"The Lust to Kill" and the Arnhem Land Sorcerer: An Exercise in Integrative Anthropology

Abstract

This comparison of the Western serial sex killer and the Arnhem Land sorcerer arose from reading the argument that the serial sex murderer is the creation of a series of discourses. "The discourse," say Cameron and Frazer, "is the heart of the matter and the rest is silence." While acknowledging the power of culture to structure lives, I argue that the rest is not "silence" but something requiring anthropological understanding. This article is an exercise in integrative anthropology, an attempt to address the multifaceted character of human experience and trace some of the possible means and mechanisms of human development in the sphere of sexual passion.