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Chapter 4 - Indexically Conforming Communal Sharing by Substance-Sharing

from Part II - Consubstantial Assimilation: The Conformation System of Communal Sharing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2025

Alan Page Fiske
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

This chapter considers conformation of communal sharing by means of consubstantial assimilation: making essential substances or surfaces of bodies alike, or contact between bodies, or engaging in synchronous rhythmic movement of the torso and limbs; blood sacrifice; classic anthropological theories of commensalism; and milk kinship. In a number of cultures, drinking alcohol together creates strong commitments. Among North American Indians, smoking the sacred pipe together is a way to make peace or cement bonds. In Homeric Greece and in other Bronze Age and early Iron Age societies around the Mediterranean, men created host–guest bonds by hospitably welcoming and feeding a travelling stranger, and exchanging gifts. In Africa and elsewhere, there are practices in which two men each cut themselves and bleed into a vessel in which they mix the blood, and then drink it. This creates extremely strong commitments to mutual aid in blood brotherhood.

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