Pigs for the Ancestors : Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People

311 Pages Indexed. 1975 printing of the 1968 copyright. Center section of black and white photographs. Store stamp inside back cover. No other marks of stamps to this tight, straight book. The Tsembaga Maring are a group of slash-and-burn farmers occupying a small territory on the northern slopes of the Central Highlands of New Guinea. Taking them to be part of a complex ecological system which includes their human neighbors as well as the flora and fauna with which they share their territory, Rappaport argues that their elaborate ritual cycle, which ostensibly refers to spirits, in fact operates as homeostatic mechanism regulating the size of the pig population, acreage in cultivation, fallow periods, energy expenditure in subsistence activities, protein ingestion, man-land ratios, and the frequency of fighting. Rappaport's study of the Tsembaga should be read by all scholars interested in the ethnography of New Guinea or the functions of rituals. In addition, this book should be read by anyone interested in ecology, cultural and noncultural. Pigs for the Ancestors will become the yardstick for studies in human ecology for a long time to come. --- Journal of Asian Studies.…