world is defined on the basis of human action, as theyrealize. In Eastern Iatmul, claims of realism are not acontextual,blanket statements concerning the cosmos. Rather, they are tied tospecific instances and disputes. At Avatip, one could say, politicalaction and totemic debates seek cosmological truth on the level ofideology. In Tambunum, ideology is more difficult to fix. Sometimes itis realist. At other times it encompasses what we would term the socialgeneration of reality. Harrison asserts that Highland New Guinea polities are nominalist.There social groups are defined largely on the basis of agnation AGNATION, in descents. The relation by blood which exists between such males as are descended from the same father; in distinction from cognation or consanguinity, which includes the descendants from females. This term is principally used in the civil law. ,action, residence and association rather than cosmology. In other words,Highland groups exist in ideology and practice only on the basis ofpersons. When all members of a corporate group die in the Highlands, thegroup itself, as a social category, disappears. In Harrison's scheme, Tambunum would lie midway betweenManambu realism and Highland nominalism. Like Manambu, Eastern Iatmuldescent groups receive their magical foundations from totemic names. Butthese groups also require the actual or potential personification personification,figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities, e.g., allegorical morality plays where characters include Good Deeds, Beauty, and Death. ofnames and totemic attributes. This is true for objective behavior aswell as most instances of local representation. If men are unwilling inpublic to admit to the fluidity of their totemic system, it is becausethey want their claims to appear supported by an external reality thatlies outside the ebb and tide of human history. But in small groups oralone, they often concede that their supposedly permanent cosmology isconstantly changing. The separation of practice and ideology in Tambunum is lessapparent than it is among the Manambu for two reasons. First, EasternIatmul totemism is not merely a sociopolitical system. It is also asemiotics of gender, the body and fertility. Moreover, it is a semioticsthat engages rather than resolves fundamental paradoxes concerningmasculinity, maternal nurture and androgyny AndrogynyHermaphroditeshalf-man, half-woman; offspring of Hermes and Aphrodite. [Gk. Myth.: Hall, 153]IphisCretan maiden reared as boy because father ordered all daughters killed. [Gk. Myth. . Second, Eastern Iatmulideology is both realist and nominalist, that is to say, contextual. When Eastern Iatmul men affirm that deceased groups persistuntrammeled on the plane of cosmology they are in effect voicing one ormore of three considerations. The first is that they have no reason atthis time to try and incorporate the deceased group. The second is thatthey have no grounds to suspect that a rival lineage or clan is tryingto do so. The third consideration is simply that, at this moment, theextinct lineage's cosmological categories and names are peripheralfor defining or defending the totemic foundation of existing groups.Deceased lineages exist as vacant yet genuine cosmological categoriesonly through pragmatic neglect, that is to say, when they areinconsequential for political action. Eastern Iatmul claims that their totemic system is fixed occur forpolitical and not ontological reasons. These claims are not descriptivestatements about how the world really is. They are politico-ritualarguments for how the world should be. Eastern Iatmul reality istherefore contingent on the vicissitudes of membership, politico-ritualauthority and desire, totemic consolidation and fragmentation. Theanalytic separation between ideology and practice, cosmology and agency,is not sustained in general but only in specific cases. Highlanders, according to Harrison, understand their history toconsist of men following leaders and thereby forming corporate groups.Manambu view their history in terms of men filling timeless cosmologicalcategories. Eastern Iatmul, I believe, envision their history to be thesimultaneous restructuring of polity and cosmos through a reproductiveidiom. They do not assume, furthermore, like Manambu, `that their clansand subclans are an inherent property of society everywhere, and thatall human beings are divided into the same social categories asthemselves' (Harrison 1989:3). In Avatip ideology there is cosmological truth. In Tambunumideology truth is contingent and often deceitful.(23) Moreover, theideology of society in Tambunum is also semiotics of the body in whichthe body is projected onto the cosmos. This body has gender. On the onehand, it is androcentric since the cosmos is largely conceived through amale discourse of totemic politics. On the other hand, the cosmic bodyreveals maternal and birth imagery. In this sense, totemism for EasternIatmul serves three purposes. First, it is a Durkheimian-like frameworkthat imposes order on the world. Second, it provides an arena forpolitical action and the formation of social groups. Finally, totemismenables men in particular to grapple with to enter into contest with, resolutely and courageously.See also: Grapple the androgynous gender of thecosmos as well as the cosmological significance of human genders. It isthis perspective, one that combines sociopolitical process with thesemiotics of gender, that is needed in a comparative account ofMelanesian political ideologies and practices. CONCLUSION: THE BODY, SOCIETY AND COSMOLOGY I began this article with Harrison's comparative frameworkfor Melanesian social ideologies. I then analyzed the relationshipbetween Eastern Iatmul totemism, cosmology and society, focusing ongender, the body, politics and power. In addition to presenting newethnographic data on Iatmul, my goal was to refine Harrison'sframework in two respects. First, the Eastern Iatmul data dissolve thecategorical boundary between magical and material Melanesian polities.Instead, it seems more apt to view the practices but especially theideology of social representations along a continuum. The Tambunummaterial also suggests a dynamic relationship between ideology andpractice that is in many cases bound to specific political contexts. Second, the Eastern Iatmul case suggests that we must think aboutdifferences in the ideological and actual formation of societies inMelanesia (and beyond) in terms of cultural constructions of the bodyand reproduction. In particular, I offered a series of symbolichomologies between the human body, the cosmos and the body politic. Ialso argued that the totemic system in Tambunum contains a semiotics ofgender in which images of maternal fertility are cast into anandrocentric political idiom. Harrison differentiates between the Sepik and the New GuineaHighlands The New Guinea Highlands, also known as the Central Range or Central Cordillera, are a chain of mountain ranges and intermountain valleys on the island of New Guinea which run generally east-west the length of the island. on the basis of realism and nominalism. Realist polities suchas Manambu exist in ideology or self-representation as an entity that isindependent of people. In the absence of subjects, the structure andcategories of society and the cosmos are still said to exist. Sociallife and politics represent ongoing attempts by persons to compete forpower that ultimately takes root in a non-human cosmos. Hence, personalnames are at once names of cosmological significance. In Highland nominalist polities, society and cosmologicaldistinctions require merely persons. Magic may sustain social divisionsand leadership but society itself is not indigenously viewed to rest onmystical qualities. Instead, society is solely the product of humanaction, this is reflected in the naming system of many Highland politieswhich refer only to individual qualities and actions (e.g., Wormsley1981). History arises from human needs rather than perceived divisionsin an ultimate cosmos. Harrison's distinction between magical andmaterial, or, realist and nominalist, polities is effective andinsightful. Yet it is largely concerned with social process andpolitical organization. We need, however, to incorporate also thesemiotics of political process, which in the Eastern Iatmul case refersto the gender of the cosmos. Some 30 years ago, in an essay that somewhat anticipatedHarrison's contribution, Lawrence and Meggitt (1965) offered auseful dichotomy for comparing the epistemological systems' ofMelanesia (see also Lawrence 1988). They distinguished between Highland`secularism' and Seaboard `religious thinking.' In sociallife, they argued, the former tend towards materialistic and pragmaticendeavors, the latter towards ritual and the propitiation pro��pi��ti��a��tion?n.1. The act of propitiating.2. Something that propitiates, especially a conciliatory offering to a god.Noun 1. ofspirit-beings. Building on Harrison and, before him, Lawrence and Meggitt, thisessay has suggested one approach to the question of how Melanesianpolities are formed in both practice and ideology. This culturalapproach emphasizes different regionally-constituted images ofreproduction, gender and the body as symbols of community and cosmology.I also suggested that the relationship between local ideology andobjective action, which is clearly delineated at Avatip, is contextualat Tambunum, varying in accordance with individual politico-ritualstrategies. In addition to clarifying Eastern Iatmul, I offer thesesuggestions, like those of Harrison and, before him, Lawrence andMeggitt (Lawrence 1988:23), as a `heuristic challenge.' NOTES(1.) Funding for fieldwork in 1988-1990 was provided by a FulbrightAward and the Institute for Intercultural Studies. A return visit inJune-August 1994 was made possible by the Wenner-Gren Foundation forAnthropological Research and DePauw University. For additional support Igratefully acknowledge the Department of Anthropology and GraduateSchool of the University of Minnesota (body, education) University of Minnesota - The home of Gopher.http://umn.edu/.Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. . Helpful comments were offered byD. Lipset, various colleagues and two anonymous reviewers. Still, Iaccept full responsibility for the essay.(2.) I refer to Frazer's (1887;1899) argument that socialclassifications are modeled after the structure of the natural world.Durkheim and Mauss (1963[1903]), of course, countered Frazer with atheory concerning the social generation of reality. For a view of therelationship between personal names and social classifications thatbuilds on the latter tradition, see Levi-Strauss (1966, Chapters 6, 7);in one passage he refers to Iatmul (1966:173-74).(3.) Bateson (1932:444-47) recognized that the Iatmul system divergesfrom the `orthodox definition' of totemism. For one, Iatmul totemsare not necessarily biological species. For another, dietaryprohibitions surrounding a descent group's totems are for the mostpart lacking, unlike, for example, among the lower Sepik Mundugumor(McDowell 1991:127).(4.) Bateson's (1932, 1936, 1958) texts have been the standardstatement on Sepik totemism. Recently our purview The part of a statute or a law that delineates its purpose and scope.Purview refers to the enacting part of a statute. It generally begins with the words be it enacted and continues as far as the repealing clause. has been expanded byStanek (1983) and Wassmann (1990, 1991); see also Harrison (1990) andErrington and Gewertz (1987).(5.) The only attempts at harnessing magic for economic gain that Iwitnessed occurred during `laki' card games of chance betweenEastern Iatmul and their Sawos neighbors. But these games havenegligible economic impact in the village (cf. Mitchell 1988).(6.) Mother's brothers and matrikin confer names to theirsister's children. These names are drawn from the same set aspatrinames, but have different prefixes, namely, -awan for men and-yeris for women.(7.) In some upper-river or Nyaura Iatmul villages mbapma are named(Wassmann 1991:32).(8.) Contrary to Bateson (1936:37), a man in Tambunum is prohibitedfrom giving names to his sister's sons. A man might allow hissister's sons to have temporary custody of his names if his ownsons are too young or live elsewhere. But this occurs with the expressunderstanding that the man's nephews will later relinquish thenames to their cross-cousins.(9.) Harrison's (1985a;1990:88-90) discussion of the Manambu`Spirit' resembles the Eastern Iatmul kaiek.(10.) Although I use the terms male and female I do not wish to implythe existence in Tambunum of a mutually exclusive gender dichotomy. I ampersuaded in this respect by Strathern's argument concerning theandrogyny of the Melanesian body (1988:212-13). Although Eastern Iatmulwould, I am confident, agree with Strathern, the concept of androgynyhas no vernacular equivalent. Men are simple ndu and women are tagwa.(11.) This is a greatly condensed version of a detailed and complexargument. Briefly, male initiation involves painful scarification scarification/scar��i��fi��ca��tion/ (skar?i-fi-ka��shun) production in the skin of many small superficial scratches or punctures, as for introduction of vaccine. scar��i��fi��ca��tionn. thatremoves the last vestiges of female blood from the boys, bodies that wasthe result of their birth from women. In this sense, the boys becomeadult men. However, the cicatrization scars are formed in patterns thatresemble the breasts and genitals of women in general, and femalecrocodile spirits in particular. In this respect, boys are transformedinto reproductive adults who contain or evoke images of both male andfemale fertility.(12.) The position of Wyngwenjap and the importance of history alsonullifies simplistic sim��plism?n.The tendency to oversimplify an issue or a problem by ignoring complexities or complications.[French simplisme, from simple, simple, from Old French; see simple notions that Iatmul villages are fundamentallyorganized on the basis of some sort of timeless moiety moiety:see clan. structure, asAckerman (1976) others imply.(13.) Although there is a close association between totemic names andthe landscape, secret names do not have a corresponding place that isalso concealed, as is the case among certain Australian Aboriginalcultures (e.g., Biernoff 1974)(14.) The power of this moral expectation was made especially clearin the summer of 1994. A group of Tambunum men were helping to carve aNew Guinea Sculpture Garden at Stanford University, California. Eventhere they were reluctant to discuss the names and histories of otherdescent groups!(15.) Totemic apprentices in Tambunum used to perform a rite that wassaid to increase their memory (Metraux 1978). The ceremony no longerexists. Women were once totemic specialists; they were called tsagitagwa. There was only one woman, Mundjiindua, who approached this levelof ritual status during my fieldwork. Mundjiindua tragically died in1989 before she could transmit her knowledge to a female junior. Mostpeople in the village believe that she was the last tsagi tagwa.(16.) The Tambunum tsagi ngau serves the same function as the knottedtwine twine:see cordage. chords (kiiriigu) of Central and Western Iatmul (Wassmann 1990,1991). Manambu display ornamented spears, arrows and sticks in theirdebates in order to represent names (Harrison 1990:160-61).(17.) This controversial claim was arrived at by very roughestimation from the number of name songs possessed by each clan, thenumber of names in each song, and the general ability of such men toquote, in considerable detail, from the name-cycles even of clans otherthan their own' (Bateson T1936:222; see also 1936:258). For adiscussion of Iatmul totemism and mnemonics in the context of NewIreland mortuary art, see Kuchler (1987).(18.) A disputant forfeits his claims if he begins a brawl inside themen's house (cf. Bateson 1936:126-27; see also Harrison 1990:162).For a general discussion of political authority and the male cult inanother Sepik society. see Tuzin (1974).(19.) In this regard, Bateson (1936:123) reports that men should notwalk through the entire length of the cult house, but exit one of theside entrances. `To walk right through the building is felt to be anexpression of overweening pride -- as if a man should lay claim to thewhole building as his personal property.'(20.) Read (1955), Strathern and Strathern (1971), A. Strathern(1977), M. Strathern (1979), Meigs (1987) and O'Hanlon (1989),among others, discuss cultural conceptions of the body in Highland NewGuinea; Poole (1987) and Wagner (1987) offer useful comparisons fromnon-Highland societies. For Melanesia in general, see Knauft (1989).(21.) For more rounded views of Highland exchange and pigs thatincorporate issues relating to production and gender, see Modjeska(1982), Feil (1984a, 1984b), Josephides (1985) and Godelier (1986).(22.) Assuming that Stanek is translating from the vernacular, the`dead frame' probably derives from the Iatmul word lage, which is acane and rattan rattan(rătăn`), name for a number of plants of the genera Calamus, Daemonorops, and Korthalsia climbing palms of tropical Asia, belonging to the family Palmae (palm family). dance costume that supports a wooden mask. 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