Payback. The Logic of Retribution in Melanesian Religions.

Trompf, G.W.

ISBN 10: 0521416914 / ISBN 13: 9780521416917

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994

About this Item

xx, 545pp, index, bibliography. Or red boards in jacket. Very slight fading to spine, foxing to top edge. Looks at 'payback' in Melanesian religions from Fiji to western New Guinea. Covers not only anthropological concerns, but also those relating to history and sociology, specifically the adjustment of Melanesians to the coming of Christianity and the colonial order imposed on them. Size: 8vo.

Seller Inventory # 040260

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Payback. The Logic of Retribution in Melanesian Religions.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521416914
• ISBN 13: 9780521416917
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Anthropology, Sociology, Ethnology, Ethnology
  • Theology,Religion,Myth, Legend, Philosophy.
  • Pacific
  • Papua & New Guinea

About this title

Synopsis

Near to the heart of the human predicament are impulses to avenge - what most of us will recognize to be negative, counterproductive reactions against others who pose a threat. By contrast, nothing re-establishes our faith in humanity more than extraordinary acts of concession, such as peace-making, generosity and sacrifice. In this study Garry Trompf shows how various aspects of 'payback', both negative and positive, provide the best indices to an understanding of Melanesian views of life. The book explores the reasons why people 'pay back' and opens up a whole dimension in the cross-cultural study of human consciousness. The author conducts his readers through the most complex anthropological pageant on earth, illustrating his arguments from western New Guinea to Fiji.

Review

"In this fascinating book, Trompf brings to fruition fifteen years of unstinting research on religion in the southwest Pacific region....Trompf's breadth of erudition and vision...is bound to stir fresh and stimulating debate, not only because it interprets the world of Melanesian retributive logics but also because it takes on the task of changing them." History of Religions

"Trompf pointedly rebukes materialist theories of human behavior and also notions of primitive irrationality....The volume combines an extraordinary, even numbing, assortment of ethnographic detail with a simple, unitary, explanatory premise." Lamont Lindstrom, The Contemporary Pacific