Mambu (Routledge Library Editions: Anthropology and Ethnography: South Pacific and Australasia) - Softcover

Burridge, Kenelm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415869293 ISBN 13: 9780415869294

Publisher: Routledge, 2013

Synopsis

Mambu is the name of a native of New Guinea who led what has become known as a 'Cargo' cult. These cults, common in Melanesia, are partly religious, political and economic in nature. Participants in the cult engage in exotic rites, the purpose of which is to gain possession of European manufactured goods, such as knives, medicines, razor blades, tinned foods etc.
The volume discusses why these cults occur and examines a way of life of a New Guinea people and their reactions to European penetration and achievement.
First published in 1960.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"This is a book not just about cargo cults or even about millenarianism generally but about the ways humans strive to make sense of the most wrenching kinds of upheavals in their lives. What sets Mambu apart from the array of other works on these cults is Burridge's philosophical--one might almost say existentialist--perspective. No less fully than others does he describe in detail the political and especially the social conditions that undeniably spurred the emergence of the cults. But he is distinctive in focusing on the consequences of those political and social upheavals for the world view of the Melanesians."--Robert Segal, Lancaster University

About the Author:

Kenelm Burridge is Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at the University of British Columbia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0415869293
• ISBN 13: 9780415869294
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 340