How Evaluating Dreams Makes History: Asabano Examples

Abstract

Among the Asabano of Papua New Guinea, dreams deemed true have motivated hunting expeditions, medical treatments, and religious conversion. In contrast, dreams deemed false have negligibly affected behaviour. The Asabano draw on multiple and changing opinions and theories of dreams and dreaming when assessing whether or not particular dreams accurately represented reality. Dreams conforming to several dream scenario genres routinely receive attention as potential “true” dreams. These scenarios concern hunting, illness, death, and since contact, Christianity. Analysis of subsequent waking events resolves ambiguous cases. Asabano dream theories have changed in response to enculturation, diffusion, and personal experiences. Theories and methods of evaluating remembered dreams influence agency and events. I argue that classifying particular dreams as true or false is an historical process because once a remembered dream is labelled “true” or “false” it motivates appropriately responsive action or inaction.

Keywords:

• Dreaming
• Epistemic Assessment
• Cultural Dream Theories
• Historical Processes
• Melanesia

Notes

An earlier version of this article was presented at the session “Imprints of Dreaming” organized by Adriënne Heijnen and Iain Edgar, at the meeting of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 29 August 2008. I gratefully acknowledge the guidance and suggestions of the participants, and particularly of the two organizers, whose input and patience allowed me to develop and improve the paper.