Citation

Thomas T, Walter PS, Walter R. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 2001; 7(3): 545-572.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1467-9655.00077

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article considers the interplay between the bodily experience of landscape and the formation of sociality. We investigate the social experiences of landscape in nineteenth-century Roviana Lagoon in the Solomon Islands, dealing specifically with the ritualized architecture of a fortification on Nusa Roviana Island. Drawing on oral tradition and archaeological and historical data, we argue that the architectural remains reflect a powerful mode of shaping social experience and notions of personhood in the manipulation of ideology. The Roviana landscape creates a world in which genealogical lines are sedimented to place, and practices of ritual violence and head-hunting are made to appear necessary and natural. Paying attention to both oral and material history allows a greater understanding of the ways in which such social structures are reproduced, and adds to the construction of a rich historical anthropology.