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SINGING SUBJECTS AND SACRED OBJECTS: MORE ON MUNN'S ‘TRANSFORMATION OF SUBJECTS INTO OBJECTS’ IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN MYTH
Author(s) -
Morton John
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1987.tb02264.x
Subject(s) - mythology , extant taxon , singing , dialectic , history , new guinea , literature , aesthetics , geography , art , ethnology , philosophy , classics , theology , acoustics , physics , evolutionary biology , biology
Nancy Munn's ‘The Transformation of Subjects into Objects in Walbiri and Pitjantjatjara Myth’ is a landmark in our understanding of the processes by which the Aboriginal world is created and sustained. Her paper is summarised and then related to similar concerns extant among the neighbouring Aranda. Munn's account of relationships between people and country is shown to be part of a wider reality encompassing all stages of the life‐cycle and characterised by a triple dialectic between ‘surface’ and ‘depth‘, between male and female, and between life and death. The study is preliminary to a psychological account of these dialectical processes to be published at a later date.