The Sun and the Shakers,Again: Enga,Ipili, and Somaip Perspectives on the Cult of Ain

ABSTRACT The ‘Sun and the Shakers, Again’ resumes the conversation begun by Mervyn J. Meggitt in his 1973 article ‘The Sun and the Shakers’ concerning the circumstances and mindset of Enga and Ipili speakers on the eve (or in the early stages) of colonial penetration. The ‘Cult of Ain,’ as Meggitt termed a regional cult that broke out in the mid‐1940s, followed on the heels of devastating epidemics and famine and was in some measure, at least in most areas where it caught on, a response to those traumas. Yet there were other dimensions: apparent cargo cultism and millenarianism. Widening the geographical scope of reporting beyond that of Meggitt's article to include both the Somaip, as reported on by Hans Reithofer in The Python Spirit and the Cross, and the Ipili speakers of the western Porgera valley and the Paiela valley, this second and final installment reviews and critiques existing interpretations of the Cult of Ain in light of the ethnohistorical detail offered in the first installment and goes on to offer an interpretation of the cult that is inspired by the cosmological symbols common to all cult versions: most obviously the sun but also the sky. The Cult of Ain is viewed by participants and their descendants alike as the prelude to colonialism and missionization, and understanding it is crucial to writing the cultural history of the last 65+ years.     

The Sun and the Shakers,Again: Enga,Ipili, and Somaip Perspectives on the Cult of Ain Part One

ABSTRACT In the middle 1940s, at a time when white people were just beginning to penetrate the western highlands of what would become Papua New Guinea, a cult spread quickly among Engas, Ipili speakers, and Somaips. In the seminal article ‘The Sun and the Shakers' published almost 40 years ago, Mervyn J. Meggitt would call this cult the ‘Cult of Ain.’ The cult's core feature involved a massive sacrifice of pigs to the sun in an attempt to enlist the sun's aid. Participants stared at the sun and shook, entering a trance‐like state. While massive pig sacrifices to the sun occurred in all cult variants, local versions of the cult differed in emphasizing one or two themes: acquiring wealth (pigs and pearlshells but also white manufactured goods) and/or ascending to the sky. Interpretations of the cult reflect this variation, some focusing on apparent cargo cultic dimensions while others train on the cult's millenarian aspects. This reprise of Meggitt's article argues that the themes of wealth acquisition and ascent to the sky were at base the same, intelligible with respect to the cosmological discourse that so clearly informed all the cult's manifestations (hence the emphasis upon the sun), a discourse that this article attempts to interpret. This, the first of a two‐part article, summarizes what is known of Cult of Ain variants, highlighting the features other reporters have emphasized as well as those that may provide insight into underlying cultural and even transcultural logics.     

Eilert Sundt. A founding father of the social sciences in Norway

The cult of St Nicholas spread in Scandinavia and northern Rus' in approximately the same period, namely in the last decades of the 11th and the first decades of the 12th centuries. In spite of such a correspondence, the dissemination of the cult in the two adjacent regions has been treated as two separate phenomena. Consequently, the growing popularity of the cult in Scandinavia has traditionally been dealt with as an immanent part of the transmission of the Catholic tradition, and a similar phenomenon in northern Rus' has been discussed with reference to the establishment of Orthodox Christianity. By contrast, the evidence analysed in this article shows that the establishment of the cult of St Nicholas in the two regions was an intertwined process, in which the difference between Latin Christendom and Greek Orthodoxy played a minor role. The early spread of this particular cult thus suggests that, as far as some aspects of the cult of saints are concerned, the division between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity in Northern Europe was less abrupt in the 11th and 12th centuries than has been traditionally assumed. This was due to the fact that the medieval cult of saints was not limited to the liturgy of saints, but was a wider social phenomenon in which political and dynastic links and cultural and trading contacts across Northern Europe often mattered more than confessional differences. When we leave the liturgy aside and turn to kings, princes, traders and other folk interacting across the early Christian North, then the confessional borders are less useful for our understanding of how some aspects of Christian culture were communicated across Northern Europe in the first two centuries after conversion.     

Kings,chieftains and public cult in pre‐Christian Scandinavia

The article addresses the question of the performance of pre‐Christian public cult by political leaders in early medieval Scandinavia. This question is traditionally discussed within the larger theoretical frame of sacral kingship in early medieval Scandinavia. In this article, the key contemporary evidence is presented and discussed with the conclusion that the sources do not show political leaders performing pre‐Christian public cult. Instead, the evidence shows that political leaders participated in private religious rituals whose performance, however, was not connected with political leadership per se.     

Beyond Bilas: The Enga Take Anda

A crucial issue facing anthropologists, linguists, and museums today is what to do with research material and artifacts that have accumulated over the years. In 2005 we sought ways to return 20 years of material on Enga history and tradition to the people of Enga Province at a time when rapid change was leaving young generations with little sense of their cultural heritage. The goal was to build a center, the Enga Take Anda, House of Traditional Knowledge, that would provide knowledge of the past to help Enga understand recent changes and to consider what should be carried forward and what left behind. To be effective, the Enga Take Anda would have to be a museum and as well as a resource center with an active role in Enga schools and the Village Court system. We describe here challenges and successes in this endeavor. The establishment of the Take Anda has involved much trial, error, flexibility and persistence, largely persistence.     

罗马时代的信仰危机

异教时期的罗马国教具有公共性、反个人崇拜及相对宽容等特点。自从元首政治建立之后,随着东方思想的大量涌入,有关个人灵魂拯救的秘传崇拜开始打破公共崇拜对于信仰领域的垄断;皇帝崇拜日益冲击着城邦宗教中的共和与民主传统;与此同时,帝国政府对于异己思想表现得越来越不宽容。这种信仰危机随着3世纪社会总危机的爆发而日益加剧,其最直接的后果就是造成了普遍的道德危机。基督教的崛起有效地缓解了公共崇拜与私人信仰之间的张力,彻底瓦解了个人崇拜赖以存在的基础,并用一套全新的伦理原则重塑了社会的道德模式,因而最终结束了这场长达四百年之久的信仰危机。     

Buried together,buried alone: Christian commemoration and kinship in the early Middle Ages

This essay explores the ways in which strategies of commemoration elaborated by kin groups changed after the end of the western Roman empire and what role Christianity played in these transformations. In order to shed some light on the situation, a broad sample of cemeteries dating from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages was analysed, focusing on the spatial organization of the individuals within the cemeteries and around cult places. For this purpose archaeological, physical anthropological and epigraphic data were studied and juxtaposed with the theoretical debates expressed by Christian writers. The data at hand seem to suggest that rather than radically transforming kinship commemoration strategies, Christianity added new ideological layers, making its use and display multidimensional.     

The Meaning Of Pepe: God's Law and The Western Arrernte

Using both ethnography and textual material, this paper describes the way in which Western Arrernte people in central Australia interpreted the Christianity brought to them by Lutheran missionaries. The mission became an isolated domestic economy, a context that allowed the Arrernte to interpret its teachings in terms of a "law." This Christian law was often referred to as pepe, the Western Arrernte word for "paper." It involved a particular rendering of literacy and rested on a highly localized order. These conditions of mission Christianity would change with the coming of land rights and a cash economy.     

The construction of tradition: the cult of the God Rama in Rajasthan,North India

In Rajasthan compared to other parts of Northern India such as Bengal or Orissa, the cult of the god Rama is widespread. One of the characteristics of this cult in Rajasthan is the fact that the god Rama has always been linked to royalty. The association of Rama with royalty has reinforced a certain image of Rajputs (former warriors, rulers) as political leaders. The article shows the relation of myths to social practices and how these myths about Rama have been used by former rulers and by politicians today. In the constructions of national and local traditions, beliefs are often more important than historical traditions.     

The Public Role of Religion: A Central-European Perspective

Abstract

Church leaders in Europe frequently lament that the environment is non-religious and unchristian. Reflecting on how the European countries which fell under Communist domination have adjusted to the post-Communist era, the paper advances the view that the situation should be characterized differently. European Christianity stands on the threshold of another of its historical metamorphoses. The continent is not simply unchristian or non-religious, but neither is not religious in a Christian way. Christianity is not the religion of present-day Europe, and at the same time European Christianity can no longer be seen as a "religion."     

Simon de Montfort,Earl of Leicester,and the utility of sanctity in thirteenth-century England

Almost immediately after his death, Simon de Montfort, the leader of the Barons' Revolt against Henry III, was revered as a saint. Despite the received historical opinion that his cult was local, furtive, and brief, it actually received support throughout England, from the noble and clerical ranks as well as from the peasantry, and lasted into the reign of Edward I. The manifestations of Earl Simon's cult reveal that his revolt was popular as well as noble, that even illegal cults could be profitable for their home shrines, in this case the abbey of Evesham, and that sanctifying a rebel leader was an effective way of justifying both the continuation of a revolt and sympathy for the defeated rebels, in this case the Disinherited. On the hagiographical level, Montfort's cult shows the incredibly rich diversity of expression of devotion in medieval cults, and the more practical concerns with advertisement and profit. On the political level, the cult proves once again that the king did not control all means of political discourse. The merger of political and religious authority, the importance of which has been often demonstrated in studies of the king's touch and the laudes ceremonials, affected rebel leaders as well as kings.     

Horses for Courses? Religious Change and Dietary Shifts In Anglo‐Saxon England

The evidence for horse consumption in Anglo‐Saxon England is examined with regards to the spread of Christianity from the late sixth century onwards. It is argued that the negative attitudes of Church leaders to hippophagy relate largely to the perceived links of this practice with pagan beliefs and were closely allied to attempts at establishing greater religious orthodoxy. In considering the effects of such attitudes, previous studies have made little attempt to relate textual sources to the physical remnants of such activities – horse bones themselves. By combining these sources, this paper suggests that horses were probably eaten by at least some people before, during and after the Conversion period, but that Christianity may have had some effect on these practices. However, the impact varied according to social identity and perhaps also regions of the country.     

Enga Social Life and Identity in a Papua New Guinea Mining Town1

The process of modernisation coupled with division of labour and leisure have had an enormous impact on tribal people. This group of people have responded to the bewildering environment with the consolidation of their existing network on ethnic and tribal solidarity. This paper looks at one group of people, the Enga people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) while they sought employment in the now abandoned Bougainville copper mine. The paper explains that the Enga workers maintained their own identity through utilisation of leisure activities amid the diverse presence of other workers in the mining town. It concludes that if ethnic and tribal solidarity were to be superseded by other forms of social alliance, would the latter eventually perform the role of protecting, recruiting, and reciprocating not only in Bougainville but in other PNG town settings? These are some of the questions that need to be addressed in the context of socioeconomic development and change in PNG and in other similiar developing countries.     

Crafters of Kingship: Smiths,Elite Power,and Gender in Early Medieval Europe

IN THE EARLIEST CENTURIES of the Middle Ages, skilled metalsmiths were greatly valued by cult leaders who required impressive objects to maintain social links and the loyalty of their retainers. Despite their clear importance, smiths were peripheral characters operating on the fringes of elite communities. Such treatment may reflect an attempt to limit the influence of metalworkers, whose craft was seen as supernatural and who themselves were probably spiritual figureheads; archaeological evidence associates smiths and their tools in symbolic processes of creation and destruction, not only of objects but also of buildings and monuments. The Church clearly appropriated these indigenous practices, although conversion eventually saw the pre-eminence of the sacred smith and their practice wane. Anthropological study provides numerous comparators for skilled crafters acting as supernatural leaders, and also suggests that as part of their marginal identity, smiths may have been perceived as a distinct gender.     

De Gasperi and Togliatti: Political leadership and personality cults in post‐war Italy*

After twenty years of Fascism, political leaders were faced with the need to rediscover or invent new ways of relating to the mass public and, in the first place, to distance themselves from the type of relationship consolidated under Fascism. This article is based on an examination of the representations of De Gasperi and Togliatti in illustrated weeklies and in the satirical press, as well as their more or less hagiographical biographies. From the sources it emerges that, in the case of the Christian Democrat leader, the hypothesis that there was a personality cult is hard to sustain. By contrast, in the case of Togliatti, it does seem possible to argue that there were manifestations of a genuine cult, but these were set within the context of an institutional charisma.     

Bites, nibbles, sips and puffs: new exotic goods in Norway in the 18th and the first half of the 19th century

The slow but significant changes in the material culture of European households that took place in the pre-industrial period are visible in several ways, such as in the changing patterns of housing, furnishing and clothing which have been illustrated in several studies. However, most of these studies focus on the pre-industrial economic leaders, often ignoring the changes taking place on the margins of the economic growth centres. This article seeks to rectify this by looking at changes in the material culture in one such 'marginal' country, namely Norway. The goods focused upon in this case are sugar, tobacco and coffee, which are often termed as exotic goods. These were new commodities in the 18th century and precisely because of their novelty and foreign origin, it is in many cases possible to trace how they spread in rural society, as well as how they impacted it. The emphasis has been put on rural areas for the simple reason that this was where the overall majority of Norwegians lived at the time.     

Countryside-versus-City in European Thought: German and British Anti-Urbanism between the Wars

The idea that the city is a place of sin and immorality is as old as urban civilization. But what does anti-urban thought mean in societies which are highly urbanized under the conditions of modern industrialism? Furthermore, is anti-urbanism in the interwar period a German völkisch phenomenon––one further stride on Germany's special path? And what does rural revival and the “back-to-the-land” cult mean in Great Britain, the first industrial nation? This article seeks to provide an answer to these questions by exploring anti-urbanist writing between the End of the First World War and 1933 in Germany, and 1939 in Britain. By examining two key themes it aims to show that the clear-cut distinction between German anti-urban radicalisation and the West's coming to terms with urbanisation cannot be maintained. Firstly, attention will be drawn to the ambiguity of perceptions of the city in the writings of “Conservative Revolutionary” authors in the Weimar Republic. In a second step, the British “back-to-the-land” movement, whose advocates developed comprehensive anti-urban third-way theories in the interwar period and were themselves part of a broader popular anti-industrial movement and a rural cult throughout the 1930s, will be examined.     

Gender and morals in Spanish Catholic youth culture: a case study of the Marian Congregations 1930-1936

Jesuit-run Marian Congregations proliferated in 1930s Spain. Drawing on literature produced for their members, this article demonstrates how gendered understandings were fundamental to the congregations' symbolic delineation of an uncontaminated Catholic space. Visions of an incorrupt male elite abound, reinforcing the Jesuits' educational mission among future leaders and opinion-formers. In contrast, the purity of women and children was seen as a sign of society's moral health. Modesty was the quintessential female virtue. Yet, the cult of the Virgin Mary suggested that the virginal female body was both tool and symbol in the struggle against a fallen world. Girls were, therefore, charged with the task of moral guardianship. Such campaigns were emblematic of Spanish Catholicism's tendency to proffer religious solutions to social problems.     

Emotion,Identity, and Death in the Greek Tradition and Beyond

The article examines emotion and identity in the Greek death cult to clarify certain contemporary political phenomena in the Mediterranean where the cult of the dead is a common cultural pattern. Why is this cult so persistent? What is the death cult and how does it manifest itself? The article delves into its importance in Greece, where the author has had several periods of ?eldwork. To illustrate the persistence of this cultural pattern, its characteristic aspects are discussed. Festivals which are dedicated to deceased persons and domestic death rituals are compared with ancient sources. Based on this, a survey of the relationship between the death cult dedicated to deceased mediators, as it is manifested through laments, burials and the ensuing memorial rituals is made. Modern domestic rituals in? uence of?cial rituals, and vice versa. A study of modern cult practices reveals many parallels with the of?cial cult of the ancients, and suggests ways in which modern rituals can illuminate ancient rituals. The article seeks to demonstrate how new ideologies must be adjusted to older rituals and beliefs and how public and domestic rituals are connected. The article ?nally suggests how these similarities might represent a common way of expression within a larger geographical context.     

War Dead and the Restoration of Military Cemeteries in Eastern Europe

This article examines the rebuilding of World War II cemeteries and mass graves. It compares the cult of the war dead in Germany, Romania and Russia and analyses examples of restorations of war cemeteries by these countries in Moldova. This reveals how the former war allies and adversaries now collaborate, as well as their attempts to overcome the political and ideological divides of recent decades through the reburial and remembrance of the war dead. The search for the war dead occurred at a time when each of these countries was “coming to terms” with its recent totalitarian past and, at the same time, was looking for recognition in a new international context. The convergence of the private and the political in the remembrance of the dead led at times to reconciliatory discourses and at others to a restatement of the “sacredness” of the past or of exclusivist national ideals.