moment, the new frame has to reincorporate back into itself an aspect of
the old to arrive at an adequate synthesis.
Overall, then, it is processes thatwe are always returning to. This is
why we ourselves cannot agree with approaches that say, for example,
that processualism has to be replaced by post-processualism or any other
‘post’approach. This is because, like Fredrik Barth, we do not worship
‘-isms’, pre or post or whatever. Processes, in the Barthian sense, can be
investigatedinrelationtoparticular problems, without involving any
‘ism’at all, but by sticking to the point. As he himself discovered, this
further implies that meanings cannot be left out; they are a part of
processes themselves. Any opposition between meaning and process,
therefore, is unproductive. To say this is just a beginning, as there are
many different approaches to the question of meaning. One issue is
whether the concept of metaphor is a semantic universal and so can be
used across the board to identify processes of amplification of meanings
in ritual contexts such as Barth encountered among the Baktaman.
Metaphor is a term derived from literary usages of language. Metaphor
and simile are recognized as related tropes which enable authors to
highlight an aspect of a phenomenon by bringing it into alignment
with another. It is obvious that something like this happens in oral poetry
and song but the embodied character of these genres makes it important
for us to see differences:when Baktaman elders employed in their rituals
animal fur or water and leaves they were not creating metaphors asflights
of pure imagination. Rather, they saw in these items powers they wished
to impart to the novices, through contiguity or direct application. Their
ritual actions were in this sense no more metaphorical than the actions of
someone taking medicines for digestive or skin therapy. If there is any
unexpressed ontology behind such actions it is simply a Frazerian idea
that certain entities can influence others through physical or linguistic
contact. In the direct world of experience of people like the Baktaman,
these are just realities of being and embodiment.
Another tack on the question of meaning can be taken by asking what
the people’s own ideas of meaning are. In Hagen, the Melpa language
provides just such a tool in the concept ofto, a measure or comparison,
entailing some uncertainty as to the validity of the comparison being
made. Atois also like a conjecture, an exploratory hypothesis. The
complexities oftoreveal how the Melpa have a sophisticated idea about
truth and reality. In all probability, this is quite like the Baktaman view,
even if the Baktaman do not have a specificexpressiontosignalthis.
3 PROCESSES 31