Book
The demystification of Yap: dialectics of culture on a Micronesian island
University of Chicago Press • Chicago • Published In 1976 • Pages:
By: Labby, David.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is s sophisticated analysis of Yapese social structure and culture. Labby presents an emic perspective and logic, one that conforms with a materialist perspective, because according to Labby land is key. He shows how religious and social rituals regulate access to land and agricultural production. According to Labby, social hierarchy is ultimately based on land productivity, both in terms of soil fertility and history of a land's development. While men 'own' the land, women cultivate it. Marriage becomes an important institution mediating the relationship between property and labor. Labby shows how an ideology of purity and pollution and social rank control and allocate the scarce resource of land. The compliment of land and labor form the basis of a system of reciprocity between men and women, and between landholding patrilineages and labor-holding matrisibs.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Real property
- Status, role, and prestige
- Clans
- Kinship terminology
- Community
- Purification and atonement
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Yapese
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Micronesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2005
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1969-1971
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1850
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia
- NotesAdditional notes
- David Labby
- Labby attempts to articulate a social theory of traditional Yapese culture, therefore we are not talking about the colonial or modern period, although these are the only periods from which he draws his source material. Therefore, to determine the time focus for the study is problematic. Labby does not give a period or date. I suggested the time of 1850 prior to an increased contact with Western traders (Labby 1976, 3).
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-141) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 75021270
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Yapese (Micronesian people)/Yap (Micronesia)