Howard Morphy

This article is a dialogue with the theoretical arguments of Alfred Gell's book Art and Agency. While strongly supporting an action-oriented perspective on art it is argued that Gell's argument deflects attention away from human agency by attributing agency to the objects themselves. It is argued that the very properties of art that Gell excludes from his definition of art objects and largely from his analyses — aesthetics and semantics — are integral to understanding art as a way of acting in the world and to understanding the impact that art works have on people.

to prehistory (edited by Andre Leroi-Gourhan), which has almost twice as many pages? Whereas Panoff and Perrin justified the absence of many ethnic-group entries from their dictionary by referring to the great number of such groups, Bonte and Izard reject any entries at all of this kind in favour of tackling populations according to "cultural areas." This approach has its inconveniences-for example, giving two pages to "Atlantic Central Africa" (A. Depuis), five pages to "Indians of Central America," divided into "Pre-Columbian Civilisations" (C. F. Baudez and P. Becquelin), "Evangelisation" (A. Breton), and "Indian Societies" (J. Galinier), and a single page to "The Indonesian World" (C. Peiras)! The great encyclopaedias, in which entries on ethnic groups are written by specialists, provide more information i most cases than this dictionary does. Although the concept of ethnicity has come under much criticism and is nowadays rejected by many ethnologists, entries based on ethnic designations still have their uses. Africanists may sometimes have great difficulty just in locating the Lao on a map, hence the need for a dictionary of ethnic groups that would complement he cultural-area ntries. It is a pity, too, that the dictionary neglects to mention colonial researchers. M. Delafosse's contribution toethnology as the author of, among others, the formidable Haut-Senegal-Niger (II9I2) and as the first to occupy a Chair of African Studies in France (following his creation in i 9IO of a course in Sudanese languages and civilisations at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales Vivantes) is certainly at least as important as that of several authors who are included. And where are P. Mus (professor atthe College de France and the first o receive a degree from the Institut d'Ethnologie), L. Tauxier, H. Labouret, C. Monteil, and V. Segalen? It is also regrettable that no institutions have been listed; newcomers to the subject and foreign readers might have found this useful. The Centre de Formation aux Recherches Ethnologiques, the Comite d'Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Francaise, and the Societe des Oceanistes surely deserved a few lines each. (Gresle et al. do include a number of such entries.) The publisher of Bonte and Izard's dictionary has produced yet another esearch tool that has proved exceptional: L'encyclop6die philosophique universelle, in four volumes, was intended to go beyond what is generally understood by "philosophy" to include the whole of our present-day knowledge of the mental world inhabited by Homo sapiens, hence the strong presence in it of anthropology and ethnology. Under the headings "d'ethno-logique" and "d'anthropologie differentielle," 2 of the I 7 sections of the volume edited by Andre Jacob are devoted to ethnology. The first presents general subjects such as "Social Space," "Death and Ontology" (articles by Poirier, Duverger, Thomas, Condominas), and "Thought in Oral Cultures" (articles by Descola, Guiart, and de Heusch). The second covers basic anthropology with questions such as "The Difference between the Sexes" and "Human Languages and Difference" (Hagege). In a section on the human sciences R. Cresswell presents ethnology, Alain Galey prehistory, and G. Lenclud anthropology and history. A section on tradition and writing is devoted to Islamic, Malay, Burmese, and Tibetan thought. Many anthropological articles are dispersed throughout the work (e.g., "Knowledge of the Foreign" [Georges Balandierl and "Ethnoscience" IScott Atranj). The second volume, entitled Notions philosophiques: Dictionnaire, was edited by the linguist Sylvain Auroux and includes in its section on Westem philosophy the principal concepts and ideas of ethnology (e.g., acculturation, cultural areas, clan, filiation, mana, marriage), written mainly by Claude Riviere. Above all it contains an entirely original section (300 large-format pages following a section called "Asiatic Thought") entitled "Conceptualisations of Traditional Societies." A few of its final entries will provide some idea of the scope of the work: "Yoo: grandparent, ancestor, Mnong gar" (G. Condominas), "Yvy-mdra ey: the land without evil, Mbya-Guarani" (P. Descola), "Yvyra' Ikagd: human body, skeleton, Guarani" (R. Bareira Saguier), "Zamba: counselling ancestor, God, Beti" (J. Poirier), "Zengi: spirit of the forest, Aka and Baka pygmies" (N. Baliff). A forthcoming third volume, Les oeuvres philosophiques: Dictionnaire, is to have the same structure. In these volumes, then, French-language anthropology has acquired tools of great richness that complement each other perfectly: the dictionary approaches the discipline historically and the encyclopaedia philosophically. The high prices of these books reflect a new trend in French publishing, which until recently was notable for ensuring that reference works remained financially accessible. The privilege of owning them is increasingly becoming…

Iarketing Indigenous culture as art has to be seen as a moral act. Art is a value-creating process: it involves both the creation of new kinds of values in objects and the increase of their value in terms of exchange. The process of developing an understanding and ...

The article is concerned with the aesthetics of the art of the Yolngu of northern Australia. These aesthetic effects of Yolngu painting are analysed in relation to Yolngu exegesis about the qualities of their art, the expression of similar qualities in song and the criteria used for selection of ...

... aesthetic and affective dimension of objects. Marcus and Myers (1995) draw attention to the fact both contemporary art and anthropology have" culture as [their] object." This is an interesting idea. Certainly one of the main trends ...

In 'No Clear Title' (Quadrant, January/ February 1979), P.W. Nichols takes issue with some of the main points I made in my article Title to their Land' (Quadrant, September 1978). His article is in effect an attack on the concept of Aboriginal Land Rights in general, and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in particular. Though Mr Nichols states that his main aim is to attempt to reconcile Aboriginal and European concepts of ownership, his main argument comes close to being a denial of justice to Aborigines. Moreover, many of the 'facts' he uses in support of his thesis are open to question.

Joint Winner of the Best Anthology Prize for 2014: The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand. http://aaanz.info/prizes/ "How has Asia been imagined, represented and transferred both literally and visually across linguistic, geopolitical and cultural boundaries? This book explores the shifting roles of those who produce, critique and translate creative forms and practices, for which distinctions of geography, ethnicity, tradition and modernity have become fluid. Drawing on accounts of modern and contemporary art, film, literature, fashion and performance, it challenges established assumptions of the cultural products of Asia. Special attention is given to the role of cultural translators or 'long-distance cultural specialists' whose works bridge or traverse different worlds, with the inclusion of essays by three important artists who share personal accounts of their experiences creating and showing artworks that negotiate diverse cultural contexts. With contributions from key scholars of Asian art and culture, including art historian John Clark and anthropologist Clare Harris, alongside fresh voices in the field, Asia Through Art and Anthropology will be essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology, art history, Asian studies, visual and cultural studies."

Having chosen to approach her project" outside the boundaries of structured anthropological fieldwork"(p. I53), Dominguez ultimately concentrates on a few issues, terms, events, attitudes, and discourses from which she attempts to extract he essence of ...

This article is a strong defence of the idea of ‘art’, but it also recognizes its complexity and the fact that as a concept, ‘art’ is fuzzy around the edges. It uses a concept of family resemblance and sees art objects as forming polythetic sets. The category contains within it an immense diversity and includes objects that have little in common with each other and require very different methods of analysis. However, at the heart of this concept of art lies a set of loosely connected features or themes around which the idea of art coalesces: art is a form of action, art production is integral to meaning creating processes and requires a sense of form, and art is associated with aesthetic experience. This article proceeds to explain ideas of art and material culture. An analysis of art as cross-cultural category concludes this article.

ABSTRACT In this paper I provide an interpretative reading Spencer and Gillen. What is read depends in part on what one is looking for, on the purposes for which it is being read, and, what is there to be read depends partly on the audiences that the author has in. I provide a critique of social Darwinist and post-colonial readings of their work. I employ the concept of a motivating theme, which can be applied to segments of the text, which share a common purpose. The themes reflect the ways in which different scholars — historians and anthropologists — have read into the text. I will consider three categories of motivating themes: general contextualisations, ethnographic descriptions, and explanations of data. My discussion of their explanatory approach is centred on their analysis of ritual performances. The accounts of the rituals are not just unanalysed ethnography but are ordered by relating ritual event to social organisation. The centrality of ritual to Aboriginal society has contributed to the lasting impact of their work.

This paper considers the relationship between two component types or categories of myth from the Yirrkala region of north‐eastern Arnhem Land, which I define respectively as those of inheritance and creation. I argue that the existence of the two components of myth reflects conceptual problems associated with the transfer of power from the ancestral past to the present, in these clan‐based societies in which the structure of the clan system is believed to be ancestrally preordained, yet the creation of clans is part of a continuing political process. The paper places Yolngu totemism in the context of the politics of group relations, and focuses on the tension between autonomy and exchange which provides much of the underlying dynamic to Yolngu social organisation. The totemic/mythological system has the flexibility to enable ancestral precedence to apparently underlie group organisation despite the latter's inherently imminent and contextual nature. The structure of the mythological system, and the particular way in which it articulates with the politics of group organisation, enables the network of ancestral tracks associated with the myths of creation to be perpetuated in a way that makes them both distal and protected from the disorderly changes of the present, yet an integral part of the process of social reproduction.

HOWARD MORPHY concept of style, as the result of a process for producing meaningful forms, that I focus on here and apply to two geographically distinct artistic systems, that of the Abelam of the Sepik River Province of Papua New Guinea, which was studied by Forge ...

This chapter explores a neglected theoretical issue in rock art: the recursive potential of rock art as a medium of expression. Rock art provides a reservoir of images for succeeding generations who can not only view and interpret the record, but also us

In this factious context the ambiguity of any image is exploited by both parties. Nationalists put forward the independence of mountain-dwelling Basques from invading Romans as the reason for the successful maintenance of much of their distinctive mythology. To them, Basque Christianity is both distinctively fervent and neo-pagan in many aspects. But to the distinguished Spanish historian Sanchez Albomoz this same lack of romanization explains Basque 'backwardness' and their 'irrationality': it is only the descendants of cave-dwelling pagans who could be prepared to shoot or blow up so many Spanish policemen. This indigenous use of local stereotypes clearly serves political interests. But their appropriation by foreign journalists wanting to colour their grey articles only furthers readers' miscomprehension of what is happening in this northern triangle of the Iberian peninsula. All the more pity then: an attempt to understand Basque nationalism could conceivably make people cast a fresh eye on other problems even closer 'to home'.

The title of this essay sets its dialogic structure. Ronald Berndt's writing at times obscured the core insights that he had about Yolngu society, and partly as a consequence Australian anthropology has not yet made the best use of the immense richness of his ethnographic legacy. In ...

Part 1 A question of identity: the identification of human and animal figures in European palaeolithic art, Jean Clottes reflections and rejections of an Aboriginal artist, Ivan P.Haskovec and Hilary Sullivan the snake and the fabulous beast - themes from the pottery of the Ilama culture, Marianne Cardale Schrimpff. Part 2 Representations: from man to animal and sign in palaeolithic art, Michel Lorblanchet on representing ancestral beings, Howard Morphy figurative and schematic rock art of Kenya - animal representation and tentative interpretation, Osaga Odak finding symbols in history, Whitney Davis. Part 3 Compositions - frequencies and scenes: concepts of humans and animals in post-contact Micmac rock art, Brian Molyneaux an approach to the theme of confronted animals in French palaeolithic art, Anne-Catherine Welte art and the essence of being - symbolic and economic aspects of fish among the peoples of western Arnhem Land, Australia, Paul S.C.Tacon. Part 4 The meanings of the motifs: supper or symbol - roadrunner tracks in south-western art and ritual, Polly Schaafsma the bat in Tairona art - an under-recognized species, Anne Legast animals and zoomorphs in rock art of the Koolburra region, North Queensland, Josephine Flood Susquehannock animal art and iconography, W.Fred Kinsey III animal metaphor in art from the Solomon Islands, Deborah B.Waite the bestiary of rupestrian and literary origin in the Sahara and the Sahel, Jeannine Drouin dance in the rock art of central India, Sudha Malaiya. Part 5 Interpreting the system: seeing the "inside" - Kunwinjku paintings and the symbol of the divided body, Luke Taylor camelids in the Andes - rock art environment and myths, Jose Berenguer and Jose Luis Martinez social roles of animal iconography - implications for archaeology from Hopi and Zuni ethnographic sources, Nancy H.Olsen freedom of information - aspects of art and society in western Europe during the last Ice Age, Iain Davidson.

Australian Aboriginal cultures are rich in artistic traditions. If their art took a more permanent form Aborigines would be living in a forest of paintings and carvings that would be a visual testament to their artistic heritage. As it is, most of their art works are temporary, many almost transitory - body paintings that hardly outlast their production and sand sculptures that begin to weather before completion. Apart from certain sacred objects, only the paintings on sheltered rock walls, rock engravings, stone arrangements and tree carvings survive from past generations, and not all of these occur across Australia. Art exists for most of the time in people's heads waiting for a purpose to call it into being: a ceremony to initiate young men, or a mortuary ritual to farewell the dead and see them to their spiritual home. For art in Aboriginal Australia is seen as a form of spiritual power; it is an intervention of the world of the mythical past in the present. It is a means by which knowledge is passed from generation to generation about the creative forces that shaped the world and will enable it to continue into the future. Art in Aboriginal Australia is, in this respect, information: one of the main ways, if not the main way in which individuals are socialised into the Dreaming - the Ancestral Past - is through art. People learn about mystic events through learning meanings that are encoded in paintings and explained in song and dance. In the case of many non-European indigenous art traditions referential meaning is absent from, or at best a secondary component of, the system (see e.g. Forge 1973; O'Hanlon 1989), but in Aboriginal Australia referential meaning is primary.

To cite this article: Morphy, Howard. The Resurrection of the Hydra: Twenty-five Years of Research on Aboriginal Religion [online]. In: Berndt, Ronald Murray (Editor); Tonkinson, Robert (Editor). Social Anthropology and Australian Aboriginal Studies: A Contemporary ...