A revised and expanded translation of Naven, ou, Le donner à voir, published in 1994.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [287]-296) and index.

Preliminary Material -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Foreword -- Bateson and Naven -- The Intellectual Background -- Contradiction, Paradox, Condensation -- Naven after Bateson -- Maternals Versus Paternals -- Wife-Givers and Wife-Takers -- Metamorphoses of the Mother -- The Procreator -- Towards a Theory of Ritual Action -- Defining Ritual Form -- The Ritual as a Whole -- Defining Ritual Symbolism -- Conclusion and Perspectives: A Relational Approach to Ritual -- References -- Index -- Plates -- List of Plates -- Studies in the History of Religions Numen Book Series.

In this work, the author propose a novel theory of ritual action founded upon an in-depth study of the wide variety of behaviors that the Iatmul of Papua New Guinea identify as naven: a transvestism rite studied by Gregory Bateson in the 1930s and documented by other anthropologists since. Ritual performance is shown to involve the construction of complex relational networks entailing the condensation of contradictory modes of relationship in accordance with over-arching interactive forms. In this volume, inquiry into the history of anthropology, detailed ethnographic analysis and theoretical discussion are combined. The first part examines Bateson's and others' understandings of naven; the second offers a reinterpretation of this ritual in the light of new ethnographic data; and the third proposes a general approach to the analysis of ritual and suggests how this perspective may be applied elsewhere.