• ISBN13: 9781859736227
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: Sociology and Anthropology
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publisher Imprint: Berg
• Publication Date: January 1, 2002
• Pages: 256
• Original Price: USD 28.95
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 345 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Anthropology / Cultural & Social

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.

Küchler, Susanne: - Susanne Kuechler is Professor in Anthropology and Material Culture at University College London, UK. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and Eastern Polynesia over the past 25 years, studying creativity, innovation and futurity in political economies of knowledge from a comparative perspective. Working from within material culture studies, her work is ethnographic in orientation and is influenced by a close reading of German and French writing on epistemology and the culture of things.