"Dual Classification Reconsidered: Nyamwezi Sacred Kingship and Other Examples" by Serge Tcherkézoff
Atelier d'Anthropologie Sociale
Саmbridgе University Press | 2009 | ISBN: 9780511753060 9780521308953 9780521105354 | 168 pages | PDF | 2 MB
In this book, Serge Tcherkezoff presents a new perspective on the study of ritual classification. On the basis of a detailed ethnography of the rituals of the Nyamwezi of Tanzania author argues for an analysis which recognised contradictions and asymmetry within ritual systems. Following Dumont, he shows that societies are characterised by a hierarchal structure of values, in which each individual element has a meaning only through its position within the whole, thereby replacing the rigid classical structuralist dichotomy with a rich multidimensional approach.