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The Meaning Of Pepe : God's Law and The Western Arrernte
Author(s) -
AustinBroos Diane
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2003.00198.x
Subject(s) - christianity , ethnography , meaning (existential) , context (archaeology) , literacy , order (exchange) , cash , law , rendering (computer graphics) , history , sociology , political science , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology , economics , computer science , computer graphics (images) , macroeconomics , finance
Using both ethnography and textual material, this paper describes the way in which Western Arrernte people in central Australia interpreted the Christianity brought to them by Lutheran missionaries. The mission became an isolated domestic economy, a context that allowed the Arrernte to interpret its teachings in terms of a “law.” This Christian law was often referred to as pepe, the Western Arrernte word for “paper.” It involved a particular rendering of literacy and rested on a highly localized order. These conditions of mission Christianity would change with the coming of land rights and a cash economy.