WOMEN'S FACIAL TATTOOING AMONG THE MAISIN OF ORO PROVINCE,PAPUA NEW GUINEA: THE CHANGING SIGNIFICANCE OF AN ANCIENT CUSTOM

The Maisin women of northeastern Papua New Guinea are among the last coastal Papuans to tattoo their faces. This article first describes the techniques and social process of Maisin tattooing. We then examine the resilience of the custom in light of changes in puberty rites and notions of gender. We argue that these contexts have lost their cultural salience as a result of the Maisins' incorporation into the larger Papua New Guinea society. Tattooing has acquired new significance as a marker of cultural identity in a multicultural setting and as a sign of the Maisin people's commercial success as makers of indigenous art.     

The Concept of Taboo in Raga,Vanuatu: Semantic Mapping and Etymology

This article discusses the two terms that convey the concept of taboo in Raga, the language of north‐central Vanuatu originally spoken in north Pentecost, and provides linguistic evidence expanding on the information published previously by the anthropologists Masanori Yoshioka and John Patrick Taylor. Based on the corpus collected in north Pentecost in the period 2015–2017, and on older ethnographic and religious written material, a semantic map is proposed for the two taboo‐related Raga terms: sabuga and gogona. Reviewing the terms that designate the concept of ‘taboo’ in the neighbouring languages, the study also explores the possibility of borrowing and semantic interference from other languages, and proposes that sabuga is a reflex of Proto Oceanic *tabu, albeit an irregular reflex, and gogona a reflex of Proto North and Central Vanuatu*kona ‘sacred, taboo’.     

More than Cleaning and Caring: The Profession of Dental Hygiene in Canada, 1951–2010

Dental hygiene has been a female-dominated profession that worked primarily for dentists who, until very recently, were usually male. This article explores the early history of dental hygiene in Canada during the 1950s and 1960s; its explosive growth in the 1970s; the influence of feminism on the profession; and the battles dental hygienists fought to improve the status of their profession including better educational opportunities; professional self-regulation and the right to practice independently of dentists. It argues that dental hygienists have made important gains, and yet the culture of ‘caring’ continues to complicate their professional status.     

The imperial word and its margins. Language and colonization in the Americas

Nouveau Monde et renouveau de l'histoire naturelle, vol. 2. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy and Jean‐Pierre Clement. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 135.

Langues et cultures en Amérique espagnole coloniale. Edited by Marie‐Cecile Benassy‐Berling, Jean‐Pierre Clement and Alain Milhou. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1993. Pp. 328.

Relecturas del Barroco de Indias. Edited by Mabel Moraña. Hanover, New Hampshire: Ediciones del Norte, 1994. Pp. xii, 334.

Early Images of the Americas: Transfer and Invention. Edited by Jerry M. Williams and Roberte. Lewis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993. Pp. xviii, 319.

Discursos sobre la “invención” de América. Edited by Iris Zavala. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1992. Pp. 294.     

The Greek Neolithic: A new review

The Greek Neolithic, here divided into five phases, is the oldest in Europe. Geographically, it is the closest to the Near East and has thus long been seen as an impoverished derivative of the latter. However, recent research has tended to emphasize the autochthonous nature of Neolithic development in Europe, including Greece. The Greek Neolithic economy, which was based almost entirely on domesticates, and its densely packed, long-lived villages strongly recall the Near East, as do also the early emphasis on fine, decorated, nonculinary pottery and the wealth of figurines. On the other hand, the evolution of stylistic patterns is specifically Greek, although generally related to trends in the Balkans. Originality in the development of the Greek Neolithic is also seen in its latest phase, with apparent decreases, rather than increases, in site density, social differentiation, and, to some extent, long-distance trade. At the same time, however, the dichotomy became much sharper between the rich agricultural plains of northern Greece and the more pastoral(?) regions of the Peloponnese and Cycladic Islands; this presages similar contrasts during the Bronze Age.