Beschrijving

The volume presents a collection of sacred oral texts from indigenous communities in Western New-Guinea (Irian Jaya), focusing on creation myths, cosmological narratives, and ritual speech that articulate how life, society, and the spiritual world are understood in these traditions. The texts are translated into English (with original language fragments preserved) and show how these communities invoke origin stories, ancestral relationships and natural sources of life in their oral tradition. In addition to the translations, the author provides commentary on the process of oral transmission, the social contexts of the texts (ritual performance, speaker-audience relations, memory and tradition) and the way these narratives sustain local identity, cosmology and environmental engagement. The result is a valuable resource for those studying oral religion, cultural anthropology and indigenous literatures.