Dream Travelers Sleep Experiences and Culture in the Western Pacific

by Lohmann, Roger Ivar

• ISBN13: 9781403963307
• ISBN10: 1403963304
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-20
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In dreams, part of the self seems to wander off to undertake both mundane tasks and marvelous adventures. Anthropologists have found that many peoples take this experience of dreaming at face value, assuming that their spirits literally leave the body to travel, meet other spirits, and acquire valuable knowledge--with dramatic consequences for relationships, social organization, and religions. This book is about Melanesian, Aboriginal Australian, and Indonesian peoples who hold this assumption. Several leading anthropologists contribute theoretically and ethnographically rich chapters showing that attention to these peoples' dream lives deeply enhances our understanding of their cultures and waking lives as well.

Author Biography

Roger Ivar Lohmann is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Trent University, Canada.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
1 Introduction
Dream Travels and Anthropology	1	(18)
Roger Ivar Lohmann
2 Dreaming and the Defeat of Charisma: Disconnecting Dreams from Leadership among the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea	19	(24)
Joel Robbins
3 Dreaming and Ghosts among the Hagen and Duna of the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea	43	(18)
Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew J. Strathern
4 Dreamscapes: Transcending the Local in Initiation Rites among the Ngaing of Papua New Guinea	61	(26)
Wolfgang Kempf and Efriede Hermann
5 Ámbrymese Dreams and the Mardu Dreaming	87	(20)
Robert Tonkinson
6 "This Is Good Country. We Are Good Dreamers": Dreams and Dreaming in the Australian Western Desert	107	(20)
Sylvie Poirier
7 Dreams, Agency, and Traditional Authority in Northeast Arnhem Land	127	(22)
Ian Keen
8 Tiwi Island Dreams	149	(20)
Jane C. Goodale
9 The Cultural and Intersubjective Context of Dream Remembrance and Reporting: Dreams, Aging, and the Anthropological Encounter in Toraja, Indonesia	169	(20)
Douglas Hollan
10 Supernatural Encounters of the Asabano in Two Traditions and Three States of Consciousness	189	(22)
Roger Ivar Lohmann
11 Afterword
Beyond the Mythologies: A Shape of Dreaming	211	(26)
Waud Kracke
About the Contributors	237	(4)
Index	241