Culture of Stone: Sacred and Profane Uses of Stone Among the DaniWhen O. W. "Bud" Hampton made his first visit to the peoples in remote parts of the Highlands of Irian Jaya in 1982 and 1983, he found that their ancient stone-based technologies and culture remained virtually intact. During repeated and extended visits over twelve years, Hampton had unparalleled and irreproducible opportunity to observe the development, use, and cultural meaning of stone tool assemblages in their traditional contexts. In this unique study, Hampton describes the complete cultural inventory of both secular and sacred stones, ranging from utilitarian stone tools and profane symbolic stones through symbolic spirit stones, power stones with multiple functions, and medicinal power stone tools, as they were being used in the culture of this long-isolated people. Hampton portrays the complete cycle of quarrying, manufacture, trade, and uses of the stones. Specific archaeological questions are addressed in the context of a culture that provides the answers: What stimulates production? How are tool and symbolic stones manufactured? What is the role of women in quarrying and production? What kinds of trade mechanisms are at work? Are the distributions of stone tool types reliable language and cultural boundary markers? How are sacred stones created and what are their uses? The answers contain rosetta stones of information for worldwide application. Hampton examines the complexities of the Highlanders' unseen spirit world and its symbiotic relationship with the world of the seen. The dual worship of ancestor spirits and the sun within the same belief system is described, with all of the attendant material props. This extensively illustrated, carefully documented, holistic ethnography presents a detailed study of rarely observed behavior associated with traditional stone tools and sacred objects practiced by living people within their integrated society. Archaeologists, anthropologists, other scholars, as well as inquisitive general readers will find Culture of Stone: Sacred and Profane Uses of Stone among the Dani a valuable contribution not only to the ethnography of the New Guinea highlands but to archaeology and anthropology in general. |
Contents
Setting the Stage Evolutionary Cultural and Environmental Contexts | 3 |
From Foraging to Horticulture and the Neolithic | 4 |
Neolithic Defined and the Rest of the World | 6 |
The People | 8 |
Birth to Death | 17 |
Stone Tools and Profane Uses | 51 |
Nomenclature | 53 |
Methods of Determining Rock Lithologies | 55 |
Integrated Operation and What Prompts Production | 235 |
Uses of Quarry Sites in Wano Territory by Others than Wano | 237 |
Tagime Quarries | 241 |
Geologic Setting | 243 |
Kinds of Stone Goods Produced and Their Classification | 244 |
Stimulation of Production and Distribution of Product | 249 |
LangdaSela Quarries and Sources of Opportunity | 251 |
Geologic Setting | 252 |
Grand Valley and West | 59 |
Yali and East | 82 |
Stationary Grinding Slabs and Mobile Hand Stones | 93 |
Symbolic Stones and the Sociopolitical Framework in Which They Move | 99 |
Sociopolitical Organization | 100 |
Profane DisplayExchange Stones | 104 |
Sacred Symbolic Stones and Empowered Stone Tools | 125 |
Ownership of the Stones | 127 |
Both Profane and Sacred Space | 128 |
Spirits within Sacred Space | 160 |
The Ganekhe Hakasin Ceremony | 161 |
Supernaturally Powered Objects for Social Uses | 185 |
Miscellaneous Sacred Stones in the Yali and East Region | 215 |
Yeineri Quarries | 221 |
The Wano People | 224 |
Kinds of Stone Goods Produced and Their Classification | 225 |
The Manufacturing Process | 226 |
Quarry Ownership | 227 |
Quarry Sites within the System | 228 |
The SevenStep Manufacturing Process | 257 |
Trade | 275 |
The Traders | 277 |
Trade Goods | 279 |
ValueSetting | 282 |
Movement of Goods | 283 |
Concluding Comments | 291 |
Relationship of the Highlanders Seen and Unseen Worlds | 292 |
Quarrying and Manufacturing | 297 |
Trade and Exchange | 300 |
Creation and Uses of Sacred Symbolic Stones and Sacred Stone Tools | 301 |
Cultural Flow of Stones from the Profane to the Sacred | 305 |
Areal Distribution of Stone Tools and Symbolic Stones | 306 |
Why No Pottery Chiefs or a Civilization? | 307 |
Variances of ReligioMedical Kits and Power Stones | 309 |
313 | |
321 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adze blades ancestor angle archaeological axe blade bamboo bone boundaries bundle called carried ceremonies chapter color compound core cultural cutting Dani dibat display display-exchange stones edge exchange fiber figure fire flake floor funeral ganekhe cabinet ghosts Grand Valley grass grinding ground Guinea hamlet hands head Highlands human important individual Irian Jaya kinds known Langda language leader leaves living located maintained manufacturing material men's house moved objects packet pieces power stone present production profane puluen quarry region relative ritual River rock sacred sacred house seen selected shaped shell side single sometimes spirit stone tools string sweet potatoes symbolic Tagime throughout tion tool stones trade tree types University usually Valley and West Wali Wano Western women wrapped Yali Yali and East Yeineri
Popular passages
Page xiii - The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be 'Voluntarily
Page xvii - translating' the static, material stone tools found on an archaeological site into the vibrant life of a group of people who in fact left them there