Sick Again,Well Again: Sorcery,Christianity and Kinship in Northern Aboriginal Australia

This article concerns the ways in which Yolngu people of the Galiwin'ku settlement in northern Australia employ contemporary constructions of sorcery doctrines and Christian practices to rearticulate their kinship relations. In particular, I discuss the adaptation of sorcery ideas and accusations to present-day circumstances and the Christian healing processes that have emerged alongside traditional healing behaviours and biomedicine. Sorcery and Christianity at Galiwin'ku, I argue, are intertwined ethical models that enable the person and community to heal over and over again in accordance with the vicissitudes of postcolonial life. They continue the moral imperative of ‘looking after’ kin even as the net of ‘looking after’ has expanded to encompass new experiences, behaviours, and persons.     

Syncretism or Sychronicity? Remapping the Yolngu Feel of Place

For Christian Yolngu in Arnhem Land visions shape the imagined, embodied and affective experiences of places of danger, illness, healing and general wellbeing. In this paper, I argue that Yolngu have consistently constructed their Christian faith through visions stemming from an ancestral aesthetic embodied in the environment. As a result, religious ideology and social action have sometimes been seen as syncretic, raising questions about how Yolngu understand and experience Christian conversion, encounter and revelation. I argue that Yolngu spiritual experiences emerge from the sentiments associated with ancestral places that act as emotive sites for remapping an ancestral aesthetic as Christian experience. The resultant emotional and spiritual synchronicity underlies a Yolngu Christianity that is corporeal and abstracted, negotiated and strategic, practical and experiential.     

Imprinting on the Heart: Photography and Contemporary Yolngu Mournings

This article examines the ways photographs of the recently deceased have come to occupy a central place in Yolngu grieving practices. Harnessing the potentially traumatic ontological qualities of oscillating absence–presence that are inherent in such images, I show how Yolngu in Northern Australia use this affective force as a way to refigure and reconstitute embodied and sensuously mediated relationships between the living and the dead. With vision simultaneously allowing corporeal permeability and expansion, mourners impress the image of the deceased within them, through the eyes to the heart as the fleshly organ of affect, associative recollection, and lived intersubjectivity.     

Words of the ancestors: disembodied knowledge and secrecy in East Timor

By examining processes of revealing and concealing ancestral ‘words’, this article analyses the connection between East Timorese knowledge practices and status competition. The point of departure is a tension between the assertion by eminent ritual speakers in the Idaté‐speaking village of Funar of the need to discover the most truthful ‘trunk’ knowledge, and the simultaneous and continual concealment of what this ‘trunk’ may consist of. The article explores the discursive practices that sustain the notion that knowledge exists as an immutable essence outside of history, and the difficulty of maintaining this notion given dramatic historical events in East Timor in recent decades. Whereas secrecy and concealment are key strategies of dealing with unrelenting contestations over the ownership and content of ‘trunk’ words, a ritual speaker's attempt to deny the interrelational aspect of knowledge is undermined by the need for others to recognize him as its rightful guardian.     

Possible commonality of origin of the RNA polymerase genes of plus-RNA-containing viruses of bacteria, plants and animals

The data given testify that picornavirus RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase, RNA-polymerase encoded by the genome of MS2 phage and the certain polypeptides involved in the replication of RNA genomes of alphaviruses, tobamoviruses and tricornaviruses include the homologous stretches of the amino acids. The common sequences are located in the COOH-terminal regions of the viral proteins. These sequences have been found to be conserved also in RNA-replicase MS2 phage. The similarity of the primary structure between the RNA-polymerase phages and proteins of eucaryotic plus-RNA-containing viruses testifies in favour of the hypothesis on possible ancestral relationship of virus RNA-polymerases genes. These data point out that it is possible to localize an indispensable functional domain conserved upon evolutionary divergence of an ancestral RNA-polymerase gene. Such conservative region is recently found in the composition of RNA-dependent DNA-polymerases animals and plants virus. An attention is drawn to the region of protein similarity between conservative domains of viral RNA-dependent DNA-polymerases and RNA-polymerases.     

Extended lives in global spaces: the anthropology of Yolngu pre‐burial ceremonies⋆

The focus is on a recently developed Yolngu ritual, the memorial or memorial service, which celebrates the lives of Yolngu who have achieved a national reputation. Held before the burial ceremony, the memorial service is orientated ‘both‐ways’ – to the outside as well as to the Yolngu world. Memorial services are analysed in the context of the articulation between Yolngu and the wider Australian society. A diachronically orientated analysis takes into account the longue durée to show how Yolngu create and understand the performance from a historical position and basis of knowledge very different to those of most non‐Yolngu who attend the event. Anthropological research can reveal the durability of local value creation processes that result in very different trajectories of being in an environment of dynamic change.     

Declarations of dependence: labour,personhood, and welfare in southern Africa

Dependence on others has often figured, in liberal thought, as the opposite of freedom. But the political anthropology of southern Africa has long recognized relations of social dependence as the very foundation of polities and persons alike. Reflecting on a long regional history of dependence ‘as a mode of action’ allows a new perspective on certain contemporary practices that appear to what we may call ‘the emancipatory liberal mind’ simply as lamentable manifestations of a reactionary and retrograde yearning for paternalism and inequality. Instead, this article argues that such practices are an entirely contemporary response to the historically novel emergence of a social world where people, long understood (under both pre‐capitalist and early capitalist social systems) as scarce and valuable, have instead become seen as lacking value, and in surplus. Implications are drawn for contemporary politics and policy, in a world where both labour and forms of social membership based upon it are of diminishing value, and where social assistance and the various cash transfers associated with it are of increasing significance.     

The Meaning of the Steps is in Between: Dancing and the Curse of Compliments

This paper shows how Yolngu dancing embodies statements about being‐in‐the‐world and being‐with‐others and, from a performance perspective based on participation, explores the sensuous and affective nature of intercorporeality. By focusing on virtuosity and the practice of the ‘curse of compliments’, the paper argues that the meaning of Yolngu dancing is between the steps, between the performers and other participants in a ceremony—in the empathic space one enters through dancing. Empathy, both in the context of Yolngu performance and of engagement in fieldwork, is thus a modality of co‐presence and co‐presencing, an encounter at a level of intensity which opens the way to an ever‐deepening involvement with others.     

From Sprinkling to Immersion: Conversion and Baptism in Dutch Evangelicalism

Why do recent converts in new evangelical churches desire to be re-baptized by immersion despite their previous infant baptism in mainline churches? This article addresses this question through a discussion of the observed shift in baptism practices from that of ‘sprinkling’ infants (in Protestant mainline churches) to full bodily immersion of adults (in new evangelical churches) in the Netherlands. Based on an ethnographic comparison of these two baptism practices, I demonstrate the performative effect of rituals as well as the importance of connections between material forms, embodiment and doctrines. The call for different baptism practices, I suggest, illustrates a broader shift in Dutch Protestantism from a didactic to an experiential form of Christianity in which the encounter with the sacred is increasingly located in the body. At the same time, it demonstrates how religious authority has moved from institutions to individual believers.     

Photographing Spirits: Biangai Photography,Ancestors, and the Environment in Morobe Province,Papua New Guinea

In this article, I examine the intertwined meaning of photographs as image, object, and expression of the relationship created between photographer and subject among the Biangai, a people of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. These relations are highlighted through the method of indigenous photography, in which photographic authority is relinquished and the resulting images are discussed. It is argued that the camera becomes the lens through which the past interrogates the present, and the photograph as object and image circulates in networks for which these ancestral persons remain powerful and emotive.     

Protein Superfamily Evolution and the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA)

By exploiting three-dimensional structure comparison, which is more sensitive than conventional sequence-based methods for detecting remote homology, we have identified a set of 140 ancestral protein domains using very restrictive criteria to minimize the potential error introduced by horizontal gene transfer. These domains are highly likely to have been present in the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) based on their universality in almost all of 114 completed prokaryotic (Bacteria and Archaea) and eukaryotic genomes. Functional analysis of these ancestral domains reveals a genetically complex LUCA with practically all the essential functional systems present in extant organisms, supporting the theory that life achieved its modern cellular status much before the main kingdom separation (Doolittle 2000). In addition, we have calculated different estimations of the genetic and functional versatility of all the superfamilies and functional groups in the prokaryote subsample. These estimations reveal that some ancestral superfamilies have been more versatile than others during evolution allowing more genetic and functional variation. Furthermore, the differences in genetic versatility between protein families are more attributable to their functional nature rather than the time that they have been evolving. These differences in tolerance to mutation suggest that some protein families have eroded their phylogenetic signal faster than others, hiding in many cases, their ancestral origin and suggesting that the calculation of 140 ancestral domains is probably an underestimate. Electronic Supplementary Material Electronic Supplementary material is available for this article at and accessible for authorised users. [Reviewing Editor: Dr. Rafael Zarobya]     

Genres of waiting: patronage,healthcare, and dyadic sovereignty in Northeast Brazil

This article offers an ethnographic comparison of two genres of waiting for healthcare in Northeast Brazil in order to explain the persistence of patron-client practices at a time when people otherwise reject patronage. The explanation turns on a recasting of patronage as a form of sovereignty whereby politicians and afflicted persons may choose to suspend the emerging rights-based care regime in favour of older patronage-based approaches to care. Motivating such decisions is the afflicted person's experience of the wait for rights-based healthcare as a form of ‘bare life’, an experience they hope to escape.     

Towards a tuwün wariache? Place-making and creative acts of traversing in the Mapuche city

This article addresses experiences of belonging and place-making among indigenous Mapuche youths in Santiago, Chile. Moving from a collaborative ethnography, it elaborates on the emplacement of the tuwün (place of origin) – usually linked to ancestral territories – within the city, and the meanings this shift entails. Furthering knowledge on indigenous spatiality by addressing migration, the analysis focuses on the ambivalent ways in which memory, affect, and power relations are embedded in urban materialities, and are negotiated through ‘acts of traversing’. The significant relationship between persons and places is conceived as mediated by movement, expanding on the creative possibilities of routing. Moreover, drawing on practice-based methods, the article argues for a shared engagement with research participants in order to gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which place- and self-making in contexts of migration encompass both rupture and creative reappropriation, contributing to current debates on displacement and the sense of place.     

Comparison of the communicative vocalizations and behaviors of group ranging in eastern gorillas,chimpanzees and pygmy chimpanzees

Field observations were carried out on chimpanzees, pygmy chimpanzees and eastern gorillas. Since the communicative behaviors which appear in group ranging are closely related to the grouping of the animals and to the social structure, the communicative behaviors of group ranging were compared in the above three species in order to elucidate the common and different characters of their three much diversified social structures. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) the common ancestor ofGorilla andPan had the territorial call “hoot” and behavior of display, and males were antagonistic between each other in the society; (2) the common ancestral species did not have any special long distance cohesive calling: the society was a small compact one, moving on the ground; and (3) the social structure of the pygmy chimpanzee is very different from the common ancestral social structure when compared with those of the gorilla and chimpanzee, in that the pygmy chimpanzee has lost the behaviors of strong antagonistic character between adult males.     

Vajra Brother, Vajra Sister: Renunciation, Individualism and the Household in Tibetan Buddhist Monasticism

This article challenges two connected notions in the study of Tibetan Buddhism: that Buddhist monasticism is characterized by a pronounced move towards individualism, systematically detaching monks from relational social life; and that Tibetan Buddhist doctrines of karma represent an alternative mode of identity to those constructed within household life. By comparing the ritual practices and inheritance patterns associated with household groups in Ladakh with tantric ritual forms in local Buddhist (Gelukpa) monasteries, it is argued that they demonstrate pronounced structural similarities, centred on the shared symbolic construct of the household/temple as the source of socialized agency. An analysis of the meditative disciplines of Gelukpa monasticism is used to show how such training serves not to renounce kinship and household values, but to transform them into modes of religious authority, essential to the social position of monks ( trapa ) and incarnate lamas ( tulku ) in Tibetan Buddhism.     

Proximodistal domain specification and interactions in developing Drosophila appendages

The morphological diversification of appendages represents a crucial aspect of animal body plan evolution. The arthropod antenna and leg are homologous appendages, thought to have arisen via duplication and divergence of an ancestral structure (Snodgrass, R. (1935) Book Principles of Insect Morphology. New York: McGraw-Hill). To gain insight into how variations between the antenna and the leg may have arisen, we have compared the epistatic relationships among three major proximodistal patterning genes, Distal-less, dachshund and homothorax, in the antenna and leg of the insect arthropod Drosophila melanogaster. We find that Drosophila appendages are subdivided into different proximodistal domains specified by specific genes, and that limb-specific interactions between genes and the functions of these genes are crucial for antenna-leg differences. In particular, in the leg, but not in the antenna, mutually antagonistic interactions exist between the proximal and medial domains, as well as between medial and distal domains. The lack of such antagonism in the antenna leads to extensive coexpression of Distal-less and homothorax, which in turn is essential for differentiation of antennal morphology. Furthermore, we report that a fundamental difference between the two appendages is the presence in the leg and absence in the antenna of a functional medial domain specified by dachshund. Our results lead us to propose that the acquisition of particular proximodistal subdomains and the evolution of their interactions has been essential for the diversification of limb morphology.     

Kunyenga, "real sex," and survival: assessing the risk of HIV infection among urban street boys in Tanzania

This article examines possible avenues of HIV infection among urban street boys in Tanzania. In doing so, it questions the ways that AIDS researchers have defined and approached the phenomenon of "survival sex" in East and Central Africa. The article specifically examines the boys' sexual networks, sexual practices, and attitudes regarding their own sexual behavior, including their perceived risk of HIV/AIDS infection. Seventy-five street boys aged eight to 20 from the city of Mwanza were interviewed. Results suggest that almost all street boys are involved in a sexual network in which homosexual and heterosexual behavior occurs. Homosexual practices are rooted in a complex set of behaviors and ideologies known as kunyenga, which is a situated aspect of life on the streets and helps maintain the boys' strong dependence on one another. A key aspect of the boys' sexual careers involves a decrease in kunyenga activity as they approach the age of 18 and an increase in heterosexual encounters after the age of 11. There appears to be a critical period between these ages in which heterosexual and kunyenga activities overlap. It is suggested that boys between these ages represent a potential bridge for HIV/AIDS infection between the general population and the relatively enclosed sexual network of street boys.     

When a domain is not a domain,and why it is important to properly filter proteins in databases

Membership in a protein domain database does not a domain make; a feature we realized when generating a consensus view of protein fold space with our consensus domain dictionary (CDD). This dictionary was used to select representative structures for characterization of the protein dynameome: the Dynameomics initiative. Through this endeavor we rejected a surprising 40% of the 1,695 folds in the CDD as being non‐autonomous folding units. Although some of this was due to the challenges of grouping similar fold topologies, the dissonance between the cataloguing and structural qualification of protein domains remains surprising. Another potential factor is previously overlooked intrinsic disorder; predictions suggest that 40% of proteins have either local or global disorder. One thing is clear, filtering a structural database and ensuring a consistent definition for protein domains is crucial, and caution is prescribed when generalizations of globular domains are drawn from unfiltered protein domain datasets.