Artefacts of history: Events and the interpretation of images

Abstract

By discussing the reactions of Melanesians to the arrival of Europeans, this article raises some queries against anthropological perceptions of historical process. In evoking Melanesian "images", a set of perceptions is presented, which poses problems for the division of labour between social/cultural anthropologists and those concerned with material culture of the kind that finds its way to museums. The result of the division has been that anthropologists have hidden from themselves possible sources of insight into the processes by which people such as the Melanesian of Papua New Guinea deal with social change, and change themselves.

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