Bone and breath

Presentation

"Bone and breath" is the name given to the Paimboa Kanak "chiefdom" during ceremonial speeches specific to funerals and ritual exchanges. The meaning of this formula refers to the society's great task of transforming its dead into ancestors. For in the gardens, harvesting yams requires the assistance of the ancestors; to this end, it is necessary to convert the recently dead into ancestors.

By studying ceremonial discourses and ritual work, this book sets out to understand a society that does not oppose nature to culture, but on the contrary extends itself into the universe, particularly into the plant world. Thus, funerals, which synchronize the end of the human life cycle with the cycle of the yam, are a return to social and cosmic order, and a return to life. In this respect, horticulture and funerals form part of a vast ritual cycle which, by mobilizing society, summons up both its pre-colonial heritage and elements adopted from economic globalization.

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Author

Dominik Bretteville is a lecturer at the UCO (Université Catholique de l'Ouest) in Angers. The present study is based on a stay of over two years in the Paimboa "tribe" in New Caledonia.

367 pages
16 x 24 cm
Publication: 01/10/2019
ISBN: 9782858313129