Ritual and ontogeny : life cycle rites in an eastern Indonesian society / Gregory Forth.
| Author/creator | Forth, Gregory author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Durham, North Carolina : Carolina Academic Press, LLC, [2024] |
| Copyright Date | ©2024 |
| Description | xix, 254 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm. |
| Subjects |
| Series | Ritual studies monograph series Carolina Academic Press ritual studies monographs. ^A510867 |
| Contents | Introduction -- Pregnancy and childbirth : becoming a human being -- Initiation into sexuality and adulthood : teeth-filing and genital mutilation -- "Making water" and "replacing teeth" : two defunct life cycle ceremonies -- Marriage and the process of marrying -- Making mortuary payments : a prelude to the funeral -- Death and the funeral : becoming "only spirit" -- Summary remarks on ritual and ontology : humans, spirits, and water buffalo. |
| Abstract | "Like many people, the Nagé of Flores Island recognize 'humans,' 'animals,' and 'spirits' as distinct kinds of being. The book explores how, in performing and interpreting life-cycle rituals, Nagé use these three categories in conceptualizing different stages in a person's coming into being--beginning with fetal existence through entry into adulthood, marriage, and extending to death and beyond. Special attention is given to two unusual, now defunct, and previously non-obligatory ceremonies and how they relate to other life-cycle rites and enduring features of Nagé society, including marriage alliance and treatment of the dead. All these rituals reveal that, for Nagé, an unborn child exists in a largely animal state, becoming fully human only after birth. Funeral rites, by contrast, turn on a belief that the deceased becomes a malevolent spirit before transforming into a disembodied soul. Nevertheless, before this transformation is complete, Nagé also conceive of a person as participating in an animal-like condition. Based on 34 years of anthropological fieldwork (1984-2018), this book is the first general account of Nagé culture and indigenous ritual. Engaging with anthropology's "ontological turn"--a theoretical approach grounded in the idea that different societies differ fundamentally in the way they understand humans in relation to other beings--it is also the first to explore a society's worldview by focusing on the life cycle and particularly how component rituals express beliefs about the course of a human life. As such, the book will attract anyone interested in how a traditional non-Western community continues to view human existence"--Publisher, page 4 of cover. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-236) and index. |
| LCCN | 2024020465 |
| ISBN | 9781531027292 |
| ISBN | 1531027296 (paperback) |
| ISBN | (ebook) |