During funerals of nobles in the Kuba kingdom (Democratic Republic of Congo), visitors used to theatrically offer so-called bongotols to the deceased and the mourning family. These highly appreciated valuables were either positioned under the corpse to support it or displayed on top of it.

In addition to their religious meaning they displayed the status and wealth of both givers and takers. Visitors would receive similar items in return. Afterwards the bongotols were stashed until, on occasio...

The chain of linked cultures of the southern coast of New Guinea, from the Asmat in the west to the Papuan Gulf in the east all share remarkably similar mythology and rituals, inspired by a common ancient worldview.

In this book art historian and anthropologist Dr. Holger Braun takes us on a step by step journey to discover the underlying principles of this ancient worldview which is visible as a secret sign language inscribed into the art objects of this area and intended to be legible excl...

Bij de Kwakioetls, die aan de noordwestkust van de Verenigde Staten leven, komt het voor dat een bruidegom in spe zijn meeste bezittingen verbrandt om zijn aanstaande schoonvader te bewijzen dat hij een goede partij voor zijn dochter is. In Engeland kust men de meisjes onder de mistletoe en op sommige Salomonseilanden geldt het als een dodelijke belediging de hoofdtooi van een man aan te raken. "s Lands wijs, "s lands eer, zeggen wij in Nederland en daarmee tonen wij een volk van zeevaarders ...

The British Missionary movement, which began in earnest in the early 19th century, was one of the most extraordinary movements of the last two centuries, radically transforming the lives of people in large parts of the globe, including in Europe itself.By exploring a range of artefacts, photographs and archival documents that have survived, or emerged from, these transformations, this volume sheds an oblique light on the histories of British Missionaries in Africa and the Pacific, and the way...

How can we rethink anthropology beyond itself? In this book, twenty-one artists, anthropologists, and curators grapple with how anthropology has been formulated, thought, and practised ‘elsewhere’ and ‘otherwise’. They do so by unfolding ethnographic case studies from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland – and through conversations that expand these geographies and genealogies of contemporary exhibition making. This collection considers where and how anthropo...

Sharing Knowledge & Cultural Heritage (SK&CH), First Nations of the Americas, testifies to the growing commitment of museum professionals in the twenty-first century to share collections with the descendants of people and communities from whom the collections originated. Thanks to collection histories and the Documenting of relations with particular indigenous communities it is well known that until as recently as the 1970s museum doors - except for a handful of cases - were shut to indigenou...

Engendering objects explores social and cultural dynamics among Maisin people in Collingwood Bay (Papua New Guinea) through the lens of material culture. Focusing upon the visually stimulating decorated barkcloths that are used as male and female garments, gifts, and commodities, it explores the relationships between these cloths and Maisin people. The main question is how barkcloth, as an object made by women, engenders people's identities, such as gender, personhood, clan and tribe, through...

This book is a study of 'collecting' undertaken by Joseph Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux and his shipmates in Tasmania, the western Pacific Islands, and Indonesia. In 1791-1794 Bruni d'Entrecasteaux led a French naval expedition in search of the lost vessels of La Pérouse which had last been seen by Europeans at Botany Bay in March 1788. After Bruni d'Entrecasteaux died near the end of the voyage and the expedition collapsed in political disarray in Java, its collections and records were subs...

Dit boek van antropoloog en oud-NRC-redacteur Dirk Vlasblom is het eerste moderne overzichtswerk van de geschiedenis van westelijk Nieuw-Guinea, van de vroegste tijden tot de 21ste eeuw. De auteur baseert zich op gepubliceerd en ongepubliceerd bronnenmateriaal en op talloze interviews met rechtstreeks betrokkenen.In de proloog wordt meteen duidelijk hoe heilsverwachtingen het wereldbeeld van de Papoea's beheersen. Nieuwkomers die opdoken vanaf de 17de eeuw werden door hen dan ook welwillend t...

Wat zijn de consequenties van Darwins evolutietheorie voor ons mensbeeld?

Wat te denken van de biologische verschillen tussen mannen en vrouwen?

Wat is het belang van onverschilligheid? Is de multiculturele samenleving een

bedreiging of een verrijking? Wat is het lot van andersdenkenden, het ‘andere’

geslacht en anders geaarden binnen de islam? Wat heeft het gewelddadig jihadisme

te maken met de islam? Zijn blanke mensen zich onvoldoende bewust

van hun ‘witte privileges’?

In dit boek ...