General Formulations of Arapesh Culture

Behind the details of structure and the even more confusing details of practice at any given period lie the most basic assumptions made about the natural world and man’s place within it: the powers conceived as controlling it; the relationship of man to man; and of man to himself. These assumptions provide the fundamental premises from which minor cultural details are derived and to which these latter must ultimately be referred, if the relationship of one such detail to another is to be understood. The fundamental premises of Arapesh culture are organized on an affective, rather than upon a cognitive, basis. 1 Two things are associated, or stand for one another, in myth or rite, not because of some logical connection, but because both are symbols of the same emotional attitude. Only by tracing each symbol to its emotional background is it possible to understand its relationship to other symbols occurring in the culture. Arapesh thinking may be said to resemble the kind underlying artistic work as opposed to that fundamental to scientific work. This is in no way meant to identify Arapesh patterns of thought as childish, primitive, or pre-logical. Affective thinking, as has been abundantly demonstrated by psychology, from the analysis of dreams, of works of art, religious systems, nationalist movements, as well as the behavior of neurotics and psychotics, is neither confined to children nor to primitive peoples, but occurs at every age and at every level of social integration. It is probable, however, that cultures differ very much in the extent of their dependence upon one type of thinking or the other, and in the way in which they combine the two types. 2 It is probable that in some cultures a larger proportion of the institutional life is governed by one kind of coherence than in others. 3