Customer Reviews

A'aisa's Gifts: A Study of Magic and the Self (Studies in Melanesian Anthropology)

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Michele Stephen does a fantastic job weaving a wonderful story, personal narrative, and intellegent analysis in this anthropological work. She is reflexive in her work, reminding the readers where she is coming from, what biases she may be burdened with by her own culture, and to work with the readers on their potential level(s). I have read a great number of ethnographies, and I have to say this is without a doubt the best WRITTEN one I have come across - combining analysis with prose that remains interesting, explanatory, and provoking. I have hesitated to give it the punch of five starts because I feel that Stephen had goals too high at times, almost teasing the reader with explanations of every facet of Mekeo culture while actually concentrating solely on the element of magic and the mind. But, without a doubt, her cultural analyses were very good and intellegent - I was very impressed with her ability to weave so many theorists and philosophies into a story that stays essentially focused on the people and the complexity of their relationships.

The Mekeo are a fairly prosperous tribe in southeastern PNG, making a living by growing and selling sweet potatoes, taro, coconuts and betel nuts in Port Moresby. Stephen describes a stratified hierarchical society based on patrilinear clans in which every person's role is precisely defined both in terms of societal relations/obligations and their cosmological counterparts. The tribe is divided into peace, war and 'sorcery' (ugauga) factions each of which has senior and junior family lines, and one's relative position within the clan comes with the power of ritual charms allocated to that family line.

The book shows the implications that such distribution of power has on the Mekeo. Ordinary reality is a reflection of events that occur in the non-ordinary reality inhabited by mythical heroes, ancestor spirits and various kinds of 'bush spirits' with which humans interact through their souls (or 'dream selves', lalaugas). One can arrange the unfolding of events through ritual implementation of symbolic representations of the mythical domain, thus ensuring success in hunting, love, health but just as often, illness and demise of the victim. This is no laughing mater for the Mekeo. Everyone is your potential adversary (including, and especially) your immediate family. Within the family and the tribe every - even the most insignificant -perceived transgression is punished, often times disproportionately. As a result, Mekeos develop inscrutable, wary yet (on the surface) relaxed attitudes and an extraordinary awareness of communicative minutiae. "Men of sorrow" such as Stephen's mentor A'aisaga are sorcerers charged with enforcing of the social norm by bespelling/manipulating the dream selves of their fellow villagers.

What comes out in the book is the remarkable courage and persistence of the author who participated in and learnt what seem to be some of the most dangerous ritual practices of the Mekeo, many of which contradict Western concepts of 'fairness' or 'common sense'. Like many anthropologists who 'apprenticed' to local magicians around the world, Stephen also faces the challenge of explaining the apparent effectiveness of 'dreamwork' practices. She valiantly tries to use Jungian, hypnosis, cross-cultural etc paradigms which do not entirely succeed. Still, what the book shows is the immense power that tribal memory, symbolic representations exert when they intersect with a living culture. Power that affects those who did not grow within the culture itself. By uprooting ourselves the Westerners have lost - for better - or worse - contact with powers that reside in tribal mythos; with animals, spirits and ancestors, choosing instead to interact with a warlike Middle Eastern deity which insists on proselytizing, aggressive land grabs and financial exploitation. Stephen shows that tribal life in the tropics is not (what M. Mead might have us believe) a bed of wine and roses but rather a daily struggle for survival on the spiritual plane. Yet somehow - there is much satisfaction there, and much aliveness. By forsaking our mythos we have forsaken that life. This book provides much food for thought with implications that go way beyond anthropology as we know it today. Highly recommended.

IMHO: Absolutely boring book if you are not a specialist on the topic.

The language/style is heavy and hard to follow.