The spectacle of things: Melanesian perspectives on the self.

Starting from two typical Melanesian object-relationships - head-hunting an d shell money exchange - it is shown how the object, while being used in sy mbolic exchange through a metaphor (the head of an enemy, sign of the name the person will bestow on his offspring), or a metonymy (shell money, sign of the transactions constitutive of the person), is to play a role in the d efinition of the self, described as irremediably incomplete. The question i s asked why society does not fail to provide a representation of itself, an d why it does so in displaying detached objects.