Payback
The Logic of Retribution in Melanesian Religions

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.

G. W. Trompf (Author)

9780521416917, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 July 1994

568 pages, 23 b/w illus. 6 tables
23.4 x 15.6 x 3.2 cm, 0.97 kg

"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

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.

Illustrations and tables
Preface
Abbreviations
Preliminaries: the theory of retributive logic
Part I. 'Tradition': 1. Revenge
2. Reciprocity
3. Integrating and explaining significant events
Part II. 'Cargo Cultism': 4. Reprisal
5. Redemption
6. Wishing and explaining the extraordinary
Part III. 'Modernization': 7. Recrimination - in 'modern' guises
8. Making money and modernizing reciprocities
9. Money, morals, meaning: old logics, new retributions?
Conclusions and recommendations: Bibliography
Index of Melanesian cultures
General index.

Subject Areas: Biography: historical, political & military [BGH]