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Tom's Tambu House: Spacing, Status and Sacredness in South Malakula, Vanuatu
Author(s) -
Curtis Tim
Publication year - 1999
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.1834-4461.1999.tb02989.x
Subject(s) - nexus (standard) , worship , taboo , sociality , sociology , space (punctuation) , christianity , history , aesthetics , philosophy , anthropology , theology , archaeology , ecology , linguistics , biology , embedded system , computer science
This paper is based on video footage I filmed in South Malakula in April 1996. It explores the case of Tom Moses, a man who claims to speak with God. He has constructed a house on the outskirts of Milip village which he has declared tambu , or taboo/sacred. Around it he envisions a new living space, following directions given to him from God. I argue that Tom's enterprise can be understood in terms of a spacing—status—sacredness nexus. This nexus is grounded in a pre‐Christian Malakulan sociality revolving around men's houses, ancestral worship and grade‐taking rituals. This takes place with a lived Christianity which in many contexts is expressed as a departure from kastom. As such, I argue that this ‘spatial’ analysis can help us understand dimensions of local human relationships which purely discursive analyses sometimes eclipse.