REVIEW AffilICLE * Ri tual and Knowledge Among the Baktarnan of New Guinea

Frederik Barth's monograph is of great importance because it uses a theoretical approach derived from communications theory to analyze the state of ritual and lmowledge among a remote New Guinea group., The significance of this book arises from the fact that, due to the culturally unique forms of codification of ritual and knowledge in New Guinea societies and Barth's theoretical conceptions and use of communications theory, these states of knowledge cannot be fully charted. As an antidote to the static, conceptual s,ystems approach of structural functionalism, Barth uses communications theory to illu minate the process through which social praxis (transaction) determines the form of the replicated messages that make all cultures ongoing systems of communications. Through repetition, symbolic codings emerge and are perpetuated, and the 'sacred ~bols ' of the Baktaman are framed in analogue codes; which is really no mre tha