Nuclear Nativity: Rituals of Renewal and Empowerment in the Marshall Islands

by Laurence Marshall Carucci

Overview

The leading authority on the lifeways of the Enewetak people explores the rituals, customs, and meanings of the Kurijmoj festival. Illuminating the empowering aspects of rituals involved in feasts, competitive games, speeches, dances, songs of apocalypse, and gift giving, Carucci offers a wealth of insights into a celebration the Enewetak people have made uniquely their own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780875802176
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1997
Edition description:	1
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Kurijmoj on Wujlan
2. Fundamental Principles: Contexts of Exchange
3. Eating the Food of My Enemies: Production, Consumption, and the Work of the Gods
4. Spheres of Symbolic Action: The Feasting Format, Karate, and Kalbuuj
5. Supportive Devices: Spatial and Social Logistics
6. Supportive Devices: The Symbolics of the Senses in Kurijmoj
7. Ritual Performance, Local Identity, and the Construction of Meaning: Core Themes and Innovative Applications
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Outstanding.... A major contribution."—Journal of Ritual Studies

"Thorough and insightful. [Carucci] has presented a reading that brings closer the experience and worldview of the Marshall Islanders."—Center for Pacific Islands Studies

"Fascinating."—Choice

From the Publisher

The four-month festival of the Enewetak and Ujelang people of the Marshall Islands has its origins in a Christmas celebration taught to islanders by missionaries in the 1920s, and gained new significance when natives of Enewetak Atoll were relocated because of nuclear bomb testing during WWII. This investigation explores the empowering aspects of the festival, such as feasts, games, dances, and songs of apocalypse, and illuminates differences in the ways islanders create histories of the festival depending on their status in the community. Includes b&w photos. Of interest to anthropologists and ethnographers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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