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Copyright of Art-E is the property of Suleyman Demirel University, Faculty of Fine Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Thomas Souls Ministry is a prayer group founded by Catholics from the middle Sepik. It is led by a spirit of the dead called Thomas who takes possession of a Nyaura (West Iatmul) woman to preach, prophesy, counsel, and heal. While a prominent debate within the Anthropology of Christianity argues for radical change and rupture with the pre‐Christian self and society, I suggest that continuity within change is found in the way my interlocutors have made Christianity their own. I argue that the local concept of the person defined by aspects of dividualism and reflecting ontological premises of people's lifeworld has strongly influenced the way Christianity was appropriated. In current religious practices people put these premises into action and reinforce them in intersubjective encounters with the divine other. Analysing people's 'onto‐praxis', I argue that the Thomas Souls Ministry can be understood as part of a re‐empowerment process that re‐appropriates local meanings, spirits, and practices despite, and in fact against, the influence of the Catholic mission proselytizing in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Nyaura (West Iatmul) ontology and cosmology in the context of religious change. I argue that persisting ontological premises of the Nyaura lifeworld were crucial for the way people appropriated Catholicism and made it their own. I compare my findings to an approach to religious change that has prominently been employed by Joel Robbins before – the notion of humiliation as described in a seminal article by Marshall Sahlins. However, while Robbins argues that a notion of humiliation has led the Urapmin to abandon their culture and take on an entirely new one, I have found a different outcome in my fieldsite. Initially the Nyaura sought to abandon their own spirits in light of changes in the regional political–economic system brought about by the encounter with white people and due to the devaluation of their spirits by the influence of the Catholic mission. However, when conversion did not bring about a betterment of their living situation as initially hoped, a notion of humiliation returned that led the Nyaura to re‐appropriate their old spirits. Under the influence of a charismatic movement, they discovered that God and His spirits were not new and foreign but old and familiar spirits clothed with new names. Today spirits of the dead are called ‘souls’, ‘saints’ and ‘angels’; spirits of the bush and water are termed ‘nature’ that was created by God; and He, the source of everything, is currently re‐interpreted as being the most powerful ancestral spirit there is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Guinea scincid lizard Emoia ahli (Vogt, 1932), described from two specimens from the Sepik River in New Guinea, is shown to be indistinguishable from Emoia battersbyi (Procter, 1923), a species from the same region, based on the first examination of the syntypes since the description of the species. Several of the diagnostic characters that have previously been invoked to distinguish the two species represent misinterpretations of statements in Vogt's description. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes analyses involving patterned string bags collected in the upper Sepik in Papua New Guinea. The Mantel test and correspondence analysis were used to explore whether variability in craft repertoires exhibits any covariance with the region's complex linguistic picture, and if so, whether this relationship is more significant than any spatial autocorrelation the data may exhibit. Bag construction techniques exhibited strong spatial autocorrelation, while for colour patterns the effect was weaker. An effect for language remained for both dependents after statistical control, but colour pattern characteristics had a slightly stronger association with language overall. The weaker spatial autocorrelation for colour pattern variability is argued to be due to higher rates of dissemination facilitated by the visibility of the patterns and their compatibility with a broad range of construction techniques. The effect for language, on the other hand, is argued to have resulted from of a higher rate of inter-settlement migration along a particular stretch of the Sepik where people speak the same language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory is the property of University of Chicago Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since Digicel services began to operate in remote areas of Papua New Guinea in mid-2007, enthusiasm for mobile telecommunication devices has become a pan-New Guinean phenomenon. During our last fieldwork period, between December 2010 and December 2011, no mobile phone network existed among the Karawari people in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. However, their expectations were high and some individuals had already purchased mobile phones, which they used as torches, radios, and cameras. In Ambonwari village, people were convinced that Digicel would soon build its tower on their land and enable them to ring both the living and the dead. The dead had already interfered with calls and some people were suspected of possessing phone numbers of their deceased relatives. In our article we explore the relationship between mobile phones, the increasing fascination with phone numbers, and the ways in which the Ambonwari perceive, interpret, and engage with the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an analysis of relationships between language, geography and material culture in the upper Sepik region of New Guinea. We used Mantel tests and principal coordinate analysis to assess and compare the associations between arrow and string bag crafts and language and geographical distance. The Mantel tests resulted in a significant association between each class' craft variability and both geographical distance and language, however, after statistical control was applied to either of the independent variables only a significant association with geographical distance remained. We argue that these results indicate craft techniques were readily disseminated and that craft distributions are unlikely to reflect any deeper historical relationships between groups. The spatial autocorrelation of arrow crafts was particularly great. A comparison of the principal coordinate analysis plots indicates a greater degree of diffusion and synthesis had taken place between lowland and highland arrow craft traditions. We conclude that the more intensive learning regimes needed to master string bag craft techniques, as well as a greater degree of interdependence between string bag components, had ensured more abrupt differences between bag types resulting in a more moderate degree of spatial autocorrelation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambonwari people from the East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, had a rich repertoire of song-dances, each of which was associated with specific events and the birth of something new. Together they represented the entire human life cycle as well as the cosmology at large. Visual, verbal and tactile modalities of singing and dancing were tightly interwoven; images and symbols were enacted by the dancers, in their decoration, arrangement, movements and in the whole ceremony and were firmly situated in their landscape. Accordingly, song-dances were also an important practice in male initiation ritual. The first song-dance of the ritual was the crocodile song-dance. This article analyses different transpositions of images and meanings which can be decoded from the dance, from the objects that were part of the initiation rite, and from the parallelism and rich allegory of verses. These transpositions operate at different levels until they converge upon the existential facts of birth and death. In the new millennium and under the influence of a Catholic charismatic movement, however, Ambonwari broke off their relationships with spirits, abandoned the men's houses and stopped talking about male initiation ritual. Along with other traditional song-dances the crocodile song-dance has been taken over by the song-dances of the Holy Spirit. These changes in social and cultural perspectives, which are still taking place, are at the same time products and producers of the changes in their relationship to 'space' and 'time' which are at the same time changes in visual and auditory perception and expression of their life-world. All these changes should not be seen merely in some abstract or symbolic terms but as tangible processes generated by people's action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Chlorophyll and carotenoid pigments were measured at stations in the Bismarck Sea north of Papua New Guinea and along the equator between 143°E and 152°E as part of the Tropical River Ocean Processes In Coastal Settings (TROPICS) programme in August 1997 and January/February 2000. Algal class abundances were estimated from these pigments using the CHEMTAX programme. The algal classes likely to be present (based on microscopy, HPLC chromatograms, literature and unpublished data from the region) and estimated by CHEMTAX were diatoms, cryptophytes, chlorophytes, haptophytes, chrysophytes, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus. The first period corresponded to the SE tradewind season, when there was a drought in Papua New Guinea and the discharge from the Sepik River was unusually low. Samples were collected on four N–S transects (approximately 150km in length): one to the east of the Sepik River, one from the mouth of the Sepik River and two to the west of the Sepik River. Stations in the central Bismarck Sea and along the equator were characterised by a deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM), and haptophytes and Prochlorococcus were the major algal classes. Stations affected by the Sepik River plume were characterised by a more homogeneous distribution of chlorophyll with chlorophytes making a significant contribution, particularly at shallower depths. Synechococcus and chrysophytes were moderately abundant, while cryptophytes and diatoms were of minor importance. The second cruise occurred during the NW monsoon under conditions of high river flow, and samples were collected along a transect from the mouth of the Sepik River to Manus Island and in the central Bismarck Sea. Chlorophyll concentrations were higher than in 1997, particularly in near surface waters, while a DCM was generally not observed at any station in the Bismarck Sea—even at stations upstream (and upwind) and far removed from the mouth of the Sepik River. Prochlorococcus made a smaller, and chlorophytes a larger, contribution to chlorophyll than in 1997. Unlike the situation in 1997, there were large station to station variations in the vertical profiles of chlorophyll and algal class distributions which cannot be attributed directly to the plume from the Sepik River. Pigment ratios, fitted by the CHEMTAX programme, were generally in good agreement with literature values. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In Art and Agency, Alfred Gell seeks to reclaim the anthropology of art for the Durkheimian social. However, in the course of arguing that objects should be viewed as the "outcome, and/or the instrument, of … agency" (Gell 1998: 15), he takes an essentialized view of the relationship of personhood to embodiment that, on the one hand, preconceives this relationship as consubstantial and, on the other, as static. Nevertheless, viewing art in Gell's way mimics itself; it offers agency, a powerful exegetical methodology for the study of art. In this article. I apply and refine Cell's thesis by means of a historical explication of the theme of agency in the art of the Murik Lakes people, a group of Sepik River fisher folk and traders. More broadly, I argue that Gell's analytical framework in Art and Agency needs to admit that the relationship of art lo personhood and modernity is cultural, discursive, and unfinalized, as well as instrumental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic work in the Sepik Basin of New Guinea has been heavily biased toward the region's more dense and culturally elaborated communities. This article uses archival documentation and the results of rapid ethnographic surveys to reconstruct the contactera ethnography of one of its lesser-known groups, the Lower Arafundi. The Lower Arafundi people were ethnographically significant as foragers of the tropical rainforest, as progenitors of a rock art tradition, and as one of a small circle of human societies that claim not to recognize paternity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palaeomagnetic results from the Bewani–Torricelli Arc complex of the North Sepik region, Papua New Guinea, provide new information about latitudinal movement of the region relative to the Australian craton during the Cenozoic and about rotational deformation following accretion of the arc to the craton''s northern margin. Thermal demagnetization of more than 200 samples (10 sites) from the Bliri Volcanics complex of Palaeocene to Early Miocene age and from Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene cover sediments show: (i) a primary magnetization component in Plio-Pleistocene pelagic carbonate blocks within the Bliri Volcanics complex, acquired at the equator and indicating southward transport of oceanic lithosphere to its present location at 3.4°S; (ii) a predominant overprint in tuffs and volcanics from the Bliri Volcanics complex acquired at about 15°S, probably contemporaneous with Early–Middle Miocene accretion of the Bewani–Torricelli Arc onto the northern margin of the Australian craton; (iii) a probably primary magnetization component in pre-Late Oligocene Bliri Volcanics of the Tring Block, immediately east of the main complex, acquired at about 30°S; (iv) a Late Oligocene primary magnetization, a post-Middle Miocene post-accretion overprint, and a recent overprint of mainly normal polarity in sediments of the cover sequence, providing further latitudinal control on evolution of the accretionary margin; (v) Large-scale counterclockwise rotations of 30°+ to 110°+ relative to the Australian craton of both the Bliri Volcanics complex and the cover sediments of the main body of the Bewani–Torricelli Arc, and contrasting clockwise rotations of 100°+ to 170°+ of the structurally detached Tring Block. These rotations are attributed to sinistral movements along the Tonga–Sulawesi megashear and in particular along the landward continuation of the Bismarck Fracture Zone. The latitudinal evolution of the Bewani–Torricelli Arc shows some similarity with latitude observations from the Baining Arc (Finisterre–Huon–New Ireland–New Britain), and indicates northward movement from about 30°S in the Late Eocene to about 15°S in the Early to Middle Miocene. This suggests that both arcs may represent parts of a larger east–west oriented arc complex, which was possibly located on the Pacific plate prior to accretion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Profiles of total dissolvable Cd, Cu, Mn and Ni are reported for samples collected from the southwest Pacific in 1989, from the western equatorial Pacific along 155°E at 5°S, 0° and 5°N in 1990 and 1993, and along the equator from 143°E to 152°E and in the Bismarck Sea in 1997 and 2000. Profiles of Cd along 155°E in 1990 and along the equator were essentially the same but, in 1993, Cd values at 5°N were higher by a factor of about 1.5–2 than at 5°S over the depth range 500–1500 m. Similar, but less pronounced, differences were observed for PO4 and Ni. Cd and Ni were both strongly correlated with PO4, and an even stronger correlation was found between Ni and Cd. The concentration of Ni did not fall below ≈2 nmol kg−1, even in the nitrate-depleted waters of the western equatorial Pacific, where primary production is strongly dependent on recycled nitrogen (mainly ammonia and urea). It is proposed that this residual Ni is not bioavailable and that Ni could be biolimiting, since the metabolism of urea requires the nickel-containing enzyme urease. The impact of the Sepik River on Cd, Cu and Ni concentrations was small but elevated concentrations of Mn were observed near the Sepik River and close to the coast suggesting that the rivers and sediments on the north coast of New Guinea are a significant local source of Mn to the Bismarck Sea. Simple mass balance calculations show that the elevated levels of Mn observed in the Equatorial Undercurrent cannot be due to input from the rivers of New Guinea and they were attributed to the trapping of particulate matter due to strong current shear. A strong hydrothermal source of Mn was observed in the central Bismarck Sea. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]