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This book was written with a double purpose: to record some of Mr. Bateson's field work among the Iatmul of New Guinea; and to illustrate his method of anthropological analysis.
The curious and interesting Naven ceremony, after which the book is named, is performed to celebrate the achievements of an individual. Of these the most important is his first murder. But naven may be performed when he kills certain animals, fells certain trees, makes a canoe, fulfils any of the duties he owes to his maternal uncle, or when he changes his social status, i.e. has his ears bored, is initiated, is married, or becomes possessed by a shamanic spirit. On such occasions, the hero's maternal uncles wear women's clothes—the oldest and dirtiest they can find—and rub their buttocks on his shins, while his paternal aunts wear men's clothes—the smartest obtainable—and beat him. Other relations may assist the maternal uncle's wife acting the male rôle in a burlesque intercourse with her husband; the mother lying down naked with other women while the hero, accompanied by his sister in splendid male attire, steps over her; and his elder brother's wife, also transvestit, beating her husband's younger brother.
Such, very briefly, is the naven ceremony on which Mr. Bateson illustrates his method of anthropological analysis. On the analogy of the three spatial aspects from which an architect describes a building in his plan and elevations, Mr. Bateson selects certain aspects from which a culture can be viewed. He makes, as it were, cross sections in different planes. In this way, he thinks, the classification and comparison of cultures can be greatly simplified. Among the many possible aspects, he chooses five: the eidological (cognitive), ethological (emotional), economic, developmental and sociological. The 'eidos' of Iatmul culture includes an identification between a man and his sister and her daugher-in-law. Thus in the naven a man behaves towards his nephew as if he were this n