Social body and icon of the person: a symbolic analysis of shell money among the Wodani, western highlands of Irian Jaya

The Wodani of Irian Jaya describe shell money as an immortal person, endowe d with a human anatomy. In the context of matrimonial and homicide compensa tions, shell money pays for the difference parts and organs of the person, thus symbolically transforming the bride or the victim into a composite bod y. Each part is ascribed to one or the other parent's procreative agency. T he patrilineal organs are compensated for with the most valued shells. By f ragmenting the person into hierarchized elements, the payment does not prod uce individual pieces bur social components, distributed among patrilineal dan members in monetary form. In payments, shells are said to be eaten by t heir recipients, so that the dan depleted by the loss of a daughter or a so n is symbolically reconstituted. The dan is represented by payments as a to tality made out of persons' parts, as a pool of patrilineal organs. Deconst ructing persons to form a social whole and recycling elements of this whole to produce the person, shell money is an instrument of social reproduction at the same time as it is the symbol of the perpetuity of the dan body.