It's all about the Blood: Eating the Head Food

This study of the lives of North Fore women gives new life to ethnographic accounts of kinship, personhood, ceremonial exchange and gender in Melanesia. The women speak about the moral and spiritual dimensions of culturally-prescribed behaviors as wives, mothers and sisters, a topic that has received little anthropological attention. The payment of brideprice, often seen as the commodification of women, is shown to be part of the North Fore cycle of reciprocal transactions. The concept of procreation and nurturance as a loss to be reciprocated in transactions with forms of wealth sometimes considered to be commercial, re-opens the much-discussed meaning of brideprice. Professor Shirley Lindenbaum.

Autorentext

Prior to and following her fieldwork (2003-09) with the North Fore, Dr Glass worked for Native Title Representative Bodies in Queensland. Dr Glass has promoted the Fore women's Bilums through Australian exhibitions, International Art Conferences and has plans for a Bilum book & website.