Nuclear nativity : rituals of renewal and empowerment in the Marshall Islands

The leading authority on the lifeways of the Enewetak people explores the rituals, customs, and meanings of the Kurijmoj festival. Illuminating the empowering aspects of rituals involved in feasts, competitive games, speeches, dances, songs of apocalypse, and gift giving, Carucci offers a wealth of insights into a celebration the Enewetak people have made uniquely their own. In Nuclear Nativity, Carucci explores the rituals, customs, and meanings of the Kurijmoj festival. Feasts, competitive games, speeches, dances, songs of apocalypse, and gestures of extraordinary generosity are among the means by which Enewetak and Ujelang people celebrate the festival. Carucci thoroughly investigates the empowering aspects of these ritual devices. He gives special attention to the array of valu ables and intricate scenarios of exchange - including food and money, speeches and songs - and illuminates the ways that people create histories of Kurijmoj tracing the festival to its ancient or Christian sources depending on their positions or status in the community. Carucci's book will engage Pacific anthropologists, ethnographers, and scholars interested in the anthropology of religion and ritual. Laurence Marshall Carucci. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [195]-205) And Index.