Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Jack Goody
- Map: Major territories of the mountain Ok
- 1 The problem
- 2 An attempt at systematic comparison: descent and ideas of conception
- 3 The possible interrelations of sub-traditions: reading sequence from distribution
- 4 The context for events of change
- 5 The results of process – variations in connotation
- 6 Secret thoughts and shared understandings
- 7 The stepwise articulation of a vision
- 8 Experience and concept formation
- 9 The insights pursued by Ok thinkers
- 10 General and comparative perspectives
- 11 Some reflections on theory and method
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology
Foreword by Jack Goody
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Jack Goody
- Map: Major territories of the mountain Ok
- 1 The problem
- 2 An attempt at systematic comparison: descent and ideas of conception
- 3 The possible interrelations of sub-traditions: reading sequence from distribution
- 4 The context for events of change
- 5 The results of process – variations in connotation
- 6 Secret thoughts and shared understandings
- 7 The stepwise articulation of a vision
- 8 Experience and concept formation
- 9 The insights pursued by Ok thinkers
- 10 General and comparative perspectives
- 11 Some reflections on theory and method
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology
Summary
Symbols and knowledge
Fredrik Barth needs no introduction from me. He is already justly well known for his series of ethnographic studies on four different continents, which he has combined with an interest in theoretical problems relating constructively to his empirical enquiries. But I agreed to introduce the present volume both because the particular problem he analyses is one which goes to the heart of the comparative analysis of human interaction among neighbouring peoples, especially in societies without writing, and because it is a question that has also been one of my own implicit concerns. Like Barth in New Guinea, in West Africa I was struck by the degree of similarity that occurred between the economic, linguistic, and to some extent, cultural aspects of LoDagaa society and that of the peoples surrounding them, while at the same time there was a great diversity in other elements, especially the religious and magico- ritual domains. In the latter there were the same kinds of dramatic variation that Barth found among the mountain Ok, where, as he points out, the differences are apparent not just to external observers, but, some of them, indeed, shock the actors themselves, who view them as not merely ‘ungrammatical’, but as actually objectionable. Other differences are more neutral, while yet others are tacit (that is, unperceived or unelaborated).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cosmologies in the MakingA Generative Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea, pp. vii - xiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987
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