Where are our ancestors? Rethinking Trobriand cosmology

Abstract

Reincarnation has been a fundamental tenet of anthropologists’ representations of Trobriand cosmology since Bronislaw Malinowski published “Baloma; The spirits of the dead in the Trobriand Islands” in 1916. Yet, during recent ethnographic fieldwork, many Trobrianders repeatedly denied the possibility of rebirth. Faced with a potential major shift in this fundamental belief, we used a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods to assess current Trobriand cosmological views. Drawing on a combination of structured and semi-structured interviews and focus groups, we tested the current validity of prior cosmological representations as found in the literature. In this article, we first a..