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Made up of the multiple island communities contained within Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, Oceania is known for works of art and ritual objects that tell a wealth of stories about origins, ancestral power, performance, and initiation. Diverging from the approaches that categorize Oceanic art by region, this book considers the connections between all Austronesian-speaking peoples, whose ancestral homes span Southeast Asia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and the island archipelagoes of the North and East Pacific. A focus on the objects themselves -- from carved ancestral figures in ceremonial houses to ritual regalia such as slit drums, skull reliquaries, and turtle-shell masks -- provides a look at Oceania as a whole with support from multidisciplinary research in art history, ethnography, and archaeology.