Larry kindly sent me the references that I'd misplaced, along with some notes:
ONGKA, and A. STRATHERN. 1979. Onka: A Self-Account by a New Guinea Big-Man. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. (Larry writes, "Personal account of torture and rape of people he captured, don't need to buy the book - could just find relevant passages." Knowing me, I'll buy the book as soon as I log off here.)Larry tells me, "Have fun!" Which seems a rather odd comment given what I'm reading about, but I've got to admit that this is fascinating.
KEELEY, L. H. 1996. War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Larry writes, "This might be a source for references - he talks about torture and mutilation in cross-cultural perspective.")
Of course, this theme brings me to another topic: anthropological writings on headhunting (Rosaldo) and trophy-taking in war, and its manifestation in the US Army: picture taking. In the ACLU documents, there are many references to soldiers being disciplined for taking pictures against Army regulations. Susan Sontag wrote a gorgeous essay on the Abu Ghraib photos as a kind of souvenir of cruelty. More themes to post about...
No comments:
Post a Comment