Cosmologies in the Making: A Generative Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Series Number 64)

Fredrik Barth

ISBN 10: 0521342791 / ISBN 13: 9780521342797

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1987

Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.01. Seller Inventory # G0521342791I4N01

Synopsis:

In examining the changes that have taken place in the secret cosmological lore transmitted in male initiation ceremonies among the Mountain Ok of Inner New Guinea, this book offers a new way of explaining how cultural change occurs. Professor Barth focuses on accounting for the local variations in cosmological traditions that exist among the Ok people, who otherwise share largely similar cultures. Rejecting existing anthropological theory as inadequate for explaining this, Professor Barth constructs a new model of the mechanisms of cultural change, emphasizing the role that individual creativity plays in it, and maintaining that cosmologies can be adequately understood only if they are regarded as knowledge in the process of communication, rather than as fixed bodies of belief.

Book Description: Offering a new way of explaining how cultural change occurs, this book examines the changes that have taken place in the transmission of secret cosmological lore in male initiation ceremonies among the Mountain Ok tribe of Inner New Guinea.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Cosmologies in the Making: A Generative ...
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 1987
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket