Nuclear nativity
Subtitle: rituals of renewal and empowerment in the Marshall Islands
By: Laurence Marshall Carucci.
Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: DeKalb
Language: eng
Number of pages: 217
Subjects: Ethnology -- Marshall Islands -- Enewetak Atoll.; Rites and ceremonies -- Marshall Islands -- Enewetak Atoll.; Christmas -- Marshall Islands -- Enewetak Atoll.; Ethnopsychology -- Marshall Islands -- Enewetak Atoll.; Enewetak Atoll (Marshall Islands) -- Social life and customs.
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-205) and index.