Ceremonial Houses of the Abelam Papua New Guinea: Architecture and Ritual-Passage to the Ancestors

The ceremonial houses of the Abelam people (East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea), rank as architectual masterpieces. This book offers a unique documentation of the architecture of the different styles of ceremonial houses according to region, their mode of constuction and the impressice facade paintings. It goes on to explain the social networks responsible for the construction and maintenance, and crucial agents of social information. The author presents an extensive description and analysis of Abelam society at a time when the people were still building ceremonial houses, staging initiations and sacrificing pigs.