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

Barth, Fredrik

ISBN 10: 0521387353 / ISBN 13: 9780521387354

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1990

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cosmologies in the Making: A Generative Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Series Number 64)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521387353
• ISBN 13: 9780521387354
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

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.