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Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People
This influential work is the most important and widely cited book ever published in ecological anthropology. It is a classic case study of human ecology in a tribal society, the role of culture (especially ritual) in local and regional resource management, negative feedback, and the application of systems theory to an anthropological population. It is considered a major work of theory, yet it is also empirically grounded in Rappaport's meticulous collection of quantitative and qualitative data on such "material" matters as diet and energy expenditure, as well as such mental-cognitive-ideational domains as myth and folk taxonomies. Rappaport's tour de force is a recognized classic because it contributes in so many ways to anthropological theory, ethnographic methodology, ecological anthropology, and the anthropology of religion. This enlarged edition offers a carefully reasoned, empirically focused reassessment of Rappaport's original study in the context of ongoing theoretical and methodological problems. Titles of related interest also available from Waveland Hogbin, The Island of Menstruating Religion in Wogeo, New Guinea (ISBN 9780881338843); Netting, Cultural Ecology, Second Edition (ISBN 9780881332049); Sillitoe-Sillitoe, Grass-Clearing A Factional Ethnography of Life in the New Guinea Highlands (ISBN 9781577666011); and Townsend, Environmental From Pigs to Policies, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577665816).
501 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1968
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About the author
Roy A. Rappaport
11 books4 followersRoy A. Rappaport was an American anthropologist known for his contributions to the anthropological study of ritual and to ecological anthropology.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 13, 2023
Una de las obras fundamentales de la antropología ecológica. Me parece que se adelanta a varios debates actuales en la teórica antropológica como la etnografía multiespecie. Leyendo este libro a la luz de los debates actuales en la antropología que intentan decentrar lo humano en sus registros etnográficos y en su lugar, ver la la síntesis compleja entre humano/medioambiente, este libro anticipa esa perspectiva y sin quererlo logra crear un registro materialista capaz de penetrar en dicha síntesis sin ser del todo antropocéntrica ni del vitalista. Presta atención a las cosas, a los animales, a la geografía, a las entidades espirituales que emanan de los discursos y ritos de los tsembaga pero sin dejar de lado rol del poder y de la economía/ecología política y como estos elementos ejercen presión en la acción social de la colectividad.
También se puede leer como un ejemplo etnográfico de como el conocimiento local y ciertas prácticas rituales intervienen como mecanismo de regulación socio-ecológica.
También se puede leer como un ejemplo etnográfico de como el conocimiento local y ciertas prácticas rituales intervienen como mecanismo de regulación socio-ecológica.
January 19, 2026
Una monografía muy interesante en la que en antropólogo Roy A. Rappaport plantea una crítica a las interpretaciones culturales del ritual tsembaga del kaiko (la fiesta del cerdo) y expone la hipótesis del ritual como mecanismo homeostático de regulación ecológica y económica.
October 3, 2012
Materialist Frameworks: Cultural Ecology and Cultural Materialism
Pigs for the Ancestors by Roy Rappaport 1967, 1984
Cannibals and Kings by Marvin Harris 1977
Rounding out my recent readings on materialist frameworks within anthropological theory, these two books move past looking at cultural ecology as a type of evolutionism, and explore the concept in more of a deterministic framework. Building on Steward’s efforts to understand the interplay between culture, production processes, and environment, both Roy Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors (1967) and Marvin Harris’s Cannibals and Kings (1977) put forth case studies which focus on functional relationships within specified groups, and their relations with the broader environment; however, Rappaport presents a more cultural ecological perspective, looking at how ritual acts as a “homeostat,” balancing human and environmental relations, while Harris takes a more cultural materialist approach, discussing cultural adaptive responses that have attempted to combat the determinative factor of steady population growth.
In Pigs for the Ancestors, Rappaport puts forth his cultural ecological theoretical framework by presenting the interplay between pig and human populations, sweet potato production, warfare, cultivation lands, and pig-slaying festivals among the Tsembaga Maring, which inhabit a discrete eco-system in New Guinea’s central highlands. At the center of these dynamic factors is the Maring kaiko ritual cycle, which Rappaport contends, internally functions to regulate population numbers, land use, periods of warfare, protein intake, and energy expenditure. As described in Pigs, when the pig population increases to the point that human and natural resources are endangered, women and men engage in an interplay that results in a consensus, whereupon warfare is suspended so that trade and ritual feasting (protein intake) can take place; the “Maring ritual, in short, operates…as a homeostat - maintaining a number of variables that comprise the total system within ranges of viability.” (Rappaport 1967: 229) In addition to presenting his systems based ethnography, in Pigs Rappaport also quantifies his hypothesis by presenting floral and faunal lists and rates of yield and consumption, among other data, furnishing future anthropologists with a model by which they can quantitatively analyze the nutritional needs of a group and their stock animals.
At Columbia, both Rappaport and Harris were exposed to each other’s theoretical frameworks; they are fairly similar in some regards, however, Harris embraces a far more deterministic perspective than Rappaport. In Cannibals and Kings, Harris presents cultural materialism, which is an integration of evolutionary theory, cultural ecology, and historical materialism into a pervasively culturally deterministic approach. Harris uses cultural materialism as a means for better understanding and explaining the broad path of cultural evolution since the Agricultural Revolution. His hypothesis is that cultural processes are a reflexive response to population pressure, population growth being a primary determinant of cultural history. According to Harris, as population has increased worldwide, numerous widespread practices have emerged as adaptive responses; these cultural practices have included warfare, female infanticide, agricultural intensification, animal domestication, and redistributive chieftainships. In Harris’s view, each of these adaptive responses functioned to temporarily arrested population pressure; however, as population growth has continued, it has resulted in feudalistic structures, where never ending technological innovation, continually increasing energy expenditure, and greater social controls exist. Harris explains male supremacy, the origins of the state, food taboos, cannibalism among the Aztec, the Mayan collapse, “hydraulic civilizations,” the emergence certain religions, and even Marxism, to all be cultural bi-products of population pressure.
I find Rappaport’s cultural ecological theoretical framework clearly both functionalist and materialist, yet understand that in Pigs he was attempting to move past these paradigms and look at ritual not just as a function, but more of an adaptive structure. While Rappaport certainly discusses the Tsembaga political system, group structure, and warfare, he successfully finds a way to study the ecological effects of ritual without having to bring up its dependency on other social institutions. One contention I have is that although Rappaport states that the kaiko has no “practical result on the external world,” doesn’t it in fact play a key role in keeping the Tsembaga ecosystem in balance, having a significant ecological, economic, and political effect on the Tsembaga themselves, as well as the surrounding Maring peoples and greater New Guineans? (Rappaport 1967: 3) As for Harris, while I applaud his attempt to put forth a general process of cultural history, the impossibly deterministic approach he employs, in my opinion, has backfired, leaving his analyses to be a bit overstated and simplified.
Pigs for the Ancestors by Roy Rappaport 1967, 1984
Cannibals and Kings by Marvin Harris 1977
Rounding out my recent readings on materialist frameworks within anthropological theory, these two books move past looking at cultural ecology as a type of evolutionism, and explore the concept in more of a deterministic framework. Building on Steward’s efforts to understand the interplay between culture, production processes, and environment, both Roy Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors (1967) and Marvin Harris’s Cannibals and Kings (1977) put forth case studies which focus on functional relationships within specified groups, and their relations with the broader environment; however, Rappaport presents a more cultural ecological perspective, looking at how ritual acts as a “homeostat,” balancing human and environmental relations, while Harris takes a more cultural materialist approach, discussing cultural adaptive responses that have attempted to combat the determinative factor of steady population growth.
In Pigs for the Ancestors, Rappaport puts forth his cultural ecological theoretical framework by presenting the interplay between pig and human populations, sweet potato production, warfare, cultivation lands, and pig-slaying festivals among the Tsembaga Maring, which inhabit a discrete eco-system in New Guinea’s central highlands. At the center of these dynamic factors is the Maring kaiko ritual cycle, which Rappaport contends, internally functions to regulate population numbers, land use, periods of warfare, protein intake, and energy expenditure. As described in Pigs, when the pig population increases to the point that human and natural resources are endangered, women and men engage in an interplay that results in a consensus, whereupon warfare is suspended so that trade and ritual feasting (protein intake) can take place; the “Maring ritual, in short, operates…as a homeostat - maintaining a number of variables that comprise the total system within ranges of viability.” (Rappaport 1967: 229) In addition to presenting his systems based ethnography, in Pigs Rappaport also quantifies his hypothesis by presenting floral and faunal lists and rates of yield and consumption, among other data, furnishing future anthropologists with a model by which they can quantitatively analyze the nutritional needs of a group and their stock animals.
At Columbia, both Rappaport and Harris were exposed to each other’s theoretical frameworks; they are fairly similar in some regards, however, Harris embraces a far more deterministic perspective than Rappaport. In Cannibals and Kings, Harris presents cultural materialism, which is an integration of evolutionary theory, cultural ecology, and historical materialism into a pervasively culturally deterministic approach. Harris uses cultural materialism as a means for better understanding and explaining the broad path of cultural evolution since the Agricultural Revolution. His hypothesis is that cultural processes are a reflexive response to population pressure, population growth being a primary determinant of cultural history. According to Harris, as population has increased worldwide, numerous widespread practices have emerged as adaptive responses; these cultural practices have included warfare, female infanticide, agricultural intensification, animal domestication, and redistributive chieftainships. In Harris’s view, each of these adaptive responses functioned to temporarily arrested population pressure; however, as population growth has continued, it has resulted in feudalistic structures, where never ending technological innovation, continually increasing energy expenditure, and greater social controls exist. Harris explains male supremacy, the origins of the state, food taboos, cannibalism among the Aztec, the Mayan collapse, “hydraulic civilizations,” the emergence certain religions, and even Marxism, to all be cultural bi-products of population pressure.
I find Rappaport’s cultural ecological theoretical framework clearly both functionalist and materialist, yet understand that in Pigs he was attempting to move past these paradigms and look at ritual not just as a function, but more of an adaptive structure. While Rappaport certainly discusses the Tsembaga political system, group structure, and warfare, he successfully finds a way to study the ecological effects of ritual without having to bring up its dependency on other social institutions. One contention I have is that although Rappaport states that the kaiko has no “practical result on the external world,” doesn’t it in fact play a key role in keeping the Tsembaga ecosystem in balance, having a significant ecological, economic, and political effect on the Tsembaga themselves, as well as the surrounding Maring peoples and greater New Guineans? (Rappaport 1967: 3) As for Harris, while I applaud his attempt to put forth a general process of cultural history, the impossibly deterministic approach he employs, in my opinion, has backfired, leaving his analyses to be a bit overstated and simplified.
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February 3, 2016Ethnography, now considered classic ethnography, but groundbreaking for its day
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews