D K Feil The Evolution of Highland

The Evolution of Highland Papua New Guinea Societies
This book is an explicitly comparative, anthropological analysis of the

societies of highland Papua New Guinea. Particular societies have been
documented by anthropologists since the 1 9 5 Os, yet there have been
relatively few attempts at rigorous comparison of the findings. This book
argues that the highlands cannot be treated as a homogeneous region,
socially, culturally, historically or environmentally. Rather, societies of the
eastern highlands have followed markedly different paths of development
in the past to those of the western highlands, and it is upon this divergence
that a comparative treatment of the present should be mounted.
The most crucial fact of the past which informs the present, has been the
differential development of productive resources east and west. Western
highlands societies adopted and intensified agriculture and pig production
very much earlier than societies in the eastern highlands, where a mixed
hunting and horticultural existence persisted perhaps until the arrival of the
sweet potato only a few hundred years ago. This fact influences all other
features of social life and culture. In this book the author discusses
comparatively configurations of production intensity, warfare, leadership
and politics, social structure, male-female relations and ceremonial
exchange, and relates them to the evolution of factors of production. The
book opens with a brief chapter on the history of anthropology in the
highlands, and concludes with a look at the present as a 'legacy of the past'.
The book thus posits material factors as the most important in a
comparative treatment, but there is a wealth of other issues and data
presented which seeks to make sense of some of the more notable 'debates'
in anthropology that have taken place on the nature of society in the New
Guinea highlands.
Dr Daryl K. Feil, an American-born anthropologist who studied at the
Australian National University and the University of Cambridge, began
work in Papua New Guinea in the early 1970s. After teaching atthe
University of Queensland he is now Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the
University of Sydney. His earlier publications include Ways ofExchange
( 1 984).
Amid squealing pigs a man calls the names of partners who are to
receive them in a tee in Enga
The Evolution of Highland
Papua New Guinea Societies
D. K. Feil
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology,
University of Sydney
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Cambridge University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Feil, D. K. (Daryl Keith), 1948-
The evolution of highland Papua New Guinea societies.
Bibliography.
1. Ethnology - Papua New Guinea.
2. Papua New Guinea - Social life and customs.
I. Title.
GN671.N5F45 1987 306'.0995'3 86-32681
National Library of Australia Cataloguing in Publication data

Feil, D. K. (Daryl Keith), 1948-
The evolution of Highland Papua New Guinea societies.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
1. Ethnology - Papua New Guinea.
2. Papua New Guinea - Social life and customs.
3. Papua New Guinea - History.
I. Title.
306'.0995'3
ISBN 978-0-521-33423-5 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-13175-9 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

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To Maximilian
Contents
pa�e
List ofplates IX
List ofmaps and tables x
Preface XI
1 Prologue: anthropology in the

Papua New Guinea highlands 1
An approach to comparison 4
Configurations of highlands societies 5
An evolutionary perspective 7
Comparative dilemmas and methodological pitfalls 10
2 Papua New Guinea highlands prehistory:
a social anthropologist's view 12
Environmental contrasts 14
Archaeological contrasts 19
The sweet potato 26
Some further points 31
Conclusion 34
3 Configurations of intensity 39
People and pigs 40
Pigs and sweet potatoes 46
Pigs and related facts 49
The rise of intensified production 53
4 Warfare 62
Types of warfare 66
Casualties 71
Marriage and warfare 73
Compensation 80
Migration and mobility 85
Conclusion: symmetry and complementarity 88
5 Leadership and politics 90
Bigmen, despots, great-men and others 92
An alternative view 98
VII
Vlll Contents
Great-men 100
Despots 103
Bigmen and before 111
Conclusion 120
6 Social structure 123
Descent in the highlands 128
Comparative trends 133
The ethnography 140
Conclusion 166
7 Male-female relations 168
Male initiations and male-female relations:
the theoretical past 169
'RH' in 'SWNG' 1 76
'Brideservice societies' 1 87
Baruya and Sambia sexual relations 1 92
The 'nama' region 199
Central Wahgi societies 214
The 'western highlands' 220
Conclusion 230
8 Ceremonial exchange 233
Scale 235
Contexts 242
'Home production', finance and consumption 245
Units 252
Partnerships 260
Moka and tee (and mok ink}: their interrelated past 263
The paradox of exchange 268
9 The legacy of the past 271
Renewed warfare 273
Bigmen and 'big peasants' 276
Males and females 279
The resilience of ceremonial exchange 283
Bibliography 287
Index 307
Plates
page
Amid squealing pigs a man calls the names of partners
who are to receive them in a tee in Enga frontispiece
1. Looking west across the Kuk swamp near Mount Hagen,
western highlands 17
2. A Melpa bigman arranges pearlshells for distribution
moka 119
3. An Enga bride dispenses her own bridewealth of
pork sides 140
4a. Preparation for second-stage initiation among the
Baruya of the eastern highlands 1 95
4b. Third-stage Baruya initiates are decorated for
an all-night ordeal in the ceremonial house 196
5. A discussion the day before a major tee exchange
in Enga, western highlands 236
6. Aided by his partner, a man calls the names of
recipients of his pigs in an Enga tee 243
IX
Maps
page
1 . Some archaeological sites and locales
in the highlands 20
2. Peoples of highland Papua New Guinea 38
Tables
page
1 . Language family size in highland Papua New Guinea 42
2. Highland Papua New Guinea population densities 44
3 . Highland Papua New Guinea pig herds 45
4. Deaths in warfare in some highland Papua
New Guinea societies 71
5 . Pig festivals and pig exchange cycles
of the Papua New Guinea highlands 23 7
x
Preface
This book began as a 'straightforward' comparison of the

societies and cultures of highland Papua New Guinea. I believed,
perhaps naively, that a thorough reading of the ethnography would
automatically reveal patterns and configurations which would
make sense of the rich literature published over the past five decades
by generations of anthropological fieldworkers and other observers.
While the final product retains an explicitly comparative focus, the
process by which it was achieved has been anything but straightfor
ward.
The ethnography of highland New Guinea is vast, excessively de
tailed and theoretically eclectic, and any notion of proceeding induc
tively was doomed, at the outset, to fail. Clear-cut patterns
continually evaporated in a mass of complex variations. It became
clear to me, very early, that comparison could not advance by using
a synchronic idiom, and that a perspective on the past was necessary
to understand the present. I began to look afresh at the prehistoric
material from the highlands, even to dabble in its ecology, to broa
den my essentially social anthropological viewpoint. In the end, it
was these sources which led me to the conclusion that the highlands
could not be treated as homogeneous - socially, culturally or envi
ronmentally. A reading of prehistory convinced me that areas of the
highlands had followed markedly different paths in the develop
ment of agricultural production and pig husbandry, and especially
in the timing of transformations and rate of intensification. Even if
this interpretation is debatable, the striking variability in intensity of
agriculture and pig production across the highlands today is unde
niable, and it is upon these facts that a comparative study of social
life should be mounted. This book is the result of thinking about the
present while trying, simultaneously, to think about the past.
A comparative analysis immediately places one in the debt of
others upon whose work one builds and relies. Some may feel
XI
xu Preface
slighted or misrepresented, for which I apologise, but it is with grati

tude that I acknowledge the work of anthropologists who long pre
ceded me to the highlands, and those who came after. At the risk of
omitting someone, I would like especially to pay tribute to those
whose writings have left a sustained impression on me and whose
ideas and insights will appear repeatedly in the pages that follow:
Michael Allen, Jack Golson, Shirley Lindenbaum, Nicholas Mod
jeska, Andrew Strathern and James Watson. The last particularly,
has consistently sought to link past and present in his writings on the
highlands.
A number of more immediate colleagues have given assistance.
Peter White directed me to the archaeological sources and let me test
some wild ideas against his wide-ranging knowledge; Norman
Yoffee, Alan Rumsey, Francesca Merlan, Peter Lawrence and Lester
Hiatt have all commented on some of the ideas presented here; they,
of course, bear none of the responsibility for the finished product.
Annette Weiner read the entire manuscript and offered detailed criti
cisms. Marjorie Fisher, Lorraine Howard and Robyn Wood typed
several drafts of this book cheerfully and I thank them for their
patience.
My fieldwork in the New Guinea highlands with Tombema-Enga
began in the early 1970s. They taught me a way of life geared relent
lessly to ceremonial exchange. With some difficulty I came to realise
that not all people in the highlands are so motivated. I acknowledge
with lasting affection their friendliness and tolerance offered to an
outsider.
In the course of writing this book, my wife Rosemary has been a
constant inspiration and source of encouragement. My son Maxi
milian made sure that one of my feet at least was always firmly on
the ground. My first thoughts of this book coincided with his birth;
it is to him that it is dedicated.
D.K.F.
1 Prologue: anthropology in the
Papua New Guinea highlands
The Highlands of Papua New Guinea have come to be recog

nized, even by anthropologists whose regional interests lie else
where, as the home of a group of societies that cannot be
overlooked in any discussion of the general characteristics of
human culture and social institutions. The broad similarities ...
provide, as it were, laboratory conditions for the investigation of
many signi-ficant variations on a common base.
Barnes ( 1 968 : 3 )
The highlands o f Papua New Guinea offered anthropologists a

unique opportunity and a stirring challenge. When the first gener
ation of fieldworkers arrived there in the early 1 950s, they encoun
tered often large, dense populations that had only recently been
subject to a colonial presence, whose technology belonged predomi
nantly to another age, and who, despite many indigenous, long
range contacts, had little knowledge of, or direct communication
with a wider world. Here was the chance to study the social, econ
omic and political life of people relatively 'untouched' by the
influences which made analyses of Australian Aborigines or the
Neuer, for instance, seem, by comparison, more like reconstructions
of the past than accounts based on first-hand observation. When
missionaries and government agents preceded anthropologists, re
liable information could still be obtained from people who had lived
most of their lives unaffected by outside contact. In addition, the
missionaries and governmental representatives themselves, a highly
literate and prolific group in the highlands, provided much material
of benefit to anthropological investigation.
The challenge was, firstly, to make sense of the ethnographic
region, to document the many variations which, plausibly, had a
common underlying foundation. Secondly, the task was to relate
1
2 Highland Papua New Guinea societies
these findings to what was known elsewhere in the tribal world, to

put the peculiarities of highland cultures temporarily in the back
ground, in order to say something, more generally, about social life
and institutions. The dual challenge was met head-on. The first eth
nographers, sent out from the Australian National University and
the University of Sydney, were concerned primarily with social
structure, with the principles governing social organisation, and
with issues of social order and control. These were problems with
which, at that time, the whole discipline grappled. Across the high
lands, similar features emerged for comparative treatment, and de
scriptions seemed to accord well with what was known from that
other great continent of anthropological investigation, Africa,
where many of the field's theoretical developments had been
spawned. Along the way, of course, 'uniquely' Melanesian social
forms were uncovered: the emphasis on regional exchange, the
intensity of warfare, the elaborate gender dichotomies, and the
instability of leadership. The results of that earliest research are for
midable and the value of it endures in such monographs as The
Kuma (Reay 1959), Excess and Restraint (R. Berndt 1962), From
Stone to Steel (Salisbury 1962), Struggle for Land (Brookfield and
Brown 1963), The Lineage System of the Mae-Enga (Meggitt 1965),
and in numerous articles by these authors and K. Read, R. Bulmer,
R. Glasse, D. Ryan, and others. These accounts remain a solid base
from which all more recent analyses must build.
Later generations of researchers have concentrated on narrower
topics and, while sometimes critical of earlier approaches, have
taken their cue from them. In-depth studies have been made of one
society's religion, of another, its pattern of male-female relations or
of the interplay of ecological and social variables; we have analyses
of a society's ritual and cult life or of its system of ceremonial
exchange. Some more recent fieldworkers have focussed exclusively
on how these and other aspects of society and culture have changed
in the decades since the first anthropological descriptions appeared
and, more importantly, since colonialism, capitalism and national
government intervened and took hold. The literature of the high
lands is vast and still growing and, furthermore, subject to a wide
spectrum of theoretical perspectives. Few peoples and areas remain
unstudied; several have been studied more than once. Researchers in
the 1 980s have headed for the coasts or the highland fringe in im
plicit recognition, perhaps, that the highlands, once the region of
exciting anthropological prospect, is finally a bit 'overexposed'.
Prologue 3
We are blessed with intensive descriptions of highland societies

rich in detail and theoretically informed. What is lacking are ex
plicitly comparative treatments of highland Papua New Guinea
societies which take into account the research and writing of the last
forty years. That is the aim and subject of this book. Others have
gone before. Read ( 1954a) noted continuities and differing cultural
emphases from Kainantu to Wabaga. This perceptive comparison
was made when very few detailed studies were available. Other wri
ters have taken specific aspects of society and culture and sought
broadly to compare them (for example, Barnes 1962; J. Watson
1964a; Meggitt 1964; A. J. Strathern 1969a, 1969b, 1970b; Sillitoe
1977, 1978, to name only a few). 1 Some others, as an adjunct to
their major concerns, have included brief comparative statements
(for example, Meggitt 1965 ; Allen 1967; A. M. Strathern 1972).
There are collections which have brought together material from the
highlands, with comparative introductions (for example, Lawrence
and Meggitt [eds.] 1965 ; Glasse and Meggitt [eds.] 1969; Berndt
and Lawrence [eds.] 1971; Brown and Buchbinder [eds.] 1976;
Cook and O'Brien [eds.] 1980; and A. J. Strathern [ed.] 1982).
There have also been two, more recent, full-length monographs,
explicitly comparative. Rubel and Rosman ( 1978) examined thir
teen Papua New Guinea societies, six from the highlands, and
attempted to construct a 'prototypical structure' from which,
through a series of 'transformations', the social structure of each
society could be derived. The prototype consists of seventeen fea
tures (Rubel and Rosman 1978 :320-3). The analysis is, however,
flawed on a number of grounds. The authors apply no critical per
spective to the ethnographic sources they use. They assume, rather
than demonstrate, that societies as vastly different as Banaro and
Enga, for example, may have 'a more or less remote genetic relation
ship between them' (Rubel and Rosman 1978 :4). Their account,
while using the concept of 'transformation', is ahistorical. But most
importantly, there is no understanding of how one 'structure' might
have developed or 'transformed' from another; there is no process
to their implicitly 'evolutionary' model, only typology. Diverse
social structures are simply arranged side by side; the connections
between them are absent. As others have also pointed out (for
example, A. J. Strathern 1982a: l 60), while exchange is a basic ele
ment in their prototypical structure, it is regarded as sui-generis; it
1
I have, no doubt, left out some comparative studies; these are only a sample.
appears to exist prior to intensive production upon which it is

necessarily predicated. Exchange, no doubt, impels production, but
cannot exist prior to it.
Brown ( 1978) attempted a more narrowly focussed comparison
of highlands societies proper. Her approach sets out to show the
interrelationship of ecological factors, social organisation and cultu
ral premises. Four areas of the highlands, Kapauku, Dani, Enga and
Chimbu (see also Waddell 1972), show highest agricultural inten
sity and development, are permanently sedentary, have greatest
population density, and most elaborate group activities. An evol
utionary perspective is implied, with these regions showing greatest
complexity. This study has much merit, though mainly synchronic
and broadly undeterministic. Agricultural production is, however,
seen as a key factor in the rise of highland societies. This study also
proceeds a priori, with the view that the highlands are, with minor
variation, best treated and understood as a homogeneous region.
An approach to comparison
Almost all ethnography of the highlands and, therefore, the com-

parisons which are built on it, has a number of common features:
(1) It has been done in a synchronic framework: situations are
described as they are found. There has been little attention given to
diachronic, or historical, processes, prehistoric patterns or change other
than that resulting from colonialism. Prehistoric evidence has only re
cently, of course, become available, but few ethnographers have consist
ently reflected about the past in an attempt to make sense of the present.2
Reading into the past is a highly speculative undertaking, but some pat
terns and variations are tantalisingly apparent in the archaeological
record.
(2) It has taken for granted that the highlands are a homogeneous
region, socially, culturally, ecologically, even prehistorically. Variations
have always been noted, but continuities have been more frequently
stressed. Divergence in the ethnographic present is seen as a matter of
degree, not kind, and few attempts have been made to interpret it.
(3) It has failed to fit social, cultural and material factors together to
discover if there are constellations of features which regularly occur
together.
2 J. Watson is the notable exception here. He too was one of the first generation of
ethnographers in the highlands who, while using mainly synchronic material,
sought its significance in the past (see also Heider 1967).
Prologue 5
(4) Few attempts have been made to posit determining factors, even
in a non-dogmatic fashion, which might be applied to the continuum of
highlands societies, their development and transformation.
These points are addressed in this study. The available prehis

toric evidence allows the construction of a plausible path to the pres
ent. It will be suggested that the prehistoric past in the highlands is
not unitary, that changes across the highlands took place at different
times and with different intensity, and that some areas were subject
to developments experienced, only much later, elsewhere. This
divergence in prehistory is evident in the present. Accordingly, con
trasts across highlands societies are emphasised more than simi
larities. Societies direct their energies towards profoundly different
ends. Ecological variation is also pronounced in the highlands and
offers further clues to divergent development. In sum, the view
adopted here is that there is no very good reason for regarding the
highlands, either in the past or the present, as a unitary entity, sub
ject to a single process of development through time.
Furthermore, it is argued that social, cultural and material factors
are mutually reinforcing and yield distinct societal 'configurations'
from east to west in the highlands. There is an overriding order and
pattern to the minutiae of detail. Socio-cultural and material vari
ables are in continuous interaction, they developed apace and trans
formed concomitantly. Nevertheless, the facts of production are
given priority in both the reconstruction of the past and the in
terpretation of the present. The facts of production include both
'forces of production', broadly speaking, environmental possi
bilities and technological processes, and 'relations of production',
the social relationships into which people enter to produce their sub
sistence and surpluses. It is argued here that the interplay of re
lations and forces of production provide the ultimate logic for
understanding the rise of highland New Guinea societies.
Configurations of highlands societies

It has been noted that the highlands of Papua New Guinea have
usually been regarded as a relatively homogeneous region. The mil
lion or so people who live there have, for comparative purposes,
been distinguished from the so-called 'highland fringe' groups and
those of the Papuan Plateau (part of the congeries of peoples re
cently termed 'SWNG' - southwestern New Guinea coastal fringe)
(Herdt 1 984a, see Chapter 7), and even more so from the coastal
'seaboard' (particularly Sepik) peoples on the bases of geography,
subsistence, language, and highly divergent aspects of society and
culture. To be sure, these differences are real, and intraregional
variability is outweighed when wider interregional comparisons are
sought. 3
Brookfield ( 1962, 1964) has thus defined the eastern section of
the highlands, based on a range of attributes, as the area between
Huli and the Kainantu Shelf. Brown ( 1 978) writes that highlanders
inhabit the altitudinal range of between 900 and 2,100 metres.
Wurm ( 1975) shows that highlanders speak languages of the East
New Guinea Highlands Stock. Lawrence and Meggitt ( 1 965) de
scribe highlanders as tending towards secularism in world view
versus the religiosity of seaboard peoples. J. Watson ( 1964a: 12)
very early suggested that highland peoples 'share a uniform basic
technology, the single staple crop, a patrilineal ideology, and many
other tendencies'. More recently, he referred to the unified high
lands by the acronym CHNG - central highlands of New Guinea CT.
Watson 1977). S. and R. Bulmer (1 964:40) also noted the 'wide
ranging continuity evident in the contemporary cultures of the
[highlands] region' as justifying their isolation as a unit of study.
The differences which exist between highlands societies and cultures
have been seen, then, as matters of emphasis; issues of degree, not
kind (Read 1954a). It is ironic, perhaps, that while adhering to the
rather vague concept of the highlands as a cultural-ecological unit,
most social anthropologists, at least, have preferred highly descrip
tive ethnographies of single societies rather than seeking compari
sons between them, comparisons which might have supported (or
dispelled) the idea of highlands uniformity.4
Within the highlands, a number of distinct societal configur
ations are apparent, the empirical details of which form the basis of
this study. At the eastern end of the highlands are related societies
here referred to as 'Kainantu' groups. To their east and south are the
Anga (Baruya and Sambia) who represent an important watershed
between societies of southwestern New Guinea and Kainantu. This
book is principally concerned with the continuum of societies from
3
There are scattered references to societies now part of Irian J aya, but the bulk of
this study addresses those groups in the modern state of Papua New Guinea.
4
There are of course exceptions to this trend. I think of the work of Allen ( 1 967), A.
J. Strathern (1 969a, 1970b) and, more recently, that of Rubel and Rosman (1 978)
among others.
Prologue 7
Kainantu westward to Wabaga, but the relevance of Anga groups

and those of 'SWNG' to an understanding of the highlands proper
will be noted throughout, especially in Chapter 7.
Immediately west from Kainantu are 'Asaro' groups. Asaro
societies are clearly 'eastern' in the parameters for analysis discussed
here. They may differ in emphasis and minor detail from the Kain
antu configuration, but share many features with it. Between Asaro
societies and those of the western end of the continuum are those
here termed 'Central Wahgi' - among them Chimbu, Maring,
Narak (Manga) and Kuma. These groups are intermediate between
those of 'lowest production' to their east, and 'highest production'
to their west.
Western highlands societies form a final configuration at the op
posite pole to Kainantu ones. Beyond these, further to the west, are
found societies of a different sort (for example those of Telefomin
and other Ok groups), whose adaptation and cultural emphases are
unrelated to the highlands and will not be considered here. Southern
highlands societies, including Mendi, Wola, Kewa, Wiru, Huli and
Duna are more closely related to the western highlands; indeed, as
will be seen in Chapter 8, there are institutions which link parts of
these two areas. Again, there remain important variations between
the western and southern highlands as noted later, but on the com
parative continua of this study, the southern highlands are clearly
associated with, even sometimes influenced by, the groups of the
western highlands.
An evolutionary perspective
In employing the word evolution in the title, I may give the mis
taken impression that this book seeks to resurrect the neo
evolutionary frameworks which gained some popularity in past
decades (for example Fried 1967; Service 1967, 1975). I must make
very clear that I do not regard highland New Guinea societies (nor
Melanesian ones) as representing some evolutionary stage or as
being suitable for some simple pigeonhole of 'cultural progress'. My
aims are much more specific and ethnographically focussed. As
such, this work can profitably be seen as related to a tradition of
scholarship in the Pacific beginning at least with Sahlins ( 1 958),
traced through Goldman ( 1 970), and, more recently, excellently
fostered by Kirch ( 1984), in which explanation is sought for trans
formation and differentiation in a clearly defined, historically
related set of societies through time. In contrast to Sahlins and Gold

man perhaps, I further share with Kirch a concern to illuminate
diachronic processes apparent in prehistory as a guide to present
social and cultural configurations. Similarly, I also eschew simple
unicausal determinism in the evolution of highland New Guinea
social and cultural forms.
Highland societies, it is argued, form a particular evolutionary
sequence. As early as 9000 years ago, the area around Mount Hagen
in the western highlands (as exemplified by the Kuk archaeological
site) was the scene of agricultural production, permanent settle
ment and, perhaps, limited pig husbandry (Golson and Hughes
1 980). Hunting and gathering were subsidiary practices, which
slowly, but steadily, decreased in significance or were closed off as
subsistence options by the spreading, pervasive agricultural mode of
production and a growing, unique symbiosis of people and domesti
cated pigs (Steensberg 1 980: 1 1 1 ). The Mount Hagen area may
rightly be regarded as the 'birthplace' of agriculture in the high
lands. The sexual division of labour was related exclusively to
aspects of the agricultural cycle and pig management. The prevalent
swamps, providing advantageous environmental conditions,
became the locus of the intensified production of taro, an indigen
ous New Guinea crop. Yields far exceeded those possible from culti
vation on surrounding, dry land. Taro surpluses were 'invested' in
pigs which were now increasingly domesticated in large numbers as
wild protein sources diminished. Those who controlled access to the
swamps exchanged pigs with those who had none in return for pol
itical patronage, labour, women, power and prestige. Pigs were the
first scarce resources in the highlands, surplus products to be
exchanged as valuables. Increasingly in the western highlands,
greater surpluses were produced and numerous exchange contexts,
in turn, created a higher demand on production. When, centuries
later, the sweet potato 'arrived', it was taken in stride by an agricul
tural complex already geared to surplus production. Production
could now expand even further and into areas unsuitable for taro
cultivation. Larger pig herds could be maintained and exchange pat
terns proliferated. Through time, and into the present, western high
lands societies remain committed to the production of large
agricultural surpluses, converted to pigs, for use as exchange items
in regional systems. In the present, all production decisions are
geared to the requirements of the exchange sphere. Pigs are never
Prologue 9
raised to be eaten if they can be exchanged for political capital.

These developments were both ancient and autochthonous, yet
reverberated only locally.
In the eastern highlands, the evidence suggests that a hunting and
gathering mode of production was practised until much more re
cently. Men hunted and only intermittently tended 'male' crops of
ceremonial value; women gathered. Permanent settlement was slow
to be taken up and pigs were hunted, never husbanded. Perhaps only
with the advent of the sweet potato and its potential did these
societies begin to intensify agriculturally, to keep pigs and to begin
to trace the developmental paths which had occurred in the western
highlands long before. Rapid 'intensification' brought problems,
confronted earlier, more gradually, in the western highlands where,
for example, solutions had evolved to the dilemma posed by the
increasing sedentism of proximate groups. Even up to the present,
agricultural and pig production lag far behind the levels attained in
the western highlands. Production is not overly geared to exchange
needs; surpluses are small; a group's energies are directed to the pro
duction of other things.
In the highlands, then, we can witness the divergent development
of two distinct economic formations. In one, productive forces grew
and expanded early; 'use values' and production for provisioning,
characteristic of the other formation, were breached. 'Exchange
values' came to predominate; production was invested in exchange
and while some economies remained narrow, domestic-focussed
and underproductive, others were integrated into areal economic
systems, the effects of which spread widely into every other sphere
of social life. The differing social and cultural configurations in the
highlands, addressed in this book, are ultimately determined by
these contrasting economic rationales whose foundations are pre
historic. Eastern highlands societies have social structures, patterns
of warfare, leadership, male-female relations and exchange which
are compatible with and reinforced by economies of 'low produc
tion'. Western highlands societies, conversely, are those of 'high
production', regional orientation and integration, the effects of
which resound in their configurations of social life and culture. This
continuum of social forms across the highlands posits the earlier
evolutionary development of high production and concomitant
social relations in the west as the basis for comparing ethnographic
regions in the present.
Comparative dilemmas and methodological pitfalls
A work, explicitly comparative as this one aims to be, is from the

beginning potentially beset with problems. It seeks to interpret and
explain the 'ethnographic present'. Aside from the final chapter, this
account makes scant mention of changes in the highlands wrought
by colonialism, the penetration of capitalism, the cash-cropping of
coffee, the rise of provincial government and the emergence of the
modern state of Papua New Guinea. As if this restricted framework
were not enough, the 'ethnographic present' itself is not unprob
lematic. The anthropological and other sources culled for this study
span a period of over forty years. Some authors describe events and
institutions which no longer existed at the time of writing or recon
struct them only as they might have been. Often, this is not made
clear or the time period under scrutiny is not clearly defined. Ideal
and real frequently, indistinguishably, merge. While I make no apol
ogy for the temporal focus of this study, I confess that, albeit with a
critical eye, I have taken ethnographic accounts largely at face
value. To do otherwise would have compounded possible errors. In
this book, precolonial warfare is still being waged, boys are still
being initiated, and gardens remain full of sweet potatoes to be fed
to pigs, rather than given over to coffee and other cash-yielding
crops.5
Furthermore, ethnography is notoriously difficult to separate
from theoretical inclination. Much of the material used here for
comparative purposes was originally intended with a narrower end
in mind, or to prove some specific theoretical point. Moreover, each
ethnographic fact is a generalisation derived from many distinct
incidents. My rendering is, thus, a generalisation from many general
isations. In short, the chances of distortion are great and must be
continually borne in mind. The course set here can do little justice to
the meticulous ethnography of others. The aim is to achieve a gen
eral understanding of the rise and development of highland New
Guinea societies, a goal which may only partially illuminate the indi
vidual case.
It is also true that important ethnographic facts are sometimes
missing, or discussed only briefly in passing. The inclination is often
to make much of too little, or to take lack of mention to mean non-
5
Of course, in many places in the highlands even in the 1980s some version of 'tra
dition' remains; initiation is still to be observed (for example Herdt 1 9 8 1 ) , and
ceremonial exchange persists.
Prologue 11
existence. Even a cursory reading of highland ethnography reveals

that certain topics have caught the imagination of observers; more
mundane items have been bypassed. The history of anthropology in
the highlands shows an in-depth concern with one issue for a time
before moving on to debate another. Certain views temporarily hold
sway and this influences the manner and frequency in which descrip
tions appear in the ethnographic record. All of this is only to say that
comparative accounts, while not doomed, contain many assump
tions which must be made explicit.
Finally, it need hardly be said that a study which begins to trace
the evolution of the highlands from 9000 years ago will be highly
speculative in parts and without any support at crucial junctures.
The only defence can be that highland societies of today are prod
ucts of the past and that, as that past becomes clearer, the opaque
comparisons made here will be brought into sharper focus.
2 Papua New Guinea highlands
prehistory: a social
anthropologist's view
[There is a tacitly held view that] ethnographic and archaeologi

cal data indicate an asymmetry of culture development through
time and space in highland New Guinea.
V. Watson ( 1 979 : 8 3 )
While anthropologists have viewed the highlands a s homo

geneous, as socially and culturally continuous, the study of prehis
tory in the Papua New Guinea highlands has likewise tended
towards 'general interpretations' only (White 1982: 179). In his
recent synthesis, White notes that 'Because of modern cultural simi
larities within the area, the small number of sites reported, and some
gross similarities between them, it has been customary to write of
"highlands prehistory" as though a common pattern can be seen'
( 1982: 175 ) . However, without drawing any implications, there
have been some dissenting views on this 'common pattern' of high
lands prehistory.
In one of the earliest survey papers on the subject, S. and R.
Bulmer ( 1964:52) conclude that a 'somewhat different course of his
torical development [has taken place] in the eastern and western
sub-regions of the Highlands'. The point is repeated: once in the
context of some speculative physical and ecological data; and once
while noting that the Yuku excavation in the western highlands
appears to have a 'rather different cultural sequence' than the Kiowa
site located further eastward. The probability of reconciliation of
the two sites is maintained by them, however. More recently
( 1977: 137), V. Watson and Cole have spurned comparisons outside
the eastern highlands (site of their excavations) with the remark that
'the kind of archaeological data recovered in some areas is appar-
12
Prehistory: a social anthropologist's view 13
ently so different from data so far recovered in the eastern highlands

as to preclude comparability'. Importantly for the argument to be
presented here, it is the Wahgi Valley excavations at Kuk which are
explicitly incomparable in their estimation. White ( 1982: 1 85-6),
citing the material of V. Watson and Cole, and that of Swadling
from the Arona Valley of the eastern highlands, also seems im
plicitly to endorse the view that 'different periods of time are
involved' in the evolution of agriculture and human use of the east
ern versus the western highlands. Some of this evidence will be pre
sented below. Finally, J. Watson (1 964b, 1 965a, 1965b, 1967,
1977) in a series of papers has attempted to reconstruct aspects of
the prehistory of the eastern highlands, using mainly synchronic
data, which seem in marked contrast to what is known elsewhere.
The starting point of this chapter is that, on the basis of social
anthropological evidence, the societies of the western highlands
differ significantly from those of the eastern highlands. The bound
ary between them is not always sharp or clearly apparent but,
rather, there is a continuum from east to west in which economic
production intensifies and in which the concomitants of this intensi
fied production are apparent. 1 The social and cultural correlates of
these expanding production systems are evident in the contempor
ary ethnographic record. These issues will be dealt with in following
chapters. My concern at this point is, however, to suggest that there
is also, in the archaeological record, similar confirmation, which
may allow us to account better for the different present configur
ations of these societies through analysis of their prehistoric pasts.
If, as Golson (1 977b) maintains, New Guinea archaeology is to
some extent yesterday's ethnography, present ethnographic diver
sity might be revealed in archaeological materials.
As mentioned in the introduction, I take production, both com
bined forces and social relations, to be the basis for understanding
both the current character of the societies in question and the trans
formations they have undergone. It is my view that the archaeologi
cal record in the highlands gives tantalising evidence that societies of
the eastern and western highlands have followed markedly different
prehistoric paths of production intensity, have transformed at dif
ferent rates and in different periods, and that the present ethno
graphic situation reflects these divergent developments. Before
1
The intensification issue is treated in the following chapter. Here I seek only broad
generalisations.
examining this archaeological evidence, I will present ecological

data which highlight and contrast the two subregions.
Environmental contrasts
Although there are a number of environmental features which

might lead to a regional definition of the highlands, there are some
significant environmental contrasts which bear on the arguments to
be developed here. Highlanders may inhabit similar altitudes, but
within this range there are distinct subregions characterised by
several factors. One is rainfall. The eastern highlands receive ap
preciably less rainfall than the western highlands. Some figures pro
vided by McAlpine et al. (1983) establish this difference beyond
doubt. For example, mean rainfall at Aiyura (eastern highlands
[E.H.] - 29 years recorded) is 2 1 56mm; at Kainantu (E.H. - 1 6
years recorded), 2037mm; a t Hengonofi (E.H. - 14 years recorded),
1 828mm; and at Goroka (E.H. - 1 9 years recorded), 1921mm.
Mount Hagen, by contrast, based on 20 years of recorded rainfall,
averages 2586mm per annum, over 25 per cent greater annual rain
fall on average.2 Furthermore, rates of evaporation, based on meas
ures of temperature, relative humidity, sunshine, and wind data,
show a high rate of evaporation for these eastern highlands areas as
opposed to those in the western highlands (McAlpine et al.
1983: 1 8 6 ) . In addition, Brookfield (1 964:28) has noted that the
Asaro Valley suffers from 'warm, dry winds' which decrease soil
temperature relative to overlying air. Rapid evaporation is the
result.
Gross annual means of rainfall are perhaps less revealing of the
eastern and western highlands subregions than the seasonality of the
respective areas. By this measure, we find that rain is almost totally
seasonal in the eastern highlands, nonseasonal in the western high
lands (White 1 982: 175). Brookfield (1 962, 1 964) provides further
relevant data. A method, termed the 'Schmidt and Ferguson quo
tient', measures the relationship of dry months to wet months. Areas
with 'Q' scores under 14.3 have no discernible dry season. Koro
feigu in the eastern highlands rates, remarkably, 40.7 by this test,
while Asaro is 3 1 . 1 . These two areas in the eastern highlands have
the highest seasonality of all localities mentioned and measured by
Brookfield ( 1 962). Mount Hagen, on the other hand, has one of the
2
Further west, rainfall is even higher, but I single out Mount Hagen because it is
closest to the Kuk site to be discussed below.
lowest ratings, 3.0, which suggests virtually no seasonality in rain

fall. A further, more refined test used by Brookfield ( 1962), which
he terms the 'coefficient of seasonal variation', was also applied to
the data. Hengonofi (0.66), Korofeigu (0.61), Asaro (0.53) and
Kainantu (0.4 7), all locales in the eastern highlands, had some of the
highest scores, indicating greatest seasonality. Mount Hagen in the
western highlands had one of the lowest (0.27).
In another context, Brookfield remarks that 'At Korofeigu in the
Asaro Valley . . . seasqnal drought is a regular occurrence. Rainfall
records for nearby stations show an average of over four months in
each year with less than two inches of rain . . . There are seasonal
food shortages, and the Korofeigu people need to trade for supplies'
( 1 964:24). Korofeigu has the most marked seasonal droughts,
necessitating 'the adoption of unusually frequent tillage in order to
prevent the formation of a hard crust on the surface' (Brookfield
1962:250), and to prevent competition for moisture from weeds.
Korofeigu and Asaro peoples engage in complete tillage for moist
ure retention, the result of low rainfall, greater seasonality and eva
poration. Mount Hagen provides a significant contrast. There, soil
preparation is marked by 'garden ditching' which lowers the water
table (as well as increasing soil depth). These data thus suggest that
the eastern highlands and western highlands form environmental
subregions, the former potentially subject to a variety of limiting
conditions.
Robbins ( 1 963), in a widely cited study, argued that vegetation
patterns in the eastern highlands, especially the preponderance
today of 'short grasses', suggests an earlier and more prolonged
agricultural occupation there than in the western highlands where
such grasses diminish or disappear altogether (see the pictures in
Robbins 1 963:53, 57). This vegetational profile, he argues, is linked
to (among other things) various east to west trends, including the
entry of peoples into the highlands through the Markham Valley
and the dispersal of peoples westward. A number of writers (e.g.
Brookfield 1 964:32-4; S. and R. Bulmer 1964; Brookfield with
Hart 1 9 7 1 :52-3 ; and White 1 982) have suggested that a more com
plex interpretation is needed for eastern highlands grasslands,
including the climatic variations mentioned above which distinguish
the eastern from the western highlands. It now seems that the grass
land areas are better explained by their poorer soils, less rainfall,
greater seasonality, cloud cover, fire pressure and so on, than merely
by former prolonged agricultural use. In other words, once ex
ploited, these areas have failed to regenerate the forest cover that
reappears in the western highlands under more favourable ecologi

cal conditions. It may be, too, that these areas of grassland have
been abandoned because of the presence of malaria and warfare and
have not been reoccupied (Brookfield 1 964).
The significance of this set of 'ecological data' should be made ex
plicit. While all highlanders today regard the sweet potato (Ipomoea
batatas) as their staple crop, its recent entry into the area (to be dis
cussed below) can hardly illuminate the elaborate prehistory of agri
culture interpreted from the evidence at a site like Kuk in the western
highlands. There, as we know, intensive cultivation may be more
than 6000 years old (Golson 1977a). It has been hypothesised that
taro was the major root crop there at that time, the elaborate ditch
ing and drainage systems testimony to wet cultivation. The climatic
and ecological data from the Mount Hagen area, mentioned above,
suggests that taro would thrive in these wetter conditions. The
swamps at Kuk (and surrounding areas) have no parallel in the east
ern highlands, and it seems clear that the elaboration of cultivation
procedures at Kuk are a response to the requirements of taro; for
example, raising the ground and reducing the water in the soil, for
greater yields of taro under wet conditions.
While the environmental conditions in the western highlands, as
evidenced by Kuk, are admirably suited for taro cultivation, in the
eastern highlands the conditions are adverse and I would speculate
that taro cultivation was much less successful there prior to the
sweet potato owing to the drier, evaporating conditions marked by
greater seasonality of rainfall. Taro has radically different ecologi
cal requirements from the sweet potato for instance (Brookfield
1 964:21), and the eastern highlands were not well endowed for the
intensive cultivation of taro. It is perhaps the case that Pueraria
/obata (Watson 1 964b, 1 968 ; Bowers 1964; A. M. Strathern 1 969),
a very old, if not ancient root crop, was more important than taro in
the prehistoric development of agriculture in the eastern highlands.
It is a slow-growing tuber, favouring the prevalent dry conditions
like the much more recent sweet potato. In fact, Pueraria lobata
and Ipomoea batatas are regarded as functional equivalents in
some eastern highlands societies today (Watson 1964b), the latter
taking over from the former in importance because of its superior
growing characteristics, but having similar soil and climatic
requirements.
The argument which suggests itself, and can be supported
respectably by the archaeological data to be presented below, is that
Plate 1 . Looking west across the Kuk swamp near Mount Hagen,
western highlands, scene of the earliest agricultural intensifi
cation and related pig production in the highlands (Photo by
James Rhoads)
the history of agriculture is shallow in the eastern highlands when

compared to the western highlands, or at least, intensive cultivation
of the sort interpreted for Kuk has no parallel in the eastern high
lands. J. Watson ( 1964a, 1 965a, 1 965b, 1 967) has, of course,
argued that the central highlands might have been occupied by hun
ters and gatherers prior to the introduction of the sweet potato. This
position clearly lacks support. However, if we eschew the unified
notion of a common pattern in the central highlands, we might re
serve the hypothesis by saying that the eastern highlands lacked,
before the sweet potato, a very long history, or any history at all, of
intensive cultivation. The environmental conditions did not favour
taro, and agriculture might well have been supplementary to hunt
ing and collecting, and based on Pueraria lobata. On the other hand,
the western highlands, as underscored by the Kuk site, might be
viewed as the most highly favoured location for the development of
intensive agriculture, based on taro, with climatic and other con
ditions highly favourable for the intensification of production as
witnessed at Kuk. The Kuk site suggests dynamic change, movement
and innovation through time. The environmental conditions were
optimal and we might regard Kuk as a sort of 'birthplace' of high
lands agriculture and the efflorescence of social and cultural prac
tices associated with an intensified agricultural regime. 3 It has
recently been suggested, for example (Golson 1 982), that social stra
tification might be interpreted from the Kuk data, a situation arising
in part from favourable but highly localised agricultural conditions.
The eastern highlands remained an agricultural 'backwater' until
very much later, perhaps even until the changes which the arrival of
the sweet potato made possible. A mixed horticultural and hunting
subsistence was practised there, with little of the dynamism and
innovation apparent in the western highlands at Kuk. These differ
ing production configurations are reflected in a variety of social and
cultural institutions extant in these areas today. I turn now, how-
3
I may be making too much of Kuk as a site, rather than treating the western high
lands areally as the birthplace of agriculture in the highlands. It might then be the
case that areas of lower intensity surrounded this point of focus. I may also be
downplaying the archaeological diversity evident in western highlands sites them
selves and overgeneralising from Kuk to the rest of the western highlands. How
ever, the Wanlek site (S. Bulmer 1977) and Manim Valley sites (Christensen 1975)
in the western highlands also suggest a past divergent from what is known in the
eastern highlands, and could well have been within the ambit of Kuk's influence.
In other words, I suggest that conditions at Kuk were optimal and there were re
verberations through the western highlands.
ever, to examine some aspects o f the archaeological record for the

two highlands regions.
Archaeological contrasts
There have been, as already mentioned, very few sites excavated
in the Papua New Guinea highlands. Interpretations are speculative
therefore, but like the broad ecological contrasts highlighted above,
the archaeological remains of eastern and western highlands sites
show similar marked .contrasts. V. Watson and Cole ( 1 977) have
analysed some seventy-six sites in the Kainantu area of the eastern
highlands. The cave sites excavated by White (Aibura and Batari
[White 1972)) are also located within the study area of Watson and
Cole, while a third cave site (Kafiavana [White 1 972) ) is located
west of Kainantu. Swadling ( 1973) has archaeologically surveyed
the Arona Valley, east of Kainantu.
Swadling's report ( 1 973) presents a perplexing problem. All sites
on the Arona Valley floor are recent, historic not prehistoric, dated
within the past 200 years. Despite favourable conditions for exca
vating the valley subsurface, she could find no evidence of former
human occupation there. The valley area itself is highly fertile and
'might have been favoured for living sites in former times' (Swadling
1973:2). Yet no remains of occupation were found. She asks the in
triguing question: 'Why should there be so little field evidence in this
area when man has probably been in the eastern highlands for more
than 10,000 years' (Swadling 1973 :4). She furthermore notes that
the Arona Valley lacks caves and rock shelters of the sort of Aibura,
Batari and Kafiavana which might have been favoured living sites of
the earliest eastern highlands communities. Pebble tools and wais
ted blades, linked to early settlements in the western highlands, were
not found in the Arona Valley (nor for that matter have they been
found in the Wanton, Aiyura and Kainantu Valleys, at the sites of
Aibura, Batari and Kafiavana U. Allen 1 972: 1 84)). The Arona
Valley in Swadling's estimation does not offer conditions suitable
for taro cultivation and she suggests that Pueraria lobata may have
been cultivated in the fringe zones of the valley. She also concludes
that it is unlikely that erosion could have destroyed evidence of
earlier sites ( 1973 :67; see White 1982: 1 86). The picture we have of
this area then, is of a fertile valley in the eastern highlands which
shows no prehistoric occupation; only within the last 200 years have
settlements occurred. Swadling concludes that 'it would seem that
0 0
Long Island �
- - - Provincial boundaries
Kuk • Sites of investigation
Land over 1200 metres
80 miles
! I
i I 1 I 11I
0 1 00 kilometres
Map 1 . Some archaeological sites and locales in the highlands (after Golson 1 982)
the introduction of the sweet potato would have allowed inhabitants

to gain increased food yields from the valley' ( 1 973 :67). The
recency of agriculture in this area remains a tantalising possibility.
V. Watson and Cole ( 1 977) distinguish two phases in the eastern
highlands sites they have excavated. The earliest is known as the
'Mamu phase'. This phase spans a period of time from at least
1 8 ,050 ± 750 B.P. to 3070 ± 95 B.P. (V. Watson and Cole
1 977: 1 3 1 ) . The artifacts from Mamu sites are largely stone tools of
various sorts and, in the later part of this phase, there are changes in
the frequency of types of chipped stone tools. These are interpreted
as signalling a change in the 'adaptive system during the period'
( 1 977: 1 32). The interpretation of the Mamu phase is that the sub
sistence system was 'one of hunting and collecting. The relative im
portance of either activity at any point in time in the phase is
unknown' ( 1 977: 132). The Mamu phase is succeeded by the 'Ten
tika phase', the earliest date of which is 290 ± 90 B.P. (V. Watson
and Cole 1 977: 1 34). The Temika phase is marked by numerous cul
tural innovations, and increasingly complex stone tool assemblages.
The cultural innovations include: adzes, whetstones, rectangular
hearths, circular structures with substantial posts, earth ovens, pot
tery, pig enclosures, monoliths and probably earthworks (V.
Watson and Cole 1 977: 133). Tentika sites are located in open grass
lands and the cultural features suggest a 'degree of sedentism'. The
authors conclude that despite the fact that no 'indisputably horticul
tural artifacts' were recovered from Temika sites, 'an inference of a
horticultural base for the sedentism would not be inconsistent with
what is known of the adaptive system in the area in the late prehis
toric and historic periods' (V. Watson and Cole 1 977: 134). They
furthermore suggest a mixed horticultural and hunting-collecting
subsistence regime for the Tentika phase. The interpretation thus
offered is for a relatively late appearance of horticulture in these
parts of the eastern highlands.
The cave sites of Batari, Aibura and Kafiavana (White 1 972)
could be interpreted to give further support for the recency of horti
culture in the eastern highlands, but there are, admittedly, some dif
ficulties. Foremost, of course, is that cave sites differ from open
sites, and while hunter-collectors may live in rock shelters and
caves, horticulturalists may not (White 1972 : 145). Remains of wild
animals predominate at all three cave sites and, on this basis, V.
Watson and Cole ( 1 977: 143) suggest hunting as the subsistence
strategy, which accords with their Mamu phase. There are pig
remains only in the late (Tentika) phase in the sites analysed by

Watson and Cole and pig remains increase dramatically at the cave
sites in more recent times (White 1972). This increase in pig bones
may reflect the change from feral pig hunting to domestic pig keep
ing - again, a relatively late occurrence. The Aibura site also docu
ments the increasing emphasis on 'small rodents' at the expense of
'phalangerids', the former being grassland inhabitants, the latter
forest dwellers. This may reflect a change in the proportion of sur
rounding grassland to forest (see White 1982 : 1 86). However, this
change too is relatively late, perhaps a process begun in the last 900
years or so (White 1972: 148).
When comparing tool assemblages of the three cave sites and
those from the sites analysed by V. Watson and Cole, further inter
pretative problems arise. Functional comparisons, as well as
material ones, make resolution difficult. For example, Watson and
Cole ( 1977: 147) suggest that 'adzes' occur only in the Tentika phase
and there is nothing 'which could be construed as an abraided tool
let alone one which may have been used as an adze or ax' in the
Mamu (hunting-collecting) phase. White writes, in contrast, that
'ax-adzes' may have occurred at Batari and Aibura much earlier
(about 3000 years ago) and 'at least 1 1,000 years ago' at Kafiavana
(White 1 972: 142). Definitions plague classification, not only in this
category, but also in the so-called 'pebble tool' and 'unifacially
chipped stone tool' categories as well. Even if classification is clear
cut, the interpretations placed on their use regarding the inception
of horticulture and the relative decline of hunting and collecting
would still be troublesome.
V. Watson and Cole attempt to bring their material and that of
White into comparative perspective by suggesting that both sets of
data demonstrate evidence of late culture change in the eastern high
lands. In both their analysis and that of White, there is strong sup
port for 'augmented cultural inventories' in relatively recent times
(V. Watson and Cole 1 977 : 1 5 1 ) . This augmentation includes, from
their material, the pottery, adzes, earth ovens, monoliths and so on
mentioned earlier, which make up the Tentika phase (290 ± 90
B.P.), and the appearance and increase of pottery, axe-adzes, shells,
evidence of trade, the increasing proportion of unifacially chipped
stone tools, and most importantly, increasing pig remains in the arti
facts of the cave sites excavated by White. It seems inescapable that
there was heightened 'cultural complexity' in this late prehistoric
period.
Without so stating, V. Watson and Cole relate this heightened

cultural complexity to sedentism and the emergence of intensified
horticulture based on the sweet potato. White would not concur.
However, the point that needs to be made is that a very plausible in
terpretation based on the archaeological record is that the rise and
intensification of agricultural production did not occur until late,
perhaps very late, in the eastern highlands, regardless of the timing
of the arrival of the sweet potato. I will suggest that this fact is reflec
ted widely in contemporary ethnographic contexts. The contrast of
this material with that of the western highlands evidence at Kuk, to
be mentioned next, could hardly be more striking. There is also fur
ther indirect evidence which lends support to this contention. White
all but endorses this view. The transition from hunting and collect
ing to horticulture may be slow and gradual, or swift, and these
'changes probably occurred in different ways and at different times
throughout the Highlands' (White 1 972: 148). From what we know
archaeologically, this process of transition seems to have taken
place comparatively late in the eastern highlands.
At Kuk, on the other hand, the transition is ancient. Kuk, in the
western highlands near Mount Hagen, is justifiably the most
famous site of archaeological investigation in all of Papua New
Guinea. Golson, in a number of publications (e.g. 1 977a, 1 9 8 1 ,
1982 among others), has documented the phases of horticultural de
velopment at Kuk. Kuk is a 'special' site , covering at least 140 hec
tares (350 acres) of swampland. This fact alone makes it
incomparable to any eastern highlands site. In early interpretations
of Kuk, the swamplands themselves were not viewed as especially
significant in their own right, but, for various reasons, they were
considered as 'supplemental' to dry-land cultivation in areas sur
rounding the swamp, argued to date back 9000 years (Golson
1982 : 1 1 9, 124). Some reinterpretations of the centrality and singu
lar importance of the swamp itself have recently been made and will
be mentioned below. The swamp itself is crucial for issues of intensi
fication and the scale of agricultural production prior to the arrival
of the sweet potato.
Golson (1 982) has surveyed the six phases of Kuk swamp use and
some of his general conclusions can be mentioned briefly. Firstly,
the phases show an increasingly complex development of drainage
systems over time. The drainage belts become both longer and more
extensive, covering up to 200 hectares in phase five (400-250 years
B.P.). After phase five (that is, in phase six, 250-100 years B.P.) the
amount of land subject to drainage decreases. Secondly, a major

change occurs between phases three and four (2500-2000 years
B.P.). Garden ditches appear, articulated with larger drains, and
these have been interpreted as being associated with the intensive
cultivation of a single crop, most likely taro, at least initially. The
phases of swamp management at Kuk are apparently evident in
other swamps of the area and it is clear that changes in the character
of swampland management at Kuk are related, in some degree, to
the impact of shifting cultivation on the surrounding slopes.4
The importance of the swamps themselves have been at issue in
reinterpretations of the Kuk material, first by Modjeska ( 1 977) and
followed up with agreement by Golson ( 1982). It has been noted
that the favourable ecological requirements of taro cultivation are
moist, wet conditions. These are notably lacking throughout the
eastern highlands but, at Kuk, they are more than amply met, and
the elaborate drainage management suggests skilful manipulation to
achieve optimum results of production. The current interpretation is
that Kuk may well have been a centre of 'high productivity based on
the intensive cultivation of taro and surrounded by systems of much
lower productivity and complexity' (Golson 1 982: 124). This high
productivity is linked to the changing character of swamp manage
ment between phases three and four beginning about 2500 B.P. Pig
bones and artifacts of other kinds are not greatly in evidence at Kuk,
perhaps further proof of its specialised agricultural objectives. The
higher productivity of taro under 'wet conditions' has been demon
strated by Pospisil for the Kapauku ( 1963 :444). Under such con
ditions, an average of 12.8 tonnes per hectare of taro were
produced. By contrast, under dry conditions in the Mount Hagen
area, Clarke ( 1 977) reports taro yields of between 4.4 and 5.3
tonnes per hectare on 'good' soil. If, as believed, taro was the major
subsistence crop prior to the sweet potato in the Highlands, the Kuk
area was surely the locus of its elaborate and increasingly intensive
production. All conditions were favourable; large, compact and
populous communities could have been supported, and we find it
was likely to have been here rather than elsewhere that 'the genesis
of the rich and buoyant cultures of the Highlands where resources
far beyond the level of subsistence were mobilized for large-scale
4
Golson (1982:121) mentions that other swamps in the western and southern
highlands give evidence of similar phases as Kuk, for example at the Manton,
Mugugamp and Mogorofugwa sites. However, the phases recognised here appear
not to be as old as Kuk phases, which again supports the point made in note 3.
political and ritual enterprises involving pigs and other valuables'

(Golson 198 1 :62). There is no evidence, past or present, to suggest
that similar developments were taking place in the eastern highlands
or elsewhere. The intensity of production was long established in the
western highlands before the sweet potato and it is that fact which is
manifest in the large-scale production-dependent exchange insti
tutions which mark the region today, but again have no parallel in
the east (Feil 1 9 84a; A. J. Strathern 1 971a).
It was not simply that intensified taro production at Kuk enabled
a substantial, compact population to be supported. The increased
yields of wet taro cultivation also supported comparatively larger
pig herds and perhaps led to inequalities based on access to and con
trol of these high productivity centres (Golson 1982: 130; see also
Feil 1 982). Furthermore, as noted above, there is a marked change
in the character of Kuk swamp management between phases three
and four. Golson, following an argument of Morren ( 1 977), sug
gests that, at this time, the surrounding environment may have been
subject to 'fauna! impoverishment' due to the agricultural encroach
ment of the forests (Golson 1982: 129). A chain reaction resulted
which was irreversible: feral pigs lost their foraging areas of wild
foods; humans increasingly lost their hunting habitats and became
more reliant on domestic sources of protein; taro production
became more intensive as evidenced at Kuk in phases three and four,
to take up the slack of degraded environments on dry land, marked
increasingly by grassland; pigs became domesticated, more depen
dent on agricultural production and human care; and the Kuk
swamps were monocropped with taro to maximise production.
This general argument, nicely illustrated by Morren ( 1 977) with
a range of contemporary examples from Papua New Guinea,
amounts to the fact that pigs and people at Kuk became highly de
pendent on each other at a very early date. What may be the early
appearance of pig wallows at Kuk may hint at this relationship.5
Pigs were being managed, they consumed increasingly greater
amounts of garden produce which in turn stimulated production.
The labour needed for their subsistence and management became
more onerous and time-consuming, and pigs therefore became
highly valuable, I would argue the first valuable in the highlands.
Pigs were expensive and relatively scarce items, capable in turn of
both attracting other scarce items in exchange, and also serving as
5
The interpretation of pig wallows is disputed, however, and Golson himself is ap-
parently less convinced than formerly.
the appropriate basis for the political and ritual exchange enter
prises and the power and influence derived from them by individuals
and groups noted briefly above (see also J. Watson 1977). The Ten
tika phase in the eastern highlands shows evidence of the efflor
escence of culture there; a similar efflorescence had occurred
perhaps 2000 years earlier in the western highlands under special
ised, highly favourable, but purely localised conditions.
The sweet potato
Charred fragments of sweet potato have been dated at Kuk at

about 250 years ago (Golson 1977a). Phase six (250-100 years
B.P.), distinctly evident from the appearance of Tibito ash (air
borne to the highlands from an eruption on Long Island near
Madang, about 250 years ago; see Golson 1982: 130), documents
the final phase of swamp usage at Kuk. Golson ( 1 9 8 2 : 1 32)
describes the techniques employed during this phase to lower the
water table, thereby reducing moisture and allowing better con
ditions for the requirements of sweet potato cultivation. At this
time, the ditches also begin to look like the chequer-boards of
present-day Wahgi Valley gardens and, importantly, the value of a
swampland site - no longer advantageous or needed with the emerg
ence of sweet potato - decreases: the size of the site under drainage
is reduced by two-thirds. Houses appear in the swamp for the first
time, houses of the sort found in the Mount Hagen area today. A site
of specialised high intensity monocropping has rather taken on the
appearance of a homestead. In some parts of the western highlands,
myths and stories recount how, after the fall of Tibito ash, a new
breed of people emerged, population increased, gardens prospered
and crops grew more vigorously. These myths support the dating of
ash and sweet potato remains and dramatically document the effects
of the arrival of the sweet potato (Blong 1 982).
Cultivation of the Kuk swamp was subsequently abandoned to
surrounding higher ground; in fact, with the advent of the sweet
potato, advantages accrued to formerly disadvantaged communities
on the valley slopes. Indeed, it is on the slopes of Mount Hagen, and
on the Mount Hagen volcanic plateau, that the largest and most
powerful tribal groups are to be found today (Golson 1982: 135,
citing A. J. Strathern 1 97la: l 5 ) . The incidence of malaria (Gorecki
1 979) may have further spurred the abandonment of the swamps.
The ability to produce higher yields of tubers away from favoured
areas like Kuk and importantly to support growing pig populations

with the sweet potato, may have had far-reaching political impli
cations in a situation formerly marked by restricted access to favour
able swampland areas. This issue has been dealt with by Golson
(1982:133) and will be mentioned later, but need not concern us here.
The important point about the arrival of the sweet potato at Kuk,
especially, is that it heightened and extended a pattern that was well
and truly developed before this. Intensive taro production and the
interdependence of pigs and people were well-established facts long
before the sweet potato made its appearance. But, because of the less
specialised conditions necessary for sweet potato cultivation, the
well-established relationship between pigs, people and intensifying
production became more possible, generalised and successful in a
greater range of habitats. In this sense, at Kuk, the arrival of the
sweet potato had both revolutionary and evolutionary implications
(cf. Brookfield and White 1 968). The sweet potato was a superior
food for both people and pigs because it was prolific and it had the
ability to be cultivated over a range of soils and altitudes hitherto
less productive, or altogether unproductive with taro as staple. That
was its revolutionary impact. It also heightened and extended a
prior pattern, long established but only gradually expanding and
perhaps reaching its productive apogee at Kuk. That was the evol
utionary contribution of the arrival of the sweet potato. Agricul
tural production overall became more egalitarian, less restricted to
favoured sites and the groups and individuals in control of them.
Concomitant pig production and subsequently related, elaborated
exchange would have resolved the imminent contradiction of
increasing production opportunities and success on the one hand,
and the question of what to do with the greatly increased number of
surplus products, pigs, on the other.
The evidence at Kuk of long, agricultural evolution, of increasing
interdependence of pigs and people, and perhaps even of the taking
of the arrival of the sweet potato in stride, would, on first reflection,
appear 'fatal' (Golson 1 976:206) to the radical propositions of the
'ipomoean revolution' propounded by J. Watson in a number of
publications ( 1965a, 1 965b, 1 967, 1 977, 1983). The details of his
position will be considered shortly, but the hypothesis suggested
here, as above, is that the long history and stabilised development of
agriculture at Kuk may have been a highly localised, autochthonous
response to favoured conditions, conditions which did not obtain
elsewhere, and a response which had only minimal repercussions on
the highlands further east. Additionally, this intensified agricultural

regime may or may not have been accompanied by high population
densities (Waddell 1972 : 2 1 9 ; Brookfield with Hart 1 971 : 120), a
point of some contention in the Watson argument. The relationship
between population density and intensification of production is not
well established. The arrival of the sweet potato may have 'de
intensified' agriculture in the western highlands at first, with 're
intensification' a gradual result later. In the eastern highlands,
without the prior agricultural foundations apparent at Kuk, the situ
ation might have been quite different. These issues are taken up in
the following chapter.
With the traditions of agriculture such as they were at Kuk, the
advantages of the sweet potato would have been immediately
apparent. As already mentioned, sweet potato is a superior food for
pigs and people. 6 Golson ( 1977a:606-9) has noted the 'limiting
conditions' of highland agriculture before the introduction of the
sweet potato. Not only taro, but other crops as well, were limited by
altitude, climate, fallow periods, soils, low yields, and other factors.
Kuk was surely less limited than elsewhere. Sweet potato, however,
lifted the 'ceiling' imposed by earlier agricultural systems. Advances
in agricultural technology provided by the sweet potato may have
been necessary to curb increasingly severe 'ecological changes'
brought on by, among other things, the shortening of fallow periods
and intensifying use of land through increased population. The ar
chaeological phases at Kuk appear to bear this out. The sweet
potato was taken up quickly at Kuk and surrounding areas and
what had been until then a gradual development of pig production
and exchange was rapidly elaborated.7 Pig production merely for
6
Yields of sweet potato per acre greatly exceed that of taro and other crops. Salis-
bury (in Yen 1974) recorded 4.2 tons per acre for sweet potato but only 0.4 tons
per acre for taro or yams in Siane. Sorenson (1 976) found that sweet potato yields
in the Fore were 'much greater than for all other crops', from 10 tons per acre up
to a high of 20 tons per acre. Similarly improved yields of sweet· potato have been
noted all across the highlands.
7
Bowers (cited in J. Watson 1965b:440) suggests that among the Kakoli of the
Kaugel Valley, western highlands, the sweet potato arrived about 200 years ago.
The Kaimbi people of the Nebilyer Valley, western highlands, place the arrival of
the sweet potato 'at the time of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1 883' (Nelson
1971 :208). J. Watson ( 1 965b:440) notes that in the southern highlands taro was
still important well into the 1960s. Clearly, there is great variation in dates, and
difficulty in estimating the time of arrival of the sweet potato. My point remains
that, at a place like Kuk, its significance would have been immediately appreciated
and incorporated into the already established and developing regime of pig pro
duction and exchange. Elsewhere, without these preconditions, such quick adop
tion would not have occurred.
use (or slightly more than that) was transformed to widespread

surplus pig production for exchange. Exchange values at this
momentous stage took precedence, firmly and completely, over the
use value of pigs. This too was a revolutionary step to the earlier pat
tern of production. More pigs could be produced and would survive
than ever before, sweet potatoes providing the fodder for a sort of
storage on the hoof (Vayda et al. 1961). Pigs became a more fre
quent and secure source of protein and, beyond this, they became
more valuable as objects of exchange. Most western highlanders
today view them in precisely this way: nice to eat, better and more
valuable to exchange. At this point of increased production, social
credit was established by sending pigs outwards along lengthy and
expanding exchange chains. Exchange equally became a relieving
solution from onerous pig care. It was in the western highlands, not
elsewhere, that the 'Jones Effect' (J. Watson 1 977) first and most sig
nificantly pertained: increasing production and pig exchanges in a
widening social field. Pigs became the 'essential coin' for prolifer
ating transactions of all kinds and in which politics and competition
increased.
In the eastern highlands, with little or no history of intensified
agriculture as a base, the coming of the sweet potato was unlikely to
have been so quickly appreciated. J. Watson ( 1 965a) has postulated
an historical sequence, which was first proclaimed as highlands
wide in application. The Kuk material denies this, but J. Watson's
sequence may well accurately portray the historical past of the east
ern highlands. Based on predominantly synchronic evidence, J.
Watson suggests that nonsedentary 'patrilocal bands' existed in the
eastern highlands prior to sedentism based on sweet potato culti
vation. Complex sociological developments followed and were pre
dicated on this fact. Sweet potato radically altered the pattern of life
there: population expanded and increased dramatically, and larger
pig herds were possible. The cultural configurations found in the
eastern highlands today are consequently less than three centuries
old. We need not agree with all of the details J. Watson gives, but
archaeologically it appears that the pattern of mixed hunting, col
lecting and nascent agriculture occurred until very late in the eastern
highlands when compared with the standards set at Kuk. A dra
matic increase in pig remains also seems late in the archaeological
record of the eastern highlands.
It has been argued that the sweet potato may have entered the
highlands in the east and spread westward from the Markham
Valley (O'Brien 1 972:360-1 ) . There may well have been many

entry points, but both J. Watson ( 1967: 8 8 ) and Sorenson
( 1 972 : 3 6 1 ) state that peoples to the west of Kainantu had the sweet
potato and apparently the commitment to pig exchanges before the
eastern highlanders did. ]. Watson (1983 :336) has more recently
described the Tairora as 'far removed in time or space from the first
areas of ipomoean innovation'. The effects of the ' ipomoean revol
ution' radiated outward from 'core areas'. While at Kuk the evi
dence of the sweet potato is about 250 years old, it appears to have
been adopted more gradually and significantly later in the eastern
highlands. Sorenson ( 1972) believes its introduction among the Fore
groups was as late as about 100 years ago; Wagner (cited in ].
Watson 1 965a) suggests 60 years ago for the Daribi, and in some
other eastern highlands societies sweet potato was taken up 'only
within living memory' (Sorenson 1 976:79). Sweet potato as a staple
was the 'economic foundation' of a 'proto-agricultural' movement
in parts of the eastern highlands (Sorenson and Kenmore 1 974:71-
2). In other parts of the eastern highlands today, 'the sweet potato
has not yet replaced yams and taro as the major staple food' (Boyd
1 985a: 122; see also Newman on Awa cited in J. Watson
1 965b:440).
Thus, before the arrival of the sweet potato, eastern highlands
societies lacked a very long (or any) history of intensive cultivation.
The population was probably small, scattered, not dense, and the
sweet potato, as its late adoption suggests, was not seen as a way of
resolving the limitations of an earlier agricultural system. Intensive
production of sweet potato did not immediately occur as it might
have done at a place like Kuk, steeped in horticultural tradition and
technique. The value of the sweet potato as fodder was only later ac
knowledged and pig production did not, therefore, exceed produc
tion for use, to any significant extent. Production was, for a very
long time, domestic-oriented, constrammg, inward-looking,
narrow, and with limited objectives (Sahlins 1972) . At a much
earlier date, such a production regime had been comprehensively
surpassed in the western highlands. A different division of labour
marked the eastern highlands: greater hunting and foraging, mainly
seasonal, intermittent or supplemental agriculture, a different
balance of subsistence producing activities and time allocated to
them, a role for women less tied to purely agricultural and pig as
sociated activities. The western highlands on the other hand had
earlier capitalised on the arrival o f the sweet potato to accentuate a

well-established pattern: pig production and linked exchange on an
intensified agricultural base. It is upon this very different history and
development of agriculture, rate of change and transformation, and
division of labour it predicates, which is, I believe, documented
archaeologically, that a synchronic comparison of highland
societies should be mounted.
Some further points
The very different prehistories of the western and eastern high

lands, agricultural and otherwise, are perhaps reflected by other
data whose interpretations are, however, less widely agreed upon.
These can be briefly mentioned.
( 1 ) The use of Casuarina for planting on fallow land is neither
widespread nor apparently very old in the eastern highlands areas
mentioned by J. Watson ( 1 967). He suggests that, in the Kainantu
area, Casuarina was introduced 'within memory', that is, about 1 00
years or so ago. Evidence from other, nearby areas also confirms its
recency. J. Watson furthermore makes the point that people tend to
think of their past as changeless and permanent, so that this 'remem
bered' introduction of the Casuarina 'cannot be dismissed as simply
typical of their world view' (]. Watson 1 967:84). At Kuk, the evi
dence, admittedly based on perhaps more reliable pollen diagrams,
shows a marked rise in Casuarina 'values' in phase four, 2000-1200
years B.P., at precisely the period of time of more intensive drainage
management and then the eventual abandonment of swamp culti
vation, perhaps due in part to the role of Casuarina as a recognised
soil improver and its importance as a regenerator of exhausted
garden lands. Thus, the usefulness of Casuarina may well have been
recognised very early at Kuk (see Golson 1977a:625-6; 1982: 122).
Almost everywhere in the highlands, the occurrence of Casuarina is
today linked with intensive agriculture. It could be inferred that this
stage was not reached until recently in the eastern highlands. Cas
uarina is also used for fencing in the western highlands, for gardens
and above all to keep pigs out. It is a hardwood recognised for its
lasting properties. Casuarina may thus also be linked with the need
to protect gardens from larger concentrations of pigs in the western
highlands at a much earlier time than in the eastern highlands. Cas
uarina pollen 'values' increase at Kuk as pig production expands
and fencing is needed to thwart the depredations of numerous,

hungry, domesticated pigs. In the eastern highlands such concentra
tions of pigs are not in evidence, nor is Casuarina very old.
(2) J. Watson ( 1967) has argued that 'complete tillage' noted by
Brookfield ( 1962) as a key feature of the agricultural regimes of the
highl�nds occurs only with sweet potato in the Kainantu region, but
may be absent as a technique even where the sweet potato is an im
portant food source for humans. Complete tillage in the eastern
highlands shows a lack of development, perhaps due, he reasons, to
its recency as a cultivation technique.
(3) J. Watson ( 1 967) has pointed out that the lore, ritual and
other contexts surrounding taro (and to a lesser extent yams,
bananas, and sugarcane) in the Kainantu area strikingly exceed
those of the sweet potato. These crops (and also Pueraria lobata) all
belong to the 'male sphere', while sweet potato belongs to the
'female sphere'. These other crops figure as a focus of beliefs and
practices beyond their use as food; sweet potato rarely does. These
features suggest the greater age of this quartet of crops in contrast to
the more recent occurrence of the sweet potato. If men were the prin
cipal cultivators of these four crops in the past, J. Watson asks 'how
large a part could these crops have played in the total food supply'
( 1 967:92). The suggestion is that cultivation pursuits would have
needed to be balanced against other male activities (hunting,
defence, ritual, trade, and so on), the result being only a supplemen
tal role for agriculture in total subsistence. J. Watson further sug
gests that women's labour was unlikely to have been significantly
devoted to agricultural production, but perhaps was rather directed
to collecting and foraging, and planting other non-male crops such
as winged beans. These points may reflect aspects of the division of
labour prior to the introduction of the sweet potato.
In the western highlands, for example in Melpa and Enga
societies, taro is today considered a 'female', not a 'male' crop. A.
M. Strathern ( 1 972: 2 1 ) points out that Colocasia esculenta is plan
ted by women, the more recently introduced taro, Xanthosoma, by
men. Waddell (1972 : 5 1 ) also places taro in the female sphere for the
Laiapo (Raiapu) Enga, a point supported by my own data for Tom
bema Enga (Feil 1 984b). If J. Watson's overall interpretation is valid
concerning the meaning of 'male' versus 'female' crops, it may well
be that taro in the western highlands, a 'female' crop, figured much
more prominently in subsistence prior to the sweet potato than it did
in the eastern highlands. The division of labour was such that
women were in charge of the cultivation of taro, and at an early

stage men were becoming more involved in the elaborate exchange
of pigs which intensified taro production made possible. Taro was a
'female' crop just as sweet potato is today, the foundation of subsist
ence. In the eastern highlands, taro was a 'male' crop, which might
suggest its supplementary contribution to overall subsistence,
including a lessened relationship to pig production and exchange.
(4) The occurrence of mortars, pestles and other figurines
appears to be more concentrated in the western highlands than in
the eastern highlands (S. and R. Bulmer 1964:71). lt is possible that
this complex of objects 'reflects a cultural tradition which either was
not adopted in all parts of the highlands, or was maintained for a
longer period, or by a larger number of people, in some parts [more]
than others'. These objects were probably of local manufacture, but
seem to have been highly concentrated in their distribution. S. and
R. Bulmer ( 1964) argue that these artifacts belong to the period of
highlands prehistory when taro predominated, that is, prior to the
sweet potato. White (1982: 192) notes that many of these objects
have been found in gardens and that informants often link them to
garden magic, which is a part of their ritual use today. Others (S.
and R. Bulmer 1 964: 70) suggest their pre-ipomoean use in grinding
edible seeds and nuts. Whatever their use, in subsistence or ritual, it
might be argued that their distribution and highly localised concen
tration in the western highlands reflects their early association with
agriculture, and their lack of spread to the eastern highlands with its
absence there.
(5) The size and geographical spread of language groups in the
western highlands, for example the Melpa and Enga language
. groups, are unmatched in the eastern highlands. The size of these
language groups will be mentioned in the following chapter. Evi
dence suggests that these larger western highlands groups have 'dis
persed and diversified more recently than the eastern highlands
groups' (S. and R. Bulmer 1 964:42), and that some western high
lands groups, for example, the Enga, Melpa and Kyaka, have under
gone 'recent areal expansion' (see Brookfield and White 1 968 :47).
The dating of such recent expansion is unknown, but this piece of in
formation fits nicely with the hypothesis of the 'Jones Effect' already
alluded to. With expanded pig production taken up, new areas were
colonised and increasingly brought into the sphere of exchange with
surplus products, pigs. In the area of my own research, northeastern
Enga, the people say they have quite recently emigrated from areas
to the south. They colonised an area which was only lightly popu
lated and sparsely settled previously, by means of proliferating
exchange ties. There are places still further north, towards the Sepik
River, where people can still recall the arrival of pigs (in greater
numbers) and sweet potato together, only a generation or two ago,
when they were brought into the exchange sphere through marriage
alliances. The exchange cycle in Enga is known as tee (Feil 1 9 84b). It
is a linear cycle, with incremental expansion taking place at the
ends, as people in those areas seek partners further afield for the
investment of pigs, the returns of which become part of the newly
expanded system. The tee system is lengthening even today, but only
slightly, for in its present configuration, it travels, Enga say, 'until
there are no longer people, only uninhabited bush'.
The point is that language groups and their expansion into
sparsely populated areas, and often at other people's expense, are re
lated to the same agricultural and pig producing activities which I
have postulated happened early in the western highlands, and only
more recently in the eastern highlands. There, language groups
remained small, more differentiated and the dynamics of their inter
action is of an altogether different sort. Language groups are largest
where one would expect them: in areas where agricultural intensifi
cation and linked pig production accelerated at an early date and
when these advantages were not yet widespread. People emigrated
and colonised areas through expanding exchange ties. Later, when
increased pig production based on sweet potato cultivation became
everywhere viable, in the eastern highlands for example, expansion
could not occur on the same scale as it had in the western highlands,
because these early advantages had evaporated. It is almost as if pig
production and related exchange in the eastern highlands was still
born before it could take off. The size of language groups reflects
this fact; a fact, I repeat, which is further evident in contemporary
social and cultural configurations across the highlands.
Conclusion
Prior to the arrival of the sweet potato, there were quite distinct
forms of the division of labour in the highlands. Broadly, in the east
ern highlands, a mixed economy was practised: hunting and collect
ing with intermittent, supplemental agriculture based on the
cultivation of Pueraria lobata, taro, yams, bananas and sugar. Men
hunted, but were also responsible for a large share of cultivation as

well. It is difficult to discern the significance of 'male' crops (taro,
yams, bananas, sugar} unless such was the case as it is today (J.
Watson 1967) . Women collected and tended 'female' crops (prob
ably Pueraria) and others of lesser significance. There were few pigs,
and populations were highly dispersed, small, nonsedentary or un
stable residentially, and the level of their interaction was infrequent
and unregularised. The economic unit was the family or slightly
wider kinship group; production was geared to the immediate con
sumption needs of the producers. A plausible interpretation of the
archaeological record supports such a reconstruction.
In the western highlands at Kuk, for instance, the situation was
vastly different. High levels of taro were being produced by women;
greater numbers of pigs were being kept and men had long aban
doned hunting (or had been forced to do so by diminishing forests}
and turned their efforts towards pig keeping and the exchange of
surplus products, pigs. We find at this stage a dominant, purely agri
cultural economy linked to the domesticated pig. As will be men
tioned in the next chapter, factors of intensity of production were
growing slowly, but steadily; fertility was probably on the increase;
mortality was declining. Pig raising was the locus of a complex and
interdependent male-female participation in the processes of pro
duction: women's involvement in taro production was equally the
basis of pig production. The production of pigs was already geared
to exchange rather than merely local consumption. Populations in
the pre-ipomoean stage were thus continually linked through
exchange, and were spreading, if gradually, from core centres. This
set of phenomena was localised, but had immediate impact on sur
rounding areas. The eastern highlands were immune from these
dynamics.
The sweet potato doubtlessly had a revolutionary effect on these
sets of relations of production. In the western highlands, it stimu
lated already active pig production and made it more favourable for
everyone regardless of the environment and altitude in which they
lived. The 'Kuk model' of intensification of taro for pig production
was there to behold, was ancient and well-entrenched, and now
more possible, and served to prod already buoyant cultures even fur
ther. The arrival of the sweet potato increased everyone's labour:
women worked harder in the gardens on sweet potato (a 'female'
crop} production; more tubers were produced and larger, growing
pig herds needed a greater share of the crop. Men's work also
increased. Forests needed clearing in advance of expanding gardens;
fences and pig houses needed to be erected as never before, but also,
pigs as exchange items increasingly needed to be negotiated and
cared for. It is crucial in this respect that the man's primary role in
the production and exchange of pigs also be regarded as 'work'. Pigs
had to be exchanged for 'social value' to accrue to the producers and
men spent longer periods of time organising transactions and work
ing towards social and political ends which benefited not only them
selves. The exchange of pigs should then be regarded as part of the
production process, for without exchange, they have no social
value. Production and exchange are part of the same process, involv
ing complementary labour inputs of men and women. Groups of
people had already been linked through the exchange of pigs in the
pre-ipomoean period and the sphere of production had much earlier
breached the 'immediate family'. Production had ceased to be
domestic-oriented and for 'use only' well before the sweet potato
made its appearance.
In the eastern highlands, such was not the case before the sweet
potato, and its impact there was more telling and, when finally
taken up, even perhaps catastrophic (J. Watson 1983). Women,
much more than men, immediately came to bear the brunt of
increased work in garden cultivation of sweet potato. Groups of
people manoeuvred for land; hunting diminished, and an upsurge in
fighting was the outcome as groups increased their propinquity and
level of interaction (Sorenson 1 972, 1 976; J. Watson 1 977). Pig pro
duction developed from virtually nothing: exchange had not been
possible since surplus production was inconsequential until much
later. Men's energies turned necessarily towards warfare and
defence which appear to have reached levels unknown in the west
ern highlands. Men and women were to stand opposed in the pro
duction process. Pig production was never to achieve the level here
that it did in Mount Hagen or Enga for example. The following
chapter will amply demonstrate these points. Other concerns took
precedence in the eastern highlands. This book will discuss those
very real differences.
In these two distinct areas of the highlands, we are dealing with
divergent lines of development in nearly every facet of life, the evi
dence of which extends thousands of years into prehistory. The
character of these societies is vastly different by the evidence of cur-
rent ethnography, for they are the products of long, gradual pro
cesses of differentiation. The 'production configurations' of
societies in these areas equally demonstrate their dissimilarity, and it
is with this problem that the next chapter deals.
J
>
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________
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WEST SEPIK
0
Madang
Long Island �
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Huli Peoples
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0 80 miles
I I I I 111 111 111
0 1 00 kilometres
Map 2. Peoples of highland Papua New Guinea

3 Configurations of intensity
But man does not live by subsistence alone, in the Pacific any
more than anywhere else.
Brookfield ( 1972 : 3 7)
If the prehistoric past reveals different patterns of agricultural de

velopment in the societies of the eastern and western highlands, the
contemporary configurations of societies in those areas equally
sustain the view of a continuum of intensifying agricultural produc
tion from east to west. There are certain 'factors of intensification'
which highlight this continuum. Brown and Podolefsky ( 1 976) have
analysed various indicators of 'agricultural intensity' in a number of
highland societies; Brookfield with Hart (1971) ranked forty-four
places in Melanesia on 'intensity', concentrating on a wide range of
cultivation methods and crop information; and Waddell (1972) has
discussed the rise of intensification in the highlands and suggested
four 'core' areas of greatest intensification. While the meaning of in
tensification is not always clear, most authors imply the notion of
greater inputs (capital, labour, skill, and so on) to land as a measure
of intensity. By this rough measure, there is the view that there are
areas in the highlands, for example, which are patently more 'inten
sive' than others.
Most discussions of intensification concern the issue of agricul
tural intensification, population growth and density, and their re
lationship to a wide range of other features of society (for example,
land tenure, group size, political integration, environmental vari
ables, cultivation methods, and so on) . Brookfield with Hart ( 1 971),
Brookfield ( 1972), Waddell (1 972), Brown and Podolefsky ( 1 976),
Morren ( 1 977), J. Watson ( 1977), Modjeska ( 1977, 1 982), Golson
( 1982) and Boyd ( 1 985a) have all contributed to the debate in one
way or another, and this chapter will mention and review several of
the approaches to the problem. There is no single, simple solution to
the relationship of agricultural intensification to other variables
39
including population density, and perhaps more importantly, there

are no unicausal principles which are everywhere operable and
determining.
However, the evidence is quite clear on one score: as one moves
westward in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, there is strikingly
intensified agricultural production (by any measure) geared to the
intensified production and maintenance of pigs. This fact above all
else provides the rationale of the production process, at least at the
western end of the continuum. In other words, agriculture itself is
almost epiphenomena! (or at least a dependant variable) to the con
cern with pig husbandry. This economic relationship furthermore
correlates with, if it does not determine, a host of other linked social
relationships. In short, the economic and organisational configur
ations of contemporary highland New Guinea societies reflect a pat
tern initiated and evident in their prehistory.
People and pigs
As noted in the last chapter, Papua New Guinea highlanders

speak languages of the East New Guinea Highlands Stock (Wurm
1 975 :467-70). From Wurm's classification, the nearly million
people comprising this language family can be divided from east to
west as seen in Table 1 . This ordering confirms in a general way the
point made in the previous chapter, namely that the size of language
families increases from east to west. The size of language groups
can, of course, be related to a variety of factors (see for example, S .
and R . Bulmer 1964:42 o n this question) but I have earlier suggested
that the much larger western highlands language families, and their
wider geographical distribution, may be correlated with the elabora
tion of agriculture and associated pig production which occurred
perhaps centuries earlier in these areas when compared to the east
ern highlands. The expansionary tendency of linked pig exchange
would serve as an admirable mechanism for colonising sparsely set
tled areas and thereby extending language boundaries. The colon
ised may have taken on the language of their exchange initiators. As
will be mentioned, there is some evidence that the exchange insti
tution, called tee, of the Enga, the largest language family in all of
the highlands, originated to the east, around the Mount Hagen area,
and spread westward. This might place the origin of elaborated cer
emonial exchange at Kuk. The ceremonial system in the Mount
Hagen region is known as moka (A. J. Strathern 1971a). The tee is
Configurations of intensity 4l
sometimes referred to as maku pingi. Additionally, the southern

highlands Mendi call their exchange institution mok ink (Ryan
1 9 6 1 ) . The words moka, maku and mok ink are clearly cognates or
loan words and suggest a common origin of the ceremonial insti
tutions of exchange of the Melpa, Enga and Mendi peoples (see Feil
1 9 84b ). Exchange in its many variations across the highlands will be
dealt with in a later chapter.
The largest language families in the highlands, Enga ( 172,900),
Hagen ( 1 05,000), 1 Chimbu ( 1 56,000) and Mendi ( 1 0 1 ,5 00) are
found in the west. By comparison, the Gadsup-Auyana-Awa, Tai
rora, Siane, Gahuku, Kamano and Fore families of the ea�tern high
lands are considerably smaller. It is also true that, more often than
not, the most dense populations are also to be found in the western
highlands. Gross population densities based simply on census data
and area give a general picture, but most data on population den
sities derive from fieldwork in small communities which are part of
larger groupings studied by anthropologists and others. This part
of-the-whole approach may, of course, distort the overall view of a
region. Obviously, for example, within Enga, some areas are more
densely settled than others, and an 'Enga density' may be ultimately
meaningless. The relationship of population density to other vari
ables is plagued by unreliable data, with widely differing units of ref
erence spread over widely disparate time periods. However, the
evidence points to the fundamental truth that population densities
increase in a steady (if irregular) manner from east to west. Brown
and Podolefsky ( 1 976) have given some figures while also acknowl
edging the weaknesses of the data used, and these are the most com
plete available for comparative purposes. Some of their figures and
those of others are listed in Table 2.
While the problems inherent in population data and their com
parison must again be stressed, the figures in the table demonstrate
that eastern highlands societies have population densities of the
order of 30 km2 or less while western highlands societies have much
higher, and usually very much higher densities. In fact, there is
almost a neat continuum of rising populations and population den
sities from east to west. In so far as population densities are corre-
1
It has been suggested to me by a linguist familiar with the area that the Wahgi sub
family (3b) might, in fact, be classified together with the Hagen sub-family (3d),
forming one sub-family instead of two. This would mean that the Hagen sub
family would comprise 160,000 speakers (Alan Rumsey, personal communi
cation).
Table 1. Language family size in highland Papua New Guinea (in rounded figures)
1 . Eastern family 41,000

1 (a) Gadsup-Auyana-Awa sub-family 3 1 ,000
Gadsup dialects 22,000
Gadsup 9,000
Oyana 950
Agarabi 12,000
Auyana dialects 7,500
Auyana 3,800
Kosen a 2,700
Usarufa 1 ,000
Awa dialects 1,500
l (b) Tairora sub-family 9,700

Tairora dialects 8,500
Binumarien 190
Waffa 1,000
1 (c) Owena sub-family-level Isolate 350
2. East-Central family 1 85,000

2(a) Gende (Bundi) sub-family-level 9,000
Isolate
2(b) Siane sub-family 1 8,000
Siane 1 6,000
Yabiyufa 2,000
2(c) Gahuku sub-family 38,000
Gahuku-Asaro dialects 23,000
Gahuku 9,000
Asaro 14,000
Bena Bena 15,000
2(d) Kamano sub-family 84,000
Kamano dialects 84,000
Kama no 47,000
Kanite 3,400
Keiagana 8,000
Yate 4,600
Yagaria 21,000
2(e) Fore sub-family 36,000
Fore 18,000
Gimi 18,000
3. Central family 328,500

3 (a) Chimbu sub-family 156,000
Chimbu dialects 131,000
Chim bu proper (Kuman) 66,000
Nagane 1,000
Dom 9,300
Golin (Marigl) 26,700
Salt-Yui 6,000
Sinasina 19,000
Nondiri 2,700
Chuave 21,000
Nomane 4,000
3 (b) Wahgi sub-family 54,300
Wahgi 45,000
Nii 9,300
3 (c) Jimi sub-family 13,000
Narak dialects 5,000
Narak 3,000
Gandja (Monggum) 2,000
Maring 8,000
3 (d) Hagen sub-family 105,000
Hagen dialects 105,000
Medipa 69,000
Gawigl (Kaugel) 35,000
Aua 450
4. West-Central family 339,400

4(a) Enga sub-family 172,900
Kyaka 14,000
Enga dialects 149,382
Layapo 25,023
Kopona 6,766
Sau 15,228
Kaina 10,959
Mai 38,508
Malamuni 3,600
Tayato 13,507
Yandapo 10,804
Kandepe 24,987
Katinja 900
Nete 200+
Lembena (Bisorio, Iniai) 600
Ipiii 7,764
4(b) Huli sub-family-level Isolate 65,000
4(c) Angal (Mendi)-Kewa sub-family 101,500
Angal (Mendi) dialects 55,000
Angal Heneng 25,000
Angal 10,000
Southern Angal Heneng 20,000
Kewa dialects 44,000
West Dialect 20,000
East Dialect 20,000
South Dialect (Pole) 4,000
Sau (Samberigi) 2,500
5. Ka/am family 1 8,500

Kalam 13,000
Kobon 3,500
Gants (Gaj) 1,900
6. Wiru family-level Isolate 16,000
7. Kenati (Ganati Aziana) family-level 550

Isolate
lated with intensified agriculture (but see below), western highlands

societies sharply and manifestly stand at the end of any such inten
sity scale in the highlands.
Table 2. Highland Papua New Guinea population densities
People Density Source
Gadsup 22 km2 Du Toit (1975)

Awa 13 km2 Boyd ( 1 985a)t
Tairora 15 km2 Pataki-Schweizer (1980)
Siane 28 km2 1 973 census*
Gahuku 32 km2 Sorenson (1 976)
35 km2 1973 census*
Asaro 40 km2 Sorenson (1976)
Bena Bena 3 1 km2 Sorenson (1976)
30 km2 1973 census*
Gururumba 15 km2 Newman (1965)t
Kamano 26 km2 Sorenson ( 1 976)
S. Fore 10 km2 Sorenson ( 1 976)
N. Fore 20 km2 Sorenson ( 1 976)
C. Fore 9 km2 Sorenson (1 976)
Fore 12 km2 1 973 census*
Chimbu 100 km2 Brookfield and Brown (1963)
140 km2 Waddell (1 972)
Maring 24 km2 Rappaport (1968)t
Hagen (Kuk) 150 km2 Gorecki (1979)t
Enga 140 km2 Waddell ( 1 972)t
Huli 54 km2 Goldman (1983)t
Wola-Mendi 26 km2 Sillitoe ( 1 977)t
t Single community density

* Gross density
See also Brown and Podolefsky 1976.
In addition to human population sizes and densities, pig popu

lations are critical to any assessment of intensification of produc
tion. The raising of pigs for exchange purposes provides the
rationale for agricultural systems of high intensity and the size of pig
herds is another key factor in equations of intensity. The problems
of reliable data for the size of pig populations compound those for
human populations. One must deal with the actual sizes of pigs, as
well as their number, and with the fact that the sizes of pig herds
fluctuate markedly depending on the timing, nature and character
istics of the ceremonial cycles in which their owners participate.
Also important are the other 'uses' to which pigs are put and con
texts in which they are items of transaction. Throughout the high
lands, people love to eat pork, but only in some places are pigs raised
Configurations of intensity 45
with that primary purpose or intention in mind. Pig herds are 'social
products' in the highlands (Hide 1 982); people plan and manage
with great skill and foresight the size, sex ratio and individual
characteristics of their herds to coincide with their exchange and
ceremonial requirements.2 Thus, the number of pigs a group or indi
vidual keeps or has agisted or loaned elsewhere is a most definite in
dicator of the scale and involvement of exchange activities. 3 Few
Table 3. Highland Papua New Guinea pig herds
People Pigs/person Source
Awa 0.60 to 0.74 Boyd (1 985a)

Tairora 0.64 to 2.4* J. Watson (1 983)
Siane 0.6 Salisbury ( 1962)
Asaro 0.88 Malynicz (1977)
Bena Bena 0.95 Malynicz (1977)
Sinasina-Chimbu 0.27 to 0.89 Hide (n.d.)
Kerowagi-Chimbu 1 . 14 Malynicz ( 1 977)
Central Chimbu 1.5 Brookfield and Brown ( 1 963)
Maring 0.3 to 0.84 Rappaport ( 1 968)
0.51 Clarke (1971)
Hagen 2.10 Malynicz (1 977)
Enga-Kyaka 1.6 Waddell (1972)
Enga-Laiapo 2.3 Waddell (1972)
1 . l to 3 . 1 Feachem ( 1 973)
Enga-Tombema 4 Feil (1 984b)
Huli Not available
Mendi Not available
Wiru 0.8 A. J. Strathern ( 1971b, 1978)
* Over half of these (232 of 450) pigs are piglets. The death rate of piglets is high, and
this latter ratio may well be distorted as a standard.
One example of this concern to produce pigs of certain size is illustrated in an

anecdote mentioned by Hide (n.d.:38) given to him by G. Buchbinder who
worked with the Maring. Maring had expressed their interest in contraceptive
pills, not for their women, but for their pigs, to prevent their sows from breeding,
and hence to achieve the proper fatness required prior to a pig-killing festival.
Chimbu and Maring appear to be similar in their desire to produce pig herds with
specific attributes (see Hide n.d.) . As mentioned in this chapter, Maring and
Chimbu pig production is elaborated in this regard; to the east it is not. To the
west, financial transactions take precedence along with home production to
achieve the greatest numbers of pigs for live distribution not slaughter, as in
Maring, Chimbu and societies eastward.
Numbers of pigs agisted out and agisted in are also important in determining pig
to human ratios, in addition to pigs 'in hand'. Details of this sort are rarely avail
able, but I do not feel that the general trend across the highlands of increasing
ratios would be upset by such information. In fact, I suspect that western highland
societies, where financial procedures in the exchange system are pronounced,
would show higher ratios of pigs to humans than those given in Table 3.
people raise pigs only with personal consumption in mind; the scale
of exchange can in turn be linked to supporting agricultural produc
tion.
The number of pigs per person for a number of highland societies
is given in Table 3 . Societies are again arranged from east to west in
the highlands, thus paralleling the earlier tables of language family
size and population density. I reiterate that, for the reasons already
mentioned, these ratios should be interpreted cautiously and as a
general guide only.
These figures again support the continuum of intensity suggested
by other variables above. The ratio of pigs to people is of the order
of less than one to one in the eastern highlands, increases to slightly
over one to one in the central highlands around Chimbu, and then
increases dramatically again to over two to one, and up to three or
four to one in the Mount Hagen and Enga areas. It is of course well
known that, in Mount Hagen and Enga, the most elaborate of all pig
exchanges, by any standard, take place. Without belabouring the
point, language size, population density and ratio of pigs to people
are clearly correlated across the highlands, as one might reasonably
expect, and if the interpretations of the prehistory made in the pre
vious chapter are at all correct, a series of distinct 'configurations of
production intensity' can be established, ranging in increasing inten
sity from east to west, with the prehistory of these areas shedding
light on the timing and course of their development.
Pigs and sweet potatoes
The impact of the sweet potato on ancient agricultural systems

like Kuk has been discussed earlier. Revolutionary or evolutionary,
its ultimate effect was dramatic. It was a superior food for humans
in a variety of environmental zones which taro or any other crop
could not match. But more than this, it was a superior food as
fodder for pigs; it matured faster and was more prolific, and pigs
thrived on it. It has previously been argued that the value of sweet
potatoes for pigs and humans was unlikely to have been immedi
ately recognised in the eastern highlands as compared to the western
highlands. A tradition of agriculture barely existed in the east and
the arrival of sweet potatoes might have marked its initial take-off
point from a mixed subsistence regime of taro (and other crops) and
hunting. Population and language sizes, population densities and
larger pigs-to-human ratios reflect these differing developmental

histories east and west, and we might also examine the relative im
portance of the sweet potato as fodder in a number of highland
societies today to assess another aspect of the production intensity
issue. As Morren ( 1977) and others have pointed out, as the interde
pendence of pigs and people became more clearly established in the
highlands, other subsistence options, for example hunting, became
less possible. As greater amounts of forest were brought under culti
vation, an irreversible trend was initiated which made pigs more
dependent on humans and humans likewise more reliant on
domesticated pigs. The amount of time, attention, energy and elabo
ration of cultural detail lavished on pigs varies across the highlands
in a way, I would argue, commensurate with the continuum of
population, language size and pigs-to-human ratio. The actual data
are, however, merely suggestive.
The Irakia Awa (Boyd 1 984, 1 985a) of the eastern highlands have
not yet made the transition to sweet potato as staple. They practise
an extensive form of shifting cultivation with an average household
having seven gardens in active production (Boyd 1 985a: 1 22). Fur
thermore, nearly 60 per cent of garden land is devoted to yams and
taro, the remaining land being reserved for sweet potato and
tapioca. Boyd relates this greater reliance on yams and taro to the
lower demand for pig fodder (see Table 3 ) . In traditional times,
Boyd reports that Awa 'kept relatively few pigs and invested little
time and energy and few resources in promoting the productivity of
their animals' (Boyd 1985a: 123). Pigs foraged for their food, they
were not herded or tethered and only 'irregularly and infrequently
fed small amounts of substandard garden produce' (Boyd
1 985a: l 23 ) . The Awa might serve as a base standard for the expan
sion of the interdependent relationship of pigs and people, for ap
proximately only 20 per cent of the tuber crop is fed to pigs (Boyd
1 985a: l 22). Awa can be compared with the Miyanmin of the West
Sepik Province (Morren 1 977) in their level of involvement with
pigs. Morren reports that about 16 per cent of garden produce is fed
to pigs, and that an 'immeasurably small' amount of effort is de
voted to pig tending and herding.
Groups which we might term as 'intermediate' in their elabor
ation of the human-pig-sweet potato interaction are, first, the
Maring, and then the Chimbu. Human and pig demographies vary
considerably in these societies as do most other aspects of their
social organisation. Among the Maring, taro is the staple for

humans, although sweet potato is recognised as more productive
and useful as pig fodder. The Maring bring extra land into culti
vation to meet the food demands of growing pig populations prior
to major pig-killing ceremonies. Morren ( 1 977:3 1 2) notes that
about 27 per cent of garden produce - sweet potatoes and cassava -
is fed to pigs and that '48 per cent of the total measured response
effort is directed to herding and feeding pigs (probably an overesti
mate)'. Clearly the Maring represent a greater involvement in pig
production and use of sweet potato as fodder to produce pigs than
do the Awa.
The Chimbu represent a further elaboration. Brookfield and
Brown ( 1 963 : 5 8 ) report that ' 1 5 to 25 per cent of the harvest of a
[sweet potato] garden in full production' is consumed by pigs. Wad
dell ( 1 972: 2 1 2), citing a personal communication from Brookfield,
notes that this figure is an estimate based on the 'low stage' in the pig
ceremonial cycle. In older gardens, a higher proportion of the total
crop is used as pig fodder. We can assume that, as pig ceremonies
near, a greater proportion of sweet potatoes will be consumed by
pigs, perhaps up to 40 per cent. The Chimbu pig to human ratio is
about 1.5 to 1 which places them about mid-way between eastern
and western highlands societies, as indeed they are geographically.
The Enga are again found at the end of the continuum. We have
seen that they have the highest pigs to human ratio in Papua New
Guinea and it might follow that pigs would consume the largest per
centage of the sweet potato harvest. Among the Laiapo Enga, where
the best quantitative data exist, pigs consume over half and up to
two-thirds of the sweet potatoes produced (Waddell 1 972:2 1 1 ;
Morren 1 977: 3 1 3). Pigs forage very little, for there is very little land
in proximity not given over to gardening. Morren further reports
that approximately '41 per cent of all response effort is directed to
herding and providing for pigs' ( 1 977: 3 1 3). Thus, in the examples
given, the proportion of time, effort and amount of garden produce
directed to pigs increases substantially from east to west in the high
lands. In a parallel fashion of course, the amount of time and energy
available for other pursuits has drastically diminished.
It is plausible to suggest that the present variation in attention to
pig production, exemplified by the Awa versus the Enga for
instance, might be of the same scale as that interpreted for the
respective prehistoric transformations of the eastern and western
highlands. Awa horticulture and pig production has a nascent qual

ity about it: recent and relatively underdeveloped. Enga pig produc
tion is not only more elaborate and consciously directed, but has
probably developed over a much longer period to its present con
figuration. This difference then, merely echoes the prehistoric pat
tern. Boyd ( 1 985a: l23) writes that the Awa traditionally did not
'share the enthusiastic preoccupation with pig husbandry' described
for other highland peoples. The Enga and Melpa meanwhile are the
archetypal highland pig keepers: pigs are everything to them and
they demonstrate that commitment by devoting endless hours to
their care and maintenance. Thus, the current production configur
ations of the Awa and Enga represent the two ends of a continuum,
east and west, and appear to support the hypothesis that these
regions have kept pace with the rate of prehistoric transformation
and development of agriculture and related pig production postu
lated earlier.
Pigs and related facts
The 'intensification' of pig production east to west is reflected in

other social facts, the analysis of which will be taken up in the fol
lowing chapters. Here, we can briefly note that:
( 1 ) There is a striking change in settlement and residence pattern
as one crosses the Chimbu divide, a point first noted by Read in his
survey of highland cultures ( 1 954a: 1 3 ) . Although there is intra
regional variation, the pattern is one of nucleated villages east of
Chimbu and dispersed homesteads to the west of Chimbu. Further
more, Chimbu appears to be exactly at the point of transition (as
they are on other continua): an 'unstable stage' (Waddell
1 972:2 1 0 ) ; more nucleated than societies to the west, more dis
persed than those to the east. Brown and Brookfield suggest male
nucleation and female dispersal as the Chimbu pattern ( 1 967: 148;
see also Brookfield with Hart 1 9 7 1 :225 ) . Chimbu also congregate
in 'pig feast villages' of up to 1 000 or more people (Brown and
Brookfield 1 967: 126) thus paralleling the 'pulsating residence pat
tern' of the Maring mentioned below. Brown and Podolefsky
( 1 976:21 5 ) provide general settlement types for several highland
societies and demonstrate very clearly the change, or rather, the
increasingly dispersed and non-shifting settlement pattern from east
to west.
The relationship between settlement type and increasing pig

populations and pig production is relatively straightforward. On
the one hand, nucleation does not offer effective management of re
sources for large pig populations. Dispersed homesteads and thus
dispersed pig herds provide better utilisation of grazing and forag
ing lands for pigs (J. Watson 1 977:66). Rappaport ( 1 9 6 8 : 69) has
noted that large concentrations of pigs and people in nucleated
Maring settlements seriously damaged and retarded regrowth of
surrounding garden sites. Pigs constantly destroyed and rooted out
seedlings in the fallow zones. The Maring thus had a 'pulsating' settle
ment pattern: at first nucleated, and then dispersed as pig popu
lations grew before a major ceremony (Rappaport 1 968 :69; see also
Waddell 1 9 72 : 1 87). Waddell concludes that 'dispersed settlement
appears in some respects, as a response to the intensive cultivation
of sweet potato and large-scale pig husbandry' (1972 : 1 87).
On the other hand, pigs cause disputes between people. Pigs are
notorious for destroying the fences and gardens of others and dis
persed homesteads lessen the possibility of this occurrence. Boyd
( 1985a) has described how, even in the early stages of Awa pig in
tensification, people expressed the desire to get away from the main
village settlement in order to care more efficiently for their pigs and
avoid the trouble associated with the proximity of pigs and other
people's gardens. Dispersed settlements in the western highlands
may have been the logical response to the increasing scale of pig pro
duction and pig populations. Pigs dispersed people there, while in
the eastern highlands where nucleated settlements remain the norm
today, lower and less intensive pig production has not demanded the
dispersal of humans. Moreover, the Chimbu, at the watershed, have
'dispersed females' who are, in the main, responsible for pig main
tenance. Males are more 'nucleated'. The Chimbu are in the middle
range of intensive pig producers, and their pattern of settlement may
reflect the lesser involvement of men in the less intensive production
of pigs.
It remains to be pointed out that both the Dugum Dani and the
Kapauku of Irian Jaya appear to have semi-nucleated settlements
yet larger than average pig populations. These societies do, how
ever, seem to be marked by a high degree of residential instability
(Waddell 1 972 : 2 1 1 ) . It is also the case that nucleation may be re
quired in these societies to muster the large work groups needed for
their extensive systems of drainage agriculture. These exceptions
noted, it is clearly evident that a major outcome of the increasing
Configurations of intensity 5l
scale of pig production and intensity, and an index of it, is the dis
persed settlement pattern of the western highlands. Where pig pro
duction is not intensive, villages are the rule.
(2) Intensified pig production and resulting dispersed human
settlements in the western highlands meant the virtual elimination
of surrounding forests and thus the habitat of feral pigs. This cycle
of human-pig interdependence has been noted previously. In most
parts of the western highlands there are no feral pigs; domesticated
boars must be kept to impregnate sows and thereby increase herd
sizes. A similar transformation of the habitat and resulting out
comes have not occurred in most parts of the eastern highlands.
Boyd ( 1 984:35) notes for the Awa that 'castration, said to improve
the growth rate and adult temperament of barrows (young males)
. . . is performed for all male pigs at this early age (two or three
months). There are no mature boars in the Ilakian Awa herd'. In
Siane, Salisbury writes that young sows 'mate with some boar in the
bush' to produce a litter ( 1 962: 9 1 ) . Among the Northern Tairora,
'the relation between the wild boar and the domestic sow is essential
to the breeding of herds' O. Watson 1 9 8 3 : 50). The Maring who are
'intermediate' on any continuum also keep no adult boars and Rap
paport ( 1968 :70) comments on the infrequency with which matings
with feral boars take place. During his fieldwork only a small
number of litters were farrowed.
It is in Chimbu again that an important transition occurs. There
are no feral pigs, and domesticated boars are kept (Hide n.d. : 1 1 ) .
This remains the case a s one moves further westward with perhaps
an increase in the number of domesticated boars kept and concomi
tant decrease in the ratio of domesticated boars to sows. In
Tombema-Enga for instance, domesticated boars were common
and, although very often difficult to manage, were an acknowledged
strategy for increasing one's herd. One or two piglets were given to
the owner of the boar as 'compensation' for every litter it was
thought responsible for.
Chimbu marks an end point, and also the beginning of a different
configuration. The use of domesticated boars in Chimbu demon
strates a 'greater degree of human control over pig breeding' than
societies in the eastern highlands (Hide n.d. : 1 1 ) . Hide's fascinating
and detailed material documents beyond doubt that the Chimbu of
Sinasina purposefully control pig breeding to achieve the size and
sex configuration of herds geared to the periodicity of their cer
emonial cycles. Pig herds do not simply increase naturally, but are
planned and are very definitely social products. Chimbu stress pro
duction of pigs to a certain profile, and it is clear that their strategies
are the most elaborate in this regard. Highlanders to their east also
stress home production (versus 'finance', see A. J. Strathern 1 969b)
but as the lack of domesticated boars suggests, their productive tech
niques are more haphazard and unsuccessful. Thus, the ceremonial
cycles of the Siane and other eastern highlands neighbours of the
Chimbu are shorter, smaller in scale, and less frequent. However,
west of Chimbu a new pattern emerges. While Chimbu are more
concerned with producing herds of appropriate size, age and sex,
and do so consciously and skilfully, peoples to their west, as pre
occupied with financial procedures as they are with home produc
tion, are more concerned with sheer numbers of pigs. Pigs there are
raised, not for slaughter as in Chimbu and eastward, but to give
away, and the more pigs gained from every conceivable financial
channel, as well as from home production, the better. Size and age
are less important than the number of pigs a person can distribute
live in such cycles as tee and moka. This comparison will be dis
cussed in detail in Chapter 8 .
(3) Pig husbandry not only increases i n scale and intensity from
east to west, but also in a general way so do the contexts in which
pigs are the appropriate and necessary items of transaction. Boyd
( 1 985a: 123) notes for the Awa that, traditionally, live pigs were not
included in bridewealth payments nor were they used in warfare and
other compensation payments. There were also no ceremonial oc
casions when live pigs were exchanged. Here, as elsewhere in the
eastern highlands, pork, in modest quantities, was infrequently
given to satisfy obligations. The circulation of pork rather than live
pigs is an important distinguishing feature of eastern highlands
societies compared to those in the west. With pigs raised primarily
with the intention that they will be consumed by others (J. Watson
1 983:53), the production process is truncated and arbitrarily re
stricted. Pig kills and pig feasts, the ultimate outcome of which is the
consumption of large portions of pork at a single sitting, are not a
feature of most western highlands societies. The preoccupation west
of Chimbu is with financial transactions of live pigs in which repro
duction, not consumption, is fostered; nor is production con
strained or confined to domestic units. Furthermore, transactions
involving live pigs are appropriate, indeed required, to validate and
sustain every personal relationship and social occasion. There are
no discrete nexuses, as in Siane (Salisbury 1 962), in which certain
valuables or kinds of relationships pertain, but rather a generalised

pattern in which live pigs are singularly appropriate. It is in such
systems that Modjeska ( 1982:56) suggests that pig-values are sub
stituted for human-life values. Only in systems of high pig produc
tivity are such substitutions possible.
It is obvious from this and previous sections that levels of the pro
duction intensity of pigs can be clearly demarcated in the Papua
New Guinea highlands and related to other factors. Moreover, there
is a demonstrable continuum of increasing intensity of pig produc
tion and related agriculture, and other features from east to west.
The continuum is also attested to by the very different prehistoric
paths of agricultural development in the eastern and western high
lands discussed earlier. The evolution and origin of intensive pig
production and relied upon agriculture is, however, another matter.
Some explanations of this process will be considered next.
The rise of intensified production
The previous sections have marshalled various data which con

firm both the general relationship between language family size,
population density, the pigs to human ratio and other factors, and
the intensity of production, and, as well, a continuum of increasing
intensity of production from east to west in the highlands. These
correlations are perhaps hardly surprising and while the eth
nographic evidence on some variables has been extended here, the
co-variations themselves have been widely noted previously by
others. Especially highlighted in the work of others has been the re
lationship between population dynamics and agricultural intensity.
Brown and Podolefsky ( 1 976), for example, have found a positive
correlation between the two (also, interestingly, in a roughly east to
west continuum, though this is not mentioned) but their conclusion
about causality in the equation is chastening: 'The causal arrow
cannot be determined by statistical fact . . . The relationship be
tween population density and agricultural intensity is interactional
and . . . neither can be consistently antecedent to the other'
( 1 976:229).
In this chapter, I have gathered information on the size of pig
populations and the level of their consumption of sweet potatoes.
This can be added to Brown and Podolefsky's other factors of inten
sity (and doubtless there are many others), but I would certainly
endorse their conclusion. My major objective has been to establish
beyond doubt that there is an intensity continuum across the high

lands, which reflects differing rates of agricultural development in
prehistory, as a prelude to the analysis of sociological differences
east and west, which I believe to be based ultimately on differing
levels of agricultural intensity and pig production. In addition, it is
important to reiterate yet again that societies of the 'central high
lands' differ significantly in their approach and commitment to agri
culture and pig production, and there is no very good reason to treat
highland societies, either their current character, or their prehistoric
antecedents, as if they formed a unity.
After noting correlations of various kinds, most authors have
turned to explanations of causality, and I can add very little to the
overall debate. Most attempts to explain agricultural intensification
in the highlands and Papua New Guinea generally, have been
framed, to some extent, along the lines of Boserup's ( 1 965) model of
relentless population growth which eventually places stress on re
sources and leads ultimately to the dispersal of peoples and then to
intensified production systems. Golson ( 1977; but see 1982) in his
early interpretations of Kuk implicitly adhered to this model. We
will return to Kuk shortly. Recent, more extensive work has modi
fied the simplicity of this model, and while continuing to note the re
lationship between population and the intensity of production, the
current view has spurned population growth as the deus ex machina
of intensified agriculture in the New Guinea highlands. Brookfield
with Hart (1971) in their comparison of places in Melanesia found
the Boserup thesis 'dented': there is often high intensity of produc
tion in areas lacking population pressure or high density, and vice
versa (see also Brookfield 1 972). The conclusion of Brown and
Podolefsky ( 1 976) about causality has already been noted, and there
is a host of other material, enough to eschew a single, simple causal
connection between population and intensification.
With regards to the highlands in particular, very little emphasis
has been placed on environmental considerations and their relation
ship to intensification. As I mentioned earlier, the highlands have
largely been treated as a single cultural and ecological region. The
data presented previously demonstrate that such is not the case.
Linked to this view is an insufficiently shallow time perspective on
the rise of intensification of agricultural and animal production. En
vironments in the highlands may be more or less equally suitable for
the cultivation of the recently arrived sweet potato, and indeed that
was its revolutionary effect. But in the pre-ipomoean period, if taro
was the staple crop, the eastern highlands might well have been en
vironmentally disadvantaged; or to state the positive point, the area
around Kuk was supremely advantaged. It may be no accident that
intensification occurred first and is recorded earliest there. Waddell
( 1 972: 2 1 2-1 3 ) has suggested that environmental factors may be
involved in the low degree of intensification and lack of 'distinctive
agricultural techniques' found among the Chimbu, who nonetheless
have among the highest population densities in the highlands. The
Chimbu are not, as has been shown, intensive pig keepers or pro
ducers. The Chimbu area is marked by steep slopes, unstable, slip
ping soils, and gardens may be subject to increased fallowing.
Chimbu may keep fewer pigs partly because they cannot be sup
ported with the quality of land soil available.
To disregard ecological considerations and the often extreme en
vironmental variations which exist in the highlands is one thing, but
to elevate them to cause is quite another. I have no wish to do so, but
environmental conditions might be considered to impose 'threshold
levels' (Brookfield 1 972) on intensity, beyond which certain prac
tices and production increases are not feasible. The lower intensity
of pig production in Chimbu might be an example. It may well be,
too, that Kuk offered such a clear advantage in production potential
over other areas of the highlands that its elaboration there was vir
tually inevitable. The point remains that differences in levels of pro
duction activities in the highlands today must be related to the past,
for surely we witness the culmination of prior practices and pro
cesses.
The present correlation in the highlands between high population
densities and intensive agricultural systems (the possible exception
being the Chimbu) may have led some authors to embrace Boserup's
thesis, but a number of writers, using mainly synchronic evidence,
have added significantly to the understanding of the processes of in
tensification in the highlands. Boyd ( 1 984, 1985a) documents how
the Irakia Awa of the eastern highlands consciously decided to
intensify pig production, to 'follow the neighbouring Fore' methods
of swine husbandry in order to meet increasing exchange demands
in a regional economy of imposed pacification. Material on the Awa
has been used throughout this chapter; they appear to represent an
almost 'pre-ipomoean' population and it is only recently that pigs
have come to play a significant role in their lives and attention has
been focussed on their increased production. Even in their desire to
intensify the swine industry, Awa efforts and success have been
modest by the standards set by other highland societies. There were

important consequences of this intensification decision for both
humans and pigs: dispersal, disputes, increasingly widening
exchange connections, and proliferating contexts of exchange and
so on, a commonplace set of occurrences found throughout the
western highlands. It is significant furthermore, as Boyd points out,
that the decision to intensify was taken in an atmosphere of compe
tition with their Fore neighbours: how could the Awa repay debts of
pork which the Fore were planning to make to them? How would
the Awa look to their affines and other kin if they could not partici
pate in exchange activities? This is clearly a contemporary il
lustration of the 'Jones Effect' (J. Watson 1 977).
Watson's contribution to the intensification debate has already
been mentioned. In his early papers it was the arrival of the sweet
potato which initiated the growth in population and intensified agri
culture in the highlands when previously there had been none. This
was certainly not the case, except in the eastern highlands. His most
recent contribution ( 1977) includes 'conscious intergroup compe
tition' as a motive for increasing production. 'Where pigs are
mutually exchanged, the expansion of pig production in some part
of a network leads to expanding production in other parts' (J.
Watson 1 977:53). This process was doubtless at work, but I will
suggest that it occurs predominantly in societies that have recently
intensified, societies of the eastern highlands, which we can term
'symmetrical societies' (after Bateson 1 936; see also J. Watson
1 977:65). More on this concept will be presented later.
Waddell ( 1 972) has drawn attention to the intensive agricultural
practices associated with 'open fields' and suggests that these have
evolved from the 'mixed gardening' practices of lower intensity. In
three 'core' areas of the highlands - Raiapu (Laiapo) Enga, Dani
and Kapauku - there is a clear demarcation between these two
garden systems. These areas also have some of the highest popu
lation densities in Papua New Guinea, and also sizeable pig popu
lations. Waddell further links this garden distinction to the
occurrence of dispersed settlement (see above) and to the increas
ingly reduced need for agricultural cooperation between households
across the highlands. This 'marked individualisation of activity'
(Waddell 1 972:21 1 ) is a vital point, not only with regard to agricul
ture but also with regard to wider production and exchange re
lationships. It is also worthwhile to point out that examples used by
Waddell of low intensity systems are all drawn from eastern high
lands societies.
Morren ( 1977) has suggested a 'Susian' rather than an 'Ipo

moean' revolution to account for intensive horticulture and pig rais
ing in New Guinea. The demand for high-quality protein set off a
chain reaction in which the fodder requirements of pigs led to the
expansion of garden land and the clearing of forests, decreasing wild
protein sources, and hence necessitating a greater reliance on the
domesticated pig.4 This perspective has correspondences in both J.
Watson's work ( 1977) and to a lesser extent in Modjeska's ( 1 982).
Modjeska ( 1 982:55) adds that 'to the extent that pig production
actually produces more protein than hunting there is also a likeli
hood that improved fertility and decreasing mortality rates would
result in further population growth, thus intensifying the causalities
of the cycle'. Modjeska also links an 'exchange-value cycle' to the
above production cycle which he calls the 'ecological use-value
cycle' following Morren and J. Watson. In it, increasing complex
ities of social relations lead to greater competition and conflict be
tween groups which can only be resolved by substituting wealth
values in the form of pigs, for persons, and similarly exchange for
warfare. 'Pig production and exchange creatively develop a new and
more "economic" version of social control and social order . . . in
doing so they also bring social inequalities to rest upon more econ
omically "rational" grounds' (Modjeska 1 982:57-8) . While this
substitution might have occurred, how and why it was initiated is
not explained. Why was war the inevitable outcome of 'increasingly
complex social relations' in the first place? Exchange and warfare
are here viewed as functional alternatives with the former originat
ing to replace the latter. The evidence elsewhere in the highlands
suggests such was not clearly the case (see for example, Feil 1 984b).5
Modjeska furthermore writes that in some western highlands
societies, Melpa and Enga in particular, where exchange and pig
4
Morren (1 977:289) has neatly suggested how this situation might have come
about and first been recognised in Miyanmin and elsewhere. 'Wild vegetation pro
vides the principal support for the wild pig population, but in the rainier season
wild pigs often invade gardens and compete directly with man for the crops grow
ing there.' Increasing interdependence of pigs and people might have occurred fol
lowing such incidents: a more secure protein source was as close as one's garden.
5
The substitution of pigs for people, and the exchange of pigs as a 'mediative sub
stitute' for war casualties and homicide might characterise the Duna. By suggest
ing it was a common occurrence in Hagen and Enga as well, and that pig
intensification and exchange might have originated in that fashion, Modjeska
would have to account for the contradictory view of A. ]. Strathern ( 1 971a) that
exchange flourished in Mount Hagen only after warfare was banned by the col
onial administration.
production have developed more than elsewhere, inequalities in the

production process are also most pronounced. The view to be put
forward below is the opposite to his: it is in societies where produc
tion and exchange are truncated and circumscribed, that is, in the
eastern highlands predominantly, that inequalities, especially be
tween men and women in the production process are the most
severe.
In all of these views, the causality of intensification is often hard
to sort out. Is it environmental degradation, population pressure, a
dietary desire for high quality protein, competition with neigh
bours, the desired stability of peace over warfare or the political mo
tivation of rationalising inequalities among equals? No doubt all of
these are useful, if partial, interpretations. Once agricultural de
cisions and choices are made, for whatever reason, inevitable cycles
leading to some level of intensification are likely to be set in motion.
Once pig keeping became a reality, other possibilities were opened
to those who produced pigs and, equally, certain options were
closed off. The labour necessary to produce pigs and their initial
scarcity might well have led to them being considered as suitable
items for many purposes, through their exchange as gifts. Exchange
may have been simply an inevitable outcome of increased produc
tion opportunities.
Brookfield ( 1 972), in a general discussion of the intensification
problem, makes an important contrast in purposes of production
which seems pertinent to more recent formulations and to that
adopted here. Population-derived theories of intensification are
largely based on perceived subsistence levels, and it is these levels
plus a small surplus which are thought to be at issue as the popu
lation grows and then threatens living standards. We have seen that
at least in certain parts of the highlands, agricultural production has
been raised far beyond human subsistence needs and it is pigs which
are the focus of this increased production effort. Brookfield thus
suggests that subsistence production should be clearly separated and
distinguished from 'social production' ( 1972:37-9) . The contrast
bears a close resemblance to Marx's formulation of 'production for
use' versus 'production for exchange' (see also Sahlins 1 972). Pro
duction for use - 'subsistence production' plus small surplus - is
geared and oriented towards the consumption needs of the immedi
ate producers. Brookfield notes that this sector of production is 'by
far the most invariant . . . between individuals and populations. A
direct relationship between the subsistence needs of an area and its
population density may thus be postulated with some confidence'

( 1 972: 3 8 ) . However, 'social production' is highly variable in its re
lationship to population numbers and density, and more related to
and determined by cultural values and individual initiative. There is
no necessary relationship with population, as the Chimbu material
demonstrates - high population density, and 'medium' attention
and commitment to social production. Social production in Brook
field's formulation has to do with 'goods produced for the use of
others in prestation, ceremony and ritual, and hence having a pri
marily social purpose' ( 1 972:3 8). This may be no more than an arbi
trary, but nonetheless heuristic, distinction in the production
process which the producers themselves, of course, may view as a
unity in fact.
However, the evidence suggests that while 'social production' is
constant and continual in some western highland societies, it is not
so in others. Eastern highland societies, with their focus on pig festi
vals and pig kills, slowly increase their commitment to social pro
duction over the long years leading to an event. It might even be
postulated that, in these societies, the distinction between social and
subsistence production is both conscious and linguistically marked.
In eastern highlands societies, energy devoted to social production is
no more than occasional. In Chimbu, it may be heightened, but is
equally ad hoc. Brookfield ( 1 972:37-8 ) shows how the area of land
under sweet potatoes per head of population rises as a major pig
killing occasion nears. However, west of Chimbu, and I have Enga
in mind here, 'social production' is continuous and there is neither
distinction nor separation of components of the production process.
It is a unity geared solely to, and with its conscious rationale in, the
production of pigs for exchange (social and political) purposes. It is
in this realm of 'social production' that issues of intensity should be
resolved. In the western highlands, it is clearly elaborated compared
to those societies eastward, and while there is no necessary corre
lation with population densities, Chimbu aside, there is a high
degree of 'fit' at least in the highlands of Papua New Guinea today.
With the view that production does not necessarily mean 'subsist
ence production', at least in some parts of the highlands, and that
populations may not ceaselessly expand, we can return to recent in
terpretations of the prehistory of Kuk, already discussed previously,
and consider the production intensity issue in that context. Golson
( 1982), following the critique of Modjeska (1 977), has come to
regard the swamp at Kuk as a prehistoric area of high taro produc-
tivity. The swamp itself, and general environmental conditions

which obtained in the Mount Hagen area, were very favourable for
high yields. This set of factors strongly contrasts with surrounding
areas of much less productivity, potential or realised. This produc
tion edge, the larger pig populations that could be supported com
pared to neighbouring areas, and the restricted access to swamp
cultivation which undoubtedly occurred, produced a situation and
atmosphere in which the intensification of taro production became a
political act. Pigs, scarce or virtually non-existent in domesticated
form elsewhere at the time, became the objects of productive in
terest, perhaps at first to exchange for other scarce items not locally
available, but soon thereafter as objects in their own right to secure
prestige and power over others. This interpretation is in line with
that of Golson ( 1982) and merely brings together the prehistory of
Mount Hagen and the first recorded ethnography of the area, that of
Vicedom and Tischner ( 1943-8), in which inequalities between men
and groups were strikingly apparent at the time of first European
settlement. Inequalities of such scale have not been reported else
where in the highlands and it can only be the case that the Kuk area
was in all respects unique (see also Feil 1982, 1984b).
This early inequality of access to areas of high productivity was
transformed by the arrival of the sweet potato, but by that stage the
complex and lengthy exchange arrangements which characterise the
western highlands today were well established. Pigs, as objects of
social production, moved between individuals and groups at every
occasion; expansion of people and production occurred until it
reached its limits, as it virtually has today, given the present mode of
production. In the long process, relations between those who
exchanged like for like, pig for pig, have become 'complementary'
(again after Bateson 1 936; see also Feil 1980), that is, unequal in
conception, more individual in operation, based on delayed reci
procity, yet equal in the wider span of time. In A. J. Strathern's
( 1 971a) words, it is a sort of 'alternating disequilibrium'.
In the eastern highlands, the process of intensive pig production
and the exchange of surpluses is nascent, even today; a fierce sym
metry and equality in the literal sense marks all dealings between
groups. Escalating competition between rival, equal groups is the
order of the day, groups which have perhaps only relatively recently
established stability and permanency of residence. (Eastern high
landers have the air of nouveau riche pig producers.) Exchange here
has not yet developed near to the extent in which issues of local pol-
itical integration could b e handled within the transactional arena.

War is a more fitting mechanism. Exchange is not a 'system' at all as
it is in the western highlands; groups are not linked or coordinated,
but stand opposed. It is only by viewing the processes of production
and exchange through the long lens of time that we can appreciate
the manifest differences in production configurations and intensity
which are found in the Papua New Guinea highlands today. Indeed,
in the eastern highlands where pig production is not elaborated, the
'production' of other things surfaces and takes centre stage as a
focus of society's intense energy, concern and interest.
4 Warfare
I observed one case of a newly wed lad of our acquaintance

taking the field against his bride's family a few days after his wed
ding. I also overheard two or three instances ofmen shouting that
they had just made their sisters war-widows, or their wives bro
therless.
Fortune ( 1 947: 109) writing of the Kamano of the eastern
highlands
Societies of the eastern highlands were marked by residential

instability perhaps as late as the historic period. A mixed economy
of hunting, collecting and supplemental agriculture precluded per
manent sedentism until the innovations of sweet potato agriculture
became apparent, were taken up, and then assumed dominance in
subsistence. This process, too, occurred relatively late compared to
societies westward, as the prehistoric and other related material pre
sented earlier amply demonstrates. With this lack of residential con
tinuity and impermanence of settlement, small populations rarely
interacted, they were adequately spaced on the landscape in relation
to each other, and any mechanisms to deal with intragroup or inter
group problems or disputes were unnecessary. Individuals, disad
vantaged or threatened, could simply break away from larger
groups; groups themselves could stay well clear of each other, for
the economy was 'extensive' and the perception was likely to have
been that land was plentiful relative to people and economic prac
tice, and avoidance, when trouble occurred, offered the path of least
resistance. In western highlands societies, the prevailing conditions
at that time were just the reverse. Mechanisms had already evolved
and were evolving still to deal with the frequent and inevitable
interaction of more dense, sedentary and proximate groups.
The exchange of surplus products - pigs - based on an ancient
62
Warfare 63
and intensive agricultural regime, had long been set in motion.

The cultural legacy of a recent hunting past and tradition of
highly mobile persons and groups is very apparent in contemporary
ethnographic depictions of eastern highlands societies and some will
be pointed out below. None seems more striking, however, than the
recent account by J. Watson ( 19 8 3 : 5 6-9) of the Northern Tairora
(eastern highlands) method of killing pigs. There, pigs are shot with
bows and arrows rather than clubbed over the head as is more typi
cal of western highlands societies, Enga for example. 'More often
than not the first arrow only wounds the animal, which bolts for
freedom and must be tracked until it drops or stalked and shot again
until it can flee no more. Some pigs escape for long periods; some are
found dead days later, the meat spoiled; and some are never
found . . . In time and lost pigs the cost of the customary method is
not negligible' a. Watson 1983:56). Such astonishing behaviour
would be unintelligible to a western highlander (see Feil 1 976), and
this method of killing reflects further the differential attention to
and elaboration of pig production and management east and west
discussed in previous chapters. Among Northern Tairora and neigh
bouring groups, hunting and gathering still retain a greater import
ance than pig raising and horticulture; they are 'more awesome and
sacred' activities a. Watson 1983:58), while the latter are 'luxur
ious' undertakings for the well-heeled few. As Watson further
remarks, it is very likely that what are at present sacred, awesome,
ritualised (even more prestigious) activities (hunting and gathering)
were, in the not too distant past, much more significant economi
cally than they are today.
In other parts of the eastern highlands, the late transition from
mixed subsistence to sedentary sweet potato agriculture was
marked by a period of 'protoagriculture' (Sorenson 1 976). Even at
the time of first European contact, the sparse and dispersed Fore
were still expanding their agricultural activities into virgin rain
forests. Highly mobile and only semi-settled, their response to threat
and conflict from other groups was simply to move away. They per
ceived their demographic situation to be limitless land-wise, and to
cope with a whole range of unfavourable situations, Fore simply
migrated to new lands. The Fore 'were accustomed to relatively
unrestricted segmentation as their traditional means of pursuing op
portunity' (Sorenson 1976: 132; see also Lindenbaum 1 979:37).
However, at the time of the arrival of the Australian administration,
the scene was changing. Their opportunities for expansion and
movement were being curtailed by more dense, permanent settle

ments, and 'warfare had become a serious and disagreeable prob
lem: yet indigenous political and social mechanisms for handling it
had only begun to develop' (Sorenson 1 976:222). Here we observe a
period of transition, with methods of social control suitable for
stable, contiguous, populous groups barely existing.
In these and other parts of the eastern highlands, the late change
to sweet potato agriculture from a lengthy tradition of hunting and
gathering, and the permanent sedentism it occasioned, led to a fun
damental change in people's methods of dealing with others.
Moving away to avoid trouble became increasingly less feasible, the
perception of an unbounded and unpopulated landscape less cer
tain. This behaviour and conception was replaced, gradually, by a
sense of crowding (J. Watson 1 9 8 1 ) .1 Relations between individuals
and, more importantly, those between groups with a heightening
sense of collectivism, became suddenly and increasingly marked by
aggression and warfare. Sorenson ( 1976) and others (for example, ].
Watson 1965a, 1 965b, 1 977, 1983) have remarked that greater
stress on warfare and the inception of pig feasts were major 'socio
political consequences' of sedentism and permanent sweet potato
agriculture. I would add to this that they occurred in precisely that
temporal order: warfare followed by feasting and exchange. It is one
of the contentions of this chapter that societies in the eastern high
lands emphasise warfare more than societies in the western high
lands and, equally, have fewer methods of dealing with their
neighbours aside from hostility and enmity.2 Admittedly this is a dif
ficult proposition to test and prove conclusively, but I argue that the
issue must be seen in light of the very different histories and pre
histories of the two areas. In the eastern highlands, recent sedentism
and permanency of sweet potato agriculture was accompanied by
heightened awareness of others and growing competition for land
and other resources once regarded as inexhaustible. Formerly,
1
This was a relative evaluation compared to the past when, with a hunting and col
lecting mode of production, land was less invested with continuous labour, people
were non-sedentary, and neighbours were more widely spaced.
2
This point may seem paradoxical given the upsurge of fighting predominantly in
the western highlands today, while eastern highlands societies appear to be living
in relative 'peace'. This statement pertains to the precolonial period; however, I
would argue that it is the breakdown of the very relations of social control, for
example, traditional ties of exchange, which have precipitated renewed violence
in the western highlands in the perceived absence of any effective state apparatus.
Such ties were less in evidence in the eastern highlands in the precolonial period
and the imposition of peace there was more lasting and has been maintained.
Warfare 65
security was assured by abundant space; later, the proximity of

others and lack of options presented a dilemma. Agriculture and pig
production were nascent and not intensive, and ways of dealing
with conflict and dispute, aside from aggressively, were neither con
sidered nor possible. This legacy remains to the present day. I am
not suggesting that pig exchanges in the western highlands necess
arily originated as a response to problems of security and social con
trol, but may, at least, have been an important consequence of them,
as many contemporary ethnographers have argued. Populations in
the western highlands were linked by pig exchanges and had been
for ages; warfare was, accordingly, less stressed as a way of resolv
ing local problems, and aggressive behaviour was not overly valued.
Extensive agriculture, too, had long been replaced by a more intensi
fied regime, so a heavily peopled landscape, with little possibility for
wholesale migration, was clearly perceived by all.
The ethnography of the eastern highlands today is replete with
evidence of intense warfare and social facts and consequences re
lated to it, and some of this material will be presented below in a
comparative framework. Here we can recall, for instance, that pali
saded, nucleated villages are the rule in the eastern highlands, which
suggests a greater need for collective security and solidarity than in
the west where dispersed settlements predominate. This fact in turn
affects the ability to produce sizeable pig herds. J. Watson has noted
that in Northern Tairora, 'pigs must be raised at sites often ill-suited
to production and husbandry but required for defensive reasons'
( 1 983 :74; see also A. J. Strathern 1 970b :374). The greater stress on
and intensity of warfare is thus further related to the lower produc
tion of pigs and lessened ability to produce surpluses for exchange.
The time spent on warfare also detracted from time spent on agricul
ture and pig husbandry. These facts have connections and corre
spondences to previous discussion on the rise of intensified
agriculture and pig production. A sequence of related facts is re
inforced and becomes clearer. 'Bigmen' in the eastern highlands are,
more often than not, aggressive warriors and killers rather than ma
nipulators and transactors of wealth as they are in the western high
lands (A. J. Strathern 1 970b; J. Watson 1971). This issue will be
taken up more fully in the following chapter. Boys are socialised to
be aggressive. Mobility and migration continue to characterise the
behaviour of individuals and groups in the eastern highlands more
so than in the west (see Robbins 1 982; J. Watson 1 9 8 3 ; Meggitt
1 967). This chapter will focus on the ethnographic present for a dis-
cussion and comparison of warfare in the highlands, but warfare

must be seen as a product of historical forces and in light of the criti
cal economic and related social transformations of the historic and
prehistoric past.
Types of warfare
Most discussion of warfare in Papua New Guinea, and the high
lands in particular, has sought explanation, usually in a func
tionalist, ecological perspective (for example, Rappaport 1 968 ;
Vayda 1971; and Meggitt 1 977). There is no point in entering these
arguments; my concerns are rather different. Besides, the ecological
viewpoint has been addressed and effectively criticised by others
(see Hallpike 1 973 ; Koch 1 974; and Sillitoe 1977, 1 978) . Suffice it
to say that, in the highlands, battles were waged for a variety of
reasons and within a wide spectrum of environments and ecological
conditions, and there is no very good correlation or causality be
tween population density, scarcity of land, intensity and scale of
conflict, casualties or the dispersal of groups and usurpation of land.
Indeed, for an institution of such ubiquity and presumed 'scale and
intensity and bloodiness equalled in few parts of the tribal world'
(Keesing 1982:34), there are relatively little reliable data on warfare
upon which to mount a comparative discussion. 3
Other writers have attempted to distinguish types of warfare, its
causes, the social units involved in warfare, and features of social or
ganisation, and discern connections between these variables (for
example, Berndt 1 964; Sillitoe 1978). Such analyses, although they
raise some interesting points, are unconvincing on a number of
grounds. Berndt ( 1 964:203), for instance, noted that warfare in the
highlands 'was never total' and that individual choice and the per
sonal relationships to the principal combatants played a large part
in determining whether or not a person participated in any given
battle. Yet the greater part of his discussion tries to locate the 'politi
cal unit' involved in warfare, thereby neglecting the very issue of in
dividual motives which he later raises. Warfare may or may not be
waged in the name of, or by the majority of members of some group
or political unit, but emphasis on these units prevents any useful
3
Warfare was banned by the colonial administration before most anthropologists
arrived to do fieldwork in the highlands. It is important to note, too, that recent
fighting may offer little, if anything, for the analysis of precolonial fighting and
patterns of warfare generally across the highlands. This is an issue too broad to be
taken up here (but see note 2 above, and Chapter 9).
Warfare 67
comparisons being made. I believe the 'corporateness' of warfare

varies across the highlands, with eastern highlands societies
exhibiting a greater degree of unity in such endeavours than
societies to the west. This point will be explored below. Most ethno
graphers, however, have viewed warfare simply as epiphenomena!
of political organisation (for example, the volume of Berndt and
Lawrence [1971] ) : certain groups unite or engage in warfare, but
within these groups warfare is disallowed. This begs the definition
of warfare. When one looks more closely at the evidence, problems
emerge. For example, in Meggitt's ( 1977) study of Mae-Enga war
fare, deaths between 'brother' subclans of the same clan, and
'brother' clans of the same phratry, who, acknowledging fraternal
ties should not kill each other, account for nearly half of all combat
fatalities (56 of 125) recorded for the period 1900 to 1950. Meggitt
( 1977:28) notes the 'considerable discrepancy [that] emerges be
tween Mae norm and Mae practice' concerning the moral obli
gation of 'brotherhood'. It is clear that basing a discussion of
warfare solely on levels of 'corporate groups' thought to engage in it
or not is fruitless, and incomplete (for further discussion on this
point, see Langness 1972).
Sillitoe's ( 1 978) study in which a number of societies are clustered
together for a comparative treatment of warfare results in corre
lations marred by a high level of abstraction and gross generality of
terms. However, this study shows that warfare cannot be treated in
isolation or as a unitary phenomenon in Papua New Guinea, and
must be considered in relation to other political, social and econ
omic structures which themselves vary across the highlands. Some
of these connections will be presented below; others in later chap
ters where these topics are taken up more fully.
Langness ( 1972) has proposed a potentially useful distinction be
tween types of warfare in the highlands which accords well with the
geographical continuum, east to west, which has been developed
throughout this book. He terms them 'restricted' and 'unrestricted'
warfare, and, with some exceptions, this broad contrast appears to
hold in the highlands: restricted warfare characterises societies in
the western highlands, unrestricted warfare, the eastern highlands
4
I have adapted Langness' ( 1972) distinction for my own purposes and have added
and subtracted features which, in my view, support the ethnographic evidence.
Langness has proposed other distinctions, for example, that between feud and
formal battles. This distinction is, I feel, better subsumed under the rubrics of
unrestricted and restricted warfare.
(see Langness 1 972:93 1 ).4 Unrestricted warfare is, as implied,

waged in the total absence of 'rules' and not invariably linked to
specific incidents or motives. It is general, pervasive and perpetual
warfare between groups more corporate than those that wage re
stricted warfare. I will suggest below that this 'absence of rules'
involves, among other things, a less complex and interlocking set of
constraints on individual choice determining participation in a
given war, such that more united and corporate fighting units can
wage war. This fact, in turn, produces a greater intensity and em
phasis on warfare in the areas, most notably the eastern highlands,
where unrestricted warfare is practised.
Restricted war is less permanent and pervasive than unrestricted
warfare. It is usually linked to specific incidents and waged for
specific reasons, and has more limited objectives. While it may be an
overstatement to suggest that any warfare is 'rule-governed', restric
ted warfare is at least characterised by the larger number of con
straints of all kinds placed on potential participants such that
corporate groups of any size are difficult to muster for any particu
lar battle. In other words, in areas of the western highlands where
restricted warfare predominates, individuals are often deterred (or,
more so, at least, than in other areas) from participating in battles
with fellow group members by cross-cutting ties of affinity, kinship,
exchange or friendship. Large, united groups for fighting are diffi
cult if not impossible to recruit, and wars are, therefore, less intense,
less prolonged, less numerous, and more inclined to quick resol�
ution by well-established means. Alliances may also be more perma
nent and predictable under restricted warfare, and recruitment to
battles may be made on a more individual, ad hoc basis.
The evidence for this distinction, if applied across the highlands,
is perhaps more circumstantial than for most. However, the very
words of ethnographers who have worked in the highlands, east and
west, reflect the greater preoccupation with war and related matters
in the eastern highlands. J. Watson ( 1 9 8 3 : 93 ) writes of the annihil
ation of weak groups in Tairora, 'to be destroyed forever as a
separate social entity with a name, a territory, and a continuity of its
own'. Some groups were referred to as 'our game' for they could be
killed with the impunity and ease of hunted marsupials. Northern
Tairora place a high value on violence and 'a readiness for predatory
and aggressive action' (J. Watson 1 9 8 3 : 2 14). The picture of Tairora
that Watson paints for us is of people racked by suspicion and
anxiety over their security and the ever-present subterfuge of others.
Warfare 69
It seems that in this part of the eastern highlands, groups went out of
existence at a rate and frequency unknown elsewhere. Among the
neighbouring Agarabi, male suicide was committed by merely enter
ing adjacent enemy territory. Importantly too, Watson notes the
'conflict of interest' between horticulture and warfare, and that
fighting took precedence, leading to gardens being in an often bad
state of production. This is perhaps another indication of a more 're
cently' settled, agricultural population: fighting takes priority over
gardening and a 'garden man' is demeaned as one who has 'little
heart for fighting' (J. Watson 1 983 :47).
Robbins ( 1 982), writing of the Auyana, neighbours of the Tai
rora, also stresses the persistent threat of annihilation. He relates the
elaborate precautions Auyana took to avoid death and ensure pro
tection, and how many Auyana favoured the Australian adminis
tration ban on warfare because a man 'could now eat without
looking over his shoulder and could leave his house in the morning
to urinate without fear of being shot' (Robbins 1982: 1 8 9 ) . Else
where in the vicinity, Du Toit ( 1 975 :3 5 1 ) describes the 'state of per
manent war between Gadsup villages', and Berndt ( 1962:266)
speaks of fighting as the 'breath of life' among the congeries of east
ern highlands peoples he studied.
The archetypal cases for Langness of 'unrestricted warfare' are
the Gahuku-Gama and Bena Bena of the eastern highlands. For the
former, 'In warfare the aim is the complete destruction of an enemy
and his means of livelihood, and each single tribe is opposed to other
tribes which are regarded as traditional enemies and consequently
as being permanently "at war" with one another' (Read 1 955 :25 3 ) .
Similarly i n Bena Bena, 'the stated aims o f warfare were the com
plete and total destruction of the enemy if possible. This included
every man, woman and child, whether old, infirm, or pregnant.
Although it is true that most raids resulted in only one, or few
deaths, cases were known in which entire groups were destroyed'
(Langness 1 964: 1 74). Intense, pervasive and permanent warfare,
described in surprisingly similar fashion by ethnographers of the
eastern highlands, mark this area as one in which its people and
groups are preoccupied with physical aggression and hostility, and
ever mindful of the potential for annihilation and sudden death.
Barnes ( 1962) has suggested that, in comparison with Africa,
New Guinea highlanders placed a greater emphasis on 'killing for its
own sake' rather than in pursuance of some group policy. If this is
true, it certainly is more so of eastern highlands societies than those
of the western highlands. In the west, though there may be some

counter examples (see Reay 1 95 9 : 159), while warfare was surely
fierce and widespread, it approximated less to the 'endemic' tag
usually applied to the highlands, indeed, to Papua New Guinea as a
whole. According to Brandewie ( 1 9 8 1 : 1 66), for example, Melpa
fighting was far from 'continuous or particularly ferocious'. Earlier
observers noted the same thing in Mount Hagen, saying that the op
posite of endless warfare was more clearly the actual condition. In
fact, from Chimbu westward, mitigating circumstances deterring
participation in wars begin to enter the calculations of individuals
and groups to a degree unparalleled in the east. Gradually but per
ceptibly, all-out warfare gives way to a clearer distinction between
friends and enemies. There is also a growing contradiction between
individual ties and group concerns which ultimately detracts from
the fighting potential and corporateness of groups. Enemies and
affines (Brown 1 964) exist in the same clans and the 'rules' of par
ticipation which individuals apply to any skirmish greatly increase.
Significantly, too, warrior leaders in the east are replaced by leaders
who are wealth transactors in the west. This will be further con
sidered below, but, in the western highlands, I would argue that
exchange and related institutions have replaced warfare in cultural
value and social priority, and are surely related to the much longer
history of exchange and linked transactions in the west compared to
the east. Ceremonial exchange rather than killing is a way of as
serting 'individual prowess' in Melpa society, for instance (A. J.
Strathern 1 971a:54); and Kyaka leaders suggested in the past that
people should cease fighting and, instead, make tee (Bulmer 1 960a) .
Wirz ( 1952a) suggested very early that the tee exchange system in
Enga had 'an elevated and noble aim' and was the reason that neigh
bouring tribes were not prone to hatred, head-hunting or homicide
(see also Feil 1 984b). Similar features of crosscutting personal
alliances and the impact of exchange relations can be found in the
accounts of Mendi and Huli societies (Ryan 1 96 1 ; Sillitoe 1 978 ;
and Glasse 1 959, 1 968).
Unrestricted and restricted warfare seem apt labels for states of
affairs typical of the eastern and western highlands. Warfare was
more 'total' in the east than in the west. The legacy of hunting and
recent sedentism, and that of settled agriculture and pig production
for exchange, informs this distinction. It suggests further that war
fare, no less than other features of highland New Guinea societies, is
not usefully seen as a uniform phenomenon.
Warfare 71
Casualties
One dimension in which the distinction of unrestricted versus re

stricted warfare might be thought to hold is in casualties of war. Fre
quencies of hostile encounters in the highlands are difficult to
standardise from ethnographic accounts, but deaths in battle might
be greater in those societies in which unrestricted warfare is the
dominant form. Actual figures on deaths sustained in war are
scarce. Furthermore, those that are available rely on the testimony
of others recalling tl;ie period prior to the establishment of Pax
Australiana, and in which few ethnographers of the highlands have
any personal experience. Deaths in battle are sometimes glorified
and magnified in contemporary oral history. I feel (without any evi
dence in support) that figures on deaths are highly unreliable (see
also Koch 1 974: 1 65) and that the 'killing as a way of life' syndrome
in the highlands before colonial pacification is much exaggerated.
However, the figures in Table 4 relate various rates of battle
deaths.
Meggitt ( 1977: 1 1 1-12) reports that, although Mae-Enga men
claimed that women (and children) were appropriate victims in war
fare, he could find little evidence that they had been killed in battle.5
Table 4. Deaths in warfare in some highland Papua New Guinea societies
People-time period % or rate of deaths Source
Tauna-Awa (E. H.) 1 900-50 25% (ofall deaths) Hayano (1974:287)

30% (of male deaths)
16% (of female deaths)
Auyana (E. H.) 1 924-49 10% (of current total Robbins (1982: 2 1 1 )
population o f approx. 200
people)
Usurufa (E. H.) 1 900-50 32% (ofall males approx.) Berndt ( 1971:399)
12% (of all females)
Mae-Enga (W. H.) 1900-50 25% (of all males). * Only Meggitt ( 1 977 : 1 12)
6 women killed in warfare
Wola (S. H.) last 40 years 2 . 1 8 % (of current total Sillitoe (1977:79-80)
population of 7000)
Huli (S. H.) unspecified 13% (ofall deaths) Glasse ( 1968 :98)
20% (of male deaths)
6% (of female deaths)
* This figure may be reduced by up to one-half, for 45 per cent of all Mae-Enga war
casualties are intra-clan or intra-phratry rather than with 'enemy' groups.
5
This claim of killing women and children in battle demonstrates, along with Mae
Enga statements on intraclan and intraphratry warfare mentioned earlier, a great
discrepancy berween Mae word and deed, which may call other statements
offered by Mae on warfare (Meggitt 1 977) into some doubt.
This point, and the figures of Glasse ( 1968) in the table, seem to
indicate that, compared to eastern highlands societies, women were
much less frequently victims of warfare in western and southern
highlands areas. This is another dimension pf the unrestricted versus
restricted pattern of warfare in the highlands. In the eastern high
lands, women were targets in hostile encounters; in the western
highlands, they were not. The explanation of this variation must be
sought in the pattern of marriage and social structure to be discussed
below, and more fully in a later chapter. Here we can note that,
within the eastern highlands, women were more fully incorporated
into their husband's group, and conceived to be a member of it by
other, hostile groups during war. As such, they were appropriate
targets in battle. This was not so clearly the case in the west: a
woman's affiliation was much more ambiguous, her value as an 'in
between' person for exchange and communication between enemies
more acknowledged and, therefore, women were not killed, sought,
or counted as enemy victims so regularly in battle.
The figures in Table 4, if taken at face value, would seem to indi
cate, if only slightly, a higher rate of death in warfare in eastern high
lands societies. This result is in keeping with the greater prevalence
of unrestricted warfare there than in the west. Even if the figures do
not support this aspect of the distinction conclusively, it is surely the
case that in eastern highlands societies, deaths in warfare were con
sidered more alarming than elsewhere. The much smaller size of
groups would mean that even similar death rates to western high
lands societies would be seen as more devastating, for the very via
bility of groups as autonomous units was threatened. This point is
made by Robbins ( 1 9 8 2 : 2 1 8 ) in his discussion of Auyana warfare.
The rates of death were high, but the 'disruption (real or potential)
was due not just to the intensity of fighting but to the small size of
the groups involved. Accidental concentrations of deaths or tempor
ary concentrations of strength could result in a social group's ceas
ing to function'. In this account, in that of J. Watson (1983), and
others of the eastern highlands, the demise of social units is per
ceived as a constant threa.t, assimilation or severe dislocation an
ever-present possibility. In these circumstances, a death rate in war
fare of 25 to 30 per cent is very high, and would have heightened the
anxiety and suspicion noted in the ethnographies above. The rise
and fall of groups is a fact of life in the eastern highlands to a much
greater extent than it is in the western highlands.
Warfare 73
The size of groups that usually engage in warfare is difficult to

determine in the highlands. Brown and Podolefsky ( 1976) and Sil
litoe ( 1977) give data on the size of 'political groups', but the ethno
graphy upon which these figures are based makes it clear that
'political unit' does not invariably, or even usually, equal warring
unit. There may or may not be a 'ban' on warfare within 'political
units' but this does not mean that such units unite to wage war or for
any other purpose. Still, these units, whatever their significance, are
two to three times larger in the western highlands than in the eastern
highlands. Tairora (J. Watson n.d. : 1 ) political units number about
200 persons and these units are 'the makers of war and peace'. The
figure is similar for the size of 'warring units' in Gadsup, Auyana,
Fore, Bena Bena, Gahuku-Gama and Siane. The size of comparable
units in Chimbu, Kuma, Melpa, Enga and Huli is double or more.
However, as I stated earlier, despite the existence of larger political
units, the effective fighting forces in western highlands societies,
under a regime of restricted warfare, are likely to be smaller than
those in the eastern highlands. Cross-cutting ties of individuals are
more prominent in the west and, accordingly, the intensity of fight
ing and solidarity of forces are diminished. An important factor,
perhaps the most important factor in this equation, is marriage: its
distributional features, political importance, and the quality of
affinal relations.
Marriage and warfare
Aspects of marriage in relation to social structure and male

female relations will be dealt with in later chapters. Here I want to
consider marriage patterns and warfare. Put succinctly, marriage in
the eastern highlands has little political significance and few politi
cal functions. Important, lasting ties between groups or individuals
do not hinge on marriage and, as we will see later, women do not
serve as important conduits of exchange in the eastern highlands
either. The lack of political importance given to marriage is the fun
damental distinction between areas of the highlands in relation to
warfare. As such, ties of marriage cannot be usefully seen as a deter
rent or impingement on fighting in the eastern highlands as they un
doubtedly are in the western highlands. Other features of social
structure follow this fact, including a stronger descent orientation in
the east than the west, and more boundary-conscious populations
there. The ferocity of fighting in the eastern highlands is linked to

the fact that affinal, matrilateral or extra-group alliances of any
kind or purpose are non-existent or take decidedly second place to
loyalty to one's own group under all circumstances. The eastern
highlands is a hostile place: this fact reinforces group ties and soli
darity which in turn perpetuate and accentuate enmity and the ex
clusiveness of groups. Fewer ties of significance bridge warring
entities.
This denial of political import to marriage is manifest in at least
two clear-cut patterns in the eastern highlands which can then be
compared to societies westward. While the patterns in the eastern
highlands themselves appear to differ, the outcome is the same. In
easternmost societies, the pattern of marriage is of near village
'endogamy' and a significant lessening of exogamic restrictions
compared to what is found in the west. The Gadsup, Awa, Tairora,
Auyana and Fore clearly fall into this group, but some features are
also present in other eastern highlands societies to their immediate
west. The Gadsup of the Arona Valley (see Chapter 2), for instance,
frequently contract intravillage marriage and although a person
should not marry a person with whom consanguineal ties can be
traced, Du Toit speaks of 'cultural flexibility [which] allows for
weak memories' in the choice of a village spouse ( 1975 :252). The
Gadsup also practise a form of intravillage marriage termed
'brother-sister exchange', apparently more prevalent in the past
when warfare was fierce. In this form of marriage, one village sib
ling pair take as partners another sibling pair. Great disparity in age
between spouses is the result. Infant betrothal also exists in Gadsup.
The stress in Gadsup marriage is on 'uniting and binding the local
community sub-groups into a strongly integrated unit' (Du Toit
1 975 :25 1 ) . These marriage practices, uncommon in the highlands,
'are seen here as adaptations to the hostile social environment' (Du
Toit 1 975 :263).
Awa groups exhibit a similar stress on intravillage solidarity.
Almost half of Tauna Awa marry within the village, the remainder
in nearby villages (Hayano 1 974). However, these extravillage mar
riages, necessary for demographic reasons, are with groups who
account for the majority of Tauna deaths in warfare. Marriage is no
detriment or curb at all on warfare between Awa groups. Three
Tauna villages account for 82 per cent of all exogamous marriages,
and 86 per cent of all deaths in warfare (Hayano 1 974:288). Tauna
Warfare 75
cannot but marry the people they fight, but 'marriage alliances have
little or no influence whatsoever on the causes, either serious or
petty, of initial interpersonal offences between members of different
villages' (Hayano 1 974:289). Intravillage solidarity and group
security always take priority over affinal and other ties outside. The
same can be said of other Awa groups (see Newman 1 98 1 ; Boyd
1 975, 1 984).
In Tairora, Auyana, and also in Kamano, a similar pattern pre
vails. J. Watson ( 1 9 8 3 : 1 14) reports that the evidence in Tairora 'is
clearly against the practice of local exogamy'. 'Endogamous values'
are 'avowed' by Tairora to the tune of 8 1 per cent at Batainabura
and 5 8 per cent at Abiera, the two Tairora communities studied by
J. Watson ( 1 98 3 : 196). The vulnerability and hostility of the social
landscape are again the reasons given for this pattern of marriage.
Groups that do intermarry in Tairora are sometimes hostile, some
times friendly; the pattern of alliances is highly uncertain and
tenuous from day to day. In a point of great comparative interest,
Watson relates how Tairora perform elaborate rituals directed
toward enemy groups to entice women as brides without the con
sent of their kinsmen. The whole point is to gain women from
groups which cannot 'insist on affinal payments', present or future.
The idea behind the achievement of such a 'coup', if successful, is to
avoid affinal reciprocities and responsibilities. Groups further west
would find such behaviour, and more importantly, the values sug
gested by it, incomprehensible. Auyana evince a similar preference
for marriage close to home (Robbins 1 982:245).
Mandeville ( 1 979a: 1 13 ) reports that Kamano desired to marry
within the village because of hostilities outside, and also notes the
'unwillingness of young men and women to recognise fraternal lin
eages as exogamous groups who reduce further the comparatively
small chance of finding a willing spouse of the right age within the
village'. It hardly needs emphasising that the marriage practices of
such societies stress a truncated corporateness and a closing off of
relations with other groups and locales, to the point that one prefers
to find affines at home. Lindenbaum ( 1979:43) writes that parish
endogamy is an important feature of Fore marriage practices. Rates
of endogamy range from 30 to 74 per cent and are increasing.
Finally, it can be noted that Fore men (Glasse 1969) contract 'pre
ferred marriages' with women in the category of 'MBD' about half
the time (see also Berndt 1 962:29). Thus, marriages in Fore are with
'kin', yet another indication of the pattern which characterises the

societies of this group. Local endogamy or restricted exogamy are
one solution and one symptom of a hostile environment and a need
to conserve female resources, retain offspring who become war
riors, and to promote intravillage solidarity. Another path to similar
ends is to isolate women from their natal groups and ensure their
total incorporation into their husband's group. Highly bounded
groups surrounded by other, hostile ones are the result of isolating
females. This marriage pattern is evident in other eastern highlands
societies.
The Bena Bena are archetypal of the second pattern of marriage in
the eastern highlands. Those also included in this group are the
Gahuku-Gama, Siane and Gururumba. There is also some overlap
of features with eastern highland societies of the first group. The
Kamano, for example, belong partially to both. In Bena Bena as out
lined by Langness, 'marriage seems to have few political functions'
( 1 969:58). Bena Bena maintain hostile relations with all surround
ing groups and marriage does little, if anything, to alleviate this situ
ation or to establish lasting alliances. Some Bena Bena marriages
take place within the tribe (as with Gahuku-Gama, see below), but
the majority are contracted outside it, with enemy groups. This pro
duces a situation in which brides are isolated from any support or
security from members of their natal groups. The fact has important
ramifications for male-female relations and exchange institutions
as will be demonstrated later. Langness strikingly relates the pat
tern: 'Many Bena Bena wives never see their families of orientation
again; for those who do, visits are infrequent and of little signifi
cance for group activities. This is related to the custom of wives
adopting "brothers" within their husband's clan' ( 1 969:50). Lang
ness goes on to note that affines were not spared in battles; and that
Bena brides became unequivocal members of their husband's clan.
For Bena Bena, clan loyalty and solidarity is uppermost, and to
marry and have children ensures 'a stronger clan and greater secu
rity in a hostile environment' (Langness 1 969 : 5 1 ) .
Kamano exhibit a similar stance. The epigraph by Fortune a t the
head of this chapter suggests that affines were killed in warfare.
Mandeville ( 1979a, 1979b) provides further vivid details. In
Kamano, marriages often took place between enemies of adjacent
villages. In such circumstances, 'marriage negotiations could be
reduced by enmity to shouting from ridge tops, and the ceremony to
Warfare 77
a hasty throwing down of the bridewealth and grabbing the

bride . . . There are old women in Kumara today who have never
returned home since their marriage, and old men who have never
visited their outmarried sisters because warfare made it too
dangerous' ( 1979a: 1 13 ). The affinal relationship in Kamano 'barely
exists' ( 1979a: 1 13 ). Women have little political or economic signifi
cance between groups, and become totally incorporated into their
husband's group. Kamano regarded the suggestion as 'laughable'
that a woman would return to near kin if mistreated by her hus
band. Affines are 'not bound in friendship or even neutrality and a
man who has no contact with his affines at all is in no way hindered
in the limited exchange networks; he will simply send all, rather
than some, of his gifts to friends and extra-village agnates' (Mande
ville 1 979b:238-9). Such facts could hardly be more at variance
with what is found in western highlands societies.
The Gahuku-Gama, Siane and Gururumba also fit this general
pattern with minor variations. Gururumba women break from their
natal communities at marriage and are isolated and completely in
corporated into their husbands' groups (Newman 1 98 1 ; see also
Sexton [1982] on Asaro). Gururumba myths depict the joint suicide
of a brother and sister distraught by the separation at her marriage;
or the murder of the devoted sibling pair by the sister's suitor for
the stress they have shown on their permanent separation at her
marriage. The break of a bride from her natal group is absolute.
Gahuku-Gama prefer to marry women from clans of the same sub
tribe for fear of sorcery from women of groups more distantly re
lated (Read 1 954b). In both Gahuku and Siane, 'deep hostility and
rivalry' coupled with unease characterise the relations of affines.
Siane are surrounded by hostile enemy clans, and marriage in no
way leads to alliances of enduring value between groups.
The clear image of these eastern highlands societies that emerges
is one of extremely united, isolated units, in which marriage outside
is tolerated as a necessary evil of infrequent communication be
tween groups. In some societies, such intercourse can be prevented
altogether by avowed local endogamy. Women are isolated from
their natal groups and more fully incorporated into that of their hus
bands, and affinal links count for nothing, politically or economi
cally, in an environment of constant hostility. Clan loyalty and
security are the goals which always take precedence in such an
atmosphere.
As with so many other social facts, the pattern of marriage, war

fare and affinal relations begins to change in Chimbu, and is 'elabor
ated' still further in societies to the west: Kuma, Melpa, Enga and, to
the south, in Mendi and Huli. When one reaches the Chimbu divide,
'restricted warfare' necessarily comes to the fore: the quality of
affinal and other extragroup relations is highly valued and alters the
corporate, hostile opposition between bounded groups. This fact
has been pointed out by others (for example, A. ]. Strathern 1 969a).
It is at Chimbu, too, as indicated earlier, that pig production and
exchange begin in earnest, and this fact is surely related to the pat
tern of warfare: affinal and matrilateral ties have greatly increased
salience as nodes in exchange transactions of heightened political
importance. At Chimbu, the significance of affines found further
west is still attenuated; Chimbu are midway on the east to west con
tinuum. At Chimbu, a high percentage (44 per cent) of intratribal
marriage occurs with an equal number of marriages with near neigh
bours. But unlike societies eastward, 'affinal amity' prevails in the
context of competitive intergroup encounters. Brown ( 1964) notes,
and it is a first in the west, that men stay out of fights and battles
when their affines might participate and that this fact 'may serve to
confine interclan conflict' ( 1 964:352). Affinal relations are friendly
and this may lead to 'adoption, grants of land, hospitality, and in
payments, and reciprocal labour. All these are expressions of ties be
tween individual kinsmen and affines rather than of group relations'
( 1 964:355). It need hardly be said that such acts are impossible in
eastern highlands societies, suspicious of outsiders and in strictly
bounded groups. In Chimbu, however, affinal status is not widely
extended to more distant 'affines'; it is reserved for a more select,
closely-related circle of people.
Westward from Chimbu, the political functions of marriage
become much more apparent. Kuma (Reay 1 959) stress intermar
riage between friendly groups and allies; marriage with enemies is
strictly incompatible with the political process. Furthermore,
brothers-in-law (gulnan) should behave just as true brothers do
(Reay 1 95 9 : 62), and relations with maternal kin are equally elab
orated and significant beyond those found in societies to the east
(see O'Hanlon and Frankland 1 986). In Kuma, a sister's child may
not fight men in the subclan of the mother's brother, nor participate
in war preparation or magic with that aim in mind performed by
fellow clansmen. A sister's child may not eat pigs dedicated to the
revenge of a clansman killed by a man in the mother's brother's
Warfare 79
group. 'All these restrictions seem to symbolise quite sharply ego's

diminished commitment to his own agnatic group in cases where the
aims of the latter are at odds with the special relationship ego has
with his MB' (O'Hanlon and Frankland 1986: 1 84). In Mount
Hagen, too, frequent intermarriage occurs only between 'allies' and
'minor enemies' ; affines and maternal kin are expected to be strong
moka (exchange) partners, and moka is a major political nexus in
Melpa (Mount Hagen) society. Relatively stable alliances between
groups are maintained by moka ties as A. J. Strathern ( 1 971a) has
decisively shown. Small Melpa clans deliberately marry widely to
perpetuate and strengthen ties with other tribes. Here and in Mendi
(Ryan 1 969), this practice of 'dispersing' marriages to establish pol
itical alliances does so at the expense of group solidarity as predicted
by Barnes ( 1 962:9). While in both Mount Hagen and Mendi (and
Enga too), intraphratry marriages occur, a 'multiple marriage rule'
exists whereby once two subclans have intermarried, no further
marriages are allowed between them until the original tie has been
forgotten (A. J. and A. M. Strathern 1 969: 14 1 ) . Furthermore,
Mendi affines must be exchange partners, and they provide refuge
for those displaced in warfare. Maternal ties are also very signifi
cant. In Mendi, it is explicitly denied that affines are enemies: 'not
only do they believe that affines should be friends, but also that mar
riage exchanges are such that it would be organisationally imposs
ible to instigate and maintain them between enemies' (Ryan
1 969: 1 7 1 ) . Gift exchange in Mendi takes place between affines,
who would also not fight if their groups were opposed. This pattern,
then, is strikingly different to that evidenced above for eastern high
lands societies.
Among Enga, the slogan 'we marry the people we fight' has been
given much significance in the literature. I have suggested (Feil
1984b) that this pattern of marriage, while noted by Enga them
selves as a statement of fact, is hardly a rallying cry. It is a pattern
overlain, furthermore, by the heaviest of exchange obligations be
tween affines in the tee system, which severely reduces the ability of
any group to muster a fighting force. Affines and maternal relations
are the most crucial individual ties in Enga society, superseding, I
would maintain, the rivalrous competition of intraclan agnates (Feil
1 978a). Marriages in Enga are deliberately concentrated in neigh
bouring clans (regarded as enemies at the 'group' level), but the aim
is to establish exchange partners in these groups in opposition to
fellow clan and subclansmen. Effective, enduring, corporate groups
for warfare, or an other reason, are virtually impossible to recruit.

The Huli pattern of cognation (Glasse 1968) means that the pol
itical units, cognatic parish sections, will always contain individuals
with multiple parish allegiances, such that effective and lasting
alliances and enmities cannot be maintained. The processes of
revenge and redress in Huli (Glasse 1 959) demonstrate the pre
dominance of restricted warfare there.
The patterns of warfare and marriage, the political functions
which attach to marriage, the quality of affinal and other extra
group relations and the solidarity of groups which potentially wage
wars are obviously all vastly different, east and west. Unrestricted
and restricted warfare are useful labels to conceptualise these dif
ferences. As one might further expect, there are also differences in
the pattern of compensation for war casualties in these two areas of
the highlands, and a brief consideration of the comparative evidence
will be made in the following section.
Compensation
Societies in the eastern highlands were constantly geared for war

and often, no doubt, at war. No other activity could be allowed to
take precedence over fighting. The descriptions of some eastern
highlands settlements give indication of a state of siege:
the people lived in villages which were in most cases surrounded by a
barricade of split slabs up to 12 feet high if timber were available; and in
the country away from the timber-clad ranges, wild cane stalks woven
together formed a very effective wall; at intervals along the breach the
wall extended outwards to allow the besieged villagers to protect the
barricades against invaders. Getting in closer to it and protected by their
wooden shields the invaders would cut the vine binding it together and
let in their comrades to burn the rounded grass-thatched houses and kill
all to whom they could get near enough (Leahy 1936 :229, quoted in
Langness 1 97 1 :306).
The strength and fortitude of ramparts were matched by the single

mindedness of those inside: patrilineal, patrilocal groups compris
ing a united fighting force. 6 Alliances in this region were virtually
6
A further vivid description of these eastern highlands fortresses is given by Linden-
baum ( 1979: 150): 'Built on a slight rise, Orie is at the moment surrounded by 5
concentric palisades, about 16 feet in height, pickets of which are firmly lashed
together with cane rope and round the whole is a great outer palisade which runs
for half a mile and encloses some gardens . . . One may walk through a long lane
way, pass through another door, and then after passing through 3 to 5 close and
Warfare 81
out o f the question; all groups were enemies o r had been in the
recent past; friendships were only temporary and tenuous. Affinal
relations, if marriages did indeed take place beyond the narrow con
fines of one's security, were impoverished in this environment, as is
clearly demonstrated in the ethnography. Maternal relations were
equally problematic. Mandeville ( 1979a: 1 15) tells of how, among
Kamano, a mother's brother was often unavailable to fulfil his
'ritual contributions' to a sister's son and so a local substitute had to
be found. Maternal kin were also fought and killed in this state of
perpetual hostility.
J. Watson ( 1 983) noted that, in Tairora, with war and security on
everyone's mind, horticulture suffered. We can add to this that the
ubiquitous valuables, pigs, similarly lacked attention. Watson
(1983 :52) writes that a pig kill or transaction involving five to ten
pigs would be outstanding in Northern Tairora; Langness ( 1972)
remarks that it is 'inconceivable' that eastern highlanders could or
ganise pig exchanges of the scale of tee, moka, or mok ink as is done
in Enga, Melpa and Mendi. The details and consequences of this
lack of enthusiasm for pig production in the eastern highlanders
have been highlighted throughout the preceding chapters. Here, it is
also important to consider the issue in relation to warfare. The point
is a simple one. Western highland societies have extensive rules and
procedures of war compensation or wergild (Radcliffe-Brown
1 950: 17); eastern highlanders, by and large, do not. Facing heavy
economic 'losses' in pigs, through payments to allies and victims,
compensation obligations in the western highlands served to con
tain and deflate destructive wars, a point touched on by Berndt
( 1964:203 ) .
Once again, w e can note one element i n a mutually dependent set
of elements. Individuals and groups who are avid pig producers
exchange them actively across group boundaries. Affines and ma
ternal kin are the most highly valued exchange partners and live in
groups other than one's own. Wars interfere with such transactions
and, if casualties occur, they must be compensated with available
pigs. Alliances are, accordingly, less tenuous and shifting here than
in the eastern highlands; united groups are less well-formed, and
concentric palisades, suddenly find oneself in a hamlet. Exit is made through

another complicated system, and one can go on like this to further hamlets and all
the time be walking within palisades. Complete exit from Orie is not made until
the greater outer palisade is passed through' (McArthur patrol to the Gimi, July/
Aug. 1953). These enclosures were dismantled only in 1957.
exchange has come to take priority over warfare. Exchange of pigs

is given higher cultural value in the western highlands. It subdues
the ferocious wars of clans. The intensity of warfare is diminished
and people's preoccupation turns to the production of pigs rather
than warfare. As Modjeska ( 1 982) notes, pigs come to substitute for
homicide victims in areas of high pig productivity. Increased pro
duction may be the dominant element in the above pattern, the key
to understanding the other elements. The history, legacy and devel
opment of pig production, east and west, figure as prominently in
the analysis of warfare as they do in other social processes.
As has been shown, all-out warfare takes centre stage in eastern
highlands societies. Accounts of compensation of any kind, on the
other hand, are rare. Robbins ( 1 982) and Newman ( 1965 :53) men
tion that pigs are given for help in warfare rather than as compen
sation to settle or deter fighting. Payments are made for recruits to
battles, rather than for settlement or compensation for losses. The
Siane are the lone exception to this eastern highlands' trend. Salis
bury ( 1962:27) relates how pigs and shells are exchanged between
warring sides, for victims and casualties sustained in battle, but only
after a decision to stop fighting has been urged by 'neutral' clans.
However, the frequency of such payments or how often wars were
so settled are not indicated.
It is in the western highlands, again beginning at Chimbu, that
compensation payments first begin, culminating in Enga and
Melpa, where compensation payments of many sorts are made and
become virtually indistinguishable from other ceremonial exchange
payments within a wider, enduring, single system. The Chimbu pat
tern is only symptomatic of what is to develop further westward.
Allies had to be compensated if they lost a man. Payments between
fighting tribes (on cessation of hostilities) were not usual according
to Brown ( 1 964:35 1 ), though valuables were sometimes exchanged
between them. Victims of intratribal fights had to be compensated,
however, and marriages might be arranged at this time as well. In
Kuma, also, peacemaking between temporary enemies was brought
about 'to taste the pork presented by the former enemy' (Reay
1 959:54).
It is in Mount Hagen and to an even greater extent, in Enga, that
these procedures of compensation are significantly broadened.
Among Melpa, 'The only satisfactory way of establishing either a
truce or a more-lasting peace was by making exchanges of valuables
as formal payments for deaths' (A. J. Strathern 1971a: 8 8 ) . Such
Warfare 83
payments went directly to minor enemy groups to compensate for

their losses, or to allied groups for a similar reason. Further pay
ments had to be given to the maternal kin of a man slain in battle,
and to the natal clan of a wife. Although it was denied, direct pay
ments to major enemies sometimes also occurred. In the payment of
these 'war compensations', Melpa were really 'making moka': pay
ments for deaths were connected into a wider ceremonial cycle in
which reciprocation was expected. The details of moka will be dis
cussed later, but here its ability to subsume all other kinds of pay
ments should be noted. A. J. Strathern believes that moka may have
originated as homicide compensation. Whatever the truth of this
view the ultimate effect of ameliorating conflict and replacing it
with exchange should be obvious.
Enga elaborate this pattern even further. Meggitt ( 1977) details
how Enga compensation payments include those to enemies to settle
the 'imbalance', and those to allies who may have lost a man while
offering assistance. Truces are negotiated with these payments.
However, in addition, interim payments are made by the killer's
group to acknowledge responsibility; return payments are presented
by the victim's group to that of the killer's in further acknowledge
ment of that fact; payments may be made to one's enemy's allies as
well as one's own ( ! ) ; payments are further made to the maternal kin
of the deceased; burial payments, payments for individual services
and alliances, and payments made for dependents who have taken
refuge elsewhere during battles are also made. Such a complex,
extensive, and costly series of payments could only be made in a
society whose preoccupations were other than on warfare, to wit:
production and exchange. Indeed, as I have pointed out previously
(Feil 1 979), homicide compensation and other forms of reparation
are enveloped in the system of ceremonial exchange called tee. 7 As in
the moka, in tee all payments for whatever reason must be recipro
cated. The tee is an umbrella for all types of individual transactions
called by other names. The point to be emphasised here is that, with
war compensation payments, the message is, 'let's heal the breach
7
The tee, as it is known today, may not have originated in war compensation pay
ments (see Chapter 8), whatever may be true of the moka. However, compen
sation payments are often made at the same time as tee payments and in the past
when the tee was banned by the colonial administration, homicide payments, as
tee payments, were substituted, often with the approval of the colonial adminis
tration who did not understand that they were part of the same overall system. For
some further discussion of these points, see Feil ( 1979, 1984b).
with pigs, the sooner the better'; exchange is more important than
parochial wars. 8
Meggitt ( 1977: 140-2) reports that about three-quarters of all
war deaths are compensated in Mae-Enga, and the size of the specifi
cally homicide component (not counting related payments) is very
large. For sixteen deaths (including three women), 648 pigs, plus
other items, were given in compensation, an average of more than
forty pigs per death. Payments of such size would be far beyond the
means of eastern highlanders, and beyond that of Enga too, if made
frequently. Such payments were surely a deterrent to harmful and
long-lasting wars, even if reciprocity was eventually forthcoming.
With war compensation payments a part of wider ceremonial
exchange arrangements, in which reciprocity is expected, such
transactions affirmed ties and stressed continuity between groups
and individuals rather than truncating relations and further hinder
ing communication between corporate groups. In the Enga case,
affines and maternal kin are members of 'enemy' groups; one's most
important exchange allies belong to groups which are often hostile
.
to one's own. Compensation payments were made to affines and
others as part of on-going payments in the tee system. Warfare must
not interrupt the flow of pigs; in general, the collective exchange
obligations of individuals worked to subdue the battles of units to
which they belonged.
The extent, rules and ramifications of Mendi and Huli compen
sation payments are perhaps anti-climactic by the standards set by
Melpa and Enga, but the size of payments in these societies is none
theless impressive. Both Mendi and Huli compensate enemies as
well as allies (Glasse 1968 : 1 1 1-32; Ryan 1 96 1 : 127-49). Glasse
gives figures for fourteen Huli reparations. A total of 492 pigs were
given for the fourteen deaths, by 108 donors, an average of more
than thirty-five pigs per payment and an average contribution of
nearly five pigs. Wergild payments to the kin of enemy victims were
smaller, averaging about fifteen pigs per payment, at an average of
three pigs per contribution. Wergild payments, according to Glasse,
8
During my early stay in Enga ( 1 973-5), a fight occurred between Yambatani and
Kepa clans in the Tsaka Valley, in which five people were killed. The tee was near
ing that area, and Keke, a Y ambatani bigman, made the point in a speech that
fighting could wait; war involves only two clans while the tee involves everyone.
Warfare should cease (at least temporarily) he argued, to allow the tee to continue
on its way and not be delayed and so annoy others. Temporary truces made to
allow the tee to proceed could become permanent and hostilities could well cease.
Warfare 85
'deter retaliation before a fight develops into large-scale war'

( 1 968 : 1 23 ) .
The pattern across the highlands is clear. Compensation pay
ments to allies, enemies and others, occur where we would expect
them to (and are unthinkable elsewhere) : in societies where warfare
does not command highest priority, where intensive pig production
historically is oldest and most elaborated, and where related
exchange institutions have developed as at least a potential alterna
tive to, and constraint on, warfare.
Migration and mobility
If the argument and trend in warfare, east to west, so far pre

sented, has any merit, we would also expect to find that persons and
groups in eastern highlands societies more often move, migrate and
are displaced through warfare than groups and people in the west
ern highlands. If warfare is more intense there, as ample evidence
indicates, then it is likely that groups were more often decimated in
battle and forced to seek refuge and residence with others. These
'new ties' of coresidence were no doubt very shaky, for there was no
pre-existing pattern of enduring alliances in the area for the routed
to rely on. More often than not, refugees were taken in simply as
recruits, to provide manpower for the hosts in battles they were
waging. They might well be turned out when their services were no
longer needed. Greater mobilisation of fighting men was the factor
which usually won the day. Fortune ( 1 947: 1 10) relates how one vic
torious group outnumbered the losers by ten to one. Refugees were
able warriors and would be accepted on these grounds alone. The
evidence of greater movement in the eastern highlands is circum
stantial, but further supports the general pattern outlined above.
Robbins, for the Awa, shows that nearly 60 per cent of all mar
ried adults in the precontact period moved out of Auyana at some
time, mainly it seems, because of 'homicidal fighting'. He considers
that 'members of Auyana were aware there was a fair chance of
having to move from one's original territory for at least several
years, and lived with the possibility that they might never be able to
return' (Robbins 1 982:214). J. Watson (1970 : 1 1 2) estimates that
bloc migrations in Tairora, numbering up to 150 people, took place
every twenty-five to fifty years, with immigrations and emigrations
of smaller groups of individuals taking place every one to five years.
The reasons, scale and frequency of these movements and dis-
locations were 'some combination of enemy presence, internal

weakness, treachery and/or the loss of support' (J. Watson
1 970: 1 13-14). Watson sees such movements as essential features of
Tairora social life, underlying the characteristic 'loose' social struc
ture of highland Papua New Guinea, a discussion to be taken up in a
later chapter. Mandeville (1 979a: 1 12) reports that a Kamano vil
lage was forced off its land and kept off for several years 'at least
once every sixty years' (a rate she considers an underestimation).
She cites a personal communication from Fortune to the effect that
'every village in the Kamano area (except one) had been routed
within living memory'. As well, some Fore men change residence
five or six times during their lives (Lindenbaum 1979: 3 8 ) .
Further west, Langness reports that only 10 per cent o f Bena Bena
mature adult males had remained all their lives in their natal group's
territory ( 1964 : 1 66-7). Similar descriptions of movement can be
found for the Gahuku-Gama, Gururumba and Siane. The striking
aspect of these ethnographic statements is that warfare is the only
reason ever given for migration, and that usually it is sizeable groups
which are the units that seek refuge abroad. Mobility in these
societies remains the necessary and viable response for people
whose recent past was marked by frequent movement.
It is not just that there is less movement in societies further west
(though the evidence is equivocal). The destinations of movements
are more predictable, they are undertaken for reasons other than
warfare, and they are more likely to involve individuals seeking
refuge with affines and maternal kin rather than the bloc move
ments of the kind more typical of the eastern highlands. In the east
ern highlands, en masse movements can be seen as an attempt to
keep the group intact, perhaps eventually to return to their original,
recognised territory. Such is not always possible, but as Mandeville
relates for Kamano, dispersed groups sought refuge with other
agnatically related groups resident elsewhere which might have
been displaced earlier. This claim for refuge was 'considered to have
been safest and most satisfactory, particularly for the accommo
dation of a whole lineage and its dependants' ( 1 979a: 1 16).
In the western highlands by comparison, interpersonal ties with
affines and other kin provided sanctuary. Whole 'lineages' were oc
casionally taken in; the stress was not upon keeping whole units
intact, but for providing a haven for individually related persons.
Brookfield and Brown relate for Chimbu that these interpersonal
ties across groups competed with intragroup ties which increased
Warfare 87
'tribal instability' ( 1 963 :79). 9 This trend is in keeping with that

noted above: united groups are less evident in the western high
lands, interpersonal links break down this corporateness, and this is
an important factor in migration and mobility no less than in other
social processes. This fact is further reflected in less agnatic empha
sis in the western highlands compared to the eastern highlands.
The evidence from Kuma, Melpa, Enga and Mendi is that
refugees also seek asylum with affines and matrikin. Economic
exchanges and behaviour immune from fighting and conflict pave
the way for such alliances in times of strife. These movements
appear to be largely individual ones. In cognatic Huli society, multi
local residence provides several outlets for individuals who are
threatened. In these western and southern highlands societies, we
also begin to find movements based on motivations other than war
fare or threat of it. Internal friction in some Kuma clans leads to seg
mentation (Reay 1 95 9 :32-3). A. J. Strathern ( 1 972: 1 13-14) shows
the importance of maternal kin and affines as sponsors for residen
tial shifts, but also shows that in only about half of all moves is war
fare the contributory cause. Significantly, Melpa usually attribute
all moves to warfare, but Strathern, on closer investigation, finds
more complicated reasons are involved. One of the most important
reasons for moving is to find improved pig pasture, a motivation
indicative of a society whose energies lie with exchange and produc
tion as well as, perhaps, with warfare. Other reasons also are im
portant factors in Melpa moves. Internal disputes between agnates
have always been a driving cause of Enga residential changes (Feil
1984b). Although larger groups are sometimes incorporated into
Enga clans, by far the most frequent moves are individual ones, to
take up residence with affines, maternal kin or exchange partners.
Warfare in the past was only one of a multitude of reasons for
changing residence. Ryan ( 1 95 9 :268) also suggests reasons besides
war as being at the root of Mendi immigration and emigration.
While movements, migrations and upheavals occur across the
highlands, the causes and scale of them appear to differ significantly
in the eastern and western highlands. The intensity of warfare is of
course a prime factor in this differentiation. For a long time before
fighting was banned by the colonial administration, western high
lands societies had achieved a far more stable political organisation
among component groups than in the eastern highlands. Warfare
9
It is also interesting to note here that land loans were made to affines and matri-
lateral kin to affirm and recognise interpersonal ties of significance.
was disruptive to be sure, but much less so than in the east, where
absolute routs, unrestricted warfare and wholesale migrations were
commonplace. Exchange with affines and matrikin, based on inten
sive production, was the cornerstone of increased security and
alliance in the west. Eastern peoples had few options: to disperse or
fight as a group. 10 Bearing in mind all that has been said of the
history and prehistory of the two areas, and of the important time
lag in economic transformations, these two configurations of war
fare in the highlands are much easier to comprehend.
Conclusion: symmetry and complementarity
In the eastern highlands, extragroup relations are weak and unde

veloped. We find there, small groups of people seemingly adapting
to new conditions of increased, recent, sedentism, with few, if any,
mechanisms yet established to deal effectively with the conse
quences. An ethos of 'symmetry' prevails. Such a configuration is
thus defined by Bateson: 'a relationship between two individuals (or
two groups) is said to be symmetrical if each responds to the other
with the same kind of behaviour, e.g., if each meets the other with
assertiveness' ( 19 5 8 : 3 1 1 ). Social groups in the eastern highlands,
tightly bounded, thoroughly incorporating women from outside as
wives, or better yet, marrying within, living in palisaded villages and
so on were, in precontact times, constantly vigilant for their secu
rity. They sought continually at least to maintain equality (in man
power, etc.) vis a vis their neighbours, lest they be overrun or, worse,
annihilated. They conceived of themselves as necessarily opposed to
all others, and they responded to neighbouring groups in a similar
manner: aggression was countered by aggression. Maintenance of
equality, or at least the facade of equality, demanded onerous
watchfulness and behaviour in kind. In such a tense atmosphere of
symmetrical relations, unrestricted warfare was inevitable. J.
Watson ( 1 9 8 3 : 332-3) sums up the position forcefully for the Nor
thern Tairora and his words are generally applicable throughout the
eastern highlands: 'When independent proximate peoples can serve
each other in no way that is unique as well as positive, yet are
10
Land was scarcer in the western highlands which suggests that the option to
move was less possible there. More populous, stable, residential groups were
forced to cope with that fact very early in the western highlands while in the east
ern highlands, political and residential instability remained evident in some
places right up to the colonial period.
Warfare 89
capable of harm and will actually find advantage in inflicting harm,

there warfare is endemic'. Groups in a deadlocked symmetry pro
duce an environment of instability and this aptly characterises the
eastern highlands. For eastern highlands societies, their past had
provided no period of adjustment to new conditions, and they were
confronted with problems which had been grappled with, and par
tially solved, decades earlier in the western highlands.
Bateson implies no evolutionary development, but, in the western
highlands, relations between groups seem more marked by comple
mentarity. He describes a relationship as complementary if 'most of
the behaviour of the one individual (or group) is culturally regarded
as one sort . . . while most of the behaviour of the other, when he (or
it) replies, is culturally regarded as a sort complementary to this'
( 1 95 8 :308). While intergroup relations in the west might appear
'symmetrical', this symmetry is overlain and dominated by the 'com
plementarity' of affines, matrilateral kin, and others outside the
group, linked by the exchange of pigs. In conception, these relation
ships are unequal, and there is short-term inequality (though
equality through time) in the dealings of exchange partners. 1 1 In the
western highlands, complementary relations in exchange take pre
cedence over the symmetrical relations of war.
In the language of J. Watson above, proximate peoples in the
western highlands can serve each other in a 'unique and positive'
manner; accordingly, warfare is less stressed and greater stability
and security ensue. Restricted warfare is more usual; the positive
value of affines and matrilateral kin is recognised and continually
affirmed, and political alliances are built upon these very ties.
Women are truly 'in between', not subsumed, and groups of men
take a less united stand. Increased pig production, based on intensi
fied agriculture, far more ancient and historic in the west, is the basis
of, and provides the momentum for, these and other critical social
transformations in highland Papua New Guinea.
11
Inequality is perceived in the conception of relations often based on the sub
stances which 'connect' matrikin and to some extent affines. This issue will be
discussed more fully in Chapter 6.
5 Leadership and politics
Not only Matoto, but Kavagl of Chimbu . . . seem to be men

whose status is based in large part, if not centrally, upon aud
acity, a capacity for violence, or an awesome persona.
J. Watson ( 1 971 :264)
The dynamics of divergent agricultural and subsistence histories

in the eastern and western highlands provide the necessary foun
dation upon which to build a comparative analysis of the ethno
graphic present in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. In the
previous chapter, a differing emphasis on, and intensity of, warfare,
east to west, was related to the relative presence or absence of effec
tive means and valued intergroup relations to control and subdue it.
Few, if any, such mechanisms or important relations exist in the
eastern highlands. Warfare, is thus fierce and endemic. Small, local
ised descent groups are tightly bounded and united, and extragroup
contacts of any kind count for very little. Recent permanent settle
ment and a shallow agricultural past, linked to an inconsequential
concern with pig production, are key variables in what ethno
graphers of the region have unanimously described as a high priority
given to warfare and aggression in a context void of accepted and
alternative methods of social control between groups. In the western
highlands, by contrast, transactions and exchanges of pigs (and
other valuables) based on an ancient commitment to their intensi
fied production, this being reliant on a similarly ancient intensified
agricultural regime, provided the means demanded by sedentary,
populous and proximate groups for a measure of security and politi
cal stability. Accordingly, it is in the western highlands that
exchange (based on the intensified surplus production of pigs), not
warfare, is given highest acclaim, greatest social value and fullest
cultural elaboration.
90
Leadership and politics 91
We can glimpse in the contemporary pattern of divergence across

the highlands, the evolutionary sequence which has taken place.
While all elements were in a complex interaction, in the western
highlands, the early adoption of agriculture under optimal con
ditions, its relatively rapid intensification, the linking of increasingly
committed pig production based on agricultural surpluses, the
growth of larger, more stable 'political units' and the linking of
them through exchange with extragroup affines, matrilateral kin
and ceremonial partners, represents one end of the highlands con
tinuum. At the other, eastern end of the highlands, the 'developed',
flourishing western highlands configuration can be seen only in
embryonic form. The evolution of wider polities, on anything like
the scale of the western highlands, has not occurred, and this must
be traced, in part at least, to the recent date of permanent settlement
and the late adoption of sole reliance on agriculture. Truncated,
'small group polities' exist; groups 'replicating' each other in a sym
metrical pattern of interaction (J. Watson 1983 :332). The very
mechanism of wider integration, exchange with valued kin and
affines in other groups, is neither possible, given the current produc
tion mode, nor esteemed as it is in the west. Instead, eastern high
lands societies generally appear to be those which have 'not yet
developed solutions to new problems' and which therefore 'contain
incompatible beliefs and practices' (Mandeville 1 979a: 1 2 1 ) . One
such incompatibility is the blatant contradiction between partially
valuing maternal kin (though not, it seems, affines) resident in other
groups, and, because of hostility and prevalent animosity, 'the diffi
culty of interacting with them, arising from changes in ecology and
settlement' (Mandeville 1979a: 1 2 1 , writing of the Kamano of the
eastern highlands). Similarly, among the eastern highlands
Ndumba, a boy's mother's brother was the ideal initiatory sponsor,
who might not be able to fulfil the role because he was an enemy
(Hays and Hays 1982:210). Eastern highlands polities thus appear
to have been prematurely 'disconnected' by strictly defined 'agnatic'
and other boundaries; western highlands polities go one better by
elaborately connecting groups through transactions of pigs with
maternal kin and affines, and by recognising the inevitability of
cross-cutting allegiances which may weaken agnatic solidarity on
the one hand, but promote wider cohesion on the other. This is, it
seems, a significant evolutionary advance, one which affects all
aspects of social life including, as demonstrated, levels of warfare
and its intensity.
This chapter considers types of leadership across the highlands,

and the political milieu in which leaders operate. As I have argued
for other features of social life, leadership, too, by no means follows
a uniform pattern in 'traditional' highland Papua New Guinea. It is
argued here that a clear pattern emerges in forms of leadership from
east to west, as well as in the attributes of leaders and the contexts in
which they are called upon to lead. This variation in leadership and
political life can be convincingly linked to the economic and politi
cal transformations of the past highlighted in previous discussion.
Bigmen, despots, great-men and others
Like other debates on the character of traditional highland New

Guinea 'society', the one on leadership which took place in the
1 960s sought to establish a single, timeless, definitive description of
leadership which, it was assumed, would be equally applicable to all
societies in the highlands. Thus, it was argued that traditional high
land leaders were either this or that, the argument based on the
premise that 'whatever the particular emphasis in . the tasks of
leadership, the qualities needed for the achievement of leadership
positions seem to have been very much the same throughout the
Highlands' (A. J. Strathern 1 966:366). However, the fundamental
proposition of this book is that eastern highlands societies differ
manifestly from those in the western highlands. An evolutionary
continuum of key features of social life can be demonstrated and is
based on significantly divergent paths of economic and agricultural
'development' in the prehistoric and historic past. Types of leaders
may, therefore, vary accordingly, and this variation can be linked to
these same historic processes. This viewpoint will be advanced
below. Consequently, any attempt to discover a pan-highlands.
leadership 'type' is likely to be methodologically unsound and em
pirically ill-fated.
Discussion of leadership and politics in highland New Guinea,
indeed all Melanesia, must begin, at least, with the seminal article by
Sahlins ( 1 963). Although he did not coin the term 'bigman' (Lind
strom 1 9 8 1 :902), his paper did much to establish it as a typological
concept, and make it indispensable for all subsequent ethnographers
describing Melanesian political styles. The details of that essay are
well known and the contrast Sahlins draws between bigmen, self
made and bourgeois, and chiefs, titled and well-bred, remains an im
portant and penetrating insight. While the achieved-ascribed
dichotomy of leadership offers a useful starting point, the contrast is

too gross and generalised and it is misleading to lump all Melanes
ian leaders into the former category, and Polynesian ones into the
latter. Indeed, Sahlins (unlike many of his critics) is aware of this
point, and suggests his method might best be termed that of 'uncon
trolled comparison' (Sahlins 1 963:285). However, it is clear that
Sahlins wanted to press an evolutionary point in his comparison and
that Melanesia, by his criteria, represented a 'dead-end' in political
structure, far more rudimentary, because of its unstable leadership,
than that of advanced Polynesian chieftainships. An unfortunate,
though unintended, legacy of the paper by Sahlins has been the rigid
fixing of the bigman configuration to Melanesia and chieftainship
to Polynesia. The quest for generalisation and comparison in Mela
nesia led to reification: some fieldworkers assiduously tried to docu
ment the bigman complex, even where the evidence suggested
otherwise; exceptions were either ignored or used to prove the rule.
Langness, writing of all political systems in Papua New Guinea,
could find only six exceptions where leadership is not 'achieved'
( 1 973 : 153). In the highlands, the bigman model still reigns
supreme, despite many problems not yet confronted.
Critics and commentators on Sahlins have noted that many Mela
nesian leadership systems have ascriptive elements and some Poly
nesian systems, achieved ones; it is their relative emphasis that
varies. The contrast is less real than apparent (Douglas 1 979;
Chowning 1979; Lindstrom 1 9 8 1 , 1 984; Allen 1 984; Standish
n.d.). The focus here is the highlands, and there are some other
issues which should also be mentioned. One is the generalising trend
already alluded to. Sahlins' bigman complex has been most
thoroughly applied to the highlands.1 It is here, rather than else
where in Papua New Guinea, that the 'rugged, enterprising indi
vidual', cunning and economically calculating, finds canonical
expression. It is certainly the highlands, where the strategic manipu
lation of valuables, predominantly pigs and shells, and the large
scale exchange systems in which they are incorporated are most
elaborate, that Sahlins had in mind when he formulated the bigman
pattern of leadership. 2 The most important attribute which con-
1
The few exceptions that have been noted to Sahlins' bigman paradigm, like
Mekeo and the Trobriands for instance, are coastal peoples, the majority of
whom speak Austronesian languages.
2
This is so despite the fact that Douglas ( 1979:3) criticises Sahlins for over-reliance
on Oliver's discussion of Siuai leadership ( 1 955), especially his depiction of the
mumi, Songi.
tinues to cling to the bigman configuration is that his political status

depends on 'vulgar economizing' (Lindstrom 198 1 :903). Whether
or not this view is based on the 'western proclivity' to view exchange
as basically material in nature (Lindstrom 1 984:291 ) , the arche
typal bigman is essentially an economic entrepreneur 'encouraging
and marshalling domestic production and by managing competitive
exchanges in which the surplus of that production is given away'
(Lindstrom 1 984:29 1 ) . The control and marshalling of other re
sources, knowledge for example, has been less a part of the bigman
complex, a point that has been addressed by authors seeking to cor
rect this accepted view (Modjeska 1 982; Godelier 1 982; Lindstrom
1 9 84).
If it is the case that bigmen (at least in archetypal form) are pri
marily concerned with, and defined as controlling the exchange of
surplus production, the model itself is surely best suited to certain
parts of the highlands only, namely in those societies in which pro
duction significantly exceeds domestic requirements. I have in mind
here the Melpa and Enga particularly, where the most elaborate
cycles of pig exchange and greatest attention to big production and
management occur. My point, based on arguments and data re
called from previous chapters, is that the accepted bigman para
digm, which emphasises, above all else, the manipulation and
disposal of surpluses, is suited to a very few societies in the high
lands: only those in the west where production of surpluses in pigs is
most intensive and where their exchange is integrated into wide, re
gional cycles. Bigmen should, therefore, be seen as geographically
specific, indeed, as historically specific too, for it is only in those
societies where intensive agriculture and linked pig production are
ancient and most developed that they are most clearly in evidence.
We have perhaps been unable to treat adequately other leadership
forms in the highlands, or even document them, because a single
model was thought to apply everywhere even when important cri
teria were absent or poorly developed. What has been taken to be
typical and universal for all of the highlands, in the role and at
tributes of leaders, should be replaced instead with the view that
highlands leadership is variable geographically, but more import
antly, linked to divergent development and economic processes of
the past.
In addition to the problems of generalisation and over-extension
of the bigman paradigm in Melanesia and throughout the highlands
in particular, the model has continued to have a static, synchronic
ring to it. With his evolutionary bent, Sahlins posed the bigman syn
drome as politically stunted, yet gave no indication of how these
systems in Melanesia might have come to be as they are, nor did he
consider any economic or political transformations of the past
which might have radically altered the timeless appearance of
leadership as it was in the ethnographic present. I have already
alluded to one such 'transformation' (or revolution) in previous
chapters, that of the arrival of the sweet potato, its differential rates
of adoption in the eastern and western highlands, and its effects on
the subsistence base and corresponding division of labour in the two
areas. It will be argued that this transformation set western high
lands leadership, its functions and attributes, on a different course
from that of the eastern highlands. This variation is apparent in the
ethnographic record. However, the second significant revolution in
the highlands was European penetration and colonisation. There is
ample and increasing evidence that indigenous economies and pol
ities were destroyed during the early colonial period and that 'tra
ditional' leadership patterns were, thereby, radically changed (see
A. J. Strathern 1 966, 1 971a; Dalton 1 978; Hughes 1 978; Feil 1982;
and Standish n.d.).
This may be especially the case in the western highlands where, as
has been pointed out, the economic and exchange parameters of
leadership were most developed and hence most liable to destruc
tion, through European tampering with rates and supply of
exchange valuables. It is clear that prior to European settlement and
pacification in the western highlands (and perhaps Chimbu too, see
Standish [n.d.] ), systems of ascribed leadership were more in evi
dence than has been described by postcolonial ethnographers. 3 Here
then is the crucial point to be more fully developed below: in many
parts of the highlands these two 'revolutions' of immense impact
may well have altered prior political systems and patterns of leader
ship, so that what we have taken to be almost diagnostic of Melanes
ian polities, the bigman system, is either relatively recent,
historically and geographically specific, or based on conditions
which in the past did not obtain equally across the highlands. Re
gardless, it is imperative to consider not only how forms of leader
ship might have come into existence and how they have been
transformed in the past, but also to be sensitive to the sometimes
3
As is pointed out later, the time of investigation and the period being described by
the ethnographer are crucial to solving the question of the relative emphasis on as
cription or achievement in highlands leadership.
subtle variations in leadership across the highlands. A priori cat

egorisation of Melanesian leadership as the province of bigmen does
little to further this appreciation.
Sahlins' model of Melanesian leadership set a generalising trend.
It became a 'convenient shorthand' for others (Douglas 1 979:6).
The term 'bigman' was, however, much older than Sahlins' usage4
and, in fact, throughout Melanesia, 'bigman' is often a more or less
precise translation of the indigenous term for leader. Bigmen are
thought to be 'big' not only for their renown, but for their physical
size and presence as well. At about the same time as Sahlins' paper
appeared, a number of others were written by ethnographers (unlike
Sahlins with field experience in the highlands) which sought to
characterise in general terms the attributes of bigmen. Writing of
either specific societies, or of the wider highlands, and all using the
term bigman, Read ( 1 959), Brown ( 1 963), Salisbury ( 1964a), A. J.
Strathern ( 1 966), Meggitt ( 1 967) and J. Watson ( 1971) debated the
best depiction of bigmen. In my view, the defects of Sahlins' perspec
tive are equally apparent in these characterisations: variation is
downplayed; a relatively static, ahistorical position is adopted on
the rise of forms of leadership; and the relationship between ideol
ogy and practice in the understanding of leadership types and pat
terns is ignored.5 I will briefly examine some aspects of these papers
to set the scene for the discussion that follows.
Brown ( 1 963), writing specifically of the Chimbu, describes tra
ditional leadership as 'anarchic'. Chimbu leadership was a 'free-for
all' (Brown 1 963 :6) . Traditional Chimbu society lacked centralised
political organisation; there were no 'fixed offices' and 'there were
no titles or distinctions of prominence . . . we can recognise certain
qualifications for leadership, but there is almost equal opportunity
for every man to attain these qualifications. There are no hereditary
positions, and few hereditary advantages' (Brown 1 963 :5). She fur
ther points out that leadership in Chimbu was short-lived. Against
this 'traditional' picture, she outlined the view that the colonial ad
ministration in Chimbu, at least, had created 'satraps', men without
past influence, but vested with authority and sanctions backed by
the Australian colonial administration. A competitive system of
4
See Lindstrom ( 1 9 8 1 ) who suggests that Mead ( 1 935) may have been the first to
use the term.
5
This latter point is discussed at greater length in the summary paper by Douglas
( 1 979).
leadership was altered to one of institutionalised power. Brown, in

her 'traditional' portrait of Chimbu, thus echoed Read's ( 1 959)
earlier characterisation of Gahuku-Gama leadership, and this view
might be described best as that of the accepted 'bigman' paradigm,
which Sahlins suggested was widely found in Melanesia.
Salisbury ( 1 964a) presented a revised view of leadership in Siane
and elsewhere, and clearly sought to widen the perspective to all of
the highlands. Traditional leaders, throughout much of the high
lands, were 'despots', indigenous despots. They acted arbitrarily,
were not consensus-seeking (as Read had argued), but autonomous
individuals with a great amount of personal power. Not only that,
but despots reigned for long periods of time and were immune to the
demands of public opinion. The coming of the Australian adminis
tration, according to Salisbury (contra Brown [1 963] ), actually
democratised the system: villagers victimised by despots were
finally given a say and could take their complaints elsewhere if not
satisfied. Instituted leaders could ultimately be removed if public
opinion strongly opposed them. Salisbury also called attention to
the discrepancy which existed in the highlands between 'the indige
nous ideology [which] was one of democratic equality and compe
tition, [and] the empirical situation at this time [which] was one of
serial despotism by powerful leaders' ( 1 964a:225). This discrep
ancy could be resolved, in his view, by a two-tier model of the tra
ditional situation : 'real big-men' were despotic directors, while
lesser, struggling 'executives' were controlled by directors, for
whom they carried out orders, while competing with each other.
Democratic equality pertained to the lower echelons only; the ideol
ogy belied the despotic practice of the real leaders, the directors,
men in near absolute control. Salisbury's view and the details pro
vided in other accounts (for example, Schafer 1 9 3 8 ; J. Watson
1971) fly in the face of the standard view of bigmen. Accordingly,
despotism as a leadership type has been largely ignored or treated as
the exception in the highlands, bigmen and all their trappings as the
rule. However, these differing perspectives on highlands leadership
and politics must be reconciled in any comparative synthesis.
A. ]. Strathern ( 1 966) seeks a compromise between Brown and
Salisbury. Although writing specifically of Mount Hagen leaders,
Strathern believes (see earlier quotation) that leadership throughout
the highlands was very much the same. In his view, leaders 'are
neither entirely self-made men engaged in a perpetual struggle
against each other, nor despotic bosses giving orders to and promot
ing or demoting executives' (A. J. Strathern 1 966:365 ). Bigmen are
negotiators, those who are 'strong, but not too strong', those who
can guide public opinion, compromise when necessary, and be per
suasive. It is in Strathern's later writings, additionally, that the cen
tral role of the bigman in ceremonial exchange institutions is most
clearly specified (especially, A. J. Strathern 1971a). On balance,
Strathern's depiction of bigmen has more in common with Read,
Brown and Sahlins than it does with Salisbury. All of these accounts
of 'traditional' leadership in the highlands seek a definitive
portrayal, and are based on the assumption that the region, while
exhibiting some diversity in detail is, more broadly, uniform in out
line.
An alternative view
In the realm of leadership, the ethnographic evidence suggests
that several leadership configurations exist. Leadership in the high
lands therefore is not simply homogeneous, but variable. However,
it is not enough merely to document this variation (even though
most writers have assumed uniformity); one must be able to account
for the diversity and provide evidence to support it. The previous
chapters have discussed the different prehistoric and historic pasts
of the eastern and western highlands; the relative intensities of agri
cultural and pig production which hold to the present day, and how
the stress on warfare equally appears to be variable east and west.
Can it be, that leadership also varies in the same way, and is simi
larly related to these processes and patterns?
Despotic leadership appears to occur mainly in the eastern high
lands and perhaps among Chimbu; the evidence will be considered
below. Classic bigmen occur mainly in the western highlands. Re
cently, Godelier ( 1 982) has identified a third configuration of
leadership which he terms 'great-men'. Following previous argu
ments, archetypal bigmen, those who manipulate wealth in
exchange, predominate in precisely those societies where prehistoric
and other evidence says they should: societies (like Melpa and Enga)
where intensive production of pigs has been long established and
where polities are linked in exchange transactions by men of
influence and high standing in ceremonial institutions like tee and
moka. Thus, I argue that bigmen are historical products of a certain
mode of production and pattern of intergroup exchange which is
very old in the western highlands. As the previous chapter demon

strated, warfare is less emphasised than economic transactions as a
way of integrating dense, populous, and long-sedentary groups.
However, it will further be argued that 'bigmanship' is not timeless
in western highlands societies, but may, in fact, be a recent transfor
mation of a political system formerly marked by greater social
stratification and hierarchy than is evident today, or in the recent
ethnographic record.
Despotism occurs in those societies where evidence from the past
leads us to expect it: in societies of the eastern highlands where pro
duction and exchange of valuables are not intensive pursuits and
where permanent agriculture and settlement are not as old as they
are in the western highlands. In the eastern highlands, as we have
seen, warfare, not exchange, was the method of dealing with out
siders, and despotism must be seen in this context of prevailing ag
gression, enmity and insecurity. Despotism, like bigmanship, is an
historically specific form of leadership in societies where production
for exchange remains nascent, is recent, and where, furthermore,
groups are rigidly bounded and defined, and individuals in them
'disconnected' from others in symmetrically replicated groups. En
demic warfare occurred in the eastern highlands and despotic
leadership was a response to constant threat: despots built up fol
lowings and ensured security which was impossible by means other
than domination, intimidation and audacity. Followings built on
the exchange of valuables fell to western highlands bigmen. It may
well be that some form of despotism existed in the western high
lands prior to the advent of intensive agriculture and until the
exchange of surplus products based on it became possible. How
ever, through time, western highlands bigmen came to integrate pol
ities through exchange; eastern highlands despotism remained an
'undeveloped' form of integration through no more than the prom
ise of security and defence. In so far as postcolonial leaders in the
eastern highlands have come to resemble the classic bigmen of the
western highlands, albeit in embryonic form, the cause must be at
tributed to the enforced pacification of these societies formerly
marked by total and unceasing warfare. Even so, exchange and pro
duction in the eastern highlands do not come even close to the levels
set in the western highlands. With the pacification of the eastern
highlands, economic entrepreneurship and exchange have begun to
replace fearless fighting as the diagnostic feature of leadership. Such
1 00 Highland Papua New Guinea societies
a transformation occurred generations ago in the western high

lands. 6
In a similar fashion, the great-man configuration (Godelier 1 982)
may represent a less functionally specialised pattern of leadership
than that of both despotism and archetypal bigmanship. Great-men
are more parochial still than despots, and even elementary forms of
intergroup integration appear lacking. Each of these leadership
complexes will be considered in turn, below.
The anthropological 'laboratory' of Melanesia, which provided
Sahlins ( 1 963) with his comparative material, remains in a more
intricate and diverse form than he could then appreciate. Configur
ations of leadership across the highlands can be treated as trans
formations of each other, from east to west geographically, but,
more importantly, as linked to key economic processes and political
consequences of the past. Leadership has been neither static nor
timeless in the highlands, and perceived patterns are the result of
divergent, evolutionary paths taken in the east and west.
Great-men
While bigmanship and despotism are the two leadership com

plexes to be discussed in detail, a third configuration termed that of
'great-men' (Godelier 1 982) represents the extreme end on a contin
uum of highland leadership forms; bigmen stand at the other, op
posite, western end. The extent and prevalence of great-men is not
established, but societies located in the extreme, south-eastern high
lands may be taken to be exemplary of this leadership type. Godelier
has coined the term and described great-men in Baruya society, one
of a number of groups in the Anga ethnic family.7
6
It is perhaps ironic that in the western highlands today, where warfare is more
prevalent than in the eastern highlands, leaders are sometimes warriors who pro
mote violence as a way of regaining authority they once had, based on transaction
al ability. It has been pointed out previously that contemporary warfare in the
highlands reflects conditions that did not exist in the past. Western highlands
leaders live in a milieu which has always contained inequalities and political con
trol. Their present endeavour through warfare is another example of that legacy.
7
It might appear at first glance that other societies in the highlands have leaders
similar to Baruya 'great-men', for example Duna 'men with names' (Modjeska
1 982: 86-9). However, it is quite clear that these Duna leaders have influence well
beyond the confines of their immediate communities and are distinguished by the
level of their involvement in the exchange of pigs in a variety of contexts linking
one group with another. Important men in Duna are closer to the classic bigmen
of the western highlands who emerge in social formations where exchange activi
ties predominate.
At the time of contact, it is important to note that the sweet

potato was still in the process of replacing taro as subsistence staple
in Anga groups (Sorenson 1976:79, 244). Baruya somewhat dispar
agingly refer to men bereft of any 'exceptional qualities' as 'sweet
potatoes' (Godelier 1 982:3 1 ) ; hunting and gathering continue to
have great 'social and ritual importance' (Godelier 1982:6). The evi
dence is not overwhelming, but Anga groups, of which the Baruya
are representative, may have more recently adopted sedentary agri
culture and permanent residence than even their immediate eastern
highland neighbours (see, for example, Wiesenfeld and Gajdusek
[ 1976: 1 80] who suggest Anga were hunter-gatherers until relatively
recently). Godelier remarks that the production of pigs and subsist
ence activities in general are accorded little value in Baruya society.
Game, secured by male hunting, is necessary for crucial life-cycle
rituals, while the production of pigs by women is little valued and
considered mundane, a source of male domination in Godelier's in
terpretation. Among the Baruya, too, the direct exchange of women
takes place; women are rarely exchanged for wealth and lineages
and clans are not exogamous units. Recalling part of the argument
in the previous chapter and anticipating slightly part of the next, I
suggest that the Baruya clearly precede other eastern highlands
societies on the continuum of social forms addressed in this book.
Levels of production and elaboration of exchange are less intensive
here than anywhere else in the highlands, and these activities them
selves are not especially valued, as lack of attention to them implies.
The consequences for leadership of these facts, as Godelier recog
nises, are apparent. Baruya society has nothing approaching bigmen
such as Sahlins outlined, 8 but has instead replaced this congealed
leadership pattern, based on wealth accumulation and exchange,
with great-men, men 'in the first rank of society', who 'perform to
an exceptional degree, specific roles' (Godelier 1 982:3). Different
men, with separate, complementary functions, lead in specific
spheres of life; leadership criteria are not united as they are in the
bigman role. Nor do Baruya rank these positions in some hierarchy:
great warriors (aoulatta), shamans (koulaka), and cassowary hun
ters (kayareumala) are functionally differentiated, yet are all great
men nonetheless. Only further east does a single, public, criterion of
achievement, warfare (despots) or wealth manipulation (bigmen),
replace the multiplicity of great-men roles.
8
Godelier ( 1 982:3-5) explicitly draws the contrast with the classic position of Sah
lins.
While there is no formal ranking of the varieties of great-men,

great warriors and shamans, through individual initiative, and in
that order, attain the most prestige. Warfare was as constant and
severe in Baruya as in other parts of the eastern highlands, and a
great warrior was a leader charged with maintaining 'the territorial
integrity of his group' or, if possible, usurping the land of any enemy
tribe (Godelier 1982: 19). The feats of aoulatta were almost 'super
huMan' on the battlefield, and they were the most respected mem
bers of Baruya society for their deeds in warfare. Godelier writes
how Baruya eulogised aoulatta for their exploits and how these
were recited in chants and songs. Their names were known to all,
and their bravery in hand-to-hand combat, while others remained in
the background, became mythical. 'As to power, the aoulatta enjoys
a privilege in which no other partakes. In case of conflict . . . which
threatens the unity of village or tribe, he has sufficient authority to
stand up between the antagonists, and demand that they make
peace. His prestige thus allows him to surmount the limits and con
straints which the normal working of kinship obligations imposes
on everyone among the Baruya' (Godelier 1982:20). This supreme
position had no wealth correlate; aoulatta were not economic entre
preneurs, but did occasionally abuse their power and become des
potic and audacious. Then, according to Godelier, they were
quickly disposed of.
Shamans (koulaka) also achieved high prestige in this society.
Shamans were responsible for curing illness and protecting tribes
men from enemy sorcery. Conversely, shamans waged 'magical
war' by redirecting sorcery towards enemy groups. Poisons extrac
ted from the sick were sent back; 'each cure is at the same time an act
of aggression against the health and integrity of hostile neighbour
ing tribes' (Godelier 1 982:21-2). Furthermore, a shaman's 'funda
mental mission is to protect the group as such, to keep it in
existence. Indeed, the shamans maintain that each night their spirits
assemble on the boundaries of Baruya territory, to prevent the
spirits of sleeping Baruya from crossing these boundaries and losing
themselves in enemy territories' (Godelier 1 982:22). In these de
scriptions of great warriors and shamans, the Baruya concern with
boundary maintenance is obvious: leaders are charged with ensur
ing a group's integrity, rigidly defined. Women are exchanged di
rectly, exogamy is shunned and tight-knit local groups in opposition
to similar units are the result.
Nowhere in Godelier's description of leaders does he mention any
role they have in intergroup affairs or wider societal integration.
Leadership and politics 1 03
Great-men are highly parochial, essentially localised, village

phenomena. They have no 'supralocal' political power or prestige,
nor do they symbolise the wider political relations in society. The
situation appears more extreme here than elsewhere in the eastern
highlands: leadership is more highly circumscribed, the unity of the
village and its affairs are their only province. This role contrasts
sharply with that of bigmen (and even despots) who are key links be
tween groups and who cement alliances and may, thereby, dampen
intergroup conflict. Bigmen are nodes of political integration
through their capacity for exchange based on the intensive levels of
pig production they control.
Herdt ( 1 9 8 1 ) has also noted that this 'great-man' pattern exists
among Sambia, Baruya neighbours. Power is shared by war leaders,
elders and shamans. Both war leaders (aamooluku) and shamans
(kwooluku) must prove themselves in warfare. Bigmen are not
found in Sambia (Herdt 1 9 8 1 :46), and, as we might expect, they do
not engage in the ceremonial exchange of pigs and other valuables.
Great-men are themselves 'products' of low production. Neither
bigmen nor 'rubbishmen' exist in Baruya society (Godelier
1 982:32). Great-men largely direct their energies inward, towards
parochial village concerns. Bigmen direct theirs outward, and the re
sultant polities and political arenas in which they operate are there
fore, correspondingly, much larger. The lack of development of the
means of production, the very means of possible wider economic
and political integration, remains the diagnostic feature of great
man societies. Intensification of agriculture is recent, not as else
where; the revolution in production brought on by the sweet potato
was far from fully realised when the second great transformation,
brought on by the colonial regime, made its impact on Baruya. It is
therefore only in this contemporary situation, not in the past, that
one finds in Baruya, 'people very similar to big-men, such as existed
well before colonization among the Melpa of Mount Hagen and
elsewhere, and who seem also to have been maintained in power
afterwards' (Godelier 1982:34).
Despots
Despotism should not be regarded as simply an aberrant, alter
nate, or extreme form of bigmanship; it is a quite distinct type of
leadership and arises under conditions and in societies which differ
significantly from those in which classic bigmen prevail. In this
sense, the argument over the 'true' character of highland leaders,
mentioned earlier, was misplaced. 'Bigmen' is a term best reserved

for a certain level of leadership and type of leader. Despotism may
well represent a 'prior' form of leadership in the highlands based on
-
conditions which had been surpassed in bigman societies gener
ations earlier. In short, the argument pursued in this section is that
despotism occurred in the eastern highlands of New Guinea in the
precolonial era because warfare was the prevalent concern and pre
occupation; production for exchange barely existed, and the stra
tegic manipulation of wealth between groups which became the
defining milieu of bigmen, could not develop on a production base
of such low intensity. There was little interaction between groups,
aside from aggressive encounters; social control was weak and pre
carious (J. Watson 1983 :237); leaders were charged with coordi
nating and conducting wars rather than negotiating exchanges, and
thereby promoting social control which was a partial by-product.
Warfare detracted from production pursuits, but the two were inter
connected. Leaders were concerned primarily with maintaining
security and the viability of their own groups; polities were small,
narrow, highly circumscribed and groups were barely integrated in
the eastern highlands. Despotism as a form of leadership is the result
of, and incontestably linked with, an emphasis on aggression in
societies which had not yet 'substituted' other methods of social
control, integration and achievement in the realm of leadership. The
following chapter will lend further support to this proposition.
In their quest for greater security for their groups, despots re
cruited followers out of fear and audacious behaviour, not through
economic partnerships or exchange transactions. Despots can be
seen as a transformation of great-men; greater power has been con
solidated in a single man; leadership is more clearly defined by a
single criterion of achievement. The inclination, noted earlier, of
some Baruya great warriors (aoulatta) to become despotic, has
become institutionalised in the eastern highlands. From what we
know of the intensity of production and concomitant exchange in
the western highlands, and its legacy, it comes as no surprise that
precolonial despotism has not been described there. Leaders were
rarely, if ever, warriors; the exchange of wealth was, instead, their
prime concern.
The descriptions of despotism in the eastern highlands make fas
cinating reading. The most consummate pictures of indigenous
despotism are provided by J. Watson ( 1 971) on the despot Matoto
of Tairora, and Schafer ( 1 93 8 ) on Kavagl of Chimbu. Salisbury
( 1 964) and Criper ( 1967) give further details on the occurrence of

despotism in Siane and Upper Chimbu. Matoto, however, is the
archetypal despot. About 1 900, the people of Abiera, home of
Matoto, were forcibly driven from their territory by a group of
Auyana speakers, living to their south-west. When they returned to
their land, some years later, faced with the prospect of renewed vio
lence and possible eviction again, it was Matoto, who was gaining
stature as a 'ruthless fighter' and unfettered killer, who guaranteed
their safety and provided for their security. Matoto died before
1 930, and during his 20-30 year tenure in power, was unchal
lenged, and so was Abiera. He became legendary in Tairora for his
fearlessness, courage and uncompromising behaviour. Matoto's rise
to and continuance in power must be seen as a direct response to pre
vailing conditions of warfare and insecurity, widespread in the east
ern highlands. Described as a 'bad man' by Tairora, his reputation
was that 'he killed for pure pleasure or simply because it was innate
in him to do so' (]. Watson 1971 :235). Antagonism was an essential
element in his style, 'proof of his potency' (J. Watson 1 9 8 3 : 235).
Despite the bad man's tag, it is clear that the people of Abiera more
than tolerated him; rather, they welcomed him with open arms.
His behaviour was nothing short of audacious. He had sixteen to
twenty wives and eventually killed several of them. He murdered his
affines by contract, killed other members of Abiera when it suited
him, dispensed mercenary 'armies' to fight foreign campaigns,
forced wives of Abiera men to copulate with him as he desired, tell
ing their husbands to wait outside their houses until he was fin
ished. 9 Brothers of women married into Abiera had to 'sneak' into
the village to visit their sisters lest Matoto discover and kill them.
Affines and other villagers were targets of his wrath. Members of
Abiera would lower their voices and cast their eyes downward in his
presence so as not to 'unintentionally excite him or attract his un
favourable attention' (J. Watson 1 971 :23 5 ) . Through his unchal
lenged support, one of the two major sibs in Abiera, whose
ancestors came from Auyana, were originally allowed to settle as
refugees and become, of course, warriors for Abiera. Matoto thus
increased Abiera's manpower for defence. Matoto also intervened
9 J. Watson ( 1 971 :244-5) claims that Tairora conventionally say that women are
attracted and 'find irresistible a strong man and a great fighter'. These, no doubt,
are male ideas; however, it is interesting to note that in many western highlands
societies, men say that women are attracted foremost by a wealthy man, one with
many pigs. Women have said the same to me, and emphasise that this makes it
possible for them to send many valuables to kin related through them.
in intra-Abiera disputes thereby preserving some semblance of in

ternal peace and order which enabled the continuation and the 'in
tegrity of the local group' (J. Watson 1 971 :240).
It was through his exploits as a warrior, recruiter of allies to fight,
and his reputation for force and power, that Matoto led Abiera for
such a long period of time, during which the fortunes of Abiera
'prospered' in a climate of constant insecurity and violence. As J.
Watson points out, a leader's ability in any other sphere of activity,
like wealth manipulation and exchange for instance, was a very
poor substitute for strength and vigour in military offence and
defence. It is for the latter that Matoto is remembered today; any
economic significance that he might have had has not survived in the
collective memory of Tairora. Matoto put people into debt by pro
viding might, not through the gift of a pig. Despotism, like that of
Matoto, is leadership in a context void of developed production for
exchange, concomitant with, and partially the result of, a high
demand and need to ensure security.
Nor is Matoto unique in Watson's estimation. Other strongmen
of Matoto's ilk are remembered in Tairora. He is no anomaly or ex
ception 'in a community capable of producing such a man' for 'he
found there the scope with which to operate' (J. Watson 1 97 1 : 256-
7). The evidence from this account of Matoto and his community
suggests that he was considered a vital asset to his group and that
what he offered in security more than offset his disregard for Tai
rora mores and acceptable behaviour. Groups in this area were
highly unstable and their fortunes were indistinguishable from those
of their warrior leaders. The greatest goal in war was to kill a man of
Matoto's stature in an enemy group. Such a feat might well cause
that group to disband or cease altogether.
Despotic powers could not, however, be passed on, and excesses
of individuals like Matoto did not often outlive him. We will see,
when leadership comes to involve the manipulation and control of
durable forms of wealth, rather than less inheritable qualities, that
the resultant rise to leadership is more predictable and ascribed.
Kavagl of Chimbu, in the portrait provided by Schafer (1938), is
no less despotic than Matoto. Kavagl was known as 'the man with
the fence post club' for he was notorious for grabbing any available
fence post to engage in hand-to-hand combat when his temper was
aroused. Kavagl was in power for at least twenty years, and in that
time his behaviour became as audacious as Matoto's. Like Matoto,
Kavagl killed several of his wives, and married many more than
average men. He was the only man in the entire Wahgi Valley,
according to Schafer, to wear a loin-cloth pulled tightly between his
legs, considered highly indecent by others. He slept in a woman's
house to show his immunity from and disregard for feminine
danger. Matoto did the same. Kavagl fought with affines, and once,
after he shot his brother-in-law following a quarrel, and was himself
struck a blow in self-defence, fellow Chimbu told Schafer that 'at
that time we would have been glad if he [Kavagl] had been quite
beaten to death by him [his affine] ; Kavagl had too much on his con
science' (Schafer 1 9 3 8 : 109). Kavagl caused enemies to flee in fright
just by looking at them or being present at a battle. He often allowed
his small daughter and son to play the sacred bamboo flutes prohibi
ted to all but grown, initiated men. As Schafer remarked, 'she must
be the only child with her brother who has ever seen the spirit flute
and may play with it. Kavagl laughs at it' (193 8 : 1 12).
This account of Kavagl is less comprehensive than that of
Matoto, but nowhere does Schafer mention Kavagl as important in
intergroup exchanges or wealth manipulation typical of bigmen. It
is force, individual power to protect and recruit followers out of fear
and intimidation, which characterise Kavagl and other despotic
leaders. What is slightly different in Schafer's description is that the
Chimbu seem more critical and less accepting of Kavagl's leadership
than do Tairora of Matoto's. Matoto was positively valued accord
ing to J. Watson; Kavagl appears to have almost terrorised fellow
Chimbu. If there is anything empirical to this difference in the ethno
graphies, it may be that the economic, social and political conditions
in Chimbu were slightly at variance with those further east. The
Chimbu had perhaps begun to place less value on warfare, and more
on wider political integration by means other than the near tyranny
practised by Kavagl.
Matoto, Kavagl, and other despots such as Damar of Womai in
Sina Sina (Standish n.d. : 1 2 ; see also Berndt 1962: 124; Bergmann
1 9 7 1 : 1 95), represent a distinct form of leadership which should not
be confused with bigmen. Bigmen were rarely fight leaders. In fact,
in Mount Hagen, 'big-men were not brave in warfare, but put
bachelors in the front lines, while they themselves stayed at a safe
distance' (A. J. Strathern 1 966:363 ; see also Brandewie 1 97 1 :208).
Brandewie ( 1 98 1 : 1 67) writes further that 'there was no real leader
ship exercised in war. That someone in a fight should take absolute
orders, or even follow directions, was foreign to my informants
when I suggested the possibility to them.' These and other factors
limited the spread of Melpa warfare. Enga told me that negotiating

an exchange successfully was much more difficult than killing a
man, so that only tee men were leaders or could become so. The in
timidation and killing of affines and wives equally does not charac
terise the behaviour of bigmen. Affines are usually one's most
important exchange allies and wives the most important producers
of pigs, exchange wealth.
Despots appear not to have been controlled at all by 'public opin
ion'. 'People preferred to join a despot' (Salisbury 1 964:228), and
partake in the aggression aimed at outsiders. The length and seem
ing security of tenure of despotic leaders, twenty years or so, con
trasts with the more unstable period of a bigman's influence,
suggested to be about ten years in Mae-Enga (Meggitt 1972:22).
Despots appear also to possess more naked power than do bigmen,
and any notion of consensus (Read 1959) is lacking in despotic
societies. Salisbury ( 1964) writes of 'serial despotism' in which the
political climate continued to favour the rise of a certain type of
leader and set of willing followers. The 'masculine ethic' (J. Watson
1 971 :267) of dominance further characterises despotic societies. As
noted earlier, the methods of gaining a following and the size and
extent of a personal network differ considerably between despots
and bigmen. However, a major difference of evolutionary import
ance, and from which others follow, remains that, in despotic
societies, the 'ultimate control of one's own destiny as well as that of
others rested in the hands of individuals and groups who could
muster fighting strength and deploy it, cunningly and with political
skill . . . not in adroitness in the manipulation of goods' (J. Watson
1971:265). Leadership forms are but another indication of this dif
ferential growth and rate of change in the prehistoric past already
explicated. Leaders in bigman and despotic societies thus represent,
to a large degree, the level of the development of productive re
sources in their respective types of society.
Despotism does not characterise every eastern highlands society,
or those between east and west, like Chimbu, but warfare and in
timidation are key diagnostic features of leadership throughout this
region, to the exclusion of wealth exchange as a criterion of achieve
ment. Langness ( 1 97 1 :309) remarks that in Bena Bena, 'it is almost
exclusively ability in warfare that is stressed as prerequisite for the
status of Big Man'. Entrepreneurship and importance in the econ
omy are of low value. Ability in oratory by bigmen, linked to oc
casions of wealth transactions in the western highlands, is also not
well developed as a criterion of leadership in the eastern highlands. 1 0

In South Fore, it is the 'hot fighters', traditional fight leaders, who
are bigmen. Equally, sorcerers, who also aggressively protect the
local community through other means, are known by this term
(Glasse and Lindenbaum 1971 :372). In so far as Fore bigmen or
ganise wealth transactions, they should be regarded as ' "little" Big
Men' (Glasse and Lindenbaum 1 971 :376). In the eastern highlands
societies studied by Berndt ( 1 971 :390), bigmen 'had to be fighters, a
warrior leader'. Ability in wealth exchange was only a minor part of
his prestige and amounted to nothing, unless he was also a strong
killer. Among Auyana, a killer leader was compared to a house post:
if he collapsed, so did the community he supported (Robbins
1 982: 148 ). There is no need to cite additional cases; this pattern
holds throughout the eastern highlands. Despotism is merely its
most extreme form.
The theme of aggressive masculinity as the major attribute of a
leader in the eastern highlands resounds in other institutions as well.
Boys are socialised to become warriors and good fighters. Matoto's
mother was killed by the Kamano. During his 'initiation into the
male cult, he was allegedly harangued about her death and exhorted
to bear it in mind for future vengeance' O. Watson 1971 : 233). The
initiation cults of the eastern highlands have no parallel in the west
and the major preoccupation of these rituals is to make boys strong
in all ways. The description by Read of Ngarawapum children could
serve as an eastern highlands stereotype: children 'witnessed the
return ofraiding parties and shared in the ensuing celebrations, join
ing the dances and (here, at least) eating the flesh of the slain' (Read
1 946).
Age-grades are also common in the eastern highlands (Sillitoe
1 978), non-existent in the western highlands, and solidarity in war
fare was one function of initiating youths in sets; it is strong incul
cation of the values of maleness and warriorhood. It is in the eastern
highlands, too, that villages, not scattered homesteads, are the rule,
which suggests a climate in which collective security was at a pre
mium, and male aggression a necessity. In short, eastern highlands
societies were geared for warfare and it was their major concern.
Leaders were defined in that way, boys initiated with that purpose in
mind, and the pattern of settlements reflects its contingencies.
Societies so occupied and inward-looking have neither time nor re-
10
Kavagl, according to Schafer ( 1938), was also a great orator. In this regard, too,
Chimbu leadership may be transitional between east and west.
sources for wide-ranging, expansive, integrating exchange trans

actions.
It was not until the arrival of the Europeans that despotism was
severely undermined. J. Watson remarks that the 'beginning of pax
britannica was a point beyond which no more men like him
[Matoto] would arise in Abiera' (197 1:257). Warfare was banned,
and it made little sense to have as leaders men whose chief ability
was fighting. Their abilities in other spheres were untested, and 'new
men' emerged in the eastern highlands capable of dealing with the
new, changed conditions. Salisbury ( 1 962) has, of course, argued
that, in Siane, the cessation of warfare and the introduction of steel
tools allowed greater time to engage in ceremonial economics, and
indeed, increased the size of economic units and recognised segmen
tary groupings (Salisbury: 1964a : 230).
In the eastern highlands, more than elsewhere, the end of contin
ual warfare fostered the growth and elaboration of ceremonial
exchange and intensive agricultural production. As long as the need
for vigilance and security remained paramount, the development of
production was retarded, unrealised. Still, throughout the known
history and prehistory of the eastern highlands, production and
exchange have not nearly attained the standards set further west.
Even though eastern highlands leaders appear, in the postcolonial
era studied by anthropologists, to have taken on the features of
wealth manipulation, characteristic of bigmen, they remain several
steps behind, testimony to their recent change of life direction. A
person like Matoto seems much more powerful than the leaders of
today, who are capable of achieving prestige along several channels
(see J. Watson 1 9 7 1 : 250).
To conclude, despotism was a form of leadership common
throughout the eastern highlands at the time of European contact.
Endemic warfare prevailed, groups competed for manpower and
land. They desired, nay required, men like Matoto to ensure their
prosperity and viability. Other methods of social control were non
existent, and people tolerated moral outrages in return for security.
Mauss suggested, decades ago ( 1 954), that gift-giving could become
a primitive contract, replacing warfare and providing a measure of
security and political integration. But before that could happen,
people had to recognise such a substitution was possible, even
better, and develop the economic resources to put it into practice. In
the western highlands, prior to colonial times, this was clearly the
situation. It had been an autochthonous achievement, however, and
political development there reached levels not found elsewhere in

the highlands.
Bigmen and before
Warfare has centripetal tendencies and, when it is given priority,

goes hand-in-hand with a strictly defined, narrowly focussed,
domestic mode of production, characteristic of the eastern high
lands (Sahlins 1972). Ceremonial exchange based on intensive agri
culture has centrifugal properties, and demands an economic order
which has breached the domestic-oriented production focus. Such
an economic regime developed in the prehistoric western highlands
of New Guinea. Bigmen were the leaders of ceremonial exchange
and, through them, a wider political order was established and
maintained. As Healey writes, 'the elaboration of ceremonial
exchange by the extension of partnership chains through groups,
tends to stabilize political relations over areas far greater than any
one man or group can control or even influence' ( 1 978 :206). Despo
tism constrained the growth of polities and, as we have noticed,
tight-knit groups, highly bounded and lacking integration were the
result. Thus, the political order in the western highlands, built upon
exchange relations, was widened, and could expand 'across terri
torial, cultural and sometimes even linguistic boundaries' in its most
developed forms (Allen 1984:24).
In the western highlands and much of the southern highlands,
where exchange often links up with systems to the north, almost
without exception, pre-eminence in ceremonial exchange is the sole
defining feature of bigman leadership. Gone are references to great
warriors and fearless fighters, and to audacious, eccentric behav
iour. As Sahlins ( 1 963) recognised and made classic, 'rich-man' and
'big-man' are synonymous, although not always apparently so. It is
this economic control and manipulation by bigmen which was con
sidered universal in the highlands, while despotism was deemed
atypical. When the model failed to fit nicely, there were 'exceptions'
to the bigman paradigm. For example, 'In Binumarien [neighbours
of the Tairora], the bigman system is not fully developed' (Hawkes
1978b: l 6 1 ) . Quite so; anthropologists expected bigmen through
out the highlands. However, bigmen no less than despots are histori
cal products; outcomes of particular economic and political
consequences that, in the evolutionary past, obtained in different
ways and at different times throughout the highlands.
Ceremonial exchange is not a unified phenomenon in the western

highlands, but leadership everywhere is defined in terms of it.
Among the Melpa, where the moka exchange system is the major
political arena, A. J. Strathern (for example, 1971a) has shown how
bigmen, through the exchange of valuables, further intergroup
alliances and lessen conflict, and arrange truces when fighting has
flared. The terms for 'bigman' stress his wealth, his generosity in
giving away shells and pigs, his physical size, his ability to plan and
make speeches on moka occasions, and his general importance to
the community. As well as taking the lead in exchanges themselves,
and marshalling the wealth of others at ceremonies, Strathern writes
that they 'are the major planners and guarantors of good faith be
tween groups which were formerly traditional enemies. They take
on the task because it enhances, if they are successful, their total
degree of control over the networks of exchange' (1971a:218-19).
Furthermore, a major concern of bigmen is to expand networks far
and wide. Networks of allies, located outside a bigman's own
group, give him additional resources to call upon, and 'free' him
from his 'segmentary enclave' which is potentially (and politically)
limiting (A. J. Strathern 1971a:221). Almost all activities associated
with bigmen concern intergroup affairs.
Melpa bigmen have more wives as producers, more exchange
partners, more pigs and shells, and to signify the latter, wear omak,
lengths of bamboo, hanging from their neck, which represent the
number of shells they control in moka. As Brandewie writes: 'An
omak with 50 rods reaches approximately to the navel. For each in
dividual rod which is added to this collection the wearer proclaims
that he has given someone at least eight shells in a moka . . A big
.
man is therefore identified first and foremost by the number of

exchanges he has conducted' (1971 :205-6). Public symbols of
status and wealth rarely occur in the highlands, and it perhaps
comes as no surprise that it is in Mount Hagen, where transactions
of wealth are oldest and where agricultural surpluses may have first
been converted for exchange purposes, that such symbols adorn
leaders. Ethnography in the Mount Hagen area is also lengthy and
continuous, and will provide the basis for further interpretations.
In Enga, too, a man is a bigman only if he is influential in the tee
exchange system, can make large displays of pigs, and is a skilled
orator on tee occasions. Bigmen in Enga, as in Melpa, have more
pigs, partners and pearlshells than ordinary men, transact with men
in more clans than other men, and engage in transactions in every
sphere of life which ultimately flow back into the tee system. The
tee, like the moka, is primarily an outward-looking institution. Enga
bigmen rarely transact with members of their own groups, prefer
ring instead to tap resources and establish outside alliances which
are functionally equivalent to those of Melpa bigmen. In these two
most elaborate exchange institutions in the highlands, perhaps all of
Melanesia, we find leaders whose range, scope, method and func
tion stand sharply in contrast to despots and other similar types
described earlier. It must be borne continually in mind, however,
that exchange is founded upon intensive production, and that
without this base, bigmen and others could not form the relation
ships so vital to the social and political order.
At the extreme eastern end of the western highlands, where sys
temic aspects of ceremonial exchange are not as developed as in tee
and moka, leadership is less absolutely tied to economic trans
actions; it is more transitional, between east and west. Yet pre
eminence in exchange remains an important criterion of
achievement for leadership. Among the Maring (Lowman-Vayda
1 971), bigmen are known as 'unvanquished men', men who have
avoided assassination; 'fight medicine men', and 'ancestor spirit
men', those who care for sacred fighting objects, and those who
understand the talk of ancestors (Lowman-Vayda 1971:336). How
ever, bigmen are wealthy (Rappaport 1 968 :29), have more wives
and material assets than others (Lowman-Vayda 1 971 : 348), and
take the lead in deciding when to hold the pig festival in which a clan
kills its pigs and pork is distributed to allies and affines, a most im
portant political event. As has been mentioned earlier, Maring
themselves raise most of the pigs killed at festivals, about 87 per cent
(Rappaport 1968: 153 ). Financial methods do not exist to any great
extent, but 'home production' exceeds that found in societies to the
east. Maring society has heightened production without significant
exchange (pigs are killed, not presented live) and warfare plays a
more prominent part in their lives than in societies further west.
Leadership, accordingly, reflects this dual concern (see Healey
1978 :202). Among Maring, too, it is trade which has greater im
portance than exchange in the circulation of valuables (Healey
1978).
In Kuma, bigmen are not only closely associated with the pig cer
emonial, known as konggal, but also with sorcery. Reay terms these
leaders 'rhetoric thumpers' (1959 : 1 1 8 ) . They direct sorcery against
enemy groups, but at the same time 'represent the group in dealings
with outsiders - mainly in the ritual transfer of goods, such as a mar

riage payment, a collection of valuables for a friendly clan to use in
its Pig Ceremonial, or a mound of food for a feast' (Reay 195 9 : 1 1 8 ) .
Konggal, like the Maring konj kaiko, involves the slaughter o f pigs.
Polities are widened and integration achieved in both events, yet not
on the same scale as that of tee and moka.
Despite the depiction of Kavagl of Chimbu as a despot, Chimbu
leaders may equally be seen, in the main, as transitional in character
between the eastern and western highlands. Brown ( 1 971 : 2 1 7)
reports that, before colonisation, 'the daring fighter was much
admired although he did not always gain a following'. While she
goes on to say that such a man did not often last as a leader, it is
quite clear that Kavagl enjoyed a long tenure in office. Brown
describes other more popular leaders as those who represented their
groups, made impressive exchanges and coordinated the pig festi
vals (bug/a gende). Kavagl may have been exceptional in precolonial
Chimbu, or exchange as a condition of leadership may be recent; it
is impossible to determine absolutely. 1 1 However, Chimbu, like
Kuma and Maring, slaughter pigs at periodic ceremonies, and
exchange systems of the sort of tee and moka do not exist. Chimbu
leadership may tend towards either the bigman or despotic poles,
depending on the exigencies of the times. It is also difficult in many
accounts to discern clearly what period of time is being described in
the so-called 'ethnographic present', and what changes wrought by
the colonial administration might have had on the pattern of leader
ship.
A clearer picture emerges from the southern highlands. In
discussing Wola bigmen, Sillitoe ( 1 979 : 1 13 ) writes that 100 per
cent of all men stated that ol howma (bigmen) 'managed many pigs
and many pearl shells', while only 1.3 per cent said an ol howma
was a 'good warrior'. Mendi bigmen are, similarly, those who con
duct exchanges and manage wealth (Ryan 1 9 6 1 ; see also Le Roy
[ 1979a,b] on Kewa). In these societies, too, alliances are formed and
polities extended through the transactions of bigmen. They are not
parochial leaders but symbolise a broadened political order.
The pattern is clear-cut: bigmen through exchange and wealth
transactions significantly increased stability and promoted wider
social control than is present elsewhere in the highlands. The con
cerns of despots, on the other hand, were narrower; they sought to
11
Brown, i n her discussion of Chim bu leadership, does not mention Kavagl, or the
paper by Schafer ( 1938).
protect small, bounded groups from extinction in a n atmosphere of

bitter warfare, or better still, to eliminate others in order to provide
more lasting security for their own group. Despotism constrained in
the same way as its underlying economic base. Despots recruited
'manpower' to their groups; bigmen sought allies with whom to
exchange, preferably outside the local political community. This dif
ference is the fundamental one between leaders in the eastern and
western highlands.
The ethnography of the highlands has all but assumed the univer
sality of the bigman paradigm, and with it, a timeless quality to this
'evolutionary' stage of leadership and political system. But, as has
been pointed out before (Standish n.d. ; Hughes 1978 ; Feil 1 982),
anthropological depictions of bigmen all date from the postcolonial
period when political and economic conditions were very much
changed from those that prevailed prior to European discovery and
penetration of the highlands. In the Mount Hagen area, where
classic bigmen have been described by A. J. Strathern (for example
1 971a), the prehistoric evidence, and that of ethnographers at the
time of European contact, provide material which indicates that big
manship was not a static form of leadership in the past.
In previous chapters, the Mount Hagen area has been pinpointed
as the likely 'birthplace' of highlands agriculture, where the intensi
fication of agricultural production first 'took off' and where surplus
products were 'converted' into pigs (surplus products themselves),
which became the first 'valuables' in the highlands. These were
exchanged outwards for other goods, but, more importantly, for
prestige and power. Wet taro cultivation centred on the highly fer
tile Kuk swamps, was very intensive, and levels of production far ex
ceeded local needs and allowed the pig population to grow apace.
Surrounding dry areas were not as fortunate and it is inevitable that
inequalities, based on differential access to, and productivity of, the
swamplands, were promoted. Inequalities flowed inexorably from
the first agricultural surpluses, and their localised production and
control. If this reconstruction, based in part on the work of Golson
( 1 982), is valid, the Mount Hagen area, since earliest times, has
been the scene of marked, fluctuating productive differentials which
have certainly influenced the patterns of leadership there. Families
and groups with early access to the swamps provided the first
powerful leaders; the exchange of surplus products was the basis.
The archaeological record cannot yield further clues as to what,
precisely, inequality 'meant' in this early period, and what advan-
tages and disadvantages were conferred. However, the first great

revolution in the highlands, the arrival of the sweet potato, surely
altered the status quo of the then current political order. Surround
ing, drier mountain ridges were now the favoured locales for sweet
potato production, better than . the wetter areas favoured for taro
cultivation. At this stage, we know that the swamps were aban
doned, as the focus of attention for agriculture shifted. Accordingly,
pig production could intensify everywhere, and the social order
became more 'democratised' than was previously the case. Yet, as
Golson points out ( 1982: 133), individuals and families, powerful in
the pre-ipomoean period, might have been able to maintain their
position through advantages gained earlier (for example, through
polygamy, control over 'poor-men's' labour, etc.). In other words,
while the system overall was significantly 'opened' and made more
equal and democratic with the advent of the sweet potato, some men
continued to possess productive advantages secured in the pre
ipomoean period. These may have been the first 'bigmen' in the
Mount Hagen area: men more powerful than others in a system of
ideological equality. The area has that character today: bigmen have
more influence and prestige than others, but ordinary men believe,
with some justification, that they too can become bigmen. Struc
tural, enduring inequalities may be absent, but they may be subtle
and marked by an ideology of equality.
Other changes were also occurring in this immediate post
ipomoean period. It could well have been that when pig production
and breeding became less exclusive because of the sweet potato,
'bigmen' sought to establish (and solidify) their position more
clearly above others by promoting pearlshells as more prestigious
valuables than pigs. In truth, pigs could now be raised by anyone,
yet pearlshells, scarce and uncertain in supply, could be controlled
by leading families and individuals who once more surely controlled
pig production (Golson 1 982: 1 34). A. J. Strathern stated this pos
ition previously:
The possibility of claiming the highest prestige from the manipulation of
shell valuables explains, in a sense, why the moka system involves both
pigs and shells. Everyone could rear pigs, and everyone had access to
rights of land use. The overall scarcity of shells, by contrast, enabled a
'purer' version of prestige economy to be built on them . . . Control over
these gave them [bigmen] an extra edge over other [ordinary] men who
had similar resources in terms of land and pigs ( 1 979a:532-3 ) .
Pearlshells replaced pigs as the basis of power and inequality in the

later post ipomoean era. 'Bigmen' 'produced' pearlshells through
-
their monopolised exchange with other bigmen. Formerly, they had

controlled pig production and exchange through their monopoly of
optimal agricultural land.
It is on this basis of pearlshell control that Europeans at first con
tact described a system of social stratification in Mount Hagen, the
development and extent of which has not been noted elsewhere in
the highlands. Political elaboration was greatest here, and I would
argue that this is because of the long-standing, historic intensifi
·
cation of agriculture and the available surpluses for exchange . No
such development could have existed eastward in the highlands. At
the time of first European settlement, pearlshells had replaced pigs
as items of highest exchange value, and their control was firmly in
the hands of the few. Pearlshells were equally surplus products,
more than likely exchanged for abundant pigs in areas where they
were scarce. Leaders came from families who controlled pearlshell
exchange: the moka community was an exclusive one and pearl
shells were circulated only among the families who belonged. Shells
might be given to others for marriage payments, death payments, or
other necessary occasions, but relations of domination were the
result. Bachelors 'owed' the person who loaned the shells and
marked inequality was the consequence. Wirz ( 1 952b) noted that
men involved in moka were 'grouped in one society' of exclusive
membership and that 'membership in a clan has nothing to do with
membership in a moka group' (see also Golson 1 9 8 2 : 1 12). What
Wirz highlighted was that. some clans did not have leaders who were
wealthy enough to belong to the moka community so that inequali
ties between groups paralleled inequalities between individuals.
Pearlshells were a new form of durable wealth, less subject to the
vagaries of productive success than pigs. Pearlshells could be
handed on to sons. Thus, differential wealth in Mount Hagen
became the basis, at the time of early colonial settlement, of in
equality, stratification, and a system of ascribed leadership which
finds no place in the highlands paradigm of bigmen or the dichot
omy of Melanesian and Polynesian political types.
The description of missionaries and others (for example, Vice
dom [Vicedom and Tischner 1 943-48]; Ross 1 936; Gitlow 1 947;12
12
Gitlow's view on the class structure in Mount Hagen society undoubtedly comes
from Ross. He does not cite Vicedom, and his monograph is loaded with per
sonal communications from Ross.
and Wirz 1952a, 1 952b) of the Mount Hagen political order is one
of a high degree of indigenous class stratification. Men of the upper
class are described as chiefs, who passed on power to their eldest
sons and comprised about 6 per cent of the total male population
(Gitlow 1947:3 5 ) . These men alone were members of the moka
community and controlled pearlshells, the most prestigious and
power concentrating items of value. A large middle class, a class of
'rubbishmen' and one of 'serfs', called 'slaves' by Vicedom, lived as
dependents and at the behest of the more rich and powerful class.
The sources and documentation of this argument have been pre
sented earlier (Feil 1 982) and the interpretation supported by
Golson ( 1982). Leaders of the moka community also worked to sup
press warfare in order to enlarge the community they controlled and
in which they could extract dependents. Relations of exchange
could then be entered with allies, former enemies, and war refugees,
and wider influence gained through them.
Leaders at this time probably possessed greater power than at
any time previously, or since. In the pre-ipomoean period, the
exchange of surplus pigs was the basis of influence, but pig epi
demics, illness and death made their reproduction extremely ardu
ous. Pigs as valuables have inherent limitations if continued power,
prestige and privilege are to be built upon them. Pearlshells were
more durable and controllable, potentially more scarce, their
sources more mysterious and their appearance was more mystifying
in the hands of the powerful. In short, pearlshells were better wealth
tokens than pigs, 'quintessential' surplus products and items of
value capable of promoting inequality. In the post-ipomoean era
leading up to European settlement, their control preserved a system
of social stratification cutting across clan and community, which
rose to a level unknown elsewhere in the 'egalitarian' highlands, and
unexpected by those in search of timeless, ahistoric bigmen. 'Place'
assumed a greater importance than tribe or clan and the 'economic
defects' of the domestic mode of production were overcome, if ulti
mately short-lived (Sahlins 1972). Europeans at this time were wit
nessing the culmination of an exchange economy whose tradition
and legacy were generations old.
The second great revolution, colonialism, froze subsequent politi
cal development, and, more importantly, radically altered the politi
cal status quo once again. Pearlshells were imported by the
European community in the millions (Hughes 1 978 : 3 1 5 ) to pay for
food and labour. Inflation inevitably set in. As Ross (quoted in
Plate 2. A Me/pa bigman arranges pear/shells for distribution in

moka. Among Me/pa, pear/shells became items of highest
exchange value, surpassing pigs which could be produced by
anyone (Photo by A. Strathern)
Gitlow 1947:72-3) rema.rks, 'thousands of shells were passed

around the area in the ten years of white occupation. The result was
that the native of the Hagen area became the millionaire. He could
go to the fringe of the area and buy wives with the shells he was
gradually hoarding. Where a chief would formerly be a great man
with 3 wives, now he could buy 8 or 10. Young men who formerly
had no standing could now raise their status by working for the
white man, receiving payment in shells.' Pearlshells were devalued
and the moka system which provided wealthy, powerful leaders and
furthered exploitative class-like relations, underwent a profound
'democratic' change once again (A. ]. Strathern 1966; Feil 1 982).13
It is this drastically altered situation which anthropologists first
13
To the south i n the Mendi area, pearlshells were thrown from aeroplanes b y offi
cers on reconnaissance flights (see Sillitoe 1979: 1 7).
encountered and described as the milieu of big-men. But it was a

situation which had been transformed many times in the past. Still,
in the contemporary Mount Hagen scene, the legacy remains:
'major big-men have a 3 : 1 chance of being sons of big-men' (A. J.
Strathern 1 971a:210). Among Kuma to their east, when an 'ac
knowledged leader . . . dies, his eldest son succeeds him' (Reay
1 959 : 1 14). Standish (n.d.) believes that hereditary elements of
leadership have been severely underplayed in the highlands and that
this is a result of the different time periods in which anthropological
analyses took place.
'Traditional' highlands leaders, if there are such people, vary
greatly and, furthermore, patterns of leadership have not been
static, unchanging, or immune to 'external' impact. It is clear, how
ever, that what we have taken to be 'traditional' and universal in
Melanesia, the bigman, skilled in manipulating wealth, yet one who
is still only 'first among equals', needs some rethinking. The bigman
may be a leader indicative, in some parts of the highlands at least, of
a very thin slice of history, and subject of a paradigm which is not
only geographically quite specific, as has been argued here, but his
torically contingent as well.
Conclusion
Each configuration of leadership discussed in this chapter pre

sents a range of possibilities. Throughout the eastern highlands,
leaders are warriors, men skilled in fighting and renowned for their
strength in defence of small polities. When such an atmosphere pre
vails, despotism of the type of Matoto is a logical variation. Un
usually forceful men and extreme conditions come together and
despotism of this calibre is the outcome (J. Watson 1971 :274) . In
the western highlands, leaders are men skilled in wealth transactions
and manipulation of available surplus products. Intensive produc
tion is the key factor, and a system of bigmanship can develop into
social stratification of the sort which prevailed in Mount Hagen
before European entry. Social stratification, like despotism, may be
an extreme form of a system with a range of possibilities. Oliver
(1971:285-6) made the same point for southern Bougainville:
social stratification 'may be viewed as an extreme but logical vari
ation in the prestige-ranking theme, a crystallization in dynastic
form of beliefs and practices present, incipiently, elsewhere' (see
also Douglas 1 979 :27).14 The range o f possibilities remains hinged,

however, on key circumstances: in the eastern highlands, low pro
duction coupled with intense warfare. In the western highlands,
high production, related exchange and low priority on warfare were
the key ingredients in the leadership possibilities realised there.
Modjeska ( 1 982), in a valuable contribution mentioned pre
viously, suggests that the 'achievement' of intensive pig production
in the highlands set the course for the development of inequalities
between people. Generalised exchange of surpluses allowed some
men to control the production of others, including that of women,
and inequalities of power followed. The Duna, whom he studied,
would rather go hunting than raise pigs, but 'their commitment to
pig production has sentenced them to their Highlands ethos of Prot
estant practicality. To generalise in a historical perspective, the de
velopment and intensification of pig husbandry has been an exercise
in the increasing rationalisation of both self and society' (1 9 8 2 : 92-
3 ). More will be said of this in Chapter 7 in the context of male
female relations, but intensive pig and agricultural production,
while perhaps creating the potential for inequalities, also provided a
firmer basis for a widened political order and a measure of social
control and security from warfare not possible in the low produc
tion systems of the eastern highlands. As Modjeska points out
( 1 982: 96), pigs may have been the only valuable suitable as a
'mediative substitute' for torts, delicts, even homicides, in a social
environment formerly marked by the necessity for swift and im
mediate retribution with precise equivalents. Such retaliation was
replaced, but in the eastern highlands it remained the preferred
course of action of symmetrical societies. In the western highlands,
the potential for inequality resulting from intensive production and
elaborated, generalised exchange of surpluses, was the price paid for
a respite from endemic, escalating, never-ending conflict and the
constant threat of annihilation.
It has recently been argued (Allen 1984) that in Melanesia,
societies with 'matrilineal principles' have the most elaborate forms
of political organisation. The proposition is that matrilineal descent
has centrifugal tendencies which ultimately stimulate the evolution
of more complex political forms than is the case in societies organ-
14
Thurnwald ( 1 934) had described a class system and 'ethnic stratification' exist
ing in the Rugara-speaking area of southern Bougainville, based on alien
conquest.
ised by more narrowly defined patriliny, which serves as political

structure and promotes male solidarity. Accordingly, it is in matri
lineal societies that 'autonomous' political institutions like secret
societies, ranked descent groups, and ritual status hierarchies, often
occur (Allen 1 984:20). Returning to the western highlands, it has
been shown that political organisation there reached levels of inte
gration and complexity not found elsewhere in the area. The moka
and tee are political institutions unprecedented in the region. It will
be argued next that it is in western highlands societies alone that
social organisation of a not strictly patrilineal sort is found, and that
organisational principles other than patrilineal ones are recognised,
not submerged, and are even elaborated and accorded high social
salience.
6 Social structure
The search for an over-all emphasis on patrilineality . . . is the

pursuit of a chimera. What matters is the assertion ofgroup soli
darity and male superiority, which is often effected by descent
dogmas applied to the whole group and not to recruitment pro
cesses.
A. J. Strathern ( 1 969a:42)
An ethos of extreme masculinity characterises the societies of the

eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea and is manifest in every
sphere of social life. The preoccupation and emphasis on warfare is
one indication. As well, leaders, often tending towards despotism,
are marked by strength, force and behaviour which is at once feared
by other members of the community and willingly countenanced by
them, for their fortunes, even survival, are bound up with the fate of
such leaders. Matoto 'epitomizes' (J. Watson 1971 :267) this agress
ive male ethos; he is a 'bad man' yet accepted as a necessary evil in a
climate of intense hostility. If societies of the eastern highlands do
not appear to offer the potential for systematic inequalities through
'economic intensification' of the sort argued to be possible in the
western highlands (Modjeska 1 9 82), it can hardly be doubted that
despots like Matoto were superordinate, if only temporarily so.
Leaders of his stature might not have been ubiquitous, and certainly,
his attributes were personal and could not be inherited (as wealth
could be), but societies like Tairora were familiar with such men and
tolerated the inequalities and excesses which went with them. To
quote J. Watson, 'Tairora is thus a system in which the major
rewards go to men who are bad. They do not go, in any case, to the
ones who least threaten the status of others or threaten equality. The
egalitarian virtues in some important respects are therefore a
custom more honored in the breach than the observance'
123
( 1 971 : 27 1 ) . Control of ancient, intensive agriculture and pig pro

duction in the western highlands provided the opportunities and a
firmer foundation for social inequalities than personal power, indi
vidually wielded, ever could.
In the following chapter, male-female relations are discussed,
and it will be shown that the subjugation and exclusion of women is
more severe and pronounced in the eastern highlands than else
where in the region. Furthermore, the ideological elaboration of
male superiority is more fully developed and all-embracing. Male
cults and secret initiations promote, sanction and inter11alise male
supremacy and antagonism to a degree unknown in the western
highlands where such cults are, for the most part, absent, or their ac
tivities controlled and the message to youths shallow by compari
son. It is in the eastern highlands that male initiations assume the
status of 'total social facts' (Keesing 1 982:2), whereas Chapter 8
will demonstrate that exchange institutions are the 'total phenom
ena' in the western highlands. Aggressive masculinity in the eastern
highlands, apparently so vulnerable and fragile, is bolstered by an
ideology which consistently and uncompromisingly proclaims male
ascendancy, and accompanying social practice which isolates, deni
grates and completely subordinates women.
The present chapter deals with social structure. No aspect of the
characterisation of highlands societies has attracted greater atten
tion and the debate, much muffled in recent years, on the principles
governing highlands social systems has involved virtually every eth
nographer who has worked there (and many who have not). Most of
the early discussion concerned the applicability or not of so-called
'African models' of social organisation in the highlands, and the
place and function of descent in either regulating membership in
social groups, or as a useful ideology of conception for them. Barnes
( 1962) noted the basic differences between African and New Guin
ean social systems and some further aspects of the issue will be noted
briefly below. Later writings on the nature of highlands social
groups have been excessively subtle, arguing rather arcane points
regarding the 'real' meaning of descent and patrifiliation, or
whether an individual's statement about group composition and
continuity could rightly be regarded as expressing an idiom of
descent.
My aim throughout has been comparative, and some features of
the differing configuration of societies in the eastern and western
highlands have already been established. Most previous writing,
Social structure 125
though highly specific ethnographically, has sought to describe

social organisation valid for the highlands as a whole. The concept
of a highlands 'region' is apparent in this attempt no less than in
others. Minor differences between societies were noted, but the
hope of revealing basic principles for complex processes, every
where applicable, was never abandoned. Much, but by no means all,
of the debate has proved unproductive partly, it seems, because of
the failure to recognise that societies in the highlands vary in more
than scant detail. In addition, while discussion was plagued by
definitional problems, 'descent', however defined, was made to
carry too great a burden in the quest for a comprehensive descrip
tion and understanding of highlands social systems. Social struc
tures in the highlands contain many interrelated elements, the
relative emphasis of a single feature, say 'patrilineal descent', being
only one and not necessarily the dominant or determining one.
Fundamentally, I have argued, eastern and western highlands
societies differ in their histories and the development of their pro
ductive resources. This divergence is evident in a comparison of
social structures. Peoples of the eastern highlands, it has been
shown, remained residentially unstable until very late, even at the
time of European contact in some places. Some groups were still
expanding into previously virgin rainforests (for example, the Fore:
Sorenson · 1976). Residential mobility still marks the area. The
region had long been characterised by a mixed, shifting subsistence
economy, but the sweet potato dramatically altered the pattern,
made sedentism possible, even necessary, and introduced a competi
tive element into intergroup relations. Groups, formerly only in ir
regular interaction, were now increasingly proximate and land, all
of a sudden, seemed not inexhaustible. The ethnographic evidence
shows that mechanisms of intergroup social control were lacking or
poorly developed in these changed and changing conditions and that
symmetrical, endemic conflict plagued groups as a result. Leaders,
often despotic, were fearless warriors and their primary function
was to provide for a group's security. Polities, accordingly, were
small, autonomous, and unconnected. Intergroup alliances through
marriage or exchange, for instance, were virtually nonexistent, cer
tainly never permanent.
The extreme masculinity which pervades the eastern highlands
must be understood as a logical (though highly elaborated) outcome
of long-prevailing social and political conditions. Villages, more like
barricaded fortresses, were the residential mode; age-grades and in-
1tiations inculcated male values and fostered solidarity among

youths in opposition to outsiders. Virilocal residence was highly
normative. Recruits were taken in, of course, but only to increase
manpower, and they might find the suspicion and overt antagonism
too great to bear for long. Relationships in the idiom of agnation at
least were dominant, and often extended metaphorically to new ar
rivals.
These sets of conditions, all attested to ethnographically, are
those of boundary-conscious groups, in which identities traced
through males provide some sense of continuity always under threat
of extinction. They are conditions, furthermore, in which males are
superior to females, and in which relations traced through women
to other groups and individuals in them are socially unrecognised or
rigidly truncated, and where, above all else, the priority of obli
gations to fellow group members is never questioned. In sum (and
leaving aside definitions, at least momentarily), these are conditions
of narrow, strict, corporate patriliny, determined and shaped
through time by the particular economic and political processes of
history.1
The economic mode of production determining and then, in turn,
determined by this social organisation, is one in which surplus pro
duction is minimal and in which intensive agriculture and pig pro
duction have little historic legacy. Warfare takes precedence over
production and linked exchange of surplus products still remains
nascent and has a sense of recent development to it. The domestic
mode of production, if one accepts the broad outlines of Sahlins'
( 1 972) characterisation, has not significantly been breached. A
more extensive kinship network has not been brought into the
sphere of production and exchange. External kinsmen remain per
ipheral to the 'objectives' of production. The social organisation of
the eastern highlands, then, exists as the historical outcome of
specific economic and political processes. It is not something
separate and epiphenomenal of them, but a crucial element of an
interrelated set of elements constituting the wider social formation.
No less an historical product are the social structures of the west
ern highlands. If eastern highlands groups appear truncated and
unconnected, those in the west are intricately and extensively
1
Like A. J. Strathern ( 1969a:39), I would argue that there is a logical relationship,
in the eastern highlands at least, berween emphasis on agnatic relationships and a
gender ideology which subordinates women and proclaims the absolute hege
mony of men.
linked. The interlocking of groups and individuals through obli

gations of exchange is recognition of equal, if not greater value,
placed on relations traced through women to those outside one's
own group; that is, to maternal kin, affines, and others resident else
where. These ties of kinship and affinity 'detract' from descent and
patrifilial relationships; there are many strands and identities be
sides agnatic ones which are socially salient. Thus, in the western
highlands, 'descent' gives less overall coherence and definition to the
social structure than it does in the eastern highlands.
Among Tombema-Enga for example, maternal kin are called
wane tange, the 'owners of the child'. They have 'allowed' their
sister's child to live with its father's people, but retain definite rights
in 'their' child. They must be compensated in the event of illness,
injury and especially at death. Maternal kin are one's most import
ant exchange allies in tee (Feil 1 984a), an institution of highly devel
oped political importance emphasising 'nonagnatic' connections
(see argument of Allen [1 984], mentioned previously). This is but
one example of a social structure which gives prominence to ties and
idioms of relatedness traced through persons other than one's
father. Matrilateral ties and those of marriage are given equally high
social recognition. The same could not be said of societies in the
eastern highlands. The need to promote group solidarity through
appeal to masculine ideology and practice, apparently more keenly
felt in a hostile environment, is not accorded high priority in the
western highlands.
We know already that correlative features exist in the western
highlands. Leaders promote social intercourse through transactions
between groups; dispersed settlements prevail and male cults are all
but absent. Polities are widely integrated and there is a measure of
social control achieved through ceremonial exchange at the expense
of warfare. In short, the high production systems of the western
highlands have social structures to match: groups lacking sharp
boundaries and having few corporate responsibilities, extensive
tracing and obligations of kinship and affinity through women, and
subsequent failure to adhere to strict descent dogmas or patrifilial
emphasis. These are attenuated in the western highlands compared,
at least, to the eastern highlands. In the western highlands too, the
domestic mode of production was breached long ago, and exchange,
far and wide, came to take precedence over strongly prosecuted
group endeavours like warfare or collective exchange. Widely ex
tended relations were the objective of exchange and, in turn, intensi-
128 Highland Papua New Guinea socit?ties
fied production for exchange. In attempting to account for the social

structures of the western highlands, one must be ever-mindful of the
specific historic path they have taken, and the economic and politi
cal divergences which marked the region's development.
Numerous other comparative points will be raised, but the issues
of group corporateness and boundedness and the level of social
salience attributed to relatedness and relations outside one's own
narrowly conceived group, are key points of interest. First, however,
some of the controversies surrounding the concept of descent can be
briefly noted to set the scene for ensuing discussion.
Descent in the highlands
'All known peoples of the highlands are patrilineal. Descent, in

heritance and succession are traced through males . . . The patri
lineage which has a depth of four to five generations, is found from
Kainantu at least as far west as Wabaga' (Read 1954a: 1 1 ). This con
fident statement, made over thirty years ago, has been the subject of
the most protracted debate in all of the anthropological literature of
the highlands. The pioneering ethnographers of the region, recognis
ing superficial similarities with 'classic' African descent systems,
had little hesitation in suggesting that highland New Guinea
societies could be comparably described, that is, as being composed
of corporate unilineal descent groups in a segmentary hierarchy
(Fortes 1 953). Salisbury ( 1956b) and Meggitt ( 1 965), for example,
acknowledged their debt to Fortes, and their analyses of Siane an.d
Mae-Enga social structures were an attempt to extend the advances
offered by lineage theory to a region far beyond the confines of
Africa. Other ethnographers followed suit, and the early social
anthropology of the New Guinea highlands is dominated by the
descent paradigm. In a much modified form, the 'language' of
descent is still used in the ethnography of today, and terms such as
clan and lineage are commonplace in the descriptions of social units
(see Feil 1984b).
Barnes ( 1962) was, of course, the first to query the applicability
of African generalisations in the highlands. His classic paper could
find only the 'mirage' of resemblance between the social structures
of the two areas. He noted that recruitment to groups in the high
lands was often based on grounds other than unilineal descent; af
filiation to groups could be transferred; descent dogmas were weak
or uncertain and not supported by elaborate ancestor cults or
lengthy genealogies; patterns of segmentation were not predictable

as in African societies, and individual allegiances in New Guinea
appeared to take precedence over and reduce the more bounded soli
darity evident in African groups based on descent. Barnes went on to
propose that the highlands were not best characterised in terms of
'patrilineal descent' but, rather, by 'cumulative patrifiliation'
( 1 962:6). In other words, while a majority of men might affiliate
with their father's group in each generation, thereby giving the
'cumulative' appearance of agnatic continuity, the 'structure' and
'ideology' of such groups, Barnes emphasised, were much different.
Barnes' position was the earliest response to certain recognised
'anomalies' in some highlands societies resulting from a fundamen
tal misunderstanding of descent systems as they were portrayed in
Africa. Nonagnates were numerous in most highland societies and
suffered few, if any, 'jural' disabilities as a result of their status. In
fact, many were powerful leaders in the groups in which they had
become members. There were no contexts in which pure patrilineal
ancestry was used to include or exclude others. The ubiquity of such
features created unease among early ethnographers: if these
societies were patrilineal, they hardly acted the part. Were African
models themselves deficient in some way, or too idealised? Were
New Guinea societies somehow similar but 'loosely structured' by
comparison?
Part of the problem, as de Lepervanche (1967-8 ) pointed out,
was the confusion over descent group and locality. In Africa, among
Nuer communities for example, many different descent groups were
represented and there were specific activities associated with lineage
and locale; the distinction between them was important and main
tained. 2 In the highlands, however, the distinction was less clear.
Salisbury ( 1 956b:5), for instance, noted that in Siane 'All descent
groups are also residence groups'. Groups and their territories are
discrete and conceptually intertwined throughout the highlands.
The two ethnographic areas were not therefore strictly comparable.
New Guinea ethnographers mistakenly expected a descent group to
coincide with a locality, so the presence of so many nonagnates
caused theoretical discomfort. It was in this context that talk of
'structural looseness' and 'structural flexibility' were invoked in
place of explanation.
2
Though even in Africa, community-wide relations were described in the idiom of
patrilineages, as were intergroup relations. Political relations were the corporate
function of lineages.
While the composition of many highland groups lacked even a

majority of agnatically related persons, or failed to possess an 'agna
tic core' of adult males, groups represented and described them
selves in what appeared to be an idiom of patrilineal descent. Hence,
the famous discrepancy between 'norm and behaviour', argued by
Langness ( 1 964), to be the 'fundamental problem' for understand
ing. At this point, taking leads from Sahlins ( 1 965) and Scheffler
( 1 966), strands in the 'traditional' meaning of descent were separa
ted. Descent, it was reasoned, could be a principle of recruitment to
groups, as it clearly was in the classic African cases, but it could also
serve as a statement of group unity, an ideology or idiom of inter
group relations, as it did in many highlands societies (and in Africa
as well; see A. J. Strathern 1 969a:38). Some authors persisted in the
view that ideology and recruitment, word and deed, strove for con
gruency, but other factors intervened to prevent such a tidy picture.
Others viewed norm and behaviour as essentially independent of
each other. Still others viewed descent as a 'rhetorical norm' giving
common residence a 'justification which by itself it might not have'
(A. J. Strathern 1 969a:3 8 ; see also de Lepervanche 1 967-8). Ad
ditionally, the idiom of agnatic descent 'especially fit the emphasis in
the Highlands on male strength, co-operation, and superiority over
women' (A. J. Strathern 1 969a:39).
With 'descent' amended to mean primarily (in the highlands at
least) a dogma expressing group unity and strength, another 'anom
aly' was apparently also resolved. In many highlands societies, out
siders were given 'agnatic' status when they took up residence in a
group; they were 'converted' so to speak. Salisbury ( 1 956b) wrote
how that 'within three generations' Siane genealogies were
' "clipped, patched and telescoped" to mask the changes [to group
membership] under an appearance of stability'. Such a reordering of
ancestry and the 'conversion' process in general were sometimes
taken to show an underlying emphasis on patrilineal descent
throughout the highlands.
These have been some of the major issues addressed by those
seeking to make comparative analyses of highland social structure
(see also the reviews of Scheffler 1 973 ; Holy 1 976; and Feil 1 984b).
The debate has lost much of its momentum, but the problems of
variation and comparability across the highlands remain with us, as
they have done from the start.
Scheffler (1 973, 1 985) has put forward a more uncompromising
argument. Supporting careful readings of Barnes and Fortes, Schef-
Social structure 13l
fler argues that highland societies differ fundamentally from the

archetypal descent systems of the Nuer, Tiv and Tallensi. In these
latter societies, patrifiliation is the necessary and sufficient con
dition for membership in a group; these groups are thus patrilineally
constituted and are rightly termed descent groups. In the highlands,
however, patrifiliation is merely a sufficient condition for member
ship (Scheffler 198 5 :4); other principles besides patrifiliation can
secure membership. He argues forcefully that such a distinction
should be maintained and that, accordingly, in many highland
societies it is hard to discover descent groups. If such a view is adop
ted, nonagnates, for example, are no longer seen as breaking some
patrilineal rule by their presence, for groups are not conceived of as
patrilineally organised. Such people are simply emphasising dif
ferent criteria, in place of patrifiliation, which is not a necessary con
dition for membership in the first place.
Procedures of recruitment are thus absolutely different in the
African and New Guinean cases. What about the 'dogmas of
descent' argued to exist in the highlands, even if recruitment is not
solely by patrifilial means? Scheffler ( 1 985) suggests at length that
there is little convincing evidence in highlands ethnography that
their ideology can be translated as 'patrilineal descent'. 'When all is
said and done, virtually all the anthropological talk about Highlan
ders' dogmas of agnatic or patrilineal descent comes down to little
more than talk about groups or sets of groups being composed of
"brothers" or of the "sons of one father" ' (Scheffler 1 9 8 5 : 1 3 ) . Such
talk, in the absence of patrifiliation being both a necessary and suf
ficient condition for membership in a group, should not be confused
with an ideology of patrilineal descent. For Scheffler then, there are
no descent groups or even descent ideologies in the highlands. Such
a perspective accords well with certain social facts noted by others,
namely, that there are no jural distinctions between so-called
'agnates' and 'nonagnates'; that genealogies in the highlands are
short and politically inconsequential; and that, aside from the ob
servance of exogamy, there are few rights and obligations which
attach firmly to group membership. Groups are composed of per
sons recruited on a variety of grounds, patrifiliation being only one
(and often not the most important one). Ideology is about paternal
and fraternal kinship (Scheffler 1985 : 1 3), not patrilineal descent.
There is, therefore, no sense in trying to slot highland societies into a
descent-phrased framework when, by African standards, such rules
and ideology are absent.
Much of what Scheffler writes makes good sense and allows us to

do away with many of the nagging problems of group conception
and recruitment that have plagued discussion. The comparative
issue remains, however; ideology and recruitment processes may
differ across the highlands, making any such generalisations invalid,
especially if we recognise the point that highland social structures
exist, not as things in themselves, but as part of a wider complex of
interrelated elements with different histories.
Before moving on to consider issues of variation and emphasis,
one further point made by Scheffler should be mentioned. If groups
in some highlands societies, at least, cannot be considered descent
groups, what kind of language can be used to describe them? Schef
fler is equivocal here, but points out that highlanders often phrase
obligations to fellow group members and conceive intergroup con
duct by appeal not ' "to the notion of descent as such but to the obli
gations of kinsfolk, differentiated according to relationship'', that
is, according to kin class' (Scheffler 1985 : 13 partially quoting
Barnes 1962). Thus, kinship, not descent, often defines obligations,
conduct and relations with others. This is an important point; kin
ship and descent are two different things. Kinship in many studies of
the highlands has become conflated with descent. La Fontaine
( 1 973 :45) made this point when she wrote that in New Guinea
'studies of "kinship" are dominated by discussions of descent' and
noted that there is very little information on the relationship be
tween kinship and descent in New Guinea. Scheffler ( 1 973) earlier
made the same point, noting the tendency in the highlands to
minimize, ignore or otherwise misconstrue the fact that in many cases
the same indi".iduals have identities and status relative to one another in
both the kinship and descent systems . . . Most often this misconception
has taken the form of a description in which descent-conferred identities
and statuses of two individuals are treated as their sole genealogically
defined identities and statuses . . . Their identities and status as kinds of
kin are either overlooked or analytically merged with their identities and
statuses conferred by common descent (Scheffler 1 973 : 760; see also Feil
1 978a, 1 984b).
What have often been described as rights and duties of descent

group membership in some highland societies are rather 'systemati
cally misrepresented' obligations of kinsfolk (Scheffler 1 9 8 5 : 15).
These then are the major issues which have confronted anthro
pologists in their quest to describe highland New Guinea social
structure: descent or patrifiliation; descent versus residence; norm

versus behaviour; genealogical conversion or amnesia; descent ideol
ogy or not; kinship groups or descent groups; descent as recruit
ment or idiom of male solidarity. Comparative statements of social
structure in the highlands have aimed at universality. I would suggest
that they have succeeded, without so intending, in charting, instead,
the range of variation in structural emphasis across the highlands.
Is this variation linked to the issues previously discussed, and are
variations in social structure geographically specific east and west?
Comparative trends
While highlands-wide characterisations of the nature of social

groups have usually been sought, some variations in emphasis have
been noted in passing by others. In a paper already referred to, Lang
ness ( 1 964) wrote of a continuum across the highlands of adherence
to the 'African model'. Societies like Bena Bena were at one end,
Enga and Mbowamb (Melpa) at the other. At first glance, such a
continuum might appear to accord well with my own interpret
ation. To quote Langness, the 'Enga and Mbowamb appear to
typify the African model very closely, both with respect to ideology
and behaviour, whereas, as we have seen, Bena do not' ( 1 964: 1 8 1 ) .
He goes on to suggest a possible east to west gradient with Bena and
Siane possibly forming the eastern end. Sillitoe ( 1 978) has also sug
gested that the eastern highlands (as opposed to the western high
lands) have 'weaker descent ideals', and 'lack firm organizing
principles founded upon descent' ( 1978 : 259), and that in these
societies, following the argument of Langness and others, residen
tial ties may take priority.
Allen ( 1 967) and A. J. Strathern ( 1 969a) have also constructed
models of variation and continuity in the highlands, in some ways
just reversing (with minor exceptions) the patterns postulated by
Langness and Sillitoe. They tend to find that eastern highland
societies are more boundary-conscious and descent-oriented than
other highland societies.3 All of these studies differ widely in intent,
point of focus, the time in which they were written, and the available
3
Allen ( 1967) appears to want to place the Enga with eastern highland societies.
This chapter and the following one will make it clear that Enga are very much
closer in social structure and male-female relations to other societies in the west
ern highlands group than to those elsewhere, and that they are clearly part of this
configuration of groups.
ethnography upon which they were based. In placing the Mae-Enga

and Mbowamb at the opposite end to Bena for instance, Langness
( 1964) could not have foreseen the arguments contained in Mc
Arthur ( 1 967) in which the percentages of 'nonagnates' (using 'con
ventional' anthropological usage rather than 'Enga' criteria,
Meggitt 1965 ; see also Holy 1976) in Mae-Enga clans were shown
to be very similar to those in Bena clans, thus apparently voiding the
features used by Langness to distinguish them and to place these
societies at opposite ends of this 'African models' continuum in the
highlands. A. J. Strathern's ( 1972) detailed analysis of Melpa (Mbo
wamb) social organisation was also still to come. Allen's ( 1967) dis
cussion of features of social structure in the highlands, which he
links to the presence or absence of particular forms of male in
itiation rituals, also perhaps took too much at face value, the current
ethnography and prevailing descent paradigm of that period. All of
these authors' attempts at comparison are based on synchronic
studies. None of the models impart any time-depth or historicity to
the variations noted, nor is there any indication, in the differing con
figurations, of underlying causes, processes or precipitating con
ditions of social structure. Correlations of certain, specific features
of social organisation are merely observed.
While I am in broad agreement with the variations noted by Allen
( 1 967) and A. J. Strathern ( 1 969a), I believe they can and should be
linked directly to the very different histories of economic and politi
cal development in the eastern and western highlands put forward
throughout this book. The ethnographic present is better under
stood through recourse to the past. Not only 'descent' but other,
interconnected aspects of social structure vary, east and west, and
the ethnography, to be presented below, seems fully to support this
pattern.
'Descent'
The points of definition and clarification on concepts such as
descent and patrifiliation offered by Scheffler ( 1 973, 1985) are well
taken. It may, however, be difficult to do away totally with the
language of descent and descent groups in the highlands despite his
cogent arguments. The comparative issues remain as well. Whatever
conceptual language one chooses, it seems undeniable that eastern
highlands societies are more boundary-conscious, group-oriented,
united and corporate than societies in the western highlands.
Whether or not these groups conceive of themselves as 'descent
groups' and employ idioms accordingly, remains a highly complex,

interpretative problem, eveh when we are furnished with people's
own statements on the matter. In the eastern highlands, ideological
emphasis is placed on agnatic connections; single social identities,
traced through males, prevail, and group exclusiveness is stressed
through idioms of masculinity. Discrete units are produced and re
inforced by an obsessional severing of relations with outsiders, and
failure to give social salience or even cultural recognition to related
ness other than through males. Schneider's ( 1965) appellation of the
'whole-man syndrome' appears an apt description in this case. Allen
( 1967) has referred to these societies as based on the 'co-residence of
the majority of the male members of a single patrilineal clan in a
separate and palisaded village' ( 1967:34 ), as 'autonomous' and 'sol
idary', and as 'monolineage' and 'monocarpellary' agnatic-type pol
ities (Allen 1 984:36). However, when we recognise the extreme
boundary-consciousness of the eastern highlanders, the dilemma
over the application, or not, of strict descent language, loses some
urgency.
Descent and kinship are not 'things in themselves' (as de Leper
vanche [ 1 967-6 8 : 168] reminded us) and their ideology and practice
are grounded in the economic and political conditions in which they
existed and continue to exist. In the eastern highlands, one con
stantly returns to chronic warfare as the most crucial, determining
feature of life. Langness (1969 : 1 74) describes it as 'one of the most
continuous and violent patterns of warfare on record' and suggests
that the 'psychological concomitants of such a pattern of warfare
must influence the nature of social groups in some way'. Surely he is
right: social groups in the eastern highlands, for purposes of
common defence and survival, must be strong, unitary, bounded,
and ungiving in their relations with other groups. Recruitment of
outsiders (see below) as fighters will still occur. This may play havoc
with 'unilineal recruitment' as Langness is aware, but this need not
diminish the fervour with which masculine idioms and agnatic con
nections are proclaimed as vital, necessary and always binding.
'Masculinity' and 'agnation' are 'employed as an ideology of politi
cal unification' (Allen 1 984:28) in the eastern highlands (see also A.
J. Strathern 1 969a, and Chapter 7).
Kinship
In the western highlands, in general, groups are less 'solidary' in
the eastern highlands sense, more 'open', less concerned with pro-
mating and maintaining boundaries, and people describe their

social units less often in the masculine cum agnatic idioms which
characterise the eastern highlands. Widely extended kinship and
obligations to kinsmen and affines replace the narrow allegiance
and corporateness of unified groups. Important social identities are
traced through maternal and affinal links, that is, through women,
and are recognised and given high social value equal to, if not
exceeding, ties traced through males. Individual, rather than group,
ties are given greater emphasis in the western highlands.
Whereas warfare is the determining factor in the nature of social
groups in the eastern highlands, exchange appears to dominate in
the western highlands. A person seeks to maintain exchange re
lations far and wide, and these often come to take priority over
those to members of one's own group. Group solidarity is less vital
in a climate of relative security, made possible, in part, by inter
group and inter-individual exchange. 'Corporateness' involves few
other activities than exogamic restrictions.
Kinship terminology and the 'use' of kinship terms also reflect
wider social priorities. The extension of terms for exchange pur
poses is characteristic of societies like Enga (Feil 1 978a, 1984b) .
Kinship terms may be 'rp.anipulated' to place people into categories
in which exchange transactions are obligatory. These categories are
usually matrilaterial and affinal ones. Above all else, the use of kin
terms in some western highlands societies reflects the fact that
people recognise many different kinds of connections, not simply
those mediated by males. In the eastern highlands, conversion may
tend towards 'agnatic' connections, congruent with the themes of
male dominance and solidarity in the face of threat.
Residence/locality
In the eastern highlands, the fortified, palisaded, nucleated vil
lage is the spatial equivalent of the highly corporate group of 'agna
tically' connected men. Some writers have suggested that the
patrilineal, patrilocal clan village is the norm in the eastern high
lands (Allen 1967). Whether or not this is an apt characterisation,
there can be little doubt that the bounded village is a key feature of
social organisation in the eastern highlands only. To quote Read
( 1 954a : 14-15),
the village of the east is a closely knit group . . . Village life gives rise to a
continually interweaving pattern in which the independent identity of
Social structure 1 37
each segment, though never lost, becomes absorbed in the common

identity of the whole. On the organizational level, the village is the core
of the community. It stands in relationship to the social structure as that
center in which all the most important group ties crystallize and from
which they radiate.
Langness ( 1964) and de Lepervanche ( 1967-8) have argued that the

local group not the 'descent' group is the most significant social unit
for analysis in the highlands. An either/or stance is not required.
Residence and 'agnatic' idioms mutually reinforce each other in the
eastern highlands. One is not necessarily 'prior' as a structural prin
ciple. People who reside together must be linked through agnatic
connections, real or so construed. Not only is the village fortified
and discrete, but the very links binding residents are equally strong
and seen as enduring.
We have already seen that this pattern of residence does not exist
in the highlands, from Chimbu westward. The lack of nucleated,
barricaded villages seems a fair indication that states of siege were
not commonplace. It furthermore seems clear that ties to a village
and the important relationships of solidarity that emerge from such
communal life are lessened, towards greater individualism, where a
pattern of dispersed homesteads prevails. Village life and communal
solidarity are further bolstered in the east by age-grades, the import
ant ties of initiated warriors-to-be. Thus, however one may term
their bases, the more united, corporate social units of the eastern
highlands are reinforced further by a bounded, nucleated residential
pattern.
Recruitment/conversion
There is some evidence, though by no means always convincing
or widespread, that recruitment to social groups in the eastern high
lands is more strongly patrifilial than it is in the western highlands.
There are perhaps some notable exceptions (see for example, Lang
ness [ 1964] on Bena). The prevalence of warfare, and the displace
ments and migrations caused by it, means that rigid recruitment
through patrifiliation or any other means could not be maintained.
However, recruitment of outsiders by whatever means in the eastern
highlands, is redefined more quickly and automatically in an 'ag
natic' or 'patrikinship' idiom than it is elsewhere in the highlands. In
other words, even though these societies are extremely wary of out
siders and rigidly maintain boundaries, they recruit out of necessity
for manpower. Outsiders are not discouraged from joining, but to

use the words of A. J. Strathern ( 1 969a:43 ), 'their entry will be
masked more strongly by assertions that all group members are
descendants of the clan founder'. Idioms of masculinity and male
solidarity are extended readily to outsiders where fighting ability is
needed for the cause. No jural discriminations are made against new
recruits; why should there be, when they support the defence or
press the offence for the group they have joined?
Scheffler (1985) has made the point that, in the highlands, genea
logies are not 'manipulated' as they sometimes are among Tiv or
Nuer, to propagate a legal fiction. Rather, genealogies in the high
lands are not a matter of great public concern. I would agree (see
also J. Watson 1983 :223), some contrary cases notwithstanding
(for example Salisbury 1 956b:5). In general, the debate on 'agnatic
conversion' has been characterised by a confused mixing of emic
and etic categories or, in other cases, by a teleological explanation
for certain features of kinship terminology said to support underly
ing adherence to patrilineal descent.
Recruitment to social groups in the western highlands is as vari
able and based on as diverse criteria as in the eastern highlands.
Nevertheless, fewer examples of recruitment for simple manpower
objectives are in evidence (see Chapter 4). Similarly, in the west, no
jural disadvantages are placed on immigrants, though some new
recruits may suffer temporarily without a sponsor. In these societies
though, I would suggest that status as outsider is less automatically
and deliberately masked or construed in an agnatic idiom. There is
no great urgency in asserting 'agnatic brotherhood' or in claiming
immigrants really to be 'sons of a single father'. Natal members of
groups recognise multiple kinship identities amongst themselves, so
there is little point in 'converting' others to conform to a strict single
identity, of agnation for instance, when it carries no corporate over
tones.
Interest in genealogies or their use for placement of people in
groups does not occur either in the western highlands. However,
extensive genealogical knowledge, or the manipulation of genea
logical facts, is often employed to establish connections important
in the exchange sphere (see Feil 1978a, 1 984a, 1 984b, on
Tombema-Enga; see also Goldman 1983 on Huli). Individuals can
become, after all, kinsmen or affines of appropriate sort to foster
exchange.
All highlands societies may welcome migrants and recruits, albeit
for different reasons. Eastern highlands societies alone appear to

stress exclusively male dogmas of group composition and to be
nearly obsessed with presenting a front which is strictly defined by
male relatedness. This means, of course, that outsiders admitted to
the group must conform quickly and readily to the group's concep
tion of itself usually proclaimed by the rhetoric of descent in the
male line.
Marriage
Marriage in the eastern highlands has few political functions, as
demonstrated in Chapter 4. Accordingly, some. societies prefer vil
lage endogamy to ensure solidarity or, at least, to prevent sisters and
daughters producing able warriors for enemy groups through ex
ogamy. Other societies in the eastern highlands totally isolate
women from their natal groups; affinal ties mean virtually nothing
and women, therefore, provide no important ties between groups
and individuals. Women are incorporated absolutely into their hus
band's group at marriage and have little or no control or choice over
whom they marry. This pattern of marriage and its lack of inter
group significance are tell-tale signs of the lowly, inferior status of
women in eastern highlands groups.
These facts of marriage are all reversed in western highlands
societies. Widespread, extended exogamy is practised; marriages
are loaded with political import and are often consciously dispersed
because of that fact. Women are important 'roads' of exchange be
tween individuals and their groups who often, ostensibly at least,
are enemies. Women are 'in between' their natal groups and those
into which they marry (A. M. Strathern 1 972).
One might further expect that 'low production' systems in the
eastern highlands would practise the direct exchange of women;
pigs and other valuables in bridewealth would not yet have come to
'substitute' for brides (Modjeska 1 982) as they have so dramatically
in the 'high production' systems of the western highlands. There is
some evidence that marriage systems of this sort exist in the eastern
highlands more widely than elsewhere. Certainly, too, levels of
bridewealth are much lower than in the west as are rates of
polygyny. Groups often speak as if women should be exchanged
equally between them, even if this exchange does not always occur
in practice. On the other hand, however, Enga appear to place little
ideological emphasis on the 'exchange of women' (Rubel and
Rosman 1 978 : 26 1 ) . Marriage systems, more or less 'prescriptive',
Plate 3 . An Enga bride dispenses her own bridewealth ofpork sides.

She is the crucial link between men in later tee dealings based in
itially upon her marriage
also characterise some societies in the eastern highlands and, as

well, some societies 'intermediate' in terms of production intensity
and geography. Western highlands societies exchange surplus pigs
and other valuables for women; bridewealth is usually the begin
ning payment in what will become a life-long partnership of
exchange between affines. The 'substitution' of surplus products for
women as brides, whose productive and reproductive value are
never in surplus, is unambiguous in the western highlands, less pro
nounced elsewhere.
The ethnography
To aid comparison and develop the east to west contrasts sugges
ted, it is helpful to delimit smaller societal configurations. While at
times I have spoken primarily of broader east-west variations, there
are other, more subtle points of comparison which only an emphasis
on the continuum of social forms can explain adequately. Thus,
more narrow, refined geographical units take comparative pre
cedence over wider regional ones.
The Anga
The congeries of groups called Anga live in the remote eastern
highlands, bordering the more familiar Fore and Awa. Anga have
increasingly come under anthropological investigation through the
work of Godelier (on Baruya) and Herdt (on Sambia) among others.
Anga were formerly known as the Kukukuku,4 whose reputation
rested overwhelmingly on aggression and bellicosity. More precise
details of Anga warfare are scarce, but the evidence that exists sug
gests a preoccupation with, and intensity of, conflict perhaps even
exceeding that of their eastern highlands neighbours to the immedi
ate west. The Anga thus represent the extreme eastern end of the
continuum of social forms addressed in this book. Hallpike
( 1 978 : 3 ) writes that the 'Kukukuku have traditionally been one of
the most aggressive groups in mainland New Guinea' and that re
lations among Anga, and between Anga and their neighbours, were
marked by unrestricted 'permanent hostilities'. Reports as early as
1 901 speak of the Kukukuku as treacherous, cannibalistic5 and re
lentlessly merciless in their relations with outsiders, including those
with white men with whom they came into contact. Blackwood's
account (Hallpike 1 978) is full of fighting details.
It has previously been suggested that Anga may well have been the
last highlanders to come under the spreading influence of the sweet
potato, and adopt it as staple. But regardless, the development of
productive resources in Anga groups is very low by comparison to
the standards of other highlanders. 6 Hallpike ( 1 978, citing Fischer
1968) notes that Anga keep very few pigs, perhaps 1 . 1 per house
hold (less than 0.25 per person); they live at very low population
densities in barricaded hamlets; they lack bigmen (as Godelier and
Herdt have also confirmed) and their only leaders are 'fight leaders'.
As we might expect, they do not exchange pigs and other valuables,
the surplus production of which is non-existent (Hallpike 1978 :2).
The Anga, on the basis of these limited data, represent one end of the
highlands pattern, productively, demographically, and, as we shall
4
The word kukukuku is probably of Motuan origin, perhaps an approximation of
kokokoko, meaning cassowary to whom Motuans likened these people who were
like 'little men of the woods, roaming the forest freely without apparent habita
tions' (Hallpike 1978:6-7).
5
Cannibalism is attributed by Blackwood (Hall pike 1978: 122) to protein shortage
among Kukukuku, who kept few, if any, pigs (see also Lindenbaum 1979:24-5).
6
Baruya, of course, produce salt for trade but, by any standards 'exchange' is all
but non-existent in Anga societies, the result of the lack of intensive agriculture
(Godelier 1 971).
see in the following chapter, in the realm of male-female relations as

well.
Features of social organisation follow this pattern. Residentially
palisaded hamlets were the norm throughout Anga. Herdt writes
that 'Sambia viewed the hamlet as a precarious haven amid multi
tudes of enemy groups and devouring spirits' ( 1 9 8 1 :29). The hamlet
was prone to isolation and preparedness for attack was the con
suming preoccupation of Sambia men. It was within the narrow
confines of one's own hamlet that men spent much of their lives.
Graphic descriptions of security measures, the maze-like character
of homesteads, and the extreme boundedness of other Anga settle
ments can be found in the writing of Blackwood (Hallpike
1 978 : 2 1 ) .
Blackwood's classification o f Anga social structure i s inconclus
ive (Hallpike 1978 : 1 02), though we might highlight some aspects of
her account.7 Anga had 'lines' which were in practice 'patrilineal',
and while Blackwood could find no exogamous descent groups,
Fisher ( 1936: 17) wrote of exogamous totemic groups existing in
neighbouring areas, so that 'Each totem can marry the member of
one other totem only'. A system of symmetrical exchange of women
would result. In a case study mentioned by Blackwood, an Anga
man was promised the sister of his dead wife, which suggests a con
tinuing responsibility to supply a wife from the deceased woman's
group.
In societies of such low productive means and output, linked in
part at least to a high concern with warfare, bridewealth appears
traditionally not to have existed (Hallpike 1978 : 1 1 1,n.39). The
practice of bridewealth was only beginning when Blackwood did
fieldwork ( 1 93 6-7) and no pigs were included in the payments
noted by her. Rather, brideservice prevailed: a bridegroom hunted
for his parents-in-law until he had provided the necessary quantity
of meat. In one case, a bridegroom was 'pressured' by his new wife's
parents to stay until he had hunted and killed three pigs and two
cuscus 'and then they said it was enough and he could go' (Hallpike
1978 : 1 12).
Details provided by Herdt ( 1 9 81) on the social structure of the re
lated Sambia fill in some gaps. Sambia have exogamous patricians
and are strongly patrilocal: 96 per cent of men reside in this manner
(Herdt 1 98 1 :36). Such a high rate (by any standards, but certainly
7
Often, however, as reinterpreted by Hallpike.
so in relation to other highland societies) is linked to defence and

military needs. Furthermore, patrilineal idioms are 'doggedly
expressed' and men who depart from this patrilineal norm are deris
ively referred to as 'uprooted', for a group 'has lost a warrior and
provider' (Herdt 1 9 8 1 :36). Several patricians may reside in a hamlet
which acts as the political and ritual unit. Intrahamlet marriages are
frequent (from 14 to 50 per cent; overall about 36 per cent) and
'95% of all marriages occur within one's hamlet or with those
visible from one's house' (Herdt 1 9 8 1 : 3 9-40). These details
clearly describe a highly bounded, patrilineal, patrilocal and near
endogamous (at the hamlet level) society. Additionally, about 4 per
cent of all marriages in Sambia are described as 'incestuous' (Herdt
1 9 8 1 :34,n.7).
Marriages, whether intrahamlet or nearby, are usually based on
the exchange of women, rather than on the exchange of women for
wealth. Infant betrothal termed by Herdt 'delayed exchange'
( 1 9 8 1 :39) is preferred and with brideservice account for 42 per cent
of all marriages contracted. Little or no choice of partner exists for
bride or groom. Sister-exchange, often involving actual con
sanguineal sisters, accounts for a further 34 per cent of marriages. 8
While some gifts may accompany all forms of marriage, it appears
that they consist mainly of possum meat, a hunted product, rather
than meat from domestic sources. Sambia and other Anga practise
restricted exchange; highland societies to the west, generalised
exchange, women for wealth. In these societies of low productivity,
where subsistence activities and pig production are given low value,
'fundamentally, a woman is equivalent to another woman and only
the gift of a woman can annul, or better, counterbalance one gift
against another' (Godelier 1 982:3 1 ) . Needless to say, intragroup
marriages also strengthen and clearly demarcate the boundaries be
tween insiders and outsiders in an environment of political tension
and acute warfare. Endogamous practice is seen by Sambia 'as a
matter of necessity' (Herdt 1 9 8 1 :40).
Baruya social structure is similar to Sambia and other Anga.
Baruya may marry anyone outside the lineage including either cross-
8
The exchange of sisters by brothers is often linked to their homosexual relation
ship (Herdt 1981 :43), a sort of 'double bond of affinity' (see Chapter 7). Addition
ally among Sambia (Herdt 198 1 :43), co-resident cross-cousins who are
appropriate spouses are also referred to as 'daughter' or 'sister'. A boy during in
itiation discovers that he is to marry a girl in this category, and her identity then
changes to wife though he can never call her by name.
cousin or a maternal parallel cousin. A person's substance comes

completely from his father, so only parallel paternal cousins are pro
hibited as spouses (Lloyd 1974: 1 1 1 ) . The apparent denial of any
substance transmitted through the mother is rare even in the mascu
line dominated eastern highlands. Baruya also practise sister
exchange (Lloyd 1 974: 107; Godelier 1 9 8 2 : 3 1 ) and in one village
cited by Lloyd ( 1974: 109), of 200 people, only one marriage had
taken place outside it. Baruya origin myths suggest that humanity
was created from double incest (Godelier 1976), and they say 'they
would rather marry their "sisters" with whom they grew up and
whom they know well, than marry a girl from a different lineage and
spend their lives with a stranger' (Godelier 1 976:20). Fiances may
be referred to as 'older brothers' (Godelier 1976: 19). From these
details, Anga social structure appears highly bounded, stressing
patrilineal idioms and patrilocal residence, and favouring the direct
exchange of women and group or hamlet endogamy. These features
come as no surprise in the absence of intensive agriculture and pig
production, lack of bigmen and wider political integration, and in a
social environment of unceasing warfare.
'Kainantu ' groups

To the immediate north and east of the Anga are groups of the
'Kainantu family' : Awa, Tairora, Binumarien, Auyana, Usurufa
and Gadsup. Many features of Anga social structure persist in these
societies, but there are variations and elaborations.
There appears to be less emphasis on the direct exchange of
women; the exact equivalence of women as brides has given way to
a situation in which the exchange of women for wealth is at least
incipient. Levels of production, of pigs and garden produce, have
risen beyond that of Anga, but 'bridewealth' exchanges are still only
modest. Robbins, for example, notes that Auyana 'bridewealth' had
to contain 'at least' one pig (1 982:90); and Boyd ( 1 985a: 123),
writing of Awa, says that 'rarely' more than a pig or two were
butchered during marriage ceremonies in Irakia. Significantly, not
only were pigs butchered, but pork was not exchanged directly for
brides. Rather, pork was used to repay the groom's bridewealth con
tributors, not his new affines. Pork did not leave the group, even in
marriage. The 'purchase' of wives was thus only 'indirectly
financed' (Boyd 1985a: 123). The exchange of gifts is mentioned as
part of the marriage transactions of other groups in this family, but
the substitution of wealth for women is not yet well established. Tai-
rora, as previously mentioned, regard as a coup the successful taking

of a woman as wife through magical means (hampu), especially
from enemy groups, which allows the husband to avoid forever
'affinal responsibilities' and payments (J. Watson 1 9 8 3 :2 1 3 ) . Bride
wealth has certainly commenced in these societies, but levels are low
and therefore, under such limited production regimes, bridewealth
is yet to be linked to continuing affinal prestations and obligations.
All groups in the Kainantu family prefer, or are obliged to prac
tise, community endogamy, a feature which results in the lack of
political significance attributed to marriage and a potentially useful
check on unrestricted warfare. Tairora phratries, composed of
several sibs, form a 'near-endogamous connubium' (J. Watson
1983 :245 ) . In Binumarien, endogamy is a stated preference and
actual patterns tend to conform to it (Hawkes 1978a:376). Auyana
(Robbins 1982) and Gadsup (Du Toit 1 975) equally prefer to prac
tise intragroup or intravillage endogamy; perhaps up to 50 per cent of
all marriages are locally endogamous (Du Toit 1964:90). In Awa, 82 per
cent of all marriages are contracted within the phratry, or paired
phratry (Newman 198 1 : 1 10). Boyd (1975) found in the Awa villages
he studied that rates of endogamy ranged from 70 to 85 per cent.
These unambiguous 'endogamous values' are coupled in Kain
antu groups with the ideal conceptualisation of marriage as
exchange, often involving close kin. Ever-closer ties are continually
forged and reforged among persons who form bounded units. Tai
rora sibs, ideally, exchange women reciprocally (J. Watson
1983 :236) and the phratry they compose is the peace-keeping unit.
'Pooling units' of Auyana 'sovereignties' (believed to have a
common ancestor) exchange women (Robbins 1 9 8 2 : 84, 1 65-6).
Although Du Toit ( 1975 :249) states that Gadsup should not marry
anyone with whom a bilateral relationship could be traced, it has
previously been pointed out that intravillage marriages are com
monplace, even the norm, and that brother-sister exchange was for
merly, at least, prevalent and a contract thought to unite and bind
subgroups of the local community. Cross-cousins marriage exists
elsewhere in Gadsup (Du Toit 1 975 : 252) and Berndt writes that the
ideal marriage in Usurufa is with the nenafu, a 'cross-cousin'
( 1 954:32, 1 87; see also 1 962:29). Hawkes ( 1977, 1978a) reports
that Binumarien marriage features the direct exchange of women,
and the marriage 'of (often very close) kinsmen' ( 1 978a:377-8).9
The practices of kin marriage and group or local endogamy may
9
Even though she maintains that exchanging units are not corporate groups.
be further related to a striking aspect of the kinship terminology of

Kainantu groups. In nearly all, but with some minor variations, gen
eration cousin terms exist; there is no terminological distinction be
tween cross and parallel relatives in ego's generation. All cousins are
termed 'brother' or 'sister'. Again, with some minor differences,
alternate generations are marked by bifurcate merging terminology;
mother and mother's sister and father and father's brother are classi
fied together, but mother's brother and father's sister are denoted by
distinct terms. 10 Nepotic terms are also bifurcate merging. In most
groups to the west, kinship terminologies do not have generation
cousin terms, that is, the cross/parallel distinction between colla
terals in ego's generation is strictly maintained: collaterals are not
simply 'brothers' and 'sisters'. On the basis of available material,
Binumarien, Gadsup, Awa, Usurufa and Auyana follow this ter
minological pattern perfectly; Tairora vary slightly. Rubel and
Rosman ( 1 978 : 3 2 1 ) suggest 'bifurcate merging kinship terminology
and Iroquois cousin terms' as the prototypical kinship terminology
of 'New Guinea societies'. Their sample of societies include none
from the eastern highlands, where this pattern does not exist. In a
similar spirit, some purely speculative thoughts are offered with
regards to 'archetypal kinship terminologies' in the New Guinea
highlands, without trying to overestimate unduly what one can
make of them.
Murdock ( 1949) and, more recently, Dole ( 1 969) among others,
have addressed the issue of 'generation cousin terms', their deter
minants and functions. Dole, writing more specifically of the Kui
kuru (of South America), suggests that local endogamy of
intermarrying groups means that 'cross-cousins' all grow up
together in the same settlements. With co-residence, she suggests,
'terminological distinctions between cross and parallel relatives
tend to disappear also, leaving generation cousin terms' ( 1 969: 1 13 ) .
But why d o not generation terms exist i n alternate generations? She
further argues, following functionalist premises, that a preference
for cross-cousin marriage is the explanation. Such a preference
'exerts pressure to retain the kin terms in which such marriages are
discussed. It is in relation to father's sister and mother's brother as
prospective parents-in-law that ego learns about this marriage
10
Awa (Loving 1974: 1 15) do not distinguish mother's brother, they simply refer to
him as 'father', but retain generation cousin terms. Tairora apparently dis
tinguish only mother's brother's children in ego's generation (J. Watson
1 983:248).
custom' (Dole 1 969 : 1 1 3 ) . Bifurcate merging in alternate gener

ations may remain even if cross-cousin marriage is only an ideal type
of union. 1 1
Murdock ( 1 949) designated societies with such generation
cousin terminologies as belonging to the 'Hawaiian type', a classifi
cation 'derived to accommodate those tribes which formerly be
longed to one of the stable bilateral types, Eskimo or Hawaiian, and
which have evolved patrilineal descent on the basis of patrilocal resi
dence without having yet undergone the adaptive modifications in
cross-cousin terms necessary to achieve a more typical patrilineal
structure' ( 1 949:235-6). This perspective may offer some insight
into the evolution of social organisation of the Kainantu family and,
more widely, that of the eastern highlands.
If eastern highlands groups became permanently sedentary rela
tively late, as argued, compared with the rest of the highlands, and
perhaps as a result of the introduction of sweet potato cultivation,
and if, before that time, they practised a shifting, mixed, hunting/
horticultural economy, then locality (increasing patrilocality from
bilocality?) might have been the first and most crucial social struc
tural principle to emerge with permanent sedentism. Groups compe
ted for territory and reduced their area of exploitation; boundaries
became more firm and fixed in the wake of permanent cultivation;
groups moved slowly, if dramatically, towards more intensive culti
vation; population gradually increased; and heightened hostility re
sulted from more pronounced sedentism and greater proximity of
formerly dispersed groups. In time, previously autonomous groups
may have banded together for greater security in villages, and used
the rhetoric of descent, fraternal and paternal kinship, to preserve
and strengthen solidarity in the face of diverse origins. Masculine
idioms in an atmosphere of warfare were no more than to be ex
pected, as perhaps was the concern to initiate youths into warrior
hood. Descent became a sort of ideological overlay, supporting or
reinforcing the greater priority of (patri)locality. Such a view of
descent is consistent with the ethnography of the area. Patrilocality,
and a sense of boundedness based on it, has a greater salience and
emphasis in the eastern highlands compared to the western high
lands. Eastern highlanders, too, are far more preoccupied, it seems,
with the quick 'conversion' of outsiders to insiders, and in offering
'kinship' and 'descent' status to co-residents of whatever origin.
11
Hawkes ( 1 978a) rejects this explanation for Binumarien kinship terminology,
however.
J. Watson ( 1 965b) has suggested a somewhat similar sequence of

events in the pre-ipomoean period, alluding to the literature on
patrilocal bands (Steward 1955, see Chaper 2), and it may well be
the case that the facts of generational cousin terminology, group and
local endogamy, and the preferred ideal of cross-cousin marriage fit
together in the overall pattern of evolving social structures. Such
may be the prototypical social structure in the eastern highlands. In
an early debate, ] . Watson ( 1965c) queried Du Toit's ( 1 964) charac
terisation of Gadsup society as 'loosely structured', that is, 'bilat
eral', but still possessing patrilineal descent categories. His closing
remarks are instructive and relevant to the view of descent men
tioned above:
This is a problem not only where descent groups or categories have been
overlooked, but in Highlands settings where ethnographers, in recogniz
ing them, have examined descent categories perhaps too exclusively
through social-structural eyes, sometimes to find scant reason for their
existence. But they exist. The more dubious they are as sociological
entities . . . the more interesting descent categories may become as legiti
mate ethno-sociological entities ( 1 965c:271 ) .
The village o r compact nucleated 'settlement' is the key entity in

the eastern highlands. It is most often the autonomous unit, and
where warfare is rife, loyalty to the local group is all important. The
ethnographers of societies in the Kainantu group stress the fact that
co-residents, ipso facto, employ the idioms of fraternity and assert
common patrilineal descent, and do so with some urgency when
outsiders are recruited. J. Watson ( 1 9 8 3 ) and Robbins ( 1 982) have
shown this to be so most thoroughly for the Tairora and Auyana.
Not only is there the tendency to 'convert' outsiders to the status of
kinsmen and descendants with rapidity, but in the Tairora settle
ments studied by J. Watson, a high degree of endogamy means that
kinship and locale significantly overlap to begin with. Tairora vil
lages are almost self-reproducing. This fact, plus that of conversion,
suggests a high concern with boundaries and, more importantly, a
social order which is inward-looking - little wonder, with such a
hostile environment immediately beyond.
]. Watson's ( 1 983) work demonstrates clearly that the turbulence
of warfare in Tairora (and this applies throughout the eastern high
lands) meant that kinship was a 'better buy', 'more economical'
( 1 98 3 : 2 16) and more secure than other associations. To get people
to behave like kinsmen should, one had to give them kinship status.
Dogmas of descent were equally applied to co-residents: their fore

bears lived together at one place and their descendants do the same.
Although many different sib segments are represented in each settle
ment, territory and descent line are fused into one; claims to a
common place and claims to common descent are mutually eviden
tial and justifying. 1 2
Robbins ( 1 982) similarly relates how residents of Auyana con
sistently presented themselves and their subdivisions as composed
of biological agnates, yet known 'biological ancestry . . . was forgot
ten - or hidden - whenever it specifically involved foreign agnatic
ancestry' (1982: 1 1 1 ) . Auyana co-residents emphasised common
descent while dislocation due to warfare meant that communities
could never be a true representation of that image. Robbins stresses
further that in some contexts, 'nonagnates' were recognised and dis
advantaged, and, in the end, gave up the fiction and returned to the
'sovereignty' of their biological father. Auyana, on this evidence,
appear strongly 'patrilineal' (or at least strongly 'patrifilial') and use
more than just the rhetoric of descent in the recruitment and con
ceptualisation of their social units. This view is further supported by
the fact that Auyana women were unequivocally incorporated into
their husband's sovereignty, 1 3 and were considered suitable targets
for homicide and revenge by groups whose members had been killed
by the husband's group. This even included a wife's natal unit, who
might kill her in revenge, for she had become so identified with her
husband's sovereignty (Robbins 1982: 82-3).
In Kainantu societies, epitomised by Tairora and Auyana, it is the
linkages of males, patrilineal 'descent', which make the suitable
image for a community to present to outsiders. J. Watson
( 1 983 :255) remarks that this culture is one in which masculinity 'is
an undeniable preoccupation of the community at large - indeed,
one of its major resources'. Semen is the key element in making a
human being and males are sometimes even portrayed as being
solely responsible for procreation. Women's role is, at best, 'secon
dary' or even ambivalent (J. Watson 1983 :258). Furthermore, ma
ternal blood is inimical to male youths (see Chapter 7) and at
adolescence a boy must rid his body of maternal blood as he rids his
12 ]. Watson ( 1 983 :253) gives the idioms which stress place as much as descent line
and shows how they are intertwined.
13
Defined by Robbins ( 1 982:7) as 'the largest social unit whose members help one
another in fights with outsiders and are taken as a legal unit by outsiders'. In
other discussion, sovereignties are clearly conceived of by Auyana as agnatic
units.
life of maternal influence altogether. Male initiation rites are geared

to these ends. Eastern highland societies all share this characteristic,
unknown further west. In such an ideological climate, as Watson
somewhat wryly comments, maternal blood is hardly an 'appro
priate basis on which to substantiate, as it were, the linkages of
descent' ( 1 9 8 3 : 260) . Semen and maternal blood stand opposed;
they are not in any sense complementary substances which might
connect an individual to a wide range of kin in differing yet mutually
important ways. In this opposition of substances, one is emphasised
and made the symbol of group identity and solidarity, while the
other is denied, devalued and ultimately purged.
Kainantu societies are, then, not only highly bounded, inward
looking and circumscribed in a hostile environment, but they unilat
erally employ masculine idioms in the conceptualisation of their
communities and social units. The linkages of men alone metaphor
ically buttress the formation of settlements and the proclamations of
group solidarity, and they alone are significant in tracing relation
ships between persons, while males and females remain fundamen
tally opposed.
'Asaro ' groups

Many details of social structure of societies in this family have
already been provided in other contexts. This group of societies
includes Gahuku-Gama, Siane, Gururumba, Bena Bena, Gimi, Fore
and Kamano. Kamano and Fore especially show some of the same
characteristics as their contiguous Kainantu family neighbours;
overall, Kainantu and Asaro societies have much in common.
Both Kamano and Fore, as shown in Chapter 4, markedly prefer
parish or village endogamy. Mandeville ( 1979a) and Lindenbaum
( 1 979) stress that hostility outside one's own boundaries forces indi
viduals to seek spouses within. Multiple relations within the parish
are constantly recreated; parishes become self-reproducing and con
ceive themselves as a unit in opposition to pthers. Lindenbaum
( 1972:25 1 ) has further described Fore as 'cavalier' in their approach
to incest prohibitions. Marriages thus lack the political significance
that they do elsewhere and, instead, merely reinforce local soli
darity. Genetic tests in the eastern highlands further confirm a high
rate of group endogamy (Wiesenfeld and Gajdusek 1 976).
Fore also practise a form of cross-cousin marriage (see below;
Glasse 1 969); men prefer to marry women in the nebanto category
which includes MBD and FZD although the real FZD is not mar-
riageable. Nebanto are the daughters o f anagu ('MB') defined by

Glasse not in genealogical terms but as 'the person to whom I give
and who reciprocates' ( 1 969 :33). Anagu are persons who exchange
and this determines the preference for marriage with his daughter.
Almost half of Fore marriages are with women in the nebanto cat
egory. Gimi (Gillison 1980: 145), similarly, state such marriages as
ideal. Fore parishes consist of exogamous lines (Lindenbaum
1 979 :40) ; the practice of cross-cousin marriage, given the high rate
of endogamy, is very likely to involve intraparish members. The
exchange relationship between anagu begins when the prospective
marriage partners are very young; it ensures (almost like infant
betrothal) intraparish marriage. Fore are troubled by a shortage of
women because of kuru; 14 the exchanges of anagu and parish endo
gamy must be seen in this light. Despite the exogamy of parish lines,
whenever parish unity needs to be stressed, Fore proclaim descent
from a common ancestor (Glasse and Lindenbaum 1971 :366).
In Fore as well, unity is further marked by widespread accu
sation� of kuru sorcery between parishes. Community solidarity
and a heightened sense of boundedness follow from the aggression
of these 'invisible acts' (Lindenbaum 1 979:42). The human body
and the sovereign political unit must maintain similar precautions.
Body refuse can be used by sorcerers to destroy the careless person;
and when kuru causes the death of parish members, 'social quaran
tine' comes into effect: social and physical boundaries must be
policed and secured against unhealthy and dangerous connections
with outsiders. Throughout the eastern highlands, though the Fore
are perhaps an extreme case, sorcery and accusations of sorcery are
more emphasised than in the western highlands, a further indi
cation, I would argue, of a greater concern with boundaries and the
severe limiting of outside contacts (see also Lindenbaum 1971).
Other Asaro societies are equally bounded and 'isolated' as Fore
and Kamano, but in marriage, as we have seen, women are totally
cut off from their natal groups, and marriage similarly serves no pol
itical function in alliance or exchange. Sexton ( 1982: 173) notes the
'lack of structural importance' of the relationships between sisters
who are scattered among villages at marriage. Women are given
little or no choice of whom they marry; in fact neither man nor
woman may approve the match, a source of antagonism between
them (see note 1 5 ) . Bena Bena brides (as in Siane) are totally incor-
14
A neurological, viral disease, of long incubation, transmitted by cannibalism,
which occurs chiefly in women (see below; Glasse and Lindenbaum 1971).
porated into their husband's group; they are given different names
at marriage to signify this fact, and even if divorced or widowed,
continue to live with their husband's clan (Langness 1 969). Ties to
affines outside can never be allowed to supplant or be seen to
threaten the unyielding solidarity or internal ties (Langness
1 977: 1 8 ) . The Bena custom of a wife 'adopting' a brother in her hus
band's clan means that any 'affinity' remains at home and local, not
external, relationships are strengthened (Langness 1964, 1 969).15
Gururumba brides must be violently wrenched away from the pro
tection of age-mates at marriage by the groom's kin, and at the mar
riage ceremony the bride is constantly instructed to cease thinking
about her natal group and turn her thoughts and energies to the
needs of her husband's clan. The bride is symbolically and defini
tively incorporated into her husband's group when 'he shoots her in
the thigh with an arrow as she enters his village, as a reminder of his
hegemony over her' (Newman 198 1 : 1 13 ) . Examples of this fact of
total absorption, symptomatic to be sure of boundary-conscious
groups, are replete for this group of societies.
Stockaded, separate villages remain the residential pattern of
Asaro societies, aptly termed 'architectural braces for social unity'
by Lindenbaum ( 1979:43). Groups are often named after locales,
stressing the permanency of place. The structural significance of vil
lages is extended in Asaro, compared to Kainantu, for they are
manned by groups who conceive themselves at least to be members
of single 'descent' units: villages approximate 'clan villages' (Allen
1 967:34). The Gahuku-Gama dzuha is a group which has 'grown
from one man'; it is strictly exogamous and its members live
together in part of a village or separate settlement (Read 1 952:4).
Among the Siane (Salisbury 1962), the autonomous unit is the
patrilineal, patrilocal clan village, exogamous and named. Salisbury
reports that, in one clan, 'exceptions' to the rules of descent and -lo
cality amounted to only 2 per cent of all residents ( 1 962 : 14). This is
surely the highest rate of conformity to such structural rules known
in the highlands. Siane also practise 'patrilateral cross-cousin mar-
15
Among Bena Bena too, marriages are arranged for age-grades, not individuals
(Langness 1964: 1 78). Brides must be found for many boys at the same time,
implying a lack of choice and timing for both brides and grooms. Similar mar
riage planning by age-grades takes place among Gahuku-Gama (Read
195 1 : 160) and Kamano, both neighbours of Bena Bena. While age-grades of
men are highly solidary (see following chapter), and 'group marriage' might re
inforce this, such lack of choice of marriage partner may well be an ingredient in
the male-female antagonism which characterises the area.
riage'; clans are corporate wholes with regard to marriage and are
represented by formal spokesmen. Yet, 'overt hostility' still charac
terises the relations of affines and affinally related clans (Salisbury
1 956a, 1964b).
Bena Bena are also organised in localised village clans that are
exogamous and where membership is 'explained by reference to
remote male ancestors to whom no genealogical links can be traced'
(Langness 1 971 :300; see also Langness 1964). In his haste to dem
onstrate the discrepancy between ideology and practice, Langness
notes that 48 per cent of 'members' of the Nupasafa group are non
agnates (1 964 : 1 66). Strangely, however, he includes women who
have married into the group in this figure. But Bena Bena, as noted,
are exogamous and patrivirilocal, so we would expect women to be
'nonagnates' . 1 6 Agnatic adult male residents amount to 70 per cent
of the total, a much higher degree of conformity than the com
pounded figure, and much more meaningful. Statistics of this sort
tell only part of the story; boundedness is expressed, conceptualised
and maintained in many ways, 'descent' reckoning being only one.
By any set of criteria, however, these eastern highland societies are
the most boundary-conscious and boundary-maintaining of any in
the highlands.
Whether or not we describe groups in Asaro societies as descent
groups, or patrifilial or fraternal kin groups, recruits and immi
grants are given appropriate status immediately upon entry. Salis
bury ( 1 956b:5), following Fortes, speaks of 'clipped, patched and
telescoped' Siane genealogies as masking changes and discon
tinuities of personnel. Bena Bena and Fore give new arrivals kinship
status rapidly and whatever might be the 'real' links between people
they are submerged in idioms of masculinity. People who reside
together can and must be related in certain ways only; idioms of
brotherhood are used to exhort all residents to behave like brothers,
especially in joint defence. Relationships of a different sort suggest
weakness, disloyalty and potential treachery and cannot co-exist.
Although there is little information on this point, severed dealings
with others outside one's own group would suggest that extended
kinship, aside from the fraternal and paternal sort, is little recog
nised in these societies.
16
This demonstrates the classification problems which have plagued discussion
on 'degrees of nonagnation', .etc. It is somewhat similar to the issue raised by
McArthur ( 1 967) in her discussion of Meggitt's interpretation of the Mae-Enga
(see also Holy 1 976).
In fact, we know that Asaro societies, with their Kainantu neigh

bours, assiduously seek to rid themselves of blood, the substance
and symbol of maternal and affinal connections. The nama in
itiation cult, present in various forms throughout the eastern high
lands, is the canonical expression of bounded relations of males.
Wives and mothers threaten the unity of men; they potentially
divide the loyalties of the male members of the community, and the
nama cult is the exaggerated remedy to prevent such an occurrence
(see Langness 1 977). Additionally, among the Siane (Salisbury
1 965), ancestral, paternal spirit must be allowed to grow in a child
until full clan status as adult is achieved. Paternal spirit grows at the
expense of dwindling maternal influence until the final blood of the
initiate is let, and he is told that his 'mother's blood is being washed
away' forever, for real manhood has been reached (Salisbury
1 965 : 62).
In Asaro groups, all evidence points to a rigidly masculine ethos
in the structure of society. Every aspect is unilaterally tinged with
maleness. Relations between men and women, between men and
their affines and maternal kin, and the very substances of which
humans are made, are not complementary, but opposed and antag
onistic. The units of social structure follow this definite lead. The
most thoroughly bounded units, stressing the lineal and horizontal
links of men, to the virtual exclusion of recognition of any other con
nections, are found here.
'Central Wahgi' groups

Societies in this family include the Chimbu, Maring, Narak
(Manga) and Kuma. Like so many other aspects in the evolution of
social systems in the New Guinea highlands, this configuration of
societies marks a dramatic transformation of social structure com
pared to those societies to their east.
It has been argued previously that, from Chimbu westward, 're
stricted' warfare is characteristic and the political significance of
marriage greatly increases. The ethnography of Chimbu and Kuma
is unambiguous in this regard, and the Maring and Narak also
clearly fit this pattern. These societies, on the east to west con
tinuum, are in all respects intermediate. Maring and Narak warfare
is regulated by the ritual cycle; periods of truce are well defined and
often very lengthy, making unrestricted warfare impossible. Among
Maring (Rappaport 1 968) the famous 'planting of the rumbim' (a
small bush symbolising territory, claims to land and group member-
ship, Rappaport 1 968 : 19) begins a period of peace between

'enemies' which may last twelve to fifteen years or longer
( 1 96 8 : 1 5 7). Significantly, the duration of a truce is subject to the
vagaries of pig production, for sufficient pigs are necessary for the
rumbim to be uprooted and for warfare to recommence after
ancestors, allies and affines have been honoured with gifts of pork.
Here is one of the clearest cultural expressions of the relationship be
tween pig production and warfare: while one is being assiduously
pursued, the other must be mute. Maring pigs are mainly produced
at home, not gained from exchanges with outsiders, and are then
killed in the culminating kaiko. Pig production is constrained and ad
hoc, so warfare resumes parity with it when it ceases. There is thus a
somewhat fragile balance between the two: pig production occurs
without significant on-going exchange, but we can still witness
more lasting truces than are possible or even contemplated in the
absence of sustained production in societies to the east. In Maring,
too, women cement alliances between groups and are sometimes
exchanged as a means of ending hostilities (Rappaport 1 969).
Among the Narak, the processes of warfare and peace are vir
tually identical to those of the Maring (Pflanz-Cook and Cook
1983). Warfare is related to, and regulated by, the ritual cycle and
the conditions of restricted warfare apply. Overall the social struc
tures in central Wahgi societies are less subject to the demands of
warfare and security measures than societies to their east. They are
not nearly as boundary-conscious in any way, nor as isolated and
opposed to outside groups and, consequently, we find a lessened em
phasis on 'descent' and other 'masculine' idioms for maintaining
and conceptualising group boundaries, and for asserting the soli
darity, continuity and cohesion of groups. This diminished bound
ary maintenance is evident in many ways.
Rappaport ( 1 968 :22; 1969 : 134-5) reports that land grants are
made to affines. A bride's group gives land to her husband. Such
grants are said to be made in perpetuity. Wives garden in both their
natal clans and those of their husbands, and sons can inherit from
their fathers, land rights in their mother's clan. Such 'intermingling'
often means that men are 'ignorant of the location of the border' of
their own group (Rappaport 1 969 : 135). Brown ( 1 964: 355) also
writes of 'grants of land' to affines along with other hospitality in
Chimbu, even where land is in such short supply. Reay ( 1971 : 1 75)
says that, in Kuma, land is granted to outsiders regularly and
without fuss, though never alienated from the clan. Rigid clan
boundaries in a territorial sense are not a feature of central Wahgi

groups nor are they conceptually bounded.
In stark contrast to eastern highlands societies, those in this
group appear unconcerned with falsifying the origins of immigrants
by giving them new agnatic or patrilateral status. Brown, speaking
of Chimbu, says that 'accretion is not marked by fictional agnation'
(1971 :2 1 3 ) . Immigrants become active, often influential leaders in
Chimbu clans without ever surrendering their nonagnatic iden
tities. 17 Nonagnates make up 22 per cent of one group studied by
Brown ( 1 971 : 2 1 6), and they suffer no discrimination because of
their status. In another context, it is reported that Chimbu use kin
ship terms as if common agnatic clansmen were, instead, members
of their mother's subclan. Full agnates are addressed as 'brother-in
law' or 'mother's brother'. In this usage, 'we see that kinship ties and
a tie through the mother's subclan predominate over common clan
ship' (Brookfield and Brown 1963 : 13 , my emphasis).
A similar percentage of nonagnates exist in Narak phratries
(Cook 1 970 : 1 92). They also suffer few disadvantages and their
status is neither masked nor deliberately altered by 'genealogical
amnesia'. Cook (1980:414) similarly notes nonagnatic kinship
usage among Narak clansmen. The use of nonagnatic kin terms
among clansmen, and the maintenance of nonagnatic identities are
not seen as in any way threatening or reducing the solidarity or loy
alty of group members as they undoubtedly would be in societies to
the east. While percentages of nonagnates may be slightly lower
overall in some central Wahgi groups, they remain much less rigidly
bounded, conceptually and territorially.
Further evidence of the lack of rigid conceptual separation of
agnates from others can be found in writings about the Maring and
Kuma. Healey ( 1 979; compare Feil 1 978a) shows that Maring kin
ship terms do not clearly distinguish agnates as a bounded set and
that nonagnatic and affinal links to a core of agnates are demon
strable, never hidden or forgotten. About one-third of the members
of the Maring communities studied by Healey have nonagnatic ori
gins ( 1 979 : 107). A further point of comparative interest emerges
from Healey's account. The term 'brother', because of the prevailing
emphasis on patrilineal descent, thought to be universally valid
across the highlands, has led some anthropologists to assume the
term meant only (or primarily) agnatic brother. In the eastern high-
17
Criper ( 1967) argues, furthermore, that upper Chimbu do not employ agnatic
descent constructs at all.
lands stress on the solidarity of brothers, 'agnatic' is surely its pri

mary meaning, and outsiders must be converted to that status, the
sooner the better. However, in the western highlands, beginning
with the central Wahgi family, an equally significant referent of
'brother' might be matrilateral kinsman or affine. In other words, it
appears that the lack of emphasis on bounded groups of brothers in
the western highlands is reflected in the polysemy of the kinship
term for brother, and perhaps others as well (see Feil 1978a).
Among Kuma, close subclan brothers may address each other as
gulnan, brother-in-law (Reay 1959:70). This term may become
more than honorary, for one 'brother-in-law' may give a 'daughter'
to the other, who while forbidden to marry her, may use this woman
to satisfy marital obligations he has to others. When this happens,
agnates are reclassified as affines. This institution is termed 'woman
link' (Reay 1 976:92-3), or 'road link' (O'Hanlon and Frankland
f986: 1 90), and is similar to a process noted for the Enga (Feil
1 978a) in which agnates are 'converted' to nonagnates to facilitate
the exchange of valuables. Among Kuma, the conversion allows, or
follows, the 'exchange' of women between full agnates, as real
brothers-in-law would do.
These features point to an aspect of overwhelming comparative
significance in this configuration of societies in contrast to those
eastward: individuals in central Wahgi are so indissolubly connec
ted to maternal kin and affines that their membership in agnatic
units can never be absolute and unquestioned and, thus, social
groups do not even approximate the bounded 'patrilineal' entities
that are found in the eastern highlands.
In Kuma, a mother's brother and his subclansmen not only wield
extensive powers over a sister's child, but also form a relationship
with the child so strong that agnatic commitments are radically
diminished. When warfare breaks out between the clans of the
mother's brother and sister's child there are severe constraints on
their actions and participation. O'Hanlon and Frankland ( 1986)
point out that a mother's brother can curse a sister's child, causing
infertility and misfortune, or can threaten to do so out of anger with
the child's father, his sister's husband. But a mother's brother's
powers can also be curative: there are stories which tell of a
mother's brother resurrecting a sister's child just when death seemed
inevitable (O'Hanlon and Frankland 1986: 1 85). Alignments be
tween mother's brother and sister's child can divide agnates, reduc
ing the corporateness of narrow, patrilineal groups. In the telling
phrase of O'Hanlon and Frankland, this relationship offers a

'momentary glimpse of the potential for matrilineal structures' in
Wahgi society ( 1 9 8 6 : 1 84). Much of eastern highlanders social and
ritual practice is aimed to prevent such an occurrence.
Among Kuma, Maring, Narak and Chimbu, and the Daribi
(Wagner 1 967) to the immediate south as well, the basis of the
mother's brother's connection to a sister's child is identical:
A man acts throughout his life as a member of his father's clan, which he
cites as his own, but at death (and on a number of other occasions as
well), the people of his mother's clan address him as their son, and in a
certain sense it is this clan of origin to which he really belongs. Its contri
bution to the strength of his father's clan has never been fully paid for in
his lifetime, but with his death it is finally recognized and settled. His
mother's brother (the brother-in-law to whom the father's marriage pay
ments are always owing) has to receive compensation for the death
( Reay 1959 : 101, my emphasis).
An individual in these societies is jointly a member of his father's

and mother's group; his loyalties are forever divided in a way that
would be both intolerable and perhaps even dangerous (or so be
lieved) in the eastern highlands. In Kuma, the mother's brother is the
'stock' or 'root', the sister's child the 'cutting' or 'transplanted
material' which 'they have placed' (O'Hanlon and Frankland
1 9 86 : 1 85). Payments of all kinds, from birth to death, marriage to
injury, must flow to the mother's brother's group to acknowledge
their priority and the perpetual indebtedness assumed by the group
which has received a wife and thereby been able to produce a group
member 'planted' by the clan of his mother. Among the Daribi, too,
the mother's brother is the 'base/cause man' for he is the 'cause of a
person, both in the sense that he gave his sister in marriage and in
the more basic sense that he exerts a continual influence over his
sister's children . . . ' (Wagner 1 967:66). If payments are not made,
the child can be reclaimed by his rightful (mother's) group; the child
is simply under the guardianship of the father's group; residence has
been exchanged for continual payments and compensation, but his
'real' affiliation is two-sided, never ultimately settled until he dies.
In Kuma, Maring, Narak, Daribi and perhaps Chimbu as well
(Brown 1 969: 82) the relationship between affines and matrilateral
kin is further manifested in a system of 'patrilateral cross-cousin
marriage' known as 'returning the planting material' (Rappaport
1 969: 126; Cook 1 969 : 107-9; Reay 1976:94; Wagner 1967;
Healey 1 979; Lipuma 1 9 8 3 : 775 ; O'Hanlon and Frankland 1 986).
A marriage rule in these societies states that a woman's grand

daughter (her son's daughter) should marry back into her natal sub
clan, a marriage thus to her father's mother's brother's son's son
(FMBSS). A woman has been planted, it is reasoned, into an affinal
role, her children are the cuttings from her stock, and the receiving
group, that of her husband, must ultimately return the 'planting
material'. A man can 'buy his mother' (Cook 1 969), thereby gaining
the right to dispose of his daughter as he wishes, elsewhere, and
there are other ways around the rule, but the intense, immutable
connection of maternal kin, and the preceding affinal tie, remains a
basic aspect of social structure in Wahgi groups, for here, a mother's
brother 'grows' his sister's children (O'Hanlon and Frankland
1 9 86 : 1 85 ) .
Among Kuma, Maring and Narak too, sister exchange i s allowed
and practised in varying degrees. Kuma denote this marriage form
by terminologically equating mother's brother with father's sister's
husband, and father's sister with mother's brother's wife (Reay
1 959:60). All Kuma marriages are marked by the transfer of pigs,
but usually only one. However, in both Maring and Narak, when
sister exchange proceeds, no wealth is given on either side. Pig pro
duction is still low in these societies and widely proliferating
exchange undeveloped. Even though highly bounded groups no
longer exist, marriage patterns are still constrained and limited, and
integration through extensive exogamy and exchange not nearly as
striking as that encountered in societies further west.
While societies in the eastern highlands, for example Siane and
Tairora, epitomise and proclaim a basic antithesis between the sub
stances which create a person and give identity to him, societies in
the central Wahgi group employ the idioms of 'my blood' or 'one
blood' to denote and emphasise connections to maternal kin, re
lations of great significance. In eastern highlands societies, blood of
the mother (symbolic of maternal connections in general) must be
expelled and the contribution of the father, semen, made to appear
almost totally responsible for conception and subsequent growth.
Among Chimbu, Kuma and Narak, idioms of blood unite people in
many complex ways but it is never purged, ignored or overridden by
male influence or interference (O'Hanlon and Frankland
1986: 1 8 6-7; Cook 1980:399; Brown 1 969 : 8 1 ) .
Blood i s most often viewed i n these societies and those further
west as originating with the mother, as flowing from her and her
group. But also apparently in Kuma, and Narak at least, blood is an
idiom of clanship and used to conceptualise other groups related in

more diffuse, patrilat<.!ral ways (O'Hanlon and Frankland
1986: 1 86-7). It could well be argued, however, that the primary
referent of 'one blood' or 'my blood' is to a person's mother's group,
a proposition compatible with the belief that they are responsible
for, indeed that they 'planted' the child and that he or she belongs to
them in some fundamental sense. Idiomatic extension to other
usages may be an attempt to conceptualise mutable, less primary re
lations as immutable, indissoluble ones. Whatever the explanation,
the incontrovertible fact is that, in Wahgi societies and those further
west, we encounter for the first time female idioms of blood applied
to important, lasting relations. Blood is culturally emphasised, not
debased, and individuals are subject to and finally aligned with
other than narrow, unilateral and tightly bounded entities.
Western highlands groups

The social structures of societies in the western highlands group
extend and elaborate some features found in the central Wahgi
family. In this configuration I include Melpa, Enga, Mendi, Huli
and some other contiguous peoples.
Certain general tendencies are imme;diately apparent. Sister
exchange is not practised, nor is there a rule similar to 'returning the
planting material', ubiquitous in central Wahgi. In the western high
lands, bridewealth marriage is virtually the only form that exists,
and marriage payments are large, often very large (see, for example,
among Huli, Melpa and Enga, Glasse 1968 :55; A. J. and A. M. Stra
thern 1 969 : 146; and Feil 1 9 8 1 ) . The marriage system, like the
system of social control (see Chapter 4 ), has increasingly become
economically rationalised: pigs substitute for women as they do for
injury and homicide. Marriage is much less 'prescriptive' here and
women and men appear to have greater freedom in choosing ,a
spouse. The kinsmen of a bride desire a lasting bond so that
exchanges of wealth can ensue and, once they have, divorce is likely
to be discouraged, and is rare. Additionally, as has been pointed out,
there are rules which spread and disperse marriages widely in some
societies; endogamy and restricted exogamy no longer pertain.
Exchange relations in many groups are, thereby, fostered, and
women provide the 'roads' and 'links' of wealth transactions be
tween affines and others (see for example in Mendi, Ryan
1 969 : 1 64).
The idiom of blood and the ineradicable ties between a person
and his mother's group, to which a sister's child fundamentally be

longs, find heightened expression in the western highlands. Among
the Melpa (A. J. Strathern 1972 : 1 3-19), shared blood is traced for
four generations or more from a single female ancestress. 'One
blood people' (mema tenda wamb) contrast with those who share
'ndating', patrilineal substance. A. J. Strathern (1972 : 1 5 ) notes that
those sharing ndating, 'people of one father', often also employ the
notion of 'one blood' when referring to themselves, though this is re
garded as not strictly correct. Idioms, therefore, become confused,
allowing either agnatic or cognatic portraits of the group to be
drawn depending on circumstances and rhetorical situations. Im
portantly for the comparison at hand, Melpa extend the idiom of
blood and recognise a culturally defined unit of people based on a
shared substance from other than a male ancestor. Melpa groups,
accordingly, have a cognatic character rather than a strictly uni
lineal one, and regardless of how this group is ultimately conceptu
alised (and this is also highly variable), a person can gain
membership through either his father or his mother (A. J. Strathern
1 972: 150).
The powerful notion of blood allows both patrifiliation and
matrifiliation in recruitment to Melpa groups (A. J. Strathern
1979b: 150), and there are no status disabilities, differences or 'jural
significance' to the recognised distinction. Members can be 'born of
a man' or be 'born of a woman'; women are the acknowledged foun
ders of lineages and whole subgroups within Melpa clans, groups
known as 'woman bearing' (A. J. Strathern 1979b: 154). Clearly,
there is little stress among Melpa to insist that their groups be dog
matically patrilineal. They are not conceptually bounded nor is con
tinuity exclusively traced through males as is asserted so vigorously
in the east.
The Enga follow this pattern. 1 8 Tombema-Enga (Feil 1 984b) be
lieve that a woman passes blood to her children and the substance
binds a child through her to her kinsfolk, both male and female.
Blood is not antithetical, but complementary to male substance.
Blood produces internal disposition; semen produces external
characteristics, and is symbolic of agnatic connections. The tie of
blood is fundamental. Maternal kin are known as wane tange, the
'owners of the child'. Enga say, furthermore, that it is purely acci
dental that a man's mother was born a woman, for if she had been a
18
A view which clearly contradicts Meggitt (for example 1965; but see also Barnes
1962, 1967; McArthur 1 967; and Feil, for example 1984a, 1984b).
man, his mother's brother would have been his father, his cross
cousins, siblings. This sort of reasoning gives a sense of cognation,
certainly not of bounded conceptual agnation.
In the capacity of wane tange, maternal kin must be compensated
for any injury, illness, and at the death of a sister's child. They must
be paid as he grows and at certain life-cycle stages. A wife is likely to
remove her children if these payments do not follow automatically,
and settle with her natal kin until they are. One set of relations
through a woman are thus differentiated by transmitted substance,
that of blood. Relations of brothers-in-law are also close, if charac
terised by exaggerated punctilio. They share no blood, but as among
the Kuma, a father holds rights for his son until adolescence and
makes payments in the boy's name to his wife's, that is, his son's
mother's group. Maternal and affinal connections are complemen
tary to agnatic ones and the social system is marked by the diversity
of potential individual allegiances.
A. J. Strathern ( 1972:94) notes that the etic facts of immigrant
origins among Melpa 'are neither systematically eliminated, nor
conveniently forgotten, although they are unlikely to be mentioned
often by clansmen themselves, simply because they are largely irrele
vant to contemporary affairs'. The same could be said of Enga. Both
Enga and Melpa have high nonagnatic membership. Within Enga
groups, additionally, fellow clansmen with impeccable agnatic
pedigrees recognise other constructs, besides agnation, which unite
them. The 'gathering together of men and women by women'
(endaakali limbingi) denotes persons whose mothers are sisters, nor
mally based on common clanship or women whose mothers were
cross-cousins. These men and women call each other by sibling
terms; they were 'carried in the same netbag' as infants. 'Men of
women' (akali wanakunya) are men whose wives are sisters by ex
tended genealogical reckoning. Thus, prominence is given to an
affinal tie of brotherhood. Within Tombema-Enga clans, therefore,
there are matrilateral, affinal and agnatic constructs which dis
tinguish people and have social purpose. There is some evidence to
suggest that matrilateral and affinal brotherhood give such distinc
tive identity to some of a clan's members that fission might occur
along these lines and form the basis for the structuring of emergent
segments (see Kelly 1 974; Feil 1978a, 1984a). My major point,
however, is that neither Melpa nor Enga stress exclusiveness or
boundedness through agnatic descent or by any other means. The
social order is not mapped in the same way as it is in the eastern

highlands, between those sharing agnatic connections inside, and
those outside who do not.
Among Tombema-Enga too, extensive kinship connections are
traced interclan and intraclan, the latter being 'conversions' from
simple agnation (see Feil 1978a, 1984a: 68-71, 1 984b : 143-5 ) .
While eastern highlanders create new agnates o f outsiders,
Tombema-Enga create affines and maternal kinsmen of old agnates.
Consanguinity and affinity are confounded. Tombema do not rad
ically separate agnates from others or kinsmen from affines, simply
on the basis of a same group/different group dimension. Agnatic
identities are not ever 'total'. Neither are matrilateral consanguines
nor affines merely members of other agnatic groups. Tombema
staunchly maintain that they are related to others along several sim
ultaneous paths, all equally valid and important, often including
patrilateral, matrilateral and affinal connections. Enga seek poten
tial exchange partners; conversions of agnates are modelled on
extragroup ties and relationships. Eastern highlanders want man
power for defence and warfare; their recruits must be solid group
members. This is perhaps the clearest contrast in social structure of
the differing preoccupations of societies at the two ends of the high
lands continuum.
The Mendi and Huli also belong to this configuration. Nonag
natic membership in some Mendi subclans is 50 per cent of the total
(Ryan 1 95 9:268), yet there is no jural distinction between 'agnatic'
and 'nonagnatic' members of the group. Foreign links are not
masked in genealogies. In the formation of Mendi 'clan-clusters'
(Ryan 1961 :44 ), matrilateral kinship and affinal ties are maintained
as uniting references. The neighbouring Wola (Sillitoe 1979) are
similar. Wola make a distinction between men with unbroken ag
natic links (mausha) and those with female or anomalous links in
their ancestry (aysha). But, like Melpa, these tags are relative and
depending on time depth men may be both mausha and aysha at the
same locale. Men can affiliate with their mother's or wife's group
without discrimination and 'so long as a man has an existing social
connection at a place, through which he can claim rights to land, he
suffers no social disadvantages residing there' (Sillitoe 1 979:40).
Wola groups are bilateral in appearance; land tenure is bilateral in
scope and individuals have a wide range of choices in residence and
affiliation.
Huli society also shows no signs of boundedness and has been

described by Glasse (1968) as 'cognatic'. Huli conceive of them
selves as related equally and in the same way to both matrikin and
patrikin. Huli separately classify agnates and other cognates, but the
former category is significant only to regulate exogamy. Recruit
ment to parishes is open to any descendant of the founders; agnates
do not form a residential core; people may maintain several mem
berships in different parishes, and members retain rights to territory
even if they are not ever taken up. As one would expect, genealogical
ties do not show systematic altering in favour of one side or the
other. The ideology of Huli groups, as distinct from their member
ship and processes of recruitment, is not patrilineal. They call their
groups hamigini, 'children of brothers': all males and females are
eligible for entry (Glasse 1 968 :23). Despite the cognatic emphasis,
there is some bias towards the number of agnates resident in a parish
and agnates appear to hold more land than other cognates. The con
tradiction is not real according to Glasse; the agnatic principle is
merely 'personal identification' ( 1 968 :22). Affines and people
unrelated to parish members can also be admitted to Huli groups
(Glasse 1 96 8 : 26). Bridewealth contributors are bilaterally related to
the groom. Thus, while agnates appear t-o have some advantages,
Huli groups are unbounded and there are few, if any, restrictions on
membership such that conceptually discrete units could ever de
velop.
The ethnography of these major groups is clear. The evidence for
other groups in the western highlands family support this overall
picture. A. J. Strathern ( 1979b : 152) reports that the Wiru of the
southern highlands do not alter the original identities of immigrants
and that the 'idiom of descent' is less valid and useful in Wiru
groups; maternal and affinal ties are the basis of solidarity in local
groups. Nelson ( 1980) writes that among the Kaimbi of the Nebil
yer Valley, west of Melpa, mother's blood is a crucial substance for
the growth and identity of a child and that Kaimbi social structure is
'generated' through the 'composition of two descent groups'
( 1 9 8 0 :377), the mother's and father's. Uterine relationships come to
the fore at the death of a sister's child and uterine brothers inherit
some property of the deceased. There is much variation in these
groups of societies, but the lack of conceptual and territorial boun
dedness is common to all.
In contributions of seminal importance to the conceptualisation
of social structures in the highlands, Wagner ( 1967, 1 969) has
argued for the Daribi that the social system is generated by the oppo
sition between consanguinity and exchange. A mother's brother
'owns' his sister's child by virtue of a relationship of blood. A man is
equally related to his father's line by the substance of semen. While
consanguinity relates people, a 'normatively patrilineal' (Wagner
1969:63) clan defines itself in opposition to its blood kin: payments
must be made to maternal kin to recruit clan members against the
claims of blood. While consanguinity relates, exchange defines.
Exchange 'provides the criteria by which clans exist as discrete
units' (Wagner 1969:64). Members of clans share, non-members
exchange and, therefore, boundaries are established in the process
of exchange. This position has been taken up by other ethno
graphers, but attempts to apply this perspective widely across the
highlands have been only partially successful (J. Weiner 1 982).
Only some societies emphasise exchange of any kind. Societies
that do engage in wide-ranging, multi-purpose exchange with ma
ternal kin and affines are the least boundary-conscious and
boundary-maintaining populations in the highlands. Exchange
broadens; it does not restrict. Exchanges are symptomatic of endur
ing, treasured and highly valued social relations, based on ties of
blood, marriage and other immutable connections that are usually
traced through women. Societies in which exchange is little in evi
dence, those in the eastern highlands for example, seek to deny the
importance of relations outside narrowly constituted groups ; cor
porations strictly masculine in detail and continuity persist. It is in
these societies that boundaries are most pronounced.
To analyse variations in social structure across the highlands, we
must consider their material bases. Where we find intensive produc
tion, linked elaborate exchange institutions and, therefore, a tran
scended domestic economic focus, we find groups which recognise
other than unilateral constructs of relatedness. We also find people
who believe that substances derived from mother and father are
complementary, not antithetical, groups whose members profess
social identities which are not 'total', and societies where strict con
ceptual and territorial boundaries are weak or absent. We also find
the 'corporateness' of groups much diminished. It has been sugges
ted throughout that these societies historically have followed a very
different path of development and process of transformation from
those in which the evidence of the ethnographic present reveals
broadening features of social structure to be poorly developed or
lacking altogether.
Conclusion
The proposition that Melanesian soc1et1es which recognise

'matrilineal principles' are those which have developed more elabor
ate political forms than 'agnatic' polities and have greater evolution
ary potential (Allen 1 984) has been noted earlier. A further point,
more thoroughly elaborated in another context (Allen 1 9 8 1 ), states
that
most probably in all pre-state societies with a horticultural economy,
matrilineal kinship may not only have historical priority over its agnatic
counterpart, but continues today to be regarded as the most true and
incontrovertible form of kinship connection . . . In some fundamental
ontological way "real" kinship is uterine kinship and all other con
sanguineal and affinal connections are of a secondary or derivative kind
(Allen 1981 :30).
The limited evolutionary continuum of highland New Guinea lends

support: societies with the most developed political organisation
and widest integration of groups are those which acknowledge ma
ternal relations as fundamental, prior, and in some ways predomi
nant over agnatic ones. Evolutionary potential appears to have been
realised. At the other end of the highlands, the 'agnatic theme' takes
an extreme form: male cults exist which appear to usurp much of the
procreative role of women and vest it, ultimately, with men alone.
Pregnancy, menstruation and parturition are dominant motifs in
male initiations there (Allen 1 9 8 1 :32); extreme male solidarity and
power, and an ethic of heightened masculinity and sexual inequality
are everywhere apparent. Maternal connections count for nothing,
are ignored or dangerous, and these facts reverberate throughout
the social order.
Unexpectedly perhaps, it is in these very eastern highlands
societies that myths reveal a time when women once 'controlled'
men. Meigs writes of the Hua that:
The view that women are by nature superior to males is implicit . . . in
the origin myth of the flutes [of male initiations]. In this myth . . . fe-
males are represented as the original producers and owners of the flutes,
and consequently the original rulers of society. When women played the
flutes, males hid their eyes and bowed their bodies to the ground in an
attitude of submission. At some point in the distant past men stole the
flutes from the women. With this theft of the symbol of political domi
nance they gained actual preeminence as well. From this time on it was
women who had to prostrate themselves when the flutes were played . . .
male supremacy was thus achieved . . . by overthrowing [the natural

order] when men seized power from its original and natural owners, the
women ( 1 984:45, my emphasis).
The Gimi (Gillison 1983) and other eastern highlanders of the

'sacred flute' complex have similar myths of the former authority
and power of women, who were tricked and duped by men who are
now ascendant.
Myths of past matriarchy? Not likely. Since they are apparently
known and recited only by men, could these myths instead be ac
knowledgement of barely repressed truths which are vigorously
denied in everyday life: namely, the fundamental priority of natural,
maternal kinship, the essential immutability of uterine relations,
and the ultimate value of women, all of which find no social or cul
tural expression here as they do elsewhere in the highlands ?
7 Male-female relations
To survive in the New Guinea Highlands, and especially to sur

vive well - to have many large gardens and many pigs - it is
necessary to control the labor and, indeed, the actual bodies of
women. They must do what is required of them - and when it is
required.
Langness ( 1 977: 16)
The transformation of social structures, east to west in the high

lands, coincides and interrelates with the distinct pattern of warfare
and leadership. The rigidly isolated, territorially and conceptually
bounded societies of the eastern highlands profess dogmas of re
latedness exclusively through males which yield groups nearest in
form and content to patrilineal descent groups, once thought to
exist uniformly across the highlands. Marriage and kinship, and a
host of other structural variables, vary along the continuum in a re
lated fashion. The more intriguing question perhaps is 'not whether
[a society] is patrilineal or matrilineal or both or neither, but what
the notion of patrilineality stands for and why it is there' (Leach
1 96 1 : 1 1 ) . The clear answers here are male aggressiveness, a mascu
line ethos and, as this chapter documents, extreme and utter domi
nance of women by men, and a truncation of social relations traced
through women.
Behind these patterned elements of highland social systems we
must constantly reiterate the crucial, if not determining, significance
of productive means and their differential growth, employment and
evolution from earliest known prehistory. I am suggesting no simpli
fied model of causation, but rather a constellation of elements which
logically and empirically go together and exist in a complex,
mutually reinforcing and continually interacting way. Relations be
tween the sexes are no exception, nor are they 'external' to this set of
168
Male-female relations 1 69
social facts, and it will be argued that they too follow a pattern of
divergence and variation which can be convincingly linked to his
toric transformations of the economic mode of production and con
comitant elements. lntersexual relations, are thus neither atemporal
nor uniform in the highlands, and like other aspects of New Guinea
highlands societies, are part of the unfolding processes of the past.
Relations between the sexes in societies of the eastern highlands
cannot be remotely considered without reference to male cults and
initiation rituals there. Keesing (1982:3) has referred to them as
'total social facts'. The phrase, borrowed from Mauss ( 1954), aptly
suggests that men's initiation cults simultaneously encapsulate and
express the quintessential values of the societies and cultures in
which they occur in elaborate form. In viewing them thus, with
which there can be no disagreement, it is apposite to note that these
'total' institutions deny a_nd denigrate fully half of the social whole.
The ethos of one sex substitutes for - indeed parades - as the whole.
Cults celebrate and enforce the disjunction of males and females;
what is taught in ritual contexts spills over into secular life and pro
vides a portion of its rationale.
In this broadest of contrasts, it is not difficult to discover the
equivalent total phenomenon in the western highlands where male
cult life is all but absent. There, ceremonial exchange is the key to
interpret and lay bare the values societies hold most dear. In these
institutions, there is much less denial, explicit or otherwise, of the
importance and participation of one sex over the other. Women are
not so ideologically or socially disjoined from men; women are not
and cannot be excluded so thoroughly from the very institutions
which provide a society's fundamental calculus. This seems the most
basic contrast between highland societies west and east: in the
course of their histories, some total institutions have come to
acknowledge the value and contribution of all a society's members,
regardless of sex; while in some others the totality is, instead, par
tial, unisexual, and incomplete.
Male initiations and male-female relations :

the theoretical past
Institutions as complex and 'total' as male initiation and cer

emonial exchange defy simple, unicausal explanation. In the case of
the former, a wide spectrum of theory has been used to 'explain'
their occurrence, distribution, variation and intensity. My survey
here will be brief; there are a number of very useful discussions of

the theoretical positions employed to account for male initiations in
Papua New Guinea, some old, some recent (Allen 1 967; Keesing
1 982; Herdt 1 984a; see also Herdt and Poole 1982). It is important
to note that explanatory theories are not mutually exclusive and the
crucial task, as Keesing ( 1 9 82:32) has noted, is to seek a framework
in which all perspectives can be fitted together. The objective here,
alas, is, not to provide this framework, but to demonstrate that the
ethnographic evidence from highland Papua New Guinea shows
that not only do male initiations, extreme male-female antagonism,
and a low status for women 1 all occur together, but that they also
vary along the east to west continuum in the same way as other fea
tures of social life discussed previously. Sexual antagonism, pol
arity, asymmetry, female pollution and danger, and low women's
status, while largely ill-defined, have been the terms applied to pat
terns of male-female interaction in the highlands. Whatever their
precise meaning, the argument here is that they coalesce, overlap
and occur in exaggerated form in the same societies. The burden
remains to document the changing configurations of intersexual re
lations, show their interconnection with other aspects of society,
suggest their evolutionary past and, thereby, provide an argument
for how these divergent patterns may have come to be as they are.
Functionalist theories, sociological and ecological, have been
employed to explain the existence of male cults and initiations and,
more widely, the antagonistic tenor of male-female relations in the
highlands. Read, in his classic paper on the nama cult, writes that
during idza nama, the Gahuku-Gama 'achieve the supreme ex
pression of group unity and that the nama flutes symbolize the
"force" which is the power of society itself' ( 1952:24, 25). The plan
ning and build-up for the nama ceremonies consume the energies of
every man, woman and child, and while this cult has all the ear
marks of a total institution, it is, as others have pointed out, a set of
rites which above all else celebrate the superiority, dominance and
solidarity of men alone over women and uninitiated adolescents (see
Langness 1977, Keesing 1 982). Every obvious and intrinsically
1
A useful definition of 'low status' for women is given in Herdt ( 1984a:66) : 'Social
status is here indicated by women's low performance in public affairs; their low
access to, or control of, their economic products; their lack of choice in marriage;
beliefs about women's polluted bodies; negative images of women registered in
idioms, myths and everyday discourse; and the absence or peripherality of insti
tutions such as initiation for women.' These features in heightened form occur
only in the eastern highlands.
Male-female relations 171
valuable attribute of women is ritually transformed and gloriously

remade as a male achievement; every contribution a woman has
made in bearing and raising a young boy is denigrated and rendered
useless. We will return to particulars below, but while the func
tionalist premise appears meaningless, it is no less true that women
in nama and nama-like ceremonies across the eastern highlands play
their designated roles on cue and appear to endorse, at least im
plicitly, the masculine values professed in such initiations. 2 It will
also be apparent that, given the social environment in which male
initiations and sexual antagonism occur in heightened form, the
male virtues so proclaimed are hardly illogical.
Following a slightly different functionalist tack, it has been sug
gested by some that male cults and sexual antagonism are not only
socially solidifying, but also ecologically 'adaptive'. Lindenbaum
( 1 972) has hypothesised that where population pressure on land is
high, a certain sexual ideology and practice will exist: pollution be
liefs will be elaborate and male chastity favoured, thereby offering
the potential to achieve a measure of population control. Where
population increase is desired, for one reason or another, female
pollution and adultery (the opposite of chastity) will not be a source
of horror, and other 'fertility limiting' beliefs are attenuated. The
evidence for these constellations of features is not convincing; im
plicit in the argument to be presented here is that societies with the
highest population densities are those in which male initiations and
severe sexual antagonism are absent. However, it is not in terms of
latent functions of population control that male-female relations,
or their evolution, should be viewed.
Furthermore, male cultism and sharply polar sexual relations are
linked indubitably, with warfare, and warfare in the New Guinea
highlands has often been interpreted as functional in the spacing of
populations and ultimately in facilitating satisfactory man-land
ratios (see Vayda 1 9 7 1 ; compare Keesing 1 982: 1 8-19). The argu
ments presented earlier (see Chapter 4) suggested not only that war
fare is unrelated broadly to population pressure, but again that
warfare is less 'total' in the very societies which have highest popu
lation densities (see also Sillitoe 1 977, 1978). There are no very
good correlations between intensity and frequency of warfare and
2
Not that we have very good studies of these rituals from a female point of view.
This is further noted below, but it must be stressed that this discussion of male-
female relations, at least predominantly so for the eastern highlands, is based on
ethnography which tells little of women's perspective on social life.
population dynamics in the New Guinea highlands. Similarly, eco

logical explanations of male initiations and male-female antagon
ism fail to illuminate the ethnographic record. It will be pointed out
below that some societies in which male cultism is highly elaborate
are those whose very existence is threatened, to some extent, by the
initiation practices themselves. Initiations can be shown to be
clearly 'maladaptive' and can work to limit the very objectives they
often seek ritually to achieve: fertility and procreation.
In addition to functionalist theories, a number of psychological
ones have been posited. These theories have sought to examine two
fundamental features of initiation ceremonies which exist widely in
highland New Guinea and elsewhere: firstly, the nose bleeding,
penis bleeding, vomiting and so forth which accompany them, that
is, the 'pseudo-procreative' aspects of male initiation and their
secrecy (Hiatt 1971); and the psychoanalytic interpretations of
sacred flutes and bullroarers used in the initiation process (Dundes
1 976; Herdt 1 9 8 1 ) . Secondly, psychoanalytic explanation has been
directed towards the traumatic separation of boys from their
mothers in the earliest stages of the initiation cycle.
Bettleheim ( 1 955) suggested that blood-letting of one sort or
another represented male envy of female menstruation. A number of
statements by informants in various societies make explicit this
barely unconscious equivalence. Males are also jealous, it is argued,
of a female's ability to procreate, and initiation rites may sometimes
propose that men can become pregnant, or at least are responsible in
some arcane manner for the growth or ritual rebirth of novices. Men
can, therefore, exist without women in all ways. Flutes and bull
roarers are phallic objects which men stole from women in the
mythic past, and are now employed as symbols of male supremacy
and solidarity or otherwise used to give the stamp of male authority
to parturition. These psychoanalytic interpretations, while hardly
explaining the origin, elaboration, variation or absence of in
itiations and cults, offer important insights and make more intel
ligible a range of initiatory practices, behaviours and beliefs.
The dramatic severing of ties between mother and son, the instal
lation of male novices into men's houses, and the threatening fore
casts of ordeals to come by adult males, have often been viewed in
terms of Oedipal rivalry. Mothers and sons form an intimate pair
before initiation, and post-partum sex taboos are often prolonged in
societies with elaborate initiatory sequences (see below for further
discussion). It has been suggested that father-son rivalry is allevi-
ated or reconciled by forcing boys away from their mothers into the
company, once and for all, of men only and by reasserting the hus
band's (father) sexual priority with the wife (mother). Again, such
interpretations do not replace others, but provide further perspec
tives on complex institutions. I mention them only fleetingly; some
of the issues involved have been thoroughly reviewed by Allen
( 1 967) for the Melanesian material.
To these functionalist and psychoanalytical theories, we can
briefly add others usefully addressed by Keesing ( 1982). In some
recent writings on male-female relations, the appropriation of
women's labour has been highlighted. The material products of
women's work are taken by men and used to 'create' a social order
which is then paraded as a distinctly male achievement. The end
result is a sort of class-like conspiracy to subordinate women and
mystify the contribution of their labour. Pollution beliefs and
dangerous depictions of women are ideological props which allow
men to use women as pawns and alienate the products of their
labour for political and personal ends. These interpretations of the
pattern and structure of gender relations in the highlands have been
forcefully employed by Modjeska ( 1 9 82) and others, and will be
taken up below.
In other analyses of male initiations, symbolic and experiential
dimensions and linked intersexual relations have been discussed.
Herdt ( 1 9 8 1 ), amongst others, has illustrated the psychological ex
perience of initiation and shown how, in the process, the ontological
past of novices must be remade and remoulded. Severe sexual pol
arity is a byproduct of this 'ritualized gender surgery' (Herdt
1 9 8 1 : 3 05 ) .
While a 'total' analysis o f male-female relations and secret cults
in highland New Guinea would necessarily encompass these and
other interpretative themes, my concern here is much more limited.
If, as I maintain, the severity of sexual hostility varies predictably
across the highlands (as does the full range of pollution and other
male anxieties), and the presence or absence of male initiation
rituals equally co-varies, in what kinds of social systems do these be
liefs and behaviours surface and become institutionalised in extreme
form? If, to paraphrase Murphy ( 1 959: 96), the 'integration' of cer
tain cultural themes is a 'function of social structure', what kind of
social structure facilitates, indeed, produces, this constellation of
features and makes of them a consuming reality? Furthermore, are
there economic parameters to these sociological contexts in which
antagonistic sexual relations and male cults assume the status of

total social facts? In the New Guinea highlands, it can be plausibly
argued that the evolutionary continuum of increasing productive
potential (that is, intensifying production and concomitant social re
lations of production) and their differing transformations in the
past, are also highly germane to the questions posed in this chapter.
The work of Allen ( 1967, 1984) has given us the clearest insights
into the social structures in Melanesia featuring male initiations and
ingrained sexual antagonism. Where monocarpellary local groups,
agnatic descent, exogamy, and marriage with enemies exist, acute,
severe hostility towards women, and initiations which are 'compul
sory for all adult and adolescent males of a particular community'
will also exist (Allen 1 967: 8 ) . 'The greater the approximation to the
structural model, the greater the probability that the sex division
will be present in contexts not logically entailed in descent and local
group structure' (Allen 1 967: 120) . Additionally, where there are
few or no internal differences of status among men in localised patri
cians, these symptoms are likely to be heightened. Conversely,
where internal differences of status stratification are evident, and
group solidarity thereby diminished, initiations and extreme sexual
polarity will be lessened.
Where clan solidarity and corporateness are so manifest and re
lations to outsiders sharply curtailed, a social environment of hos
tility, one of unrestricted warfare, will prevail. Whole groups will be
considered enemies and there will be no individual friends among
them. In these groups, where annihilation is a constant threat, male
solidarity and rigid separation of the sexes in all social contexts will
be seen as, indeed may well be, necessary for survival. Langness
( 1967, 1977) has highlighted these issues with reference to Bena
Bena and they are applicable elsewhere:
Young men are naturally attracted to females and must be forcibly kept
in line lest their loyalties stray. If a man, in the depths of his passion, or
even in his everyday routine, came to favor his mother or wife and
wanted to please her more than he wanted to please and help his fellows,
the foundation of the New Guinea social order would collapse. Men's
loyalties would be divided between their own clansmen and their wives
and their clansmen (Langness 1 977: 1 8 ) .
This intolerable situation is 'prevented' in societies of this type by

nama and similar cults. It serves as an institution in which men's de
sires for, and reliance upon, women are severed and in which boys,
whose loyalties may stray unsteadily because of early association

with nurturant mothers, are made into faithful warriors directed
towards the causes of men.
It is in these societies too, where the priorities of security and war
fare, clearly tied to male initiation and sustained by intersexual hos
tility, abound, where economic production is low, presently and
(pre)historically, and where agricultural intensity and pig hus
bandry have failed to develop overriding significance. The causal
nexus between low production and warfare has been treated pre
viously. The production units remained narrow, their objectives cir
cumscribed, and the domestic mode of production was barely
breached. There are no 'true bigmen' and little status differentiation
based on wealth or anything else except physical, fighting prowess.
We can also notice that the division of labour is more rigidly
enforced and that 'members of each sex are in daily association and
engaged in common pursuits, frequently in cooperation, to the
ritual exclusion of the other sex' (Murphy 1 95 9 : 97) . The sexes
approximate 'true social groups' and the antagonism of the produc
tion sphere mirrors that of other contexts of living.
This then is the archetypal social structure, economic pattern and
social environment in which male initiations and sexual hostility
will flourish. It will be obvious that, in the New Guinea highlands,
these features cluster at the eastern end, and are all but absent or
attenuated in the western highlands. Variations in male cult life
reflect the continuum of low to high production systems: in the
former, male adolescents are made by men into warriors; in the
latter, 'men make themselves' into bigmen through control and
manipulation of surplus production and exchange (Modjeska
1 9 82 : 64). Thus, the evidence suggests, contra Keesing ( 1982:36),
that male initiations and severe sexual polarity are not 'adaptable'
to a range of production regimes and social and political structures.
Rather, they may become unadaptive and indeed do lose their force,
significance and function in changed circumstances: those of
systems of high production as are found in the western highlands. In
short, initiation cults and the values they encode, too narrowly bind
and 'artificially' restrain the economic scale demanded by societies
of high production and elaborate exchange.
Given that a major argument of this book is that societies in the
eastern highlands remained mixed hunter-horticulturalists perhaps
up until the adoption of the sweet potato, we might come to view
male initiations and associated sexual relations in an evolutionary
way. As such, they may remain a part of the legacy of a recently

abandoned hunting past; a past long forgotten in the agriculturally
intensive, pig keeping regions of the western highlands. This specu
lative proposition will be advanced below and some superficial
comparisons made with initiation practices of other hunter
horticulturalists and hunter-gatherers. But before examining the
ethnography which supports this complex interaction of social facts
across the continuum of highland societies, something must be said
of the initiation and cult life, intersexual and sexual relations, of
groups in the southwestern New Guinea coastal fringe, recently
christened 'SWNG' by Herdt ( 1984a:33).
'RH' i n 'SWNG'
Since the first descriptive and comparative statements on male

female relations in the highlands were made (Read 1952, Meggitt
1 964, and Langness 1 967), research on these topics has burgeoned.
New, detailed data have been collected, wide-ranging interpretative
frameworks have been applied to them, and fieldwork in fringe
highland areas has been carried out which give us perspectives with
which to view the highlands afresh. 'SWNG' societies will not be
surveyed here; such a task is well beyond the scope of this book.
Rather, since there appear to be historical connections between
societies in southwestern New Guinea and those inhabiting the
extreme eastern end of the highlands, some aspects of the highlands
continuum examined throughout this study might be extended even
further, and the differences noted across the highlands proper
brought into sharper relief.
The historical-geographical connection to which I refer, is that
between Anga groups (Sambia and Baruya for instance, mentioned
previously) living at the far eastern fringe of the highlands, and
groups of the Papuan hinterland living south and west of Anga and,
perhaps, extending to groups of the lowlands of the Papuan Gulf
into what is now southeastern Irian Jaya. Anga trace their history
and ancestry to the Papuan interior (Herdt 1 9 8 1 :22; 1 984a:49). It
has already been suggested (Hallpike 1978 :6) that the name kuku
kuku, by which Anga have been called, is a word of Motuan origin.
Kelly ( 1977) and Schieffelin ( 1976) write that Papuan Plateau
peoples, Etoro and Kaluli, have cultural and linguistic affinities with
groups to their west, and Wurm ( 1975) provides some diffusionist,
linguistic evidence for cultural links between these societies and
Male-(emale relations l 77
those as remote as Marindanim, Kimam, Kiwai Islanders, and

Keraki. That there may be some historical association between all
these societies has recently served as a background for the study of
'ritualized homosexuality' (RH) and its distribution (Herdt [ed.]
1 984; see also Keesing 1 982). Ritualised homosexuality (among
men) in New Guinea, within the context of male initiation rites,
appears to be confined to this set of societies. Ritualised homo
sexuality, a lowlands phenomenon, practised by groups of the
interior like Anga who trace their past to the southwest, abruptly
ceases in societies immediately west of Anga, that is, upon entering
the highlands proper. 3
Homosexual societies4 have much in common, as the excellent
surveys by Lindenbaum ( 1 9 82, 1 9 84) and Herdt ( 1 984a) have
shown. They have small populations: Etoro, for example, number
fewer than 400; Kimam, the largest, about 7,000. The population
densities are amongst the lowest in Melanesia. In both these aspects,
they stand in marked contrast to societies of the highlands (even the
least populous and dense in the eastern highlands) . As well, homo
sexual societies appear to be quite marginal in terms of subsistence,
and are demographically tenuous. Yams, sago and taro are the
major crops (except in Anga, see below), hunting remains very im
portant as a source of protein instead of pigs, of which few, if any,
are kept. These production systems are, then, of very low intensity,
without a single staple, and of a mixed hunting, gathering and horti
cultural kind. Populations of many homosexual societies were
rapidly declining at the time of European contact, and, as Linden
baum ( 1 982:5) notes, they had been subject to epidemic diseases in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Warfare was widespread,
head-hunting an occasional concomitant, and male aggressiveness
was highly valued. With added low fertility rates (surely linked in
part to homosexual practices and various taboos on heterosexual
intercourse),5 and male overpopulation relative to females, survival
may well have been highly precarious and uncertain. In all homo
sexual societies, masculinity has to be 'achieved' by the implanta-
3
Although Herdt ( 1984a:78n.) says the Sambia believe that Fore, their eastern
neighbours, practise homosexual anal intercourse, no ethnographer has noted it.
See also the discussion in Read ( 1 984) concerning the Gahuku-Gama.
4
A shorthand expression to be employed here. I have my doubts, however, about
the utility of viewing societies under such a rubric (see below).
5
Kelly ( 1977) quoted in Kottak ( 1974:287) reported the declining Etoro popu
lation to be, in part, based on the fact that they 'taboo heterosexual intercourse for
295 days during the year'.
tion of semen, in one way or another, in young boys. Boys are

'grown' by older men and become adults as a direct result of these
steady transmissions, generally in ritual contexts. As Lindenbaum
perceptively remarks, the 'precariousness of survival is matched in
homosexual societies by the seemingly precarious "struggle" to
create masculine identity' ( 1982:6). In at least one homosexual
society there is also a high rate of male pseudohermaphroditism
(Lindenbaum 1982:6; see also Herdt 1 9 8 1 :207-8, 29 1-2).
Homosexual societies are thoroughly 'egalitarian' in ethos. Re
stricted, direct and balanced exchange predominates; asymmetrical
or delayed reciprocity has no place in social arrangements. The
clearest testimony to this fact is that homosexual societies almost in
variably practise 'sister exchange' as the ideal form of marriage. No
bridewealth marriages exist, indicative of both low production and
the need to exchange precisely equal things. A woman, fundamen
tally, is equal to another woman (Godelier 1982), and so are the
men who 'exchange' them. Furthermore, in many homosexual
societies, sister exchange is reinforced by a homosexual relationship
between the men and groups who exchange sisters. It may well be
that this 'double bind of affinity' (Lindenbaum 1982:7; see also
Herdt 1 984a:70) arises in societies which are demographically mar
ginal: women are guaranteed to men who first fulfil roles as insemin
ator and inseminatee. As Lindenbaum ( 1982) has related, the
connection between homosexuality and sister exchange is inextric
able: where bridewealth marriage has been lately adopted, sister
exchange and homosexual relationships between brothers-in-law
break down in tandem. Bridewealth marriage results from a
changed mode of production: wealth is in greater supply and de
layed reciprocity and asymmetry in social relations emerge.
While homosexual societies have much in common, there are also
very important differences which separate some from others, and it
is on these differences that I wish to concentrate before returning to
the highlands. Their social structures vary considerably. Serpenti
( 1 965 : 67) describes Kimam as based on bilateral descent; Marind
anim have non-localised 'clans' without common ancestors for
identity (Van Baal 1966 : 3 8-9) ; and the Papuan Plateau peoples,
Bedamini (Sorum 1 984), Etoro (Kelly 1977), Kaluli (Schieffelin
1 976) and Onabasulu (Ernst 1 978), all highlight matrilateral
siblingship in contradistinction to patriliny as a principle of organis
ation. The longhouse communities which mark the area are not
units of localised descent groupings. The Anga, on the other hand,
are highly patrilineal as we have seen, and decisively express patri

lineal descent dogmas. The Sambia are a good case in point. Of all
homosexual societies, they have the nearest thing to highly boun
ded, descent-oriented local groups which are characteristic of their
eastern highlands neighbours.
All homosexual societies are low production societies, but there
are other factors which divide them. All have, of course, a division
of labour by sex; hunting is an extremely important male pursuit,
for ritual purposes as well as protein; garden tasks are usually
apportioned between the sexes and, as mentioned, few domesticated
pigs are kept. No homosexual society has a ceremonial exchange
system based on intensive, surplus production from which male
prestige and renown are gained. Sago, yams, taro, bananas and
coconuts are all important crops; only among the Anga, Sambia and
Baruya is sweet potato the clearly acknowledged staple crop. Leav
ing aside consideration of the Anga for the moment, the subsistence
production systems of other homosexual societies are marked by
fairly equal, complementary components of male and female
labour, and there are few, if any, bases or motivations for which
men might be inclined to appropriate the labour and products of
women. Men's and women's economic activities are complemen
tary yet largely independent. We will see that, in the western high
lands, the complementarity of economic tasks is further matched by
an interdependence of male-female roles and relations which are
firmly geared to achieve high production. Antagonism in the pro
duction sphere is largely mute. In societies of SWNG, the sexual
division of labour is not rigid. In short, men do not overly depend on
the labour and production of women, a feature of the economy
which, when present in a certain form (see below), can foster and
promote antagonistic sexual relations (Murphy 1 95 9 ; see also Lin
denbaum 1 9 82, 1 984; and Herdt 1 984a). 6
Among the Kimam for instance, where garden islands are made
in swamps, agriculture plays a predominant part in people's lives,
yet women provide little assistance in what is primarily men's work.
Women gather, hunt, and do other chores, but 'the possession of
more than one wife has no great influence on agricultural produc
tion, as women play only a very minor part in agriculture' (Serpenti
1 965 : 62). Furthermore, a man's 'rise on the social ladder' comes
about from skill in producing ceremonial crops, yams and taro,
6
Much of this argument stems from my reading of Lindenbaum ( 1 982, 1 984). I
would like especially to acknowledge my debt to those papers.
from the production of which women are excluded (Serpenti

1 965 :32). Men also achieve prominence in their communities if they
can provide magic and medicines to promote these ceremonial
crops.7 Polygyny is also rare among Marind-anim (Van Baal
1 984: 1 3 1 ) . Here, too, the heavy work of gardening falls mainly to
men, but women sometimes work in gardens of their own. Among
Marind-anim, head-hunting was the source of authority, again an
activity divorced from the labour of women (Van Baal 1966:66).
Among Kiwai Islanders (Landtman 1927) men and women had
complementary roles in agriculture; men did the 'heavier work' of
fencing, women dug smaller ditches and drains, and both sexes plan
ted the crops together (Landtman 1 927: 68). In Kiwai, 'there exists
no difference of work [between men and women] whatever' (Landt
man 1 927: 1 67) yet within this 'Rousseauian ideal', great warriors
and head hunters gained the respect and admiration of their villages.
On the Papuan Plateau, a similar independent complementarity
of labour inputs in subsistence production exists and, in these
societies too, a man's status and prestige are in no way directly
linked to the production activities of women. Families are the pro
duction and consumption units among Onabasulu (Ernst
1 978 : 189) and the 'dichotomy' of male and female, a 'significant
division of Onabasulu society', becomes a 'false and tenuous one in
the realm of the productive economy' (Ernst 1978 : 1 94). Among
Bedamini, nuclear families are the economically important units.
Kelly ( 1977:50) writes that, before the introduction of steel tools,
the Etoro 'sexual division of labour was approximately equal'.
Among the Kaluli too, sago production involves the heavy work of
families cooperating together (Schieffelin 1976:74). In all of these
societies, the intensive production of surpluses is absent and we en
counter a fairly distinct pattern of male-female relations in the
production sphere. We find also that sources of male prestige are not
linked to surplus production in any obvious way. Fighting (Kaluli
and Bedamini), hunting (Kaluli and Etoro), oratory (Bedamini),
constructing beautiful ceremonies (Kaluli), and magic and medium
ship (Kaluli and Etoro) provide the paths to leadership, such as it
exists. Bigmen who control wealth are totally absent. In societies
like Etoro where a pig is 'lucky to receive one small tuber and some
garbage bi-weekly' (Kelly 1977:42), there is little potential in econ
omic production for exploitation leading to intersexual antagonism.
7
See Serpenti ( 1 965 :290) who shows that the division of labour is not particularly
rigid; men and women do many of the same tasks.
Labour appears to b e almost equally shared between the sexes, and

there is, furthermore, scant motivation for men to usurp, alienate or
mystify the productive efforts of women.
Herdt ( 1 9 84a) has remarked that, in homosexual societies,
sexual polarity is extreme and women's status is low. Furthermore,
sexual hostility prevails and taboos, pollution ideologies and such
like abound, and a woman's contribution is systematically ignored
or degraded. In every way, to use his phrase, the 'house' of inter
sexual relations is 'not just divided, but at war with itself' (Herdt
1 984a:65-6). This summation may characterise some homosexual
societies, but the evidence from others is either ambiguous, or down
right contradictory to this assessment.
Despite clear antagonism in ritual life and serial, promiscuous
heterosexual intercourse by many men with a woman at prescribed
times, the case presented by Van Baal ( 1966, 1 984) suggests that the
extremes of male-female relations are not clearly apparent in
Marind-anim social life. Van Baal ( 1 9 84: 1 3 1 ) explicitly states that
marital relations are 'cordial', more so than in societies of the high
lands. Sexual separation during menstruation and at other times
takes place, but while 'strict' is not 'effective'. While homosexuality
is praised above heterosexuality, and Marind-anim believe that fer
tility derives from males, semen, which has many 'growth' uses for
males and females, is never collected from homosexual intercourse
or masturbation. Only semen that 'drops from a woman's vulva
after intercourse' is blessed with the necessary properties (Van Baal
1 984: 1 3 8 ) . Women's contribution to fertility is, thus, not absolutely
denied. The promiscuous, heterosexual intercourse referred to
above was, it seems, viewed as a duty by both men and women and
did not provide 'sexual or emotional satisfaction' (Van Baal
1984: 1 3 8 ) . 8 In this society, women are consulted about their be
trothal; they are initiated into important rituals with men, and have
age-grades which parallel those of men. They accompany men on
head-hunting raids, the supreme male activity, yet they are said to
have been instigated by a woman in the past (Van Baal 1 984: 157). It
is clear that most of the antagonism between the sexes in Marind
anim life occurs at the ideological and symbolic level: the dichotomy
of male and female occupies a vitally important place in their
8
For a strikingly similar use of semen and associated practice of serial, promiscu
ous intercourse, see Berndt (1951 :208-10) on the kunapipi cult of Arnhem Land
in Northern Australia. This seems yet another case of a remarkable sharing of ini
tiatory features between Australia and lowland Papua New Guinea. See note 12.
thought, but rarely do the excesses apparent in these symbolic

realms spill over into everyday social interaction. To quote Van
Baal, 'in ritual we note an excess of sex antagonism which has no
parallel in daily life' ( 1 984: 1 62). This is a feature of societies
throughout the SWNG group.
Among Kimam, much the same attitudes prevail. While a
woman's husband-to-be is being initiated, she is subject to inter
course with older men, the semen being used to promote her
future husband's growth and well-being. According to Serpenti
( 1 9 84 : 309), a man thus depends on his betrothed, before marriage,
for his own health 'which gives a woman certain claims on her
future husband'. A wife considers herself responsible for her hus
band's growth, maturity and handsomeness.
In Kiwai, Landtman ( 1927) remarks that women are all but the
equals of men and that 'harmony' exists between husband and wife.
A woman may caress her husband in public; she is the recipient of
his gifts symbolising her part in his welfare; women own property;
and a man cannot, without a woman's permission 'appropriate a
thing manufactured by her or given her by somebody else' (Landt
man 1927: 173). There are secrets kept from women, and they play
little role in public affairs, but they may be listened to and their opin
ions sought. The Kiwai provide perhaps the clearest example of a
homosexual society lacking extreme sexual polarity and antagon
ism.
These trends continue on to the Papuan Plateau. In Kaluli, we
find again that males and females represent polar categories of
thought and that all virtues adhere to the male side. Yet Schieffelin
remarks that relationships between men and women are 'unusual'
by the standards of other New Guinea societies, 'for their lack of
hostility and, indeed, for their affection' (Schieffelin 1 976: 132). In
Etoro, while sexual taboos exist and heterosexual intercourse is
fraught with ambivalence, female pollution taboos are not pro
claimed and women appear not to be the continuous sources of
threat to male health and welfare that they are in some other New
Guinea societies. Men do not avoid women as contaminating per se.
In fact, as Kelly notes ( 1976:42), 'the general tenor of male-female
relations is neither constrained nor hedged with anxiety. Men and
women mingle and interact freely in gardening, in sago working,
and in the communal portion of the longhouse during the course of
daily activities.' Etoro women are not even separated from the com
munity during menstruation, nor do men perform any purificatory
rituals.
With Bedamini too, there is no pattern of sexual antagonism or

anxiety. 'Male' and 'female' are in basic opposition at the cultural
level, but at the social level this dichotomy finds limited expression.
Here again the themes of complementarity and independence be
tween the sexes is highlighted. Sorum writes of the absence of pol
lution beliefs, the lack of fear of menstrual blood, and that the
bodily wastes of both sexes are polluting, but not highly worrisome.
Sorum ( 1984:327) stresses the 'complementarity of the sexes' and
that women show an 'independent attitude towards their husbands'
which 'may also be related to their economic position, for wives
(and husbands) privately own the products of their separate plots in
the communal garden' although they share food.
In these societies, at least, the evidence seems to point to the fact
that the presence of male homosexual practices is not a determining
factor in the patterning of daily interaction and social relations be
tween the sexes. Rather, as others have pointed out previously (for
example, Lindenbaum 1 9 82, 1 984; see also Kelly n.d., quoted in
Ortner and Whitehead 1 9 8 1 :20), in societies like those above,
where productive tasks are roughly shared between men and
women, and where male prestige and achievement do not depend
upon the productive efforts of women (for example in hunting, war
fare, mediumship, and so on), sexual antagonism is not extreme and
pollution, even menstrual anxieties, are unlikely to be a consuming
problem. Overall the tenor of male-female relations will be relaxed,
even cordial. In these societies too, where the social structure does
not feature highly bounded, localised, patrilineal descent groups, a
further structural component of sexual antagonism has failed to de
velop. The ethnographic data from SWNG support the propositions
of Allen ( 1 967) and Murphy ( 1 959) discussed earlier. These facts
cannot deny the existence of a highly elaborate sexual dichotomy
which gives primary weighting to the male side. This conceptual
framework, espoused basically by males, appears, however, to lose
overwhelming significance in the social relations of men and
women. Usage prevails over symbolic elaboration. It is in the inter
action between the sexes that ideas have meaning and become more
than just the pronouncements of anxious males with fragile senses
of self. A pragmatic view of symbols and male conceptions of things
is called for, to discover their precise bearing on the realities of inter
sexual relations.
Where Herdt's ( 1 984a) argument about sexual polarity, antagon
ism, and low status of women does hold, is not in homosexual
societies generally, but only among the 'homosexual' Sambia and
1 84 Highland Papua New Guinea societil!s
Baruya societies where the mode of production is on the brink of

transformation, if it has not been transformed already. The particu
lars of Anga sexual relations and cult life will be treated separately
below. Here it can be emphasised that the Anga stand at the trans
formational watershed of social, sexual and productive relations;
on the continuum from SWNG to the highlands, the Anga protrude.
Among Sambia, for instance, we find patrilocality and patrilineal
dogmas proclaimed. We encounter reliance on a single, staple crop,
sweet potato, for the first time. And, while pig production is not
nearly intensive nor, as yet, linked to ceremonial exchange, the poss
ibilities are there and clearly apprehended. Bridewealth marriage is
an alternative practice to various exchange marriage forms. Great
men, if not bigmen, are present, suggesting that the fiercely egali
tarian societies of SWNG are no more. But more important than all
these features is the fact that women's labour has gained signifi
cantly in value and there is a greater degree of reliance on the pro
duction of women to enhance men's prestige activities (Lindenbaum
1982, 1 984). It is in these societies that we might expect sexual an
tagonism to be highly visible and pollution ideologies and cult life to
flourish. They reach their apogee in the eastern highlands before
being transformed yet again to the west.
Herdt in a slightly different context has remarked that 'Sambia
culture and economy . . . reflect a mixture of influences from the
Highlands and Papuan coastal region' ( 1 9 8 1 :23 ). He is surely right,
and Baruya ethnography also shows this mixture (Godelier 1982). It
has been hypothesised previously that Anga groups were the high
landers who adopted the sweet potato as staple most recently, and
made of it the foundation of sedentary agriculture from a hunting
past. Sweet potato was, no doubt, an import from their eastern high
lands neighbours, who had not had it very much longer. With the
sweet potato came also the idea and basis of pig production on a
scale up to then unknown and impossible. Some version of the
'Jones Effect' was probably in operation. J. Watson ( 1 965b:445)
long ago noted that the change to sweet potato 'thrust upon women
the major economic burden, and an importance greater than
before'. This 'importance', arising from a much increased demand
for their labour and products of their labour, virtually unknown in
societies of SWNG, was matched only by men's increased reliance
upon women's work and products for their ceremonial, political
and prestige-seeking pursuits. The complex of antagonistic sexual
relations noted in Anga and Kainantu and Asaro societies to their

immediate west was born in this transforming context. Fighting
increased at this time and territorial boundaries became more fixed
with social groups conceptually linked to them (points which Lang
ness [1967) suggests are at the core of the issue of sexual antagon
ism). Ultimately though, it is the growing appropriation of women's
labour, stemming from a transformed mode and relations of pro
duction, which is the key factor in heightened sexual antagonism
and elaboration of ideologies denying the 'obvious' value of women
in the production and reproduction of society.
Before returning to the highlands proper, one further issue must
be raised. Not only is it in Anga that sexual antagonism surfaces
socially, and ideologies degrading women become replete beyond
those known in societies in SWNG, but it is also arguably the case
that male initiations are here extended, more complex and 'ornate'
in all dimensions than previously encountered. The length of time
necessary to achieve manhood increases, as do the number of stages
involved in various transitions; ordeals are more arduous; ideologi
cal opposition to women and preachings of their inferiority to men
are more unflinchingly proclaimed; 9 and pollution and other beliefs
more thoroughly inculcated. Male initiations in heightened form
and acute sexual antagonism fit together, reinforce each other, and
occur together, but only in some of the societies under consider
ation. In sum, commencing only in Anga, and incorporating their
immediately western Kainantu and Asaro neighbours, male initia
tions do become 'total social facts'. It is only at this geographical
and historical (economic) juncture, that male initiations represent
the consuming ethos of society. To the southwest and especially to
the far west, the character of life is profoundly different, and
people's energies are directed towards other ends.
The full ethnographic evidence in support of this proposition
cannot be included here. We can simply note, for instance, that
Marind-anim and Kimam have only three initiatory grades, the
Kiwai apparently four, while Sambia have six (Van Baal 1 984; Ser
penti 1 984; Landtman 1 927; Herdt 1 9 8 1 , 1 9 82a). The Sambia
begin the initiation of boys at the age of seven to ten years, the
Kimam at ten to fourteen years (Serpenti 1 965 : 1 6 1 ) . Sambia have
9
Initiation, where it exists at all in SWNG societies, is concerned with hunting,
head-hunting and warfare, not predominantly with sexual themes and intersexual
relations.
imt1atory grades proceeding well past marriage which for men

seems to occur late. The last initiatory stage takes place between the
ages of twenty and thirty. In the other societies, full manhood is
achieved at or before marriage, which among Marind-anim is at
nineteen or twenty years (Van Baal 1 984: 137). These facts are
merely suggestive of a reduced emphasis on male initiation in
societies of SWNG compared to Sambia. The hazing, punishment
and physical assault of youths typical of Sambia and other eastern
highlands initiation are much attenuated in other 'initiating'
societies. Furthermore, even a cursory examination of the teachings
of each initiatory grade will reveal that, compared to Sambia, the
issues involved are other than purely feminine danger and the inferi
ority of women (see for example, Van Baal 1984; Serpenti 1 984;
and Landtman 1 927). All this is not to argue of course that 'concern'
with women is absent from male initiation in SWNG societies;
rather, that it is highly muted when compared to Anga societies and
those of the eastern highlands.
In the homosexual societies of the Papuan Plateau, it has been
argued that 'male initiations' do not occur, and that they never did.
In his study of the Kaluli bau a ceremonial hunting lodge, an insti
tution which exists among Onabasulu and Etoro as well, Schieffelin
( 1 982: 1 5 6) notes that participation does 'not result in a social tran
sition'. The bau a is apparently not compulsory, as male initiation is
to the northeast; ages of participants range from eight to twenty
eight years, and the rituals and focus of teaching while in seclusion
(fifteen months) are related to hunting. The bau a does not serve to
separate or sever a boy's connection with his mother; novices are
not submissive, nor are they attacked, and the ceremony produces
'no enduring changes in the social order' (Schieffelin 1 982: 1 9 1 ) .
The major outcome o f bau a is that the game caught, cooked, and
distributed at the final ceremony must be later reciprocated; recipi
ents of food must hold a bau a of their own to repay that which was
received. The bau a may be an 'alternative to initiation', but the
themes and practices highlighted in Sambia initiation, for instance,
are not found in this related group of societies.
Of the people who inhabit the highlands of New Guinea, appar
ently only Sambia and Baruya and related Anga peoples incorporate
homosexual practices into male initiations. Societies to the immedi
ate west of them are those in which sexual antagonism is archetypal.
The Anga are, thus, unique in combining both 'sexual complexes'.
Much further west, male initiations cease altogether and, I will
argue below, sexual polarity is much reduced and the status of
women rises considerably. These transformations i n relations be

tween the sexes parallel the historic economic and political trans
formations discussed throughout this book. It is among Anga that a
consideration of the evolution of male-female relations in the high
lands must begin. Along the way, it can be noted that the initiatory
themes and symbolism evident among Sambia and other eastern
highlanders have much in common with a set of societies who prac
tise a hunting and collecting mode of production.
'Brideservice societies'
It has been forcefully argued (Lindenbaum 1982:20 ; 1 9 84:350)

that in homosexual societies, men 'mystify' the contribution of
women to reproduction (in the strict sense). While all homosexual
societies expressly engage in homosexual acts with the aim of 'grow
ing boys' to adulthood, strengthening their bodies, and ritually cre
ating masculinity, and all praise and regard semen as the most vital
of substances (see also Whitehead 1 9 82), the evidence supporting
the above claim that women's role in procreation is denied in homo
sexual societies generally is at least ambiguous in SWNG groups.
Among Kiwai for instance, Landtman ( 1 927:228) reports
numerous cases of the belief that women gave birth without inter
course with a man. Women became pregnant through ingestion of
certain foods or by smelling the odours of specific plants. In the
rituals of initiation as well, while boys are separated from their
mothers and transformed into adults, a woman's role in conception
and procreation is not submerged but, rather, recognised (Landt
man ( 1 927:345 ) . Among Marind-anim too, Van Baal ( 1984: 1 3 8 )
remarks that males stressed their role i n procreation, but 'never
denied the female's part in it'. While semen was widely used in ritual
and mundane life as a potent substance, it was never semen collected
through masturbation or homosexual intercourse; only semen
secured from a woman's vulva after heterosexual intercourse was
considered effective enough for the purposes at hand. Van Baal also
states, however, that men thought that all fertility stemmed from
semen; but while making this claim, they also increased the occur
rences of 'excess [heterosexual] copulation' in the hope of increasing
the fertility of their women, but doing just the opposite.10 In Kimam
10
Van Baal (1984: 139) notes that some authorities have attributed Marind-anim
sterility 'to the irritating effect of excessive copulation on the female genitalia,
causing an inflammation of the cervix uteri'. If this is so, he comments, 'it is just
another of the ironies attendant upon Marind-anim sexual customs'.
(Serpenti 1 984), women produce boys who 'die' and are 'reborn' as
men by men in the process of initiation. Sperm is again vital to
rebirth, but, as in Marind-anim it is sperm gained from the inter
course of several men with the betrothed of the initiate. Women here
are not allowed to participate in the 'rebirth' (nor are men allowed
to interfere with the first 'natal' birth), but help provide the 'life
giving' sperm 'without which the transition process from death to
life is impossible' (Serpenti 1 9 84 : 3 1 7).
In societies of the Papuan Plateau, where initiation is absent,
homosexual intercourse hastens a boy's growth and provides a
boost to maturation, but women's role in procreation is not ritually,
nor in any other way, obliterated by men. Repeated heterosexual
intercourse is necessary to animate the developing foetus in the
womb of Kaluli women (Schieffelin 1 976: 1 24). Men further remark
that 'this [pederasty] is our thing' and 'what happens when women
go to the forest and bring back a child is their secret' (Schieffelin
1 976: 124). My point in this over-brief review is to emphasise that
the existence of homosexual practices, in these societies, at least,
does not necessarily or logically mean that the role and contribution
of women to procreation is nullified or ignored, ritually or in par
turition. Contra Lindenbaum, the practice of homosexuality is as
independent of beliefs concerning the contribution of women to pro
creation as it is to the existence of acute sexual hostility in secular
life.
The ethnographic evidence indicates that only where the value of
women's labour increases dramatically, where the relations of pro
duction have been transformed, and where men begin to 'depend'
on the appropriation of women's products, do initiations become
full blown as 'total phenomena' and assume high secrecy. It is in
these societies, too, that we find the clearest expression of the theme
in which men claim reproduction for themselves. Reproduction in
this context is meant to include both the reproduction of actual
human beings (boys) through male potency and the initiation pro
cess orchestrated by men, and the idea of reproduction of the
'cosmos', the political order, through the 'mystification' of women's
contribution to labour. In these societies, both the fertility and
labour of women are nullified and appropriated by men. Initiation
procedures focus on the control and abrogation of female fertility by
men, which spill over into secular life where the lessons of female de
valuation, taught in initiation, are used to deny the wider import-
ance of women. Sexual antagonism surfaces to aid the usurpation of

women's production, to portray them as worthless, and elevate men
to the status of sole preservers, even creators, of the social order. All
of these features and conditions are evident not among 'homosexual
societies' generally, but only among groups like Sambia and their
eastern highlands neighbours.
Furthermore, this abrogation and 'unisexual' model of total
reproduction has many correspondences in hunter-gatherer and
hunter-horticultural societies, recently termed 'brideservice
societies' by Collier and Rosaldo ( 1 9 8 1 ), 1 1 suggesting a legacy in the
eastern highlands, including Sambia, of a hunting past, perhaps only
recently relinquished. Comparisons with Aboriginal Australia are
particularly illuminating. Hiatt ( 1971, 1975, 1979) has written of
'secret pseudo-procreation rites' among Australian Aborigines, 1 2
many details and themes of which are clearly similar to initiation
practices in the highland societies under consideration. In Hiatt's
psychoanalytic interpretation, men are 'insecure' about women's
abilities to produce children and about the intimate relationship be
tween mother and son. This insecurity leads men to 'assert an or
dained and pre-eminent supernatural contribution in procreation;
and, envious of the carnal bond between mother and son, to force
them apart' in male initiation. 'The rite in the first case typically
highlights male potency; in the second case, it abrogates female
fecundity' (Hiatt 1 971 : 79-80). In performing these ceremonies,
men use both the 'male generative model' to stress their potency,
and employ a model of 'natural parturition' (Hiatt 1 979:259), a
'female generative model' to metaphorically give birth (rebirth) to
boys as initiated adults. We also find in Aboriginal initiations,
vomiting, blood-letting, phallic symbolism, simulated coitus and
'envy' of female reproduction, all of which are echoed in the in
itiation rites of eastern highlanders, and allot to men priority in fer
tility and reproduction. Hiatt ( 1 9 7 1 : 85) translates the meaning of
11
I will not treat i n depth the contrast developed b y Collier and Rosaldo ( 1 9 8 1 ) be-
tween brideservice and bridewealth societies, the latter less developed in their
essay. I found their analysis of brideservice societies highly relevant to the eastern
highlands societies under consideration; but less useful, their contrast with bride
wealth societies, at least as these latter exist in Papua New Guinea.
12
A land-bridge joined Australia and Papua New Guinea at least as recently as
10,000 years ago (White with O'Connell 1982). If the initiation complexes are
ancient, which appears to be the case (Keesing 1982), it is intriguing to speculate
that they had the same source, a view proposed by Roheim ( 1 926) and shared
partially by Van Baal ( 1963 ) ; see also Herdt ( 1984a:80n.).
men participating in the kunapipi rite as saying 'we have a secret

phallus that functions like a uterus. The time has come for us [men]
to kill your sons and give birth to them as ours.'1 3
Such initiatory themes clearly act to support and underline the
pre-eminence of men, in the ritual sphere at least. However, as Bern
( 1979) has pointed out, initiation practices in Australia not only
highlight the fertility and parturitive capacities of men, but are also
aimed at 'reproducing' the natural environment, that is, the very re
sources which women are responsible for collecting. Thus, 'women
only collect what men's religious practice has made available' (Bern
1 979: 125). There is unmistakable 'carry-over' of male dominance
from ritual to secular life. However, I would argue that the labour of
women in Aboriginal Australia is less mystified than is the case in
the highlands of New Guinea. While female labour underwrites the
initiation cults and ceremonial enterprises of men in Australia,
men's status is less bound up with the appropriation of women's
productive labour. Men gain prestige through hunting and other ac
tivities; the division of labour between the sexes is 'non-impinging'
and less pronounced, reminiscent of societies in SWNG. In Austra
lia, too, women own property and most importantly land. There
fore, the tenor of male-female relations in daily life in Aboriginal
Australia appears less hostile and antagonistic than that found
among eastern highlanders where relations of production are at the
very point of transformation. Equally too, there are not the elabor
ate pollution and menstrual taboos found in the highlands (see for
example, Hiatt 1 9 7 1 :87). Importantly, initiation in Australia was
not geared to produce warriors, nor were the ceremonies the par
ochial institutions we have come to expect in the eastern high
lands.14
13
Compare Collier and Rosaldo's (1981 :306) discussion of the Murngin of nor
thern Australia. Murngin bleed their noses in initiation as a mime of 'ancestral
menstruation'; the blood of male menstruation is 'smeared on practitioners as a
sign of transcendent, life-giving strength'. They conclude that 'Murngin rituals
display men's unisexual capacities for creation . . . and to give life by themselves.'
14
Some further points need comment here. It appears that, in Australia, initiation
practices are most rigorous and elaborate in the central desert, much more atte
nuated on the coasts, where resources are more plentiful. This might compare
with the highlands, where, as productive resources develop in the western high
lands, initiation fades or disappears altogether. We also find in these rich Austra
lian areas the emergence of 'bigmen' who 'own' sites and sponsor ceremonies.
This development of leadership in Australia parallels that of the New Guinea
highlands on a much reduced scale. The status of women also appears to rise in
these coastal areas of 'high production'. I thank Lester Hiatt for these points.
In the brideservice societies discussed by Collier and Rosaldo ( 1 9 8 1 ) women's
The unisexual creative and reproductive dominance of men

appears to exist widely among hunter-gatherer and hunter
horticultural societies. Collier and Rosaldo ( 1 9 8 1 :302-1 1 ) note
numerous instances of this model: from Kung San men's naming of
children which 'creates them as social beings' to Ilongot belief that
'babies are . . . created from male anger concentrated as sperm'.
Males productively hunt, hunting is associated with head-hunting
and the anger derived from the latter 'provides for social reproduc
tion'.
One can only be struck by the similarity of initiatory elements in
these societies and those under consideration in the eastern high
lands of New Guinea. This is especially so among Australian Abori
gines where the theme and practice are closely parallel (see also Van
Baal 1 963). The appropriation by males of the contribution of
women to procreation and social reproduction is nearly universal
among hunter-gatherers. As we move finally to consider initiation
and inter-sexual relations in the highlands, where the context of
male ritual also stresses male control of fertility and reproduction,
we must again emphasise the fund�mental difference between these
societies and those mentioned above. Relations of production have
been transformed (or nearly so in the Sambia case); women's labour
in agriculture and linked wealth (pig) production are vital for men's
pursuits, where, in other societies, such is not so obviously the case.
Sexual antagonism in secular life mirrors the dominance of men,
often only symbolically expressed, in ritual life. In hunting and
gathering societies, sexual hostility in daily interaction lacks motiv
ation and purpose. The dominance of men in societies like Sambia
and others in the eastern highlands is the most severe on the evol
utionary continuum developed here, poised as they are between a
hunting past and an agricultural regime in which production is
highly intensive and where women's contribution to total reproduc
tion can be less mystified and undervalued. Nascently intensifying
agricultural societies in the highlands are those in which male in
itiation and intersexual hostility coalesce and where the lessons of
ritual life impose dramatically on the pattern of daily interaction be
tween the sexes. In evolutionary terms, these societies are at the
watershed. The relations of production and development of pro-
own rituals stress them as 'sexual beings' not as mothers and childrearers. This
aspects of women, minus the rituals (but see Hays and Hays 1982), appears to be
similar to that expressed by some eastern highlanders (see Langness 1 977; Lin
denbaum 1 972).
ductive forces provide the parameters for investigating relations be

tween the sexes through time.
Baruya and Sambia sexual relations
While among Anga groups, male initiation and intersexual re

lations are best described for Sambia (for example, Herdt 198 1), the
Baruya are equally exemplary of the pattern of male-female re
lations which exist at one pole of the highlands continuum. In every
aspect of daily life, the sexes are polarised and separated among
Baruya, and women clearly dominated by men. Village spaces and
house arrangements are segregated and women are prevented from
entering male domains. More importantly, women are not allowed
to own the means of production (Godelier 1 982:8), which are
totally under the monopoly of men. While the scale of pig produc
tion and intensity of sweet potato cultivation cannot be compared
with societies westward, a key wealth and trade item for Baruya is
salt. While women contribute almost 50 per cent of the labour
towards salt production (Godelier 1 977: 136), the ultimate manu
facture of salt is attributed to men, who are often specialists charged
with taking precautions against women who might pollute the enter
prise. Salt is crucial among Baruya for procuring axes, wood for
bows and magical items mandatory for male initiation and hunting.
In short, salt is indispensable for the reproduction of the conditions
of Baruya material and social existence (Godelier 1977: 142). Thus,
while women contribute labour to this process, their role is mysti
fied and social reproduction attributed only to men. Women are
even inimical to this reproduction, for specialists must perform
rituals and magic to ensure that their influence has not prevented the
evaporation and crystallisation of salt.
Furthermore, salt is a crucial wealth item in 'bridewealth' mar
riages with distant tribes. 'Women salt resemble to take' is the term
used for such marriages. Accordingly, women are 'exchanged' for
wealth; not pigs, but salt. Baruya prefer the direct, symmetrical
exchange of women, but it is clear that wealth marriages are patt of
Baruya life, and that Baruya 'understand the principle of exchange
of wealth for a woman' (Godelier 1 982: 10). This represents a turn
ing point from SWNG societies.
Not only in the reproduction of material and social existence is
the contribution of women abrogated by men, but, in initiation, the
'rebirth' of boys is stressed. The dominance of men over women is

clear when boys are brutally severed from their mothers in the first
stage of initiation and subsequently taught that, while women inven
ted bows, flutes and other sacred paraphernalia, they failed to use
them correctly as men have succeeded in doing. This creativity of
women was appropriated by men, as it must always be. As well,
Baruya attribute conception to the intervention of men and the sun;
a woman's role is all but ignored (Godelier 1982: 14). Social and
physi�al reproduction are equally controlled and attributed to men;
women's initiation takes a few weeks, men's ten years, but even the
former acknowledges the hegemony of men. Young girls suck sugar
cane, symbolic semen, for it is the substance which creates children
and gives women strength after childbirth (Godelier 1 982: 1 3 ) .
Baruya still praise hunting above pig and sweet potato production
despite their irn;:reasing reliance upon the latter for subsistence and
prestige, which women's labour provides. 'Wild' game is necessary
for crucial life crisis ceremonies, only men can 'produce' game, an
activity outside any influence of women. Men's contribution to total
reproduction is thereby elevated. While the mode of production has
been transformed, male domination remains celebrated in hunting,
a legacy of the recent past. Its importance in the present remains
only as a mystifying element to subordinate the value of women's
work.
The ethnography of the Sambia (Herdt 1 9 8 1 , 1 982a, 1982b,
1 984b) likewise places them, with Baruya, at one end of the high
lands continuum, but interstitial between the highlands and
societies of SWNG. As mentioned, initiation sequences are more
elaborate and themes of male reproductivity and emphasis on male
procreativity more pronounced here than in SWNG groups. How
ever, in Sambia too, sexual antagonism appears, along with inten
sifying sweet potato production and nascent concern with pig
raising. The labour of women for subsistence and prestige has
grown considerably in value from SWNG societies. Societies to the
west of Sambia have failed to import ritualised homosexuality, but
they certainly exported a production regime to Anga in which
women's work is increasingly necessary and in which sexual antag
onism is concomitant.
Importantly, in this regard, Sambia, alone among ritualised
homosexual groups, practise nose-bleeding rituals both in initiation
and outside it when adulthood has been reached (Herdt 1 9 82b;
1 984a:67). This blood-letting, imported from their eastern high-
lands neighbours (the Fore, Herdt 1984a:67), unambiguously

expresses the contamination of men by women: mother's blood
must be purged at initiation for male development to proceed; and
an adult man must expel blood gained through close contact with
his wife who menstruates, if illness and other calamities are to be
avoided. In other homosexual societies, there is little or no fear of
contamination and pollution from female blood; indeed some
homosexual societies make only scant or no distinction between the
blood of males and females (Herdt 1 984a:67). I would argue that
blood-letting is a critical index of antagonism between men and
women and, additionally, as has been seen in earlier chapters, sym
bolic of truncated, severed social relations between maternal kin
and affines linked by blood in those societies stressing boundedness.
This unique feature of Sambia culture, absent in SWNG, brings
them into the highlands ambit where the production and reproduc
tion of women must be more thoroughly controlled.
A potentially significant point is also noted by Lindenbaum
( 1984). Among Sambia, the term that designates male ritual items,
like shells, is the same term, secretly used, for semen. Semen and
wealth, both valuable and scarce, appear to be equated. Can it be
that Sambia are proclaiming not only that men 'make' boys into
men, without the assistance of women, through semen ingestion,
but also that wealth, symbolically similar, stems only from men too?
Here, where pigs and sweet potatoes have recently increased the
need for women's work, is it that this equation 'records, objectifies,
and is an instrumental turning point in the appropriation by men, of
the sexual and social labours of women'? (Lindenbaum 1 984:35 1 ).
There can be little doubt that the Sambia stand at the critical junc
tion. The coalesced obfuscation and control of women's contri
bution to production and reproduction ('total reproduction') by
men has commenced precisely where the mode of production has re
cently transformed.
Sambia initiate in six stages. 15 After prolonged contact with their
mothers, boys are taken from them between the ages of seven and
ten, amid tension and frequent violence, and led away for the first
stage of initiation. Men generally 'worry' about the lengthy, pri
mary attachment of boys to their mothers. In Sambia and other in
itiating eastern highlands societies, the dependency on and closeness
15
Herdt's ( 1 9 8 1 ) interpretations are mainly psychoanalytic and my concerns are
clearly different. Without denying their validity, I will not pause to discuss them
here.
Male-(emale relations 1 95
Plate 4a. Preparation for second-stage initiation (kawetnie 1 2 to

-
1 5 years old) among the Baruya of the eastern highlands (Photo by

Ian Dunlop)
of boys to their mothers seems much longer and more profound

than in societies to the west who do not initiate. Post-partum sex
taboos are extended; and as Herdt remarks, some Sambia inform
ants 'cite the sucking of their mother's breast as their earliest
memory' ( 1 9 8 1 :209). The early socialisation experience of children
may significantly differ in societies where initiation is rigorous from
those where it is absent. Intensive early attachment is given as the
reason why youths must face the blood-letting, hazing and beatings
in the first stages of Sambia initiation: their bodies must be cleansed
of the mother's pollutant blood and influence which have thus far
stunted a boy's progress. They must be taught, at the same time, the
important tenets of the adult male world which they are now enter
ing. After this initial separation, boys must avoid contact with
women, even (or especially) their mothers, for many years, until
they have fully matured and adulthood has been safely reached.
Plate 4b. Third-stage Baruya initiates (tchouwanie 1 5 to 1 8 years

-
old) are decorated for an all-night ordeal in the ceremonial house

(Photo by Ian Dunlop)
In the first stage, the ritual flutes (see more below) are revealed to
the boys and then used for teaching the novices about homosexual
fellatio in which they are about to engage. Flutes and penises are
symbolically equated (Herdt 1 982a), and their secret power must
never be revealed to women. Boys are taught to imitate flute sounds
by sucking, and are instructed to 'eat penises'. 'If you eat them, you
will grow bigger rapidly' (Herdt 1 982a:6 1 ) . Homosexual fellatio
'grows boys', makes them into men and produces masculinity in the
absence of any automatic occurrence at birth. It does so, import
antly, without women; in fact, despite them. Semen is further
likened to mother's milk, but is superior to it, for it will turn fright
ened, timid boys into warriors. It is the flutes, too, which become
'mothers' and 'wives' to men (Herdt 1 982a:80).
The first stages are filled with teachings directed towards attain
ing future warriorhood and promoting aggressiveness and hostility,
focussed on a boy's mother. Later stages emphasise these masculine
traits as well, but are directed against one's wife and the pol
luting danger she constantly represents. Private blood-letting
continues. Women are equated with enemies and treachery (Herdt
1 982b:222). Among Sambia, war was ever present. The possibility
always existed that a man 'could be snipered in his gardens, be cut
down in battle or axed to death and have his wife stolen by another
man, physical strength and stamina his only steady insurance
against such threats' (Herdt 1 98 1 : 1 8). To produce a warrior with
these qualities it is necessary to build 'an intense phallic masculinity
defending one against any possibility of ever turning quiet or soft'
(Herdt 1 9 8 1 : 3 22). Women are also deemed responsible for the pain
of bloodletting that a man must endure. He bleeds his nose 'because'
of her polluting blood and 'he must never forget his suffering on her
account' (Herdt 1 982b:208). This pain, suffered in ritual, is deflec
ted back on to domestic and secular life and, as Herdt graphically
explains, 'if a wife is sassy or insubordinate . . . a man must not
spare the rod in demonstrating his ownership and power over this
creature who is responsible for his smarting nose' ( 1982b:208) .
Not only does Sambia initiation make boys into men, but their
myths proclaim that men begot humanity and that homosexual fel
latio is the 'mechanism' of reproduction. The reproductive abilities
of women are denied and replaced by the homosexual acts of men.
In the past, through homosexual fellatio, myths explain that men
became women, gave birth and produced humanity. This myth of
male parthenogenesis counters the 'visible' parturition of women.
Men did it all in the past themselves, and they concede that, really,
they are reproductively superior. While semen and blood coagulate
to form a foetus, the former is the fluid which gives strength to the
developing embryo. Heterosexual fellatio is sometimes practised by
newly-weds; the ingested semen is acknowledged as a substance
which prepares a woman's body for eventual childbirth and 'pro

vides' her with breast milk (Herdt 198 1 : 1 78 ) . So, despite the fact
that vaginal intercourse may be necessary for conception, Sambia
men can boast that semen has created all the necessary develop
ments in women to make the process possible. The mystification of
women's reproductive strength is complete and all-encompassing in
a way not yet encountered in other societies, homosexual or not.
The dominance and reproductive usurpation of women by men in
ritual is amply complemented by gross sexual antagonism in daily
interaction. The breath a woman emits while speaking is harmful
for men to inhale; vaginal odours can be accidentally breathed in by
men in too-close proximity to women. Physical movements and
space are partitioned by these beliefs and Sambia hamlets are div
ided into male and female areas and pathways, a constant reminder
of sexual opposition. Not only are Sambia.male youths controlled in
initiation, but female children are also the subject of adult male con
cern. A large percentage of marriages are arranged; daughters and
sisters are treated as 'commodities' (Herdt 1982b: 2 1 6), necessary
for acquiring brides for young men in exchange. Divorce is exceed
ingly rare: a marriage is 'contracted for life and cannot be broken'
(Herdt 1 984b : 1 8 1 ) . Women have little choice about whom they
marry and childlessness is a result of the woman being barren, never
of the inability of the man to make children. These features of
Sambia life point to the severe asymmetry in male-female relations
which clearly transcends the initiatory sphere.
Herdt further reports that rates of suicide and attempted suicide
for women are three times those of men ( 1 98 1 : 1 67). Women are
constantly the brunt of abusive language, beatings and arguments
they cannot win. In all ways, women are dangerous and inferior to
men and Herdt's accounts (for example 1 98 1 : 1 60-3) portray the
Sambia as amongst the harshest misogynists in all the highlands.
One cannot always separate belief and informant's statements from
fact, but the Sambia ethnography provides no hint of any context in
which the sexes fail to be other than utterly opposed. The secrecy
surrounding initiation must furthermore be a repressive reminder to
women of male hegemony. Thus, in all ways, visible and invisible,
Sambia women are considered by men to be inferior, polluting and
valueless. Men expropriate, 'necessarily', the products of women's
labour, their reproductive abilities, and the children, male and
female, whom they bear and nurture. The Sambia are surely unique:
different from other highlanders in practice and belief surrounding
homosexuality; different too from related SWNG groups in their

open hostility and antagonism to women. This latter feature is repli
cated, even heightened, by Sambia's eastern highland neighbours,
peoples of the nama complex.
The 'nama' region
The eastern highlands are the locus classicus of sexual antagon

ism. If anything, overt sexual hostility is more pronounced in
societies here than in. Anga - a dubious distinction, and difficult to
prove conclusively. While eastern highlanders apparently omit
homosexuality from initiation, many of the themes present in
Sambia are equally evident here. The one feature which sets eastern
highlanders apart from Sambia and other Anga is the much
increased value and demand for women's labour in agriculture and
pig production. These production activities are barely developed in
Anga. Godelier remarks that, among Baruya, 'the production of
pigs, like subsistence activities, remains of relatively low value'
( 1982:3 1 ) . 'Relatively' is the key word; Anga rely on women to pro
duce pigs and sweet potatoes more than SWNG groups do, but their
eastern highland neighbours do so much more heavily. Pig keeping
and sweet potato agriculture are more intensive pursuits; feasts and
exchanges, though not yet nearly on a par with societies further
west, have gained greatly in political and social significance, a trend
which increases from east to west across the highlands. Men's
prestige, though based largely on warfare and aggression, is oc
casionally attributed to wealth manipulation and reciprocal
exchange. It is in this context, where the appropriation of women's
labour and products has become more critical, that we discover a
more severe attitude towards women by men than is encountered,
perhaps, even in Sambia and Baruya.
Throughout the eastern highlands, a similar initiation complex
takes place and while not always called nama or some cognate of it,
there seems little point in making finer distinctions within the 'nama
region'. Gahuku-Gama refer to this cult as idza nama (Read 1 952);
Asaro call it idzi namo (Newman 1965), and Bena Bena refer to it as
'ia nama ga' (Langness 1 977). Nama cults revolve around sacred
flutes. As Read noted thirty years ago, 'From Kainantu to Chimbu,
the men's club house is the center of the cult of the sacred flutes. The
flutes are exclusively male possessions and, apart from their re
ligious significance, they are preeminently symbols of male domi-
nance' ( 1 954a: 12). In societies of the nama, as we have seen, groups

are tightly bounded, often composed of patrilineal, patrilocal, clan
villages; warfare is endemic and unrestricted. The work of women is
appropriated by men. Women have no say in the distribution of
their products, nor are they important links of alliance and
exchange between their husband's group and that of their own kins
men. The production of large agricultural surpluses and pigs is not
extensive; women are simply producers for men and the level of pro
duction is matched by their participation in the exchange process.
These related facts may well reflect the postulated recentness of agri
cultural intensification and pig production, based on the adoption
of the sweet potato, compared to societies in the western highlands.
There, I will argue, women play a prominent role in exchange as
well as production, and their status, accordingly, is elevated.
The pattern of initiation throughout the nama area is similar
(Read 1 95 2, 1 982, 1 984). In the first stage, boys aged between five
and seven years are taken from their mothers, forced to wash in a
stream amid shouting warriors and the playing of nama flutes, the
secrets of which they do not yet know. Simultaneously, older boys in
the second stage, who have been admitted to the men's house, are
told the secrets of nama. The sounds they hear are not those of car
nivorous birds, but of mere men playing flutes, a fact which must
not be revealed to women and uninitiated boys who would be killed
it they saw the flutes or learned their origin. Berndt ( 1 962:66)
reports that a woman was shot when she accidentally saw the flutes.
The nama flutes are a mystery maintained by men, a symbol of their
superiority, solidarity and hegemony over women who would laugh
at and deride them if the secret was made public. Second stage in
itiates bleed their noses and induce vomiting to rid themselves of
harmful, prior female contact. Third stage initiates are secluded for
a lengthy period in the men's house, isolated from women and
taught conduct befitting a warrior. They are betrothed during this
period and, as the concluding idza nama festival approaches, they
are married. A young groom shoots his future wife in the thigh with
an arrow to demonstrate his unyielding power over her. Men con
tinue to practise vomiting and blood-letting throughout their lives
to purge themselves of female pollutants.
As among Sambia, men's public proclamation of superiority
belies a pervasive feeling of biological insecurity. Women mature
faster than men, menstruate naturally, give birth and grow stronger
quicker, and male initiation counters these female attributes with
'cultural' applications of its own. 'It is hard work to make a man' the
Gahuku-Gama say (Read 1 984:22 1 ) , not nearly so hard to make a
woman. Men unequivocally link nosebleeding to menstruation
(Read 1 984:227), a procedure necessary to reach maturity. Women
are given the secondary role in procreation: they merely provide the
receptacle for men's semen which produces the child. If a couple is
childless, the woman is blamed for being barren. The 'spiritual' tie
between father and child is considered closer than that between
mother and child. This belief sets the tenor for strict patrilineal reck
oning. The overt 'masculinisatioh' of boys through homosexual fel
latio (Herdt 1 9 8 1 ) is absent, but nama initiations are concerned
with making still underdeveloped boys into adult men (Lindenbaum
1 9 82). Semen is not infused, but blood from the mother and, later,
the wife, must be eradicated for success in this hard task. Women
are the enemies of men; they are detrimental to proper growth; they
are the objects of envy and in all ways antithetical to male well
being. There can be little doubt that in this atmosphere of psycho
logical and physiological fragility, secular tension between the sexes
will be severe. Men do not lose any opportunity to assert their con
trol as compensation and projection.
Not only are women the enemies of men, but in nama and similar
societies where warfare is extreme, women usually come from
enemy groups. A contradiction arises, for it is the children a woman
bears who will, in part, create the fighting force which eventually
may make war on her own group. Alliances are unreliable, so natu
ral increase and the fertility of women are essential. Reproduction, if
not so completely claimed by men as in Sambia myth, must be
thoroughly controlled by men in nama societies. Herein lies a fur
ther source of antagonism. Read ( 1 952, 1 984) reports that women
disliked bearing children, saying that it hurt their vaginas. Gahuku
Gama men believed that women practised birth control and prema
ture termination of pregnancy. Read cites the average family size as
just over three, including wife and husband (1 954b: 869). Read was
asked to be present at births by husbands who feared that their
wives might 'dispose' of the newly born child. As well, Gahuku men,
to achieve full adulthood, had to become fathers and they believed
women would thwart their 'masculine right to fatherhood' (Read
1 984:229). So, in the crucial context of reproduction, men and
women appear at odds; men believed women to be subversive and
discontented and, amid such tensions, they had to be ruthlessly
subordinated and controlled.
It is in the productive sphere that these societies diverge more sig

nificantly from Sambia and other Anga, and where male-female an
tagonism comes into sharper focus. The conclusion of initiation is
the idza nama festival in which pigs are killed and pork distributed
to allies and other groups. Initiation is prior, pork exchange secon
dary. Nevertheless, corporate unity is symbolised, traditional ties
between groups are strengthened and outstanding debts are repaid.
As well, opposition to other groups, current enemies, is also mani
fested by those who gather to receive and share pork. In sum, the
wider social order, the political alliances necessary for survival, are
'reproduced' at idza nama, and done so with the pigs and sweet
potatoes made possible by women's work. Nothing of this scale or
sort exists among Anga. The value of women's labour is essential to
men who all but deny it in the expropriation of their products.
'Women's role is seen to be one of submission. A disproportionate
share of both the drudgery and heavy work entailed in daily life falls
to them, while men are free to gossip, indulge in speech making, and
put on their brilliant decorations and seek diversion elsewhere'
(Read 1 952: 1 3 ) .
Idza nama pork distributions took place amid the wails of
women as the animals they had raised were killed and offered to
others. Read writes that 'women owned no land or important valu
ables and had no absolute rights to dispose of most of the products
of their work and skill' ( 1 982:68). Their work was not considered
'equal or important' compared to that of men. We encounter here
greatly increased production of pigs and sweet potatoes, necessary
for politics, prestige and protein, and heightened need for women's
labour for the 'reproduction' of the social order, but no indication
whatsoever that women have any role to play aside from being
'mere' producers, whose products always belong to men. Siane
women 'wail and weep' when their husbands kill pigs they believe to
be their personal property (Salisbury 1 962:62). Elsewhere in this
same area, Gururumba women are known as the 'mothers' of the
pigs they nurture. When pigs are killed, a woman mourns them; her
husband has become the 'killer of her (pig) children' (Newman
1 965 : 3 8 ) . Just as men 'kill' boys, produced by their mothers, in in
itiation, they similarly kill pigs produced and cared for by women at
idza nama. This clash of productive and reproductive interests may
lead to 'organized stickfights' between Gururumba men and women
(Newman 1 965 :3 8 ) . Men alone controlled the nama feasting
arrangements and, for a large part of them, women were not even
allowed to be present. The division of labour is more rigid and
dichotomous than that found elsewhere and women are not allowed
to escape the sphere of production. Production in these societies is
viewed as a process detached from exchange and with a correspond
ing sexual division. Extreme sexual hostility is born then exagger
ated in this recently intensified milieu. Transformed productive
relations and the increasing indispensability of surpluses place
women in a subordinate position in which their productive and
reproductive labours are ultimately controlled and expropriated.
The antagonism rooted in production and reproduction is openly
expressed. The view that women are in all ways inimical to men,
taught during initiation, is translated into secular hostility. Read
refers to the hostility of men to women as a 'basic element' in their
relationships ( 1 9 84:23 5 ) . Aside from physical separation in
domestic and public life, women were severely punished for adul
tery by having burning sticks thrust into their vaginas, or they were
killed by their husbands; they were whipped with cane if they spoke
out of turn or presumed to offer their opinions at public gatherings;
and were physically abused in marital arguments. When a groom
wounded his bride with an arrow, the arrow was called 'anger' (see
Read noted in Lindenbaum 1 982: 1 8). Men could never be seen to be
weak or soft in dealings with women. This strident misogyny, of
pathological proportions, is nowhere so manifest in the highlands as
here. Sexual antagonism is fundamental, inherent, and, like warfare
in the eastern highlands, unrestricted. Men do not require specific
incidents or reasons to abuse or mistreat women; it is part of the
normal course of events; indeed, in ritual and myth, it is portrayed
as the essential order of things.
The solidarity of men versus women, a theme of initiation, and
symbolised by the secret flutes, is given further social reinforcement
by institutionalised age-grades. Eastern highland societies, as has
been remarked many times, are 'tediously obsessed by warfare'
(Read 1 982:69). Initiation is designed to produce uncompromising
warriors who are hard and ungiving. By all accounts, the process is a
very successful one. Women represent an enemy, the enemy, and ag
gression is based on opposition to them. At every stage of the devel
opmental cycle, men have an internal, united organisation as
reference; women and external enemies are the target of concern,
they are conceptually equivalent, and the point of rigorous instruc
tion and ordeals. An age-mate may be called upon to help punish
another's wayward wife (Lindenbaum and Glasse 1 969 : 1 69). If an
age-mate is polluted through intercourse or by contact with men
strual blood, it is equally felt by other age partners who must collec-
tively purify (Lindenbaum 1 979:48). Age-grades establish a

community of men who are similar in objective and spirit. Where in
itiation practices cease, where warfare becomes less obsessive, and
where sexual antagonism lessens across societies in the highlands,
age-grades and the collective, intransigent solidarity of men also dis
appear.
The above portrait of initiation and male-female relations is
culled primarily from Read's descriptions of the Gahuku-Gama. But
the pattern, with only minor variation, exists throughout the eastern
highlands among both Kainantu and Asaro groups. The initiatory
themes of strengthening fragile masculinity, the control of reproduc
tion and exaggerated male potency, and of violent hostility and op
position to women who are prone to protest or to be opportunistic,
are all widespread. Almost all ethnographers of the area have dealt
with these and related issues, and the discussion that follows is brief.
Women as wives
Opposition and overt hostility to wives is more pronounced than
that to mothers, sisters or other women.1 6 Fore men fear their wives
as sorcerers who may intentionally use menstrual blood or semen,
retained from intercourse, to kill them (Lindenbaum 1 979 : 1 3 1 ;
Berndt 1962, 1 965 ; compare SWNG societies' use o f semen) . Guru
rumba wives are suspected of witchcraft (Newman 1 9 8 1 ) . Kamano
wives are particularly polluting to their husbands (Mandeville
1 979b ) . Each of these ethnographers emphasises that wives are criti
cal producers of wealth who must be kept in line lest they thwart the
interests of their husbands. Tension, antagonism and the attribution
of malevolence to women are, in part at least, the outcome of these
productive relations. Lindenbaum ( 1 979:59) writes that wives
'combine in one individual two categories of value - labor and fer
tility' .17 Sisters, on the other hand, are 'good women' who pose their
16
Faithorn ( 1976:94) has suggested that all male-female relations in the highlands
have been viewed from the perspective of husband and wife rather than more
subtly analysing the range of male and female roles.
17
Adultery i s severely punished i n Fore by burning a wife's vagina with fire (Lin
denbaum 1976:59). If a man is shot in the buttocks by an enemy, he chastises his
wife, for this is a sign of her adultery. Rules of cannibalism permit a wife to eat
her husband's buttocks when he dies. A husband does not do the same with his
wife's buttocks, but will eat his sister's genitals when she dies (Lindenbaum
1976:59). Lindenbaum also importantly points out that 'production' and 'repro
duction' may be at odds in the highlands, for a woman's reproductive career is
compressed and parallels the time period when her labour is most needed for the
care of pigs. This contradiction may further fuel sexual antagonism.
brothers no threat and, instead, provide wealth for them when they
marry. Fore men proclaim that 'wives do all the hard work, they are
the hands of men' (Lindenbaum 1976:59), and that 'pigs are men's
children' (Lindenbaum 1 982:20). Men 'own' both wives and pigs
and, with this rationale, control the labour and products of their
wives and ruthlessly assert their superiority over them.
The conviction that Gururumba women are witches arises
because it is believed that wives 'harbour hostility' towards their
husbands who give them no recognition or role in exchange activi
ties. Women produce all the wealth while their husbands blatantly
appropriate it; men 'gluttonise' on pork, women must observe strin
gent food taboos (Newman 1 98 1 : 1 1 8) . Women who are disconten
ted and grumble about their lot are suspected of witchcraft.
Punishment may follow for such women are seen to be able to frus
trate the political objectives of their husbands. 18 Kamano women
likewise have no role to play in the intergroup exchanges of men,
though they too are the sole producers of pigs and sweet potatoes.1 9
In all of these instances, the production of pigs and sweet potatoes
has increased dramatically in importance (over Anga societies, for
example) and women have assumed the greater, almost sole, burden
of labour. There has been no corresponding recognition given to
them nor do they have any influence whatsoever in extra-domestic
exchange. Robbins notes for Auyana, that only men, never women,
can distribute wealth outside the family ( 1 982:80). Women else
where in the eastern highlands are likened to the pigs they produce
(Hays and Hays 1 982:215), and both belong, unconditionally,
to men. Women in these societies are confined to production
and the unfettered expropriation of their products is at the root of
sexual antagonism where recent agricultural intensification has
occurred.
Male pregnancy and female cannibals

The denial by men of women's reproductive ability is further
'elaborated' in some eastern highlands societies. Men among the
Hua believe they can become pregnant (Meigs 1 976, 1 984) . Osten
sibly, they loathe that condition in women, but for themselves it may
18
See also Lindenbaum ( 1979: 130) for an account of the Fore: when a husband is
struck by his wife, he and his age-mates adopt mourning dress and behaviour -
'symbolic death' has occurred.
19
lt should be recalled that these eastern highlands societies place little value on
marriage for alliances and wealth transactions. See Chapters 4 and 6.
be 'desired' (Meigs 1976 : 3 97). Male pregnancy has been noted else
where in the area, among Awa (Hayano 1 974; Newman and Boyd
1 982) and Gimi, for example. Hua are also subject to extensive food
restrictions. Men, especially, should not eat any food symbolically
associated with women (such as red things, furry animals). How
ever, Meigs ( 1984) relates how men secretly consume the forbidden
foods in an attempt not only to imitate woman's 'natural' functions,
but also to claim and assume their fertility and ability to grow
quickly. 20 Hua males are in constant search 'for the female principle'
(Meigs 1984: 135), and in their 'religion of the body . . . the female
body plays the star role' (Meigs 1 9 84 : 1 3 1 ) .
Among the neighbouring Gimi, it i s believed that, traditionally,
women were cannibals who ate a man after his death (Gillison 1 980,
1983).21 In this act of cannibalism, women gained and controlled
power by virtue of their consumption of male flesh. Cannibalism
was also a means of regenerating the dead, and in Gimi thought,
men were the 'prototypical children-of-women who became food'
(Gillison 1 980: 148). At some time, however, men substituted parts
of pigs for parts of deceased men; women were deprived of power
through ingestion and men were no longer disintegrated inside
women. 22 Men gained reproductive superiority and, indeed, 'both
men and women believe that a man's semen alone forms the foetus'
(Gillison 1 980: 148). Significantly too, in the Gimi case, domesti
cated pigs arrived in large numbers only a few generations ago (Gil-
20
Meigs sees this 'imitation' of women by men as a way of reducing the opposition
between the sexes and believes that overt hostility is 'blurred' by the opaque
gender distinctions. One needs to know better how these blurred distinctions
translate into patterns and details of intersexual relations in everyday life.
21
It is also not too far-fetched to suggest a connection between cannibalism, the
adoption of the sweet potato, and the level of linked pig production among Gimi
and neighbouring Fore. Lindenbaum ( 1979:24-5) notes that sweet potato culti
vation led to a reduction of wild forest protein sources in Fore country. Men then
claimed priority on scarce domestic pork while women were 'left' to or 'adopted'
cannibalism to meet their dietary protein requirements. The inception and insti
tutionalisation of female cannibalism may coincide with the arrival of the sweet
potato and a change from the predominance of hunting to horticulture. Domestic
pigs, however, always remained in short supply and were never intensively pro
duced in this area and the wider eastern highlands even in the 19 5 Os, and Berndt
remarked that Fore, faced with this shortage, felt that human flesh was 'sweet'.
'What is the matter with us, are we mad? Here is good food and we have neglec
ted to eat it' ( 1 962:271). Lindenbaum relates the reduction of kuru in the 1970s,
to the suppression of cannibalism by government and missions in the late 1950s
(Lindenbaum 1979:26). It may also be partly the case that pig production was
finally increasing (and freed from constraints such as warfare) to the extent that
this suppression was easier, nutritionally, to adjust to.
22
Men deceived women in the same way when they stole their flutes.
lison 1 980: 146; 1 983 :36). Gimi women are believed to have an
intense, nurturing relationship to infants, pigs and crops. But such
nurturing is predicated on incorporation (like that of cannibalism),
and will ultimately destroy, unless men 'detach' these products from
women's all-consuming care. Therefore, infants are initiated by men
and pigs and crops are owned by men as their exclusive property
despite women's caring labour. In Gillison's complex accounts, men
appear to assume reproductive superiority (when they replace men
with pigs) and to 'detach' products from women's care at the same
point in the Gimi's mythological past, that is, upon the arrival of
domesticated pigs. The productive and reproductive hegemony of
men are focussed on the same events.
Among Gimi and Hua (see Chapter 6) we also find the clearest
expression in myth of prior 'matriarchy' based on possession of
sacred flutes which, when stolen by men, divested women of their
authority over men. However, as Hays (n.d.) points out, most myths
of secret flutes depict the women who originally owned them not as
having authority over men, but rather as 'living apart from men,
tending to all of their own needs . . . as self-sufficient individuals or
groupings of women' (Hays n.d. :63). In other words, the division of
labour was drastically altered when the flutes were stolen: women
came under men's dominance, working and producing for them, not
for themselves. May we have in these myths of flute theft, a symbolic
statement of transformed relations of production consequent upon
the arrival and development of intensive agriculture and pig produc
tion? In the Gimi case certainly, the denial of women's reproductive
and productive capabilities by men occurs together with the arrival
of domesticated pigs only generations ago.
Hostility to men
The voluminous literature on antagonism, men to women, in
ritual and outside in the eastern highlands, has often failed to reveal
the reverse: the contexts of opposition, women to men. Women
often play important 'aggressive' roles of their own when sons are
taken from them in the first stages of initiation. They may attack the
initiating group of men or sing and dance in the background as the
youths prepare for the ordeals ahead. In these cases, women clearly
'cooperate' in the very institutions which subsequently demean
them and ritually appropriate their reproductivity.
Women, however, often have ceremonies of their own, marking
the onset of menstruation. Hays and Hays ( 1 982) have described the
kwaasi ceremony of the Ndumba, which is similar to other female

rites in the eastern highlands area (for example, see Newman and
Boyd 1 982). During seclusion in kwaasi, amongst a large, totally
female gathering, the newly menstruating girls are taught about
their new potency which must not be used against men. They sing of
the fertility of assorted crops like winged bean, yam and native
asparagus, crops of pre-ipomoean days (see Chapter 2). Initiation is
interrupted, most dramatically, by female dancers imitating men,
who chase the young girls around the seclusion hut to the resound
ing chorus of 'men are the enemy' (Hays and Hays 1 982:224) . Such
explicit statements of sexual opposition do not exist even in male
initiations. Subsequently, the girls' noses are bled by men and they
are stung with nettles. As Hays and Hays rightly perceive, men here
assert their dominance over women yet again, seeking to control the
blood of women, which in menstruation is naturally beyond their
control ( 1 982:235-6) . In male initiations, boys purge the blood of
their mothers; in the ceremonies of young girls, the fertile power of
women, symbolised by their menstrual blood, is brought under the
jurisdiction of men.
Why do women cooperate in men's initiatory proceedings, par
ticipating, often enthusiastically, in blatantly misogynist events?
Why do women 'allow' men to intrude into the final stage of female
ceremonies? Hays and Hays deny brute force as a reason and stress
that women's ceremonies emphasise the 'complementarity' of the
sexes, that women, as much as men, believe in their special powers
and dangers which must be curtailed for the 'common good'
( 1 982:236). Women acknowledge that their reproductive and other
powers must be harnessed; it is an ingrained cultural tenet among
Ndumba, accepted by both sexes alike. If society is to 'survive',
women and men must combine their efforts (Hays and Hays
1 982:236, 237) . Women appear to have acceded to the 'cultural
logic' of men. However, one further point can be mentioned. The
masculine ethos of the eastern highlands results, in part, from the
prevalence of warfare and the constant threat of annihilation. In
many cases, as noted, women were also the targets and victims of
war, being recognised as full members of their husband's group.
Women could be, and often were, killed in hostile encounters even
by members of their natal communities. Could it be then that the in
itiation process, which seeks to mould boys into aggressive fighters,
is seen by women as equally necessary and beneficial to their own
continued existence? Sexual antagonism and aggressive warrior-
hood go together here and women may suffer the one for the ac
knowledged protection provided by the other.
Warfare and the demise of initiation

Langness ( 1 967, 1 977) and others have argued that warfare is
central to an understanding of male initiation and sexual antagon
ism. Initiations were the focus of male solidarity and the socialising
locus of warriors. Antagonism towards females of enemy groups
also set men and women apart. As Mandeville noted for Kamano,
'women recall that it was unpleasant to enter a village as a bride and
to find there men who had fought their fathers and brothers and
women from villages at war with their own' ( 1 979a: 1 13 ) . In this en
vironment of violence and threat of individual death and group deci
mation, men could never appear to weaken towards women, lest the
solidarity necessary for survival crack.
The link between warfare, initiation and antagonism is further
evident in the fact that, when warfare was banned by the colonial
administration, the nama cult in many parts of the eastern highlands
quickly disintegrated, and apparently did so with 'relative ease'
(Langness 1 977:20; see also Read 1 952, Langness 1 967). Among
the Baruya, too, 'all the initiation rituals intended to prepare young
men for war have been robbed of their purpose, and the Baruya have
for the most part discarded them from their initiation ceremonies'
(Godelier, quoted in Keesing 1 982:37). Ceremonies may still exist
in altered form, in some parts of the area, and sexual polarity is
echoed in other relations, not just warfare, but one vital raison
d'etre of initiation has been removed.
Early socialisation
Very little has been written about the variations in socialisation
practice of boys and girls in the highlands. An intriguing question is
whether socialisation differs significantly in eastern highlands ini
tiating societies from that in the western highlands where initiation
is highly attenuated or altogether absent. Whiting et al. ( 1958)
found a positive correlation between the presence of initiation cere
monies and a prolonged (more than one year) post-partum sex
taboo (as an indication of socialisation patterns). We might expect,
therefore, that if post-partum sex taboos are indicative of mother
son intimacy and dependency, then societies in the highlands with
longer taboos and sexual abstinence might also have the most elab
orate initiation rituals. In them, lengthened mother dependency is
broken and concomitant Oedipal and psycho-social conflicts are re

solved (see Allen 1 967). The ethnographic evidence, however,
appears to be ambiguous, at best, on this hypothesis.
Langness ( 1 969:48), for example, reports that, in Bena Bena,
sexual intercourse may resume when a child cuts its first tooth (six
months to one year ? ) ; among Sambia the period of enforced sexual
abstinence may be more than three years (Herdt 198 1 :219). In both
these societies, male initiation is rigorous and prolonged. Among
Chimbu, post-partum sex taboos lasted at least one year (Brown
and Winefield 1 965) ; in Kuma up to three years (Reay 1 959). In
itiation in these two societies is much less fulsome in every way than
in those societies to the east. In Mount Hagen, the period of abstin
ence is two to three years (A. J. and A. M. Strathern 1 969: 152); in
Mae-Enga, about two years (Meggitt 1 965 : 167); in Kyaka-Enga,
from three to five years (Bulmer 1 960b: 1 34); and in Huli, at least
two years (Glasse 1 968). In these latter societies, male initiation is
absent or virtually so. Thus, in the highlands, the correlation be
tween lengthy sexual taboos after birth and male initiation is less
than clear-cut.
Socialisation, however, is complex, involving much more than
the post-partum taboo, and we must seek other indices. 23 In eastern
highlands societies, where initiation is longest and most elaborate,
boys appear to remain with their mothers and sleep in women's
houses for a longer time than do boys in the western highlands
where initiation is absent. Boys are initiated in grades and to fill an
appropriate level may mean that first stage initiation is delayed until
a sizeable group of youths is assembled. Even when boys are initially
taken from their mothers, between the ages of seven and ten or
twelve years, to begin the initiation procedure, they are usually
'returned' to their mother's care until formal incorporation into the
men's house, which occurs in later stages, perhaps not until the age
of fifteen. Langness ( 1967) writes that boys in Bena Bena were not
taken to the men's house to sleep until the age of ten or twelve, the
rationale being that 'if there was a raid, they were too small to
understand and to get away' ( 1 9 67: 1 64). The length of association
with mother seems similar for Sambia and Gahuku-Gama as well.
Read ( 1982:70) notes that Gahuku men had little contact with their
sons until the boys were ten years old or older. For whatever
reasons, warfare being only one, boys remained with women for
23
It needs also to be pointed out that there is often a very great discrepancy between
the taboo and its observance in the highlands.
longer in the eastern highlands, and elaborate initiations were 'de

signed' partly to counter this lasting feminine influence.
In some western highlands societies, boys left their mothers
earlier and much more gradually than in the east. Meggitt
( 1 964:207) says that, traditionally, boys moved to men's houses at
about five years of age. Buchbinder and Rappaport ( 1 976 : 1 8)
report seven or eight years for the Maring; and Brown ( 1972 : 3 0)
says of Chimbu that at the age of three or four boys begin to associ
ate predominantly with men. A. J. Strathern ( 1970b:377) reports
that Mount Hagen boys 'well before puberty' begin to sleep in the
men's house; the same is true in Kuma (Reay 1 959 : 1 64-9). Boys in
these societies are brought into the company of men and other boys
at an earlier age and with less rigidity and sense of drama. The
tension-filled separations of initiating societies do not occur. The
early socialisation process is different east and west, for reasons lost
in the history and divergent development of these cultures. We can
note, however, that warfare is not the focus of attention in the west
ern highlands that it is eastward and a less spartan upbringing is
clearly evident.
Bulmer ( 1 97 1 ) has suggested that where post-partum taboos are
longer, 'women have to undertake demanding domestic and garden
activities on a purely individual basis rather than cooperatively'
( 1 971 : 147). Women must space births more widely because of pig
minding and garden duties, and two dependent children would be
too great an additional burden. With a four or five year spacing be
tween births, the older child could fend for itself somewhat and even
provide some assistance with the younger one. With this prop
osition, we might expect that societies in the western highlands,
where pig and agricultural production are most intensive and
women highly involved in them, often individually, to have the
longer post-partum sex taboos. While there is some support for this
view, the evidence is too sparse to make a case. While definitive ex
planations for seemingly diverse socialisation patterns across the
highlands evade us, a useful starting point is likely to be the varying
value and emphasis on women in economic pursuits and human
reproduction, and the varying conditions of warfare (see Linden
baum 1 976).
Sacred fiutes
The sacred flutes of initiation, as symbols of male solidarity, of
fertility, or of the secret source of male power and hegemony, have
been mentioned many times already. While flutes and their lore are
associated with initiations and similar events virtually universally
across the highlands, the contexts in which they are used, their
meaning and centrality vary considerably from east to west. Hays
(n.d.) has made a wide-ranging comparison of the flute complex and
some of his findings can be related to the issues developed here.
The sacredness of flutes is largely confined to the eastern high
lands, Chimbu, and the eastern end of the western highlands. In the
Mount Hagen, Enga and southern highlands areas, in the absence of
initiation, the 'use' of flutes is either attenuated, lacking altogether,
or has much lessened significance than in the 'core' flute area (see
also Gourlay 1 975 : 1 5 ).24 Furthermore, in at least one area of the
eastern end of the western highlands, it is reported that initiations
were never practised (Narak [Manga], see Cook 1 967:347n.) . As
one moves from east to west the association of the flute complex
with pig festivals becomes increasingly noteworthy. As pig produc
tion begins to intensify, in and around the Asaro Valley (in contrast,
that is, to societies further east), flutes are played not only during in
itiation, but also at the pig festivals that are linked to them.25 From
Chimbu westward, however, as we will see, the initiation of boys is
decidedly secondary to the pig festivals themselves, a signal that an
important shift in societal emphasis has taken place. Flutes in these
societies are blown to ensure the growth and fertility of pigs more so
than of boys.
The secrecy of the flutes also varies in the same way. In the
extreme eastern highlands, women would be killed and men's
power overturned if the women discovered that the flutes were
blown by men rather than being the sounds of intimidating ancestral
birds. However, again where the production of pigs becomes more
important and intensive, that is in Asaro, 'the wives of prominent
men noted for their diligence and ability in raising pigs' were not
allowed to see the flutes, but could be made 'guardians of them at
the conclusion of a pig festival, obtaining magical assistance from
the flutes in raising the next crop of pigs' (Hays n.d.:27, citing
24
A. J. Strathern ( 1970b) claims that no initiations are, or were ever, practised in
the Mount Hagen area. This claim is discounted by Hays (n.d.:76n.).
25
When the eastern highlands Awa began to intensify pig production, they took to
blowing flutes to induce their pigs to eat more, grow quickly and copulate more
often (Newman and Boyd 1982). Flutes 'made men' in the past, and now they
could 'make pigs'. This recent development shows the evolutionary trend, exem
plified by Chimbu, who have given the pig festivals themselves priority over ini
tiations, and adapted flute blowing to a 'novel' usage.
Newman 1962 : 1 3 1 ) . In Chimbu, i f women learned the secrets o f the

flutes, they would cease to raise pigs and cook food for men (Nilles
1 950:49).
In areas of nascent pig production, the flutes were also used to
terrorise women. Men blowing flutes in the guise of birds, during
the pig festivals of Siane and Bena Bena (Salisbury 1 965; Langness
1 977) would go to women's houses demanding more pigs, and 'bite'
women's hands with a cassowary beak (imitating the birds) if they
were empty (Hays n.d. :35). Men wielding the flutes would also strip
women's gardens, appropriating their production, and tell women
that the nama birds demanded it. Thus, men who controlled the
flutes and mystified society with them, intimidated women, took
their products, and demanded greater outputs of labour from them.
At the western end of the flute complex, such acts of intimidation
are absent.
Finally, only at the western end of the 'flute region' is it believed
that men, not women, originally possessed, invented or discovered
the flutes. Elsewhere, women are believed to have once owned them
and were tricked by men into relinquishing these powerful objects
(see also with reference to Hua and Gimi above). It is precisely at
this point in the continuum of highlands societies that, I would
argue, the flute complex as a symbol of male hegemony collapses
and male initiations as mystifications of male superiority cease.
From Chimbu westward, women's reproductive superiority is
recognised, not claimed by men in initiation; ties through women
become significant and maternal blood is no longer purged; the pro
duction of pigs for exchange between individuals and groups sup
plants the 'production' of boys for future warriorhood; and the
appropriation of women's labour and production is much less the
aim of men. Where pig production reaches its apogee in the high
lands, women have a great say and influence in the disposal of their
products and are, therefore, crucial participants in their societies'
vital exchange systems. Their status is highest here, too; sexual an
tagonism is diminished and the initiation claims of men, and initia
tions themselves, so powerful and all-encompassing to the east,
could not be credible and are, accordingly, absent.
In sum, the nama region, characterised by relatively recent, intensi

fied production, where warfare remained a continuous threat, is
where sexual hostility is more acute in the highlands. Women's
reproduction and production (in that order but mutually reinforc-
ing) are thoroughly controlled or abrogated by men. Initiation

ritually confirms what is obvious in secular life. Where the nama
flutes become mute, the value of women is acknowledged, however,
and the internalised, essential, sexual antithesis is no longer all
embracing.
Central Wahgi societies
Distinctions of all kinds between 'male' and 'female' occur in

societies of the highlands and wider Melanesia and, indeed, are per
haps even more universal than that. The dichotomy of sex and
gender orders a wide range of phenomena and, as such, appears
remarkably 'good to think with' (Brown and Buchbinder 1 976). A
dichotomy does not necessarily imply opposition, but in the high
lands societies discussed thus far, the polarity and antagonism be
tween the sexes is profound and undisguised, and is seen as a basic,
irreducible premise of society. The message in both ritual and secu
lar contexts is identical.
West of the Chimbu divide, however, a quite obvious change
occurs: the 'dichotomy' remains, but in much attenuated form. The
ethnography of central Wahgi societies provides the evidence as
much by omission as observation. Strikingly absent in the record is
the overwhelming emphasis of the eastern highlands on intersexual
conflict, themes of initiation, reproductive mimicry, heightened
male sexual braggadocio, and such like. The ethnography certainly
reflects societal concern with sexual relations, but to a lessened
degree. At Chimbu and westward, we can witness the 'real' begin
nings of intensive production; to the east it is only symptomatic. The
progression to 'high production' from 'low' (Modjeska 1 982)
affects sexual themes of all sorts, but more importantly, when econ
omic production strikingly increases and intensifies, and as pig hus
bandry and exchange come clearly to the fore, the status of women
rises in the highlands. Women's importance to economic production
grows, but their role is not merely circumscribed there. They are ac
corded social recognition, absent in the east, and have influence well
beyond the sphere of domestic production. Indeed, their role widens
precisely as the strict domestic production concern meets its demise
once and for all, in the face of exchange systems of areal significance
and integration (see also the work of Sanday 1 973 and Friedl 1 975
for similar indicators of high female status).
Previous discussion has shown that in Chimbu, too, the political
significance of marriage has heightened dramatically and women

are acknowledged as links between husband and kinsmen. In
Chimbu, women 'choose' their husbands (Brown 1 969:95). War
fare becomes subject to many restrictions and a person remains
friendly with affines and others whose 'groups' may be hostile.
Structurally, groups place significantly less stress on male solidarity
and unity, and boundaries between groups are less sharp. The rise in
the status of women is consonant and concomitant with these
changes and with increased production and exchange which, it has
been argued, have a much longer history in these areas.
Male initiations and sacred flutes cross the Chimbu divide, but
are barely recognisable in their archetypal, eastern highlands form.
Rappaport ( 1 968) makes no mention at all of male initiation in
Maring, nor of flutes. The related Narak denied that boys were ever
initiated (Cook 1 967:347; see also Hays n.d.: 33), and play flutes to
the ancestors only to secure their help in the coming pig festivals. In
both Chimbu and Kuma, boys are 'initiated' and flutes are played,
but again, male initiation does not nearly approach a 'total social
fact'.
In Chimbu, initiation is 'incidental' to the large pig festivals
(Brown and Buchbinder 1 976 : 5 ) ; a 'minor phase' in pig feasts
(Brown 1978 : 153-4). They always occur after the main business of
pig killing and pork distribution has taken place. In the eastern high
lands, in Gahuku-Gama for example, pig killings occur as an
adjunct to initiation; this is a good index of their relative importance
in each of these highland areas. Chimbu initiation is apparently not
compulsory and although flutes are revealed and noses bled, seclus
ion lasts only three days and novices undergo only one ceremony,
not a series or set. Initiates' ages vary considerably; there is nothing
approaching age-grades, ordained in initiation, nor are initiations
geared to attaining warrior status. Male solidarity, achieved in in
itiation elsewhere, is lacking here. Didactic themes do not involve
the denigration of women or the elevation of men, but rather stress
'clan spirit and loyalty', 'defence', and 'economic prosperity of the
clan through their [the initiates'] work' (Nilles 1950:37).
Sexual anxiety and hostility are not a feature of Chimbu 'in
itiations'; nor do secular activities overly reflect male-female anti
thesis. Menstrual blood and other female substances are dangerous
to men, but this danger 'does not apply however to husband and
wife' (Nilles 1 950:48). Sterility and impotence occur in men (Nilles
1 950:48) ; barrenness of women is not invariably believed to be the
cause of childlessness as in the east. Importantly, sacred flutes are

owned by joint-families or subclans (Nilles 1 950:37) and 'only these
small groups initiate collectively'. Thus, there are no large clan or
tribal initiations as there are in the nama region where male soli
darity and superiority over women can be so publicly proclaimed
and fostered. Chimbu flutes are called koa, the same word used for
menstrual blood and women's sexual organs (Nilles 1 950 : 6 1 ) .
While elsewhere flutes and penises are conceptually equated, in
Chimbu it is said only that 'women would be ashamed if they saw
their koa and men would be equally ashamed if women saw theirs
(flutes)' (Nilles 1 950 : 6 1 ) . In this atmosphere of low sexual anxiety,
we also find a festival called ambuingu beglkua, which takes place
every three or four years. In it, 'free sexual intercourse takes place
between men of one clan and women of another'. Women literally
'break into the men's house' (the meaning of ambuingu beglkua),
and love-making and other 'entertainment' follows, lasting four or
five days and concluding with a meal of pork provided by the men
(Nilles 1 950:48 ; see also Criper 1 967: 1 88 ) .
Explicit statements o f women's status i n Chimbu society and
their role in economic affairs are lacking, though there are some
clues. Nilles ( 1950) reports that food production rests almost en
tirely with women, a common state of affairs in the highlands. He
also remarks, however, that women have 'considerable influence' in
public life and that women's gossip is important in shaping 'public
opinion' ( 1 95 0:49). Women 'own pigs' (Nilles 1943 : 1 22) and must
give their permission before their pigs are killed. Women have their
own private goods, based on the labour they provided to produce
them (Nilles 1 944: 1 , 1 0).
Exchanges of all sorts mark Chimbu life as we will consider later.
Principal exchange partners are affines and close cognates. In one
pig feast described by Brown ( 1964:346), all recipients of pork were
persons linked through marriage; that is, all relationships of
exchange were mediated by a woman. No agnates were recipients.
There can be little doubt that women are the 'pivots' of the exchange
system mediating the relationships of affines and cognates (Brown
1 970: 1 00). Exchange in Chimbu society is based on intensive food
and pig production. There is no clear distinction drawn between
domestic production and production for the sphere of exchange
(Brown 1 970: 103). In this expansion of the domestic mode of pro
duction, women assume an increasingly active role and importance.
Her agnates are compensated when she dies as are a man's matri
lateral kin (Brown 1 9 6 1 ) . We can surmise from these accounts of
Male-(emale relations 217
both ritual and secular affairs, that male-female relations have

altered significantly in Chimbu from those societies to their east
(Brown 1972:30).
The Kuma present a similar story. While Reay speaks of 'funda
mental' sexual antagonism ( 1 9 5 9 : 161), the evidence suggests that
the Kuma are far removed from the hostility of eastern highlands
sexual interaction. Kuma men do not fear contact with menstruat
ing women and have sexual relations with them (Reay 195 9 : 84).
Men may sleep in women's houses, and premarital intercourse is
common. Kuma initiation of males pales by eastern highlands stan
dards. It occurs only every fifteen years or so (Luzbetak 1954: 6 1 ) as
an epilogue to the pig killing ceremony, konggol. These initiations
are not compulsory, last only a few days, a wide range of ages is rep
resented among initiates, and there is little common teaching in such
a situation. Initiation themes stress defence, clan loyalty and sexual
attractiveness, not 'sexual antagonism' (Reay 1 959: 162). Thus,
male solidarity is not a feature of initiation and, indeed, certain
initiatory secrets are hereditary in Kuma and not available to all
men (Allen 1 967:3 7). 26 This contrasts sharply with the common
body of knowledge taught to initiates in the east. Sacred flutes
are not even secret and, in sum, Kuma initiation is a very simple
affair.
Kuma pig feasts are, by contrast, grand events, and pork distribu
tions include affines and cognates in surrounding groups. Reay
writes that a man's wife 'determines - either directly through
expressing her wish, or indirectly because he is related to the recipi
ents through his marriage to her - which clansmen will be given
pork, for she is the pigs' "mother" (i.e. guardian) and has made this
display possible by her careful tending of the animals' (Reay
1959: 103 ) . This latter statement is no doubt true of all highlands
societies which raise pigs, but only for the first time in Chimbu and
Kuma do we find the view openly expressed by men. Kuma women
further receive generous portions of pork for their care of pigs and
serve as important links of intraclan as well as interclan exchange
(Reay 1959: 103 ) . The social status of Kuma women is relatively
high; higher certainly than we have encountered thus far. They are
depicted as being able to obstruct men's plans and to assert their
own wishes, attributes impossible under the hegemonic conditions
to the east.
26
Allen (1 967) has, of course, suggested that internal rank and differentiation
among men reduces sexual antagonism; it may be closely related to the reduced
significance of male initiations as well.
In Kuma, the exchange and production of pigs approaches an

'obsession' (Reay 1 95 9:20). Other foci of attention, like initiation,
fall away in significance. It is as if societies cannot do both - devote
energy to pig production and exchange as well as initiation - and
this seems to be true across the highlands. The values and practical
concerns of each complex are in fundamental contradiction. If it be
argued that male initiation once held centre stage in Chimbu and
Kuma (and perhaps Mount Hagen, see below), while in the eastern
highlands they remain the dominant institution in the ethnographic
present, this divergence may well parallel the intensification of pro
duction which occurred much earlier in the western highlands, and
which in evolutionary terms supplanted the narrow, parochial mas
culine values of nama-like initiations.
Kuma say of a wealthy man, 'there are wives; there are pigs; there
is pig wealth. An abundance of one implies an abundance of the
other two' (Reay 1959:95). Kuma pig ceremonies are dedicated to
propitiating two fertility spirits, Bolim (human fertility} and Geru
(pig fertility) (Reay 1 95 9 : 139). Both spirits are concerned with
sweet potato fertility as well. At the conclusion of the pig ceremony,
women don men's clothing and wigs and, for a short time, sex roles
are reversed. Importantly, Reay interprets this ritual as
an admission by the men that, no matter what elaborate ritual measures

they may take to make their clan numerous, their gardens fertile, and
their pigs prolific and fat, it is the women who bear children, and take
care of the pigs and crops. This is equally an admission that the men's
system of values is fundamentally unrealistic . . . no matter what men do
to make women conform, the women themselves are free either to
attain, on the men's behalf, the value of clan continuance and pros
perity, or to obstruct the men's achievement (Reay 1 959 : 156; see also
Luzbetak 1 954 : 1 12; O'Hanlon and Frankland 1986).
Among Maring, where male initiation is absent (and perhaps

always has been), women are equally acknowledged for their role in
social reproduction. Maring alliances are not only fostered by the
exchange of pigs, but also by the exchange of women. As in Kuma,
Maring women are not mere pawns in the marital exchanges of
men, but largely determine their own destinies. The marriage of a
sister markedly affects the fate of her brother, and it is in this sibling
relationship that the clearest signs of sexual tension emerge. Indeed,
relations between husbands and wives 'seem generally to be warm
and unsuspicious' (Buchbinder and Rappaport 1976: 17). Men fear

that their sisters will elope,27 thereby denying alliances, and jeopard
ising a group's capacity to produce pigs and humans through gain
ing future wives of their own. While men, therefore, seek to control
a sister's marriage, and make ideological statements which assert
their power to do so, they recognise the instrumental role which
women have in procreation and production. As Lipuma writes,
'women command a power that belies the tenets of ideology. In
those contexts which involve the consideration of male and female
interests [in marriage], there is, to all intents and purposes, an
equality between the sexes' ( 1 979: 5 3 ) . Maring men acknowledge
the ability of women to 'endow' the clan with people and pigs and
hence to perpetuate itself (Lipuma 1 979 : 3 8 ) . It is a 'culturally recog
nized fact' (Lipuma 1 979: 37).
Maring women are also charged with the care and disposal of
corpses. Buchbinder and Rappaport ( 1976) link women's connec
tion with death to their essential pollution; menstruating women,
for example, are not separated or secluded from the community
and, remarkably, many Maring men are apparently unaware that
women menstruate (Buchbinder and Rappaport 1976 : 2 1 ) . The con
trast with societies east could hardly be more startling. If a corpse is
not handled properly, the dead spirit will wander aimlessly, and find
no satisfaction, perhaps harming others instead. Given the Maring
concern with ancestors (Rappaport 1 968), this must surely influence
strongly the worldly relations of men and those women (wives and
close female agnates) who are given the responsibility for disposing
of a man's remains.
The Maring konj kaiko, in which pigs are killed to repay allies
and ancestors for past assistance, depends predominantly on the
production of women, a point not lost to men. Allies are predomi
nantly affines; women are thus the crucial link between men and be
tween men and ancestors, the two most important relationships in
Maring life. Despite all the religious belief and political strategy
underlying the kaiko and its timing, it perhaps comes as no surprise
that the decision of women appears to be crucial in determining
when it is to be held (Rappaport 1968 : 15 8-9) . Some men confess
that the uprooting of the rumbim is precipitated by their wives, who
make it clear that the burden of caring for pigs is too great to endure
further.
27
A real fear; Lipuma ( 1 979:52) notes that 25 per cent of all marriages are contrac
ted through elopement.
Practice and ideology in male-female relations vary considerably

in Maring and elsewhere in the highlands. 2 8 The point remains that
in central Wahgi societies, where production and exchange have
increased beyond that conceivable in the eastern highlands, the
value of women is recognised and accurately assessed for the first
time. Pollution and other anxieties, the ideology of subordination,
have been much reduced in tone, and the ritualised, central prop of
male supremacy, initiation, is no longer nearly as compelling. The
status of women has risen hand-in-hand with intensified and trans
formed productive relations and increasing societal emphasis on the
exchange of surplus products. In both of these activities, women are
vital and thus acknowledged.
The 'western highlands'
Male initiations or any form of puberty rites are absent west of

Kuma; the people of Mount Hagen, for instance, despite possessing
'flutes', do not initiate boys and apparently never have (A. J. Stra
thern 1 970b). Some southern highlands societies also use flutes on
ceremonial occasions, but do not initiate either (see Josephides 1983
on Kewa). Elsewhere in the region, in Kyaka, Enga and Huli,
'bachelor cults' occur, if haphazardly, but initiations, never. In
Mount Hagen, Mendi and Kyaka, there are male and female cults,
but in none of these can we discern anything remotely similar or
functionally equivalent to male initiations of the immediate east; or
further. The status of men is not progressively altered; warrior
cohorts do not emerge; the reproductivity of women is not denied or
controlled, and male solidarity, bolstered by sexual antagonism in
other parts of the highlands, is not an issue.
The ethnography plainly attests to a transformed social and
sexual climate. Increasingly, too, the reported contexts of male
female interaction revolve around production and exchange. The
domains of men are less separable from those of women, and both
sexes more actively contribute to the achievement of societal goals.
In the western highlands, much more so than elsewhere, men's and
women's roles intertwine and overlap; men are never 'free' of
women (A. Weiner 1 982); nor do men express an ideology of gender
self-sufficiency. Social and economic horizons have broadened sig
nificantly through intensified production and integrating cer-
28
No doubt we would get a different view from Maring women to that presented
by men.
Male-(emale relations 22 1
-emonial exchange and it is impossible to discuss the rise in women's

status without reference to these facts. The argument is simple:
women here are not merely producers for men whose products are
expropriated, nor are they bearers of children that men 'really'
crated or initiated, nor are they totally 'appropriated' to patri
lineal corporations (see Chapter 6). Women are acknowledged and
valued for their role in 'total reproduction'; not confined, domi
nated or tricked into subservient, sequestered social and economic
spheres.
All of this is not to argue, of course, that nothing remains of the
male-female dichotomy. The Melpa take part in female and male
spirit cults (amb kor and kor wop). In both, the participation of
women is prohibited (but see below), and one theme in the former
appears to be the protection of men from menstrual blood (A. J.
Strathern 1970a, 1979b). However, there are more salient themes.
In amb kor, men propitiate a female spirit, a fertile 'bride' to men,
but also a 'sister' who will be a bride to other groups (A. J. Strathern
1 979b:46). This composite female spirit mediates between the
sexes, between groups, and between the principles of agnation and
matrilineality. The cult's participants are divided into male and
female components, so that half the men represent women. There
are female stones of power and the cult house has a male-female
spatial dimension. A pig's intestines are buried in the cult enclosure
to ensure that the female spirit will grant prosperity and fertility to
crops, pigs and humans. Far from enforcing the mutual separation
of the sexes, amb kor emphasises the female principle, proclaims
that men are dependent on the fertility of women, and that any secu
lar domination by men is less 'real' than the 'interdependence' of the
sexes revealed in the cult. Men praise and acknowledge innately
feminine values: their role in the reproduction of human and
material resources, and the reproduction of the social order as links
(in moka) between men and groups. Pigs are cooked and sacrificed
and women say they eat of the 'spirit pork'. Women support the cul
tists despite their formal exclusion, and large numbers of pigs are
necessary to stage the cult in the first place. In the eastern highlands,
male initiations reinforce sexual divisions and antipathies; among
the Melpa, cults redress secular imbalances and promote the view
among men that the sexes must cooperate and that there is an
underlying equality between them.
Details of the male spirit cult are less complete but A. J. Strathern
suggests that its symbolism stresses male phallicism with a 'positive
recognition of copulation' ( 1 970a: 584), and 'positive value' given

to 'sexual relations with women' ( 1979b:37). In secular life, Melpa
men and women are not rigidly separated, in residential arrange
ments for instance, nor do we find the sex dichotomy ritually pro
nounced. Allen ( 1 967:42-3) equally described this dichotomy as
'unimportant' and the status of Melpa women 'high'. The Kyaka
and Mendi adopted amb kor from the Melpa (who appear to be the
major 'exporting' culture in the area, see following chapter) ; it is a
cult that 'travels' well (A. J. Strathern 1 979b:40), above all because
the recognition and value of women throughout the region is similar
and never to be ignored; such cults are easily assimilated.
The first ethnographers of the Melpa, Vicedom and Tischner
( 1943-8), who described a social system of marked stratification
(see Chapter 5 ) , also noted this hierarchy pervading cult life. Men
and women of the highest ranking classes (wue nuim) owned the
sacred stones used in the spirit cults and only they participated in the
sacrificial meals of pork. Men of lower classes were excluded from
the cults. As well, only members of the higher classes participated in
the moka; this seems to have included women who by birthright
were also wue nuim. 29 If this closed mokalcult community under
went a democratic transformation as suggested earlier (see also Feil
1 982), ultimately because of the inflated value of pearlshells, it is
likely that the status of women in Melpa society was once not singu
lar (nor was that of men), and that women as well as men were
ranked. Thus, intersexual and intrasexual relations were more com
plex than they appear to be in the ethnographic present. The power
of some women (at least) may have declined along with that of the
men of their class. This is purely speculative, however (but see also
Hawkins 1984 ), but the considerable influence and power of Melpa
women in the present may give only a partial glimpse of what their
position was in earlier, precolonial times.3 0
Among Enga and Kyaka, the 'bachelor cults', called sangai and
sandalu, have usually been interpreted as concerned with purifying
young men from the contaminating influence of women and secur
ing 'generalized protection from females' (Meggitt 1 964:210).
29
Bigmen organised amb kor and moka exchanges took place during it (A. J. Stra
thern 1970a:571). The two were linked and the decline of one was related to the
decline of the other.
30
Mount Hagen society appears more complex than synchronic accounts have pre
sented. If, indeed, the area around Mount Hagen was the birthplace of agricul
ture in the highlands, this early development would have had wide-ranging
ramifications which must be considered in any account of the present.
These rites, it is argued, are part of a larger Enga concern with the
dangers of contact with polluting, especially menstruating, women.
Extreme male anxiety is the result. However, other perspectives and
data cast doubt on the essential correctness of this viewpoint.
During their seclusion for several days, it is not only or simply
female contamination from which bachelors seek cleansing. They
are not allowed to see each other's palms, soles of feet, genitalia,
armpits and other body parts which have come into contact with the
'mundane' world (Gray 1973 : 1 39). For example, feet have trodden
on pig faeces and are thus contaminating. Bachelors wash their eyes
continually for they have seen dogs copulating and children and pigs
urinating. In sum, not women, but 'unclean' things of all sorts are
polluting and inimical to the proper growth of boys into adult men,
the explicit objective of sangailsandalu. 'All the shortcomings and
imperfections of the mundane world must also be excluded from
this rite' (Gray 1973 : 140). Bachelors emerge from seclusion in a
state of koe, 'bad', that is, ritually pure, vigorous and highly
dangerous. 3 1 The same term is used for menstruating, fertile women
(Gray 1 973 : 1 1 6), who are potent and dangerous. Warriors and
menstruating women are 'equivalent', a point strikingly expressed
when young men dress as women at festivals and dances where con
frontation with other groups is expected. Also, immediately after
menarche, young girls wear warrior regalia (Gray 1 973 : 17). The
message, not heard in societies to the east, is clear: both strong war
riors and strong women are necessary and vital to the group, for
defence and reproduction (Gray 1973 : 1 1 6).
It should also be pointed out that the timing of sangai and san
dalu is dependent on the timing of the tee exchange system. When
the tee nears, young men are sent off to sangai (see Kleinig 1 955 : 8 ) .
When bachelors emerge from seclusion, they recount dreams they
have had in a state of purity; these become important omens.
Almost all dreams are connected with the performance of the
coming tee. Sangai brings together thousands of people, a very good
audience for bigmen to address about forthcoming tee plans. Thus,
here as elsewhere in the western highlands, the facts of exchange
take priority over those of cult life.
When bachelors present themselves to the community following
seclusion, it is as young men especially attractive to girls, as prospec-
31
I participated in sandalu during fieldwork, and all of the women who Jived near
me refused to touch me or come near for weeks after my seclusion. They told me
later that I was so pure, I was dangerous.
tive husbands to the assembled women. The bachelors adorn them

selves, their skin is rubbed with oil and they are decorated with their
finest valuables. Women chant and sing as they wait for them
to appear, and then may pull the youths out of order, assaulting
them and stealing their valuables, perhaps to be claimed later as
bridewealth. This is clearly not a cult which seeks the separation
of men from women, but rather, one which is designed to display
bachelors as sexually appealing to women, to attract them as
brides.
In myth, women gave sangai to men. A puny, ugly boy, too young
for sangai, was seduced by a beautiful woman in the forest and, after
sexual intercourse all night, found himself to have grown strong and
handsome by morning. He was warned by her not to give away the
secret of his rapid maturation, but he did to other youths returning
from sangai who had not grown nearly so well. The woman was
slain and her body dismembered. But the iris plants, used today in
sangai, grew where her breasts were buried (Gray 1 973 : 108-12).
The sangai iris is female and is essential to male growth. To quote
Gray, 'in this ritual, men do not remove female influences from their
bodies, but instead come into contact with an exceedingly powerful,
fertile influence via the sangai iris . . . [theyl partake of fertility itself,
in the form of the growth-promoting sangai iris' ( 1 973 : 14 1 ) .32 The
fertility and sexuality of women are powerful and are recognised by
men in sangai. Far from excluding women, these cults incorporate
their power and accord it high significance.
Menstrual blood may also not be quite the singularly debilitating
substance others have claimed. Enga women dispose of their men
strual blood by wrapping it in a parcel and placing it in the wedge of
a tree. If it is protected from the elements, its power will bring
wealth in pigs and crops to a woman's husband. While men are
wary of the potent danger of menstrual blood 'they listen proudly
when their wives recount how they put their menstrual blood in the
branches of the taro tree' (Gray 1 973 : 1 16).33 Brandewie ( 1 98 1 : 1 22)
writes that, in Melpa too, the 'power' inherent in menstrual blood is
recognised: blood is dangerous because of its potency. 'Polluting'
and 'contaminating' appear to be the wrong adjectives. He further
32
Gray ( 1973: 141n.) notes further that the experience of sangai/sandalu and the
association with the female sangai iris is so powerful that it can sometimes turn a
boy into a woman. 'A transvestite man lived in Laiagam, married to a "big man".
He became a woman during his sangai'.
33
Laiagam Enga equate menstrual blood with husband's blood. Husband and wife
may share the same blood based on distant uterine connections (Gray 1973:45).
notes that Melpa men are not overly concerned with first inter
course; both sexes are thought to enjoy the sex act; and many, many
acts of intercourse are necessary to conceive a child. The latter belief
is shared by Enga who adamantly point out that pigs and dogs
require only one.
Huli of the southern highlands have bachelor associations but
they are voluntary and do not include all youths; those who elect to
join must pay an entrance fee (Glasse 1965 :42). Bog-iris is used here
too, to induce growth and vitality, and again myths link these plants
to menstrual blood. When bachelors emerge from seclusion, they
are clearly in a state of dangerous purity; both women and men treat
them with detached restraint. Yet, in a similar fashion to Enga,
'women greatly admire the young bachelors and regard them as at
tractive future husbands' (Glasse 1965 :43 ). While it appears that
Huli show great anxiety over sexual matters and menstruation
(Allen 1 967:49-50), an interpretation similar to that for Enga is
apt: menstruating women are dangerous, powerful and potent like
young, desired bachelors. Contamination is not a subtle enough in
terpretation.
Huli also participate in cults similar to those of the Melpa called
tege. 3 4 These are often precipitated by a catastrophe, drought or epi
demic, and aim to restore health and fertility to gardens, pigs and
humans. Sexual separation or antagonism do not figure in these
rituals; women dance in tege ceremonies and partake of pork and fat
offered to ancestors for protection. During one phase of the tege
ceremony, male participants accuse each other of misbehaviour,
and this often develops into a fracas of man against man. Allen
( 1 967:5 1 ) remarks that ' tege rites are more directly concerned with
male hostility and conflict than with the sex relationship'. Male soli
darity is hardly an outcome of such cults.
The ethnography of western and southern highlands societies
clearly demonstrates that, in ritual, sexual separation, sexual antag
onism, female pollution and contamination, and abrogation, con
trol or denial of feminine values are not remotely dominant themes.
Rituals and cults do not further polarise the sexes or serve as a
'charter' for denigration of females as they do in the eastern high
lands. Rather, they reflect the secular situation in which women's
roles are considered crucial, their importance stressed, and their
status relatively high.
34
Wrongly termed 'initiation rites' by Glasse (1 965:42).
The secular focus of male-female interaction centres on concerns

of wealth transactions. Far from simply being producers for men's
prestigious, political pursuits, women exercise considerable say
over the exchange and placement of their products. Mendi women,
for instance, have their own exchange partners and operate indepen
dently of their husbands and brothers (Lederman 1 980), sometimes
even more actively. Mendi brides distribute their own bridewealth
(as do Tombema-Enga), 'it is hers to dispose of as she thinks fit, and
that her kinsmen are acting only as her agents' (Ryan 1 969: 166 ;
Lederman 1 980:495) . I n these societies, women have greater free
dom in choice of spouse, and divorce and separation reflect a
woman's ability to coerce and be independent of the constraints
noted elsewhere in the highlands. Among Huli, a woman takes the
initiative in marriage proceedings, offering herself to the mother of
the man she seeks. A bride distributes her bridewealth. 'A Huli
woman may own pigs and other valuables in her own right, and she
may give them away without consulting anyone . . . Huli women
enjoy fairly high status' (Glasse 1 962:85). It is no less the case that
Huli women can easily escape unhappy marriages and cannot be re
stricted or rigidly controlled by men.
In these societies, and notably in Melpa and Enga as well, the
intensifying production and exchange of valuables has prompted a
crucial transformation in the pattern of social relations: 'network'
exchanges have assumed an increasing emphasis at the expense of
'corporate' group exchanges. In some societies they have eclipsed
them (Enga and Mendi perhaps) ; in others, these two exchange
forms are more evenly balanced (in Melpa). More of this will be said
in the following chapter. However, the exceedingly corporate soli
darity of eastern highlands societies is absent here and the expla
nation for it must be sought in proliferating exchange based on
intensive production. Lederman ( 1980:495) has written of the 'cul
tural emphasis' on networks (and groups) in Mendi, and through
out this region, the autonomy and influence of women is related
precisely to the fact that, in every case, exchange networks are
mediated, fostered, created and reproduced by women. They are the
essential fulcrum of exchange arrangements. They not only produce
valuables with their husbands, but participate in their exchange.
The whole configuration of male-female relations in this part of the
highlands proceeds from this first fact.
Vicedom and Tischner ( 1943-48 [2] : 232) described Melpa
women as having 'a higher status than elsewhere in Melanesia', as
being 'full members of society' and the relationship between the

sexes as being 'easy and natural'. Wirz (1 952a:9) wrote that Enga
women 'own pigs' and also have 'the right to lend out their animals
and to demand them back at the next tee'. The first statements on
women made by the earliest ethnographers in the area (see above,
for example, Ryan and Glasse) are still current and relevant today
(see Feil 1978b,c; 1984a,b), and make it abundantly plain that
women's high status and independence are by no means a recent
phenomenon or the result of some glibly perceived 'social change'
(see Langness 1976; Herdt and Poole 1982:20). 3 5 Attention to the
history and development of production and exchange in this area
demonstrates that, unlike elsewhere in the highlands, women have
long been crucial participants in the economic processes which are
only nascently evident outside the western highlands.
Women in Between (A. M. Strathern 1 972) is, of course, the
classic study of Melpa women. A. M. Strathern argues that the
domain of women is primarily that of production while that of men
is exchange. Exchange is accorded highest prestige, and production
and exchange are in some sense opposed categories (but recall that
there is 'no direct linguistic correspondence in Melpa' between
women and production and men and exchange [A. M. Strathern
1972: 133]). The actual situation is a good deal less sharply defined
than this classification reveals. Women can be 'strong things' ac
knowledged by men as producers of pigs, food and children upon
which they rely. Some women are 'big-women' who have high
prestige, dance at pig-moka, and while their status derives from pro
duction, they also 'participate a little in transactions' (A. M. Stra
thern 1 972: 13 8 ) . 36 Women believe they influence their husband's
transactions and have a claim on them through their role in pig pro-
35
It could be argued that women's status has declined in the post-contact period.
Women had some control over productive means which has been eroded through
cash-cropping and other factors. On the other hand, at the time of the first de
scriptions of initiations and male-female relations in the eastern highlands, great
changes had already occurred. Are these descriptions, as implied, the timeless
standard of 'tradition' from which other societies, through 'social change', have
altered? I think not, and one must be very careful about attributing differences
from the 'accepted view' of male-female relations in the highlands to some gen
eral process called 'social change', whatever that might be.
36
Women do engage in moka transactions (though not nearly on the scale of men),
but because of the distinction A. M. Strathern has built between transaction/
production, women appear only as 'quasi-transactors'. Melpa women are go
betweens, message bearers, symbolic 'roads' for valuables, but what do women
do as 'transactors'; and is 'quasi-transactor' the negative tag of Melpa men, or
the result of the ethnographer's dichotomy?
duction (see also Brandewie 1 9 8 1 : 123), and that moka cannot be

made without their assistance. In one dispute described by A. M.
Strathern ( 1 972: 141), a widow scuffled with a man over a set of
pearlshells at a public moka, eventually gaining three of them.
Women wear omak, symbols of 'male' transactional ability which
surely reflects on their participation. To some extent, men and
women view moka, and each other's participation in it, differently.
Men rhetorically exclude women but women say that 'men and
women alike are producers and transactors even though their
spheres of activity are different' (A. M. Strathern 1972: 153). Re
gardless of the ultimate interpretation (if such were possible), my
point remains comparative: women in Melpa society have consider
able influence and prestige beyond that remotely available to
women in the eastern highlands (see also Brandewie 198 1 : 123-4).
Women may not be the public performers, equivalent of men, but
their intermediary position ensures that political influence will
always be available to them. The moka, like the tee and other
exchange institutions in this region, depends on relations to persons
outside one's own group. Marriages are the 'roads' of transactions.
As A. M. Strathern puts it, Melpa 'delight in tracing out connections
through blood. Far from it being purged from her children (as is
done in the eastern highlands), the blood a mother contributes to
them becomes an idiom for the important extra-clan contacts her
marriage also brings' ( 1 972:296). Women demand transactional
considerations from their husbands and their own kin and may
suffer popokl (sickness from frustration used as sanction or revenge)
if their wishes are neglected or transactions not fulfilled (A. M. Stra
thern 1968). Men are well aware that women can thwart their goals,
that their noman (self, will, A. J. Strathern 1 9 8 1 ) is as strong as that
of men. Herein lies a further dimension of their autonomy and inde
pendence.
The status of women in Mount Hagen is paradoxical. While the
terms nyim (successful, important) and korpa (rubbish, worthless)
(A. M. Strathern 1 978) appear at first glance to be attached respect
ively to men and women, the way is open for either sex to cross these
lines. They are not indissolubly linked to gender and individual
women can be accorded the nyim status, that of being influential
and important. It may be too that the term nyim (see above nuim)
was once a high class designation in which women were members,
further adding to the abundant sexual contradictions. In Mount
Hagen, the lack of ritual concern over sexual separation and dif-
ferentiation is mirrored in a similarly blurred status distinction be

tween men and women in secular life. A range of possibilities is open
to women that are inconceivable, certainly, in much of the high
lands, and perhaps wider Melanesia as well.
Enga women remain to be discussed; much has been said already
(Feil 1978b,c, 1980, 1 9 8 1 , 1 984a,b). It can only be reiterated that
their influence and significance are similar to, if they do not exceed,
those of women elsewhere in this region. This is perhaps to be ex
pected if women's status is linked with intensified production and
exchange, for among Enga, the tee requires their fullest develop
ment among highland exchange institutions. This most complex
exchange system depends on partnerships created in theory and
largely in fact by women, and 'network' transactions in marriage,
death, homicide and, above all, in tee contexts, leave nothing for
corporate groups in this domain. There are no partnerships without
women and no valuables (pigs) to exchange. Pigs are owned by their
producers, men and women, and, as Wirz observed, they are inalien
able from them. Individual producers may lose temporary control
over their animals when they are sent outwards from home along
lengthy partnership chains, but the returns eventually find their way
back and decisions are then made about their new destination. Con
trary to the Melpa situation, perhaps, I would argue that exchange
and production are 'inseparable' in Enga thinking and the tasks per
formed by men and women are seen as complementary and interde
pendent. They are aimed at the same goal: achieving the largest tee,
giving away the most pigs, and thereby creating the sturdiest,
strongest interpersonal alliances. Some women are called 'strong
willed'; they have prestige not tied to their husbands. Their labour in
pig production and their role in fostering exchange relationships
lead some men to say that such a woman gives pig wherever she
likes; her husband would not disagree. Some women exchange di
rectly with men who have not exchanged previously with their hus
bands. Husband and wife rarely disagree over tee matters; their
individual motivations and concerns do not deny or prohibit the ful
filment of the other.
The political participation of Enga women cannot be measured
as a residue of corporate concerns or the jurality of patrilineal
descent, a structuralist fallacy which paid scant attention to the his
torical concomitants of an intensifying production and expanding
exchange economy. Nor does this perspective provide a satisfactory
interpretation of other aspects of male-female relations (see Meggitt
1 964). The tee institution is clearly linked to marriage and warfare

and, as such, women are crucially significant to these political
spheres. The Enga stand at one end of the highlands continuum
which has been the subject of this book: production is highest,
exchange is most vigorous and least parochial, groups lack corpo
rate solidarity and ties outside count for more than those to one's
brothers. In this political and economic web, ties through women
are the most reliable and necessary, and this fact gives women an
influential position. The 'total' institution of ceremonial exchange
cannot proceed without women and their high status derives from
that fact. 3 7
Conclusion
The argument of this chapter has now come full circle. In part, it
has been suggested that, as women's productive labour becomes
increasingly necessary to men's prestige-seeking, political pursuits
in the exchange of valuables, sexual antagonism, ideologies of domi
nation and a lessened status for women result. The apparent contra
diction in this view is that in those very societies in which exchange
and production are most intensive, and men's status totally reliant
on transactional ability, sexual inequalities and exploitation are
much reduced and women wield considerable power and influence.
What has occurred in the transformation from low to high produc
tion, from east to west in the highlands, to alter markedly the status
of women ? Or, has it been altered at all ?
Lindenbaum ( 1 982) has argued that while homosexual societies
are concerned with the 'making of masculinity' and eastern high
lands societies with the 'making of adult men' in initiation, western
highlanders concentrate on the 'making of bigmen'. In this process
of transition, she argues the mystification of women's reproductive
labour has been replaced by the mystification of her productive
labour; men alone claim status in wealth transactions built upon the
expropriated products of women's work. Similarly, Modjeska
( 1 9 82; see also Josephides 1983) has written that, with increased
production of pigs, in Enga and Melpa for instance, the burden of
37
There are other examples that can be mentioned. Among the Wola (Sillitoe
1979:93) we find that women receive payments from their husbands for tending
pigs and these are distributed by her to her key relatives. A. J. Strathern
( 1 978:87) writes of the Wiru that exchange relations are altogether mediated by
women and entirely dependent on them. These two southern highlands examples
confirm the general configuration in areas of high production.
labour has fallen primarily on women. With features of 'enchained

exchange' and 'principles of increment', women have increasingly
been separated from their products (pigs) and are, thus, more ex
ploited in 'high production systems' than in 'low production' ones.
Inequalities among men have also been legitimised and fostered
along the way.
In the evolutionary perspective advanced here, it is in societies of
relatively low production, those in the eastern highlands, which,
compared to those in the western highlands, have more recently in
tensified agriculture and pig husbandry, that we find the most antag
onistic and exploitative male-female relations. This economic fact
is, however, only part of a social and cultural formation which
includes the mutually ramifying features of rigid group boundaries,
male solidarity, relatedness traced only through 'patrilineal' con
structs, virilocality, endemic warfare, marriage which totally isol
ates women from their natal kin and has no political function, and
an extreme ethos of masculinity evident in male initiation and
despotism. These societies are in an 'early stage' of intensification,
in which women are merely producers, and there exist few struc
tures of integration in which women might figure. Production
remains constrained and exchange limited to occasional intergroup
or interpersonal encounters in which women play no role and
enmity between corporate groups of men is far more appropriate.
In the western highlands, intensive production is vastly older, and
social forms evolved apace which placed women in a unique struc
tural position, as surplus products were increasingly exchanged.
Affinal and matrilateral exchange partnerships came to predomi
nate. Marriage became politically salient and bridewealth was the
first transaction in future partnerships with in-laws, rather than just
the transfer of pigs for rights in women. Matrilateral kin became
very significant and to relinquish rights in sister's children, whom
they helped to create, they demanded injury and death compen
sation as recognition of that fact. Warfare was muted through
exchange, and exchange became the sole object of production.
Women were no longer relegated to strictly defined roles as pro
ducers. They came to have final say over the pigs they had raised and
worked so hard to nurture. They negotiated the placement of pigs
(see Feil 1 978c:226) and, if privately, were transactors. The
'abstract logic' of exploitation and 'systemic rigidities' of high pro
duction (Modjeska 1 982: 1 07) are betrayed by the real world and
the ethnographic reality which places western highlands women
apart from those elsewhere in the region. 3 8 There are certainly con
tradictory interests between men and women in high production
societies like Enga and Melpa, but the views and wishes of women
can never be ignored or dismissed as inconsequential. In these
societies, where exchange institutions are the focus of undivided
attention, relations between men and women, and those between
men, have a fundamentally different character to those eastward.
The focus of production has been transformed as have exchange re
lations. Accordingly, it is inconceivable that eastern highlanders
could organise pig exchanges of the scale of tee and moka (Langness
1 972) . We move on now to document this fact.
38
Modjeska ( 1982: 1 08) recognises this, belatedly, after attempting to prove the
contrary: 'the contradiction of interests originating in the relations of men and
women to the system of production are not necessarily amplified with the intensi
fication of production, and this makes models of the kind proposed here poten
tially misleading'. A narrow concern with 'exploitation', however defined, does
not give us a full enough picture of the totality of male-female relations in the
highlands.
8 Ceremonial exchange
The Te introduces the element of credit, trust, of mediated and

delayed exchange, which is finally completed and ratified
publicly and ceremonially. This is an important economic
advance. Exchange is no longer just face to face; but rather does
it bind space and time. Individuals in a long series of communities
are linked together in a common 'transaction'
Elkin (1953 : 1 97)
Consider the following depictions of exchange at opposite ends of

the highlands:
Friendship, alas, seems harder than its opposite to promote or maintain.
In addition to the need for friendly efforts to be continuous and often
costly, they must also be essentially public and explicit . . . The quality of
friendship is overt and assertive. Even fairly slight tokens of amiry,
accordingly, may be handled by Northern Tairora in an explicit, cere
monious, often flamboyant way. The style is so marked as sometimes to
seem to outsiders either offensively boastful and ostentatious or grossly
mercenary in its detailing of even the smallest consideration or favor,
something to be counted like a debt, as it were, against one's vaunted
friends.
Countergifts are typically required as a part of this same strenuous
concern with public demonstration and acknowledgment. Much is
clearly at stake . . . In the absence of sustained acts of amiry, and some
times even in their presence, the actor is free to worry and to suppose
what he will Q. Watson 1983:214-15).
And in contrast to this:

One old man told me that when they made [the Enga] Te the procedure
was as follows: A friend from a nearby tribe would come to his house in
the evening and after a brief and pleasant visit would go home again.
During his stay his guest would unostentatiously place a small package
233
behind his back, and after the friend had left he would open the package.
Expertly bound up in the choicest leaves and bound up in the tastiest
spinach-like greens would be a small cooked pig stuffed with the best
seasoning and deliciously salted. So delighted and honoured would he
feel at this splendid gesture that the next morning he would take his best
and biggest pig and cut a slit in its ear, thus designating it as the return
payment for his friend's gift to him (Kleinig 1 955 :6-7).
Certainly no more than impressionistic, these two perspectives

indicate, nevertheless, differing ethos of exchange which are poles
apart. At one end is the exaggerated 'generosity' barely disguising
naked, stingy self-interest. Each 'gift' is part of a scrupulously kept
mental ledger. Transactions in this part of the highlands are no more
than an aspect of unstable social relations between groups and,
more rarely, individuals. Friends and enemies are hard to dis
tinguish; ostentatious offerings seek security, but do not attain it;
subtlety is inappropriate, 'better safe than sorry' (J. Watson
1983:215).
I f the characterisation o f the eastern highlanders a s nouveau riche
(see Chapter 3 ) seemed flippant, in the exchange sphere they con
tinue to impress as parvenu. Many ethnographers have remarked on
this aspect of their behaviour. Newman referred to the Gururumba
as 'thing-oriented' ( 1 965 : 5 1 ) ; Read characterised the Gahuku
Gama as 'materialists . . . to the point of exhaustion' ( 1965 :60); and
Stanner wrote of the Siane as 'ebullient materialists' (Salisbury
1962:viii). The overwhelming emphasis of exchange here appears to
be on the items themselves, or at least on gaining the upper hand, if
only precariously, over the recipients. In this threatening climate
there is little chance of sustained partnerships. Certainly, marriage
and matrilateral ties do not provide them. In sum, all the evidence
suggests that exchange in the eastern highlands has barely devel
oped; hardly reached its 'potential' if that be what western highlan
ders have made of it. Production for exchange is low here by
comparison; other pursuits dominate, and these facts have an evol
utionary dimension to them as has been argued throughout.
Exchange across the highlands varies dramatically in every facet,
including its guiding principles of morality and, while less tangible
perhaps, they should never be ignored.
An early writer on the tee emphasised that its aims were 'elevated'
and 'noble', 'social' rather than 'commercial' (Wirz 1952b). One
would not want to overstate this magnanimity, but, in the western
highlands, the exchange process is inspired by a commingling of
Ceremonial exchange 235
motives, in which the items themselves are secondary. Exchange

partnerships are vital, they are ceremonially enriched and trans
actions are aimed as much at the recipient's 'person'; partnerships
here are a 'dear thing to any man' (Van Baal 1975 : 5 3 ) . While cer
emonial presentations are public events, witnessed by thousands, a
good deal of the interaction of exchange is handled privately be
tween partners; it does not resemble the calculated and mercenary
acts frequently remarked on by eastern highlands' ethnographers, in
which private dealings would pose only a contradiction. Bus
( 1 95 1 : 8 1 8 ) was moved to describe the tee as 'very quiet, almost
solemn, as compared with other native feasts'. Elkin ( 1953 : 1 82)
noted its 'orderly arrangement and activity', a clear demonstration
that much of the really serious activity had taken place between
partners well before the public 'show'.
While exchange may have a slightly more pronounced moral
component in these societies, less ostentatious and unabashedly self
serving, in the more substantial, empirical detail, exchange insti
tutions have been strikingly elaborated. In many societies, but most
clearly in tee and moka, the exchange system is more like a common
wealth in which, if not permanently, local issues and parochial con
cerns, are overridden. Exchange involves everyone and links
individuals in communities far and wide. The exchange system is
'global'. Production for exchange incorporates all other production
spheres; all decisions of production have exchange as a backdrop. In
the western highlands, the evolutionary developments, which have
been the subject of this book, have yielded economies which are no
longer inward-looking, narrow in design or underproductive. Other
concomitants of this trajectory, warfare, leadership and social struc
ture, even male-female relations, have been transformed apace. In
this chapter, institutions of exchange will be examined in detail;
they are another, if not the sharpest, indication that the 'present' in
the New Guinea highlands is a clear reflection of a varying, diver
gent past.
Scale
The size and scale of highland New Guinea pig festivals and
exchange cycles are very difficult to measure and compare. Chapter
3 provided some details on the size of pig herds from east to west,
and the amount of productive energy directed towards feeding and
maintaining them. As noted, there is a good correlation between
language size, population density and size of pig herds across the
highlands; all expanded from east to west. Sorenson ( 1 972:36 1 ) and
others, similarly, have suggested that, in a general way, the elabora
tion of pig cycles also increases from east to west. The trend is unde
niable and its social correlates and history have been documented in
previous chapters. Table 5 gives some further, bare details on 'pig
festivals' in the highlands, most of which demand extended com
ment.
Plate 5. A discussion the day before a major tee exchange in Enga,

western highlands. Each stake represents a pig to be given away;
the length of each row of stakes demonstrates the extent of the
productive and financial capacity of a man and his wife
The same configurations of societies, which have emerged in

other contexts, patently reappear here. The Anga, for instance, 'do
not participate in ceremonial exchange activities' (Herdt 198 1 :24).
In one hamlet studied by Herdt, the pig herd numbered fifteen for a
population of 140 persons, a figure of 0.1 pig per person. This
places Sambia well below the ratios shown earlier for their eastern
highlands neighbours. Herdt also reports that Sambia elders said
that they had never kept pigs; only in the last few generations have
they been introduced. This point accords well with the hypothesised
Table 5. Pig festivals and pig exchange cycles of the Papua New Guinea highlands
Pigs killed
Society Periodicity presented Number Source
live
Sambia No ceremonies Killed Herdt ( 1 9 8 1 :24)

(Anga)
Awa No ceremonies Killed 1-2 Boyd ( 1 985a: 123)
Tairora No ceremonies Killed 5-10 J. Watson ( 1 983 :52)
(would be
outstanding)
Auyana No ceremonies Killed Robbins ( 1982)
Gads up No ceremonies Killed Du Toit ( 1975 : 1 63)
Siane Every 3 years Killed Salisbury ( 1962)
Usurufa Every 5-6 years Killed Berndt ( 1962)
Gahuku- Every 5-7 years Killed Read ( 1 952)
Gama
Gururumba Every 5-7 years Killed Newman ( 1965)
Fore Every 5-15 years Killed 100 Sorenson ( 1976:54)
(per village of
230 persons
approximately
0.4 per person)
Fore No ceremonies Killed Lindenbaum ( 1979)
Chimbu Every 7-1 0 years Killed 1 per head Brookfield & Brown
( 1963:58-9)
Chimbu Every 8 years Killed Hide (n.d.)
Maring Every 12-15 years Killed 0.7 per head Rappaport
( 1 968: 156)
Kuma Every 15 years Killed 1 per head Luzbetak ( 1 954)
Melpa 4-5 year cycle Live 300-400 pigs, Strathern (1971a)
1200 shells;
for Kawelka
pop. 860
Enga 3-4 year cycle Live 30,000 pigs Meggitt ( 1958)
circulating
Mendi Every 15 years Killed 500-1,000 per Ryan (1961)
clan cluster;
pop. unknown
Wola Every 5 years Killed 0.6 per head Sillitoe ( 1979)
Kewa Every 8 years ( ?) Killed 0.5 per head Le Roy ( 1979a)
Wiru Every 5 years Killed 0.2 per head A. J. Strathern
( 1 971b, 1978)
Huli No ceremonies• Killed/ Goldman ( 1 983:23);
live Glasse ( 1 968); see
Modjeska ( 1982)
for related Duna
• While Huli and Duna do not have periodic ceremonies, they engage in homicide
compensations of large scale.
late adoption of sedentism and sweet potato cultivation among

Anga groups. Only after these events occurred did pigs appear. Even
to the present, their production is at the lowest level in the highlands
and given scant social value (Godelier 1982). For that very reason,
pigs and pork are rarely used on ceremonial occasions; when they
are, it is pork, not live pigs, that is transacted.
Anga are clearly at one end of the continuum of exchange and
production; the 'Kainantu' group of societies are nearer that end,
but attention to pig production and the contexts of exchange have
increased. These societies still boast no periodic pig festivals, nor
have they ever had them in the past (see, for example, J. Watson
1 983 :52; Boyd 1 984:28, 1 985a: 123; Du Toit 1975 : 163).1 Produc
tion of pigs is not geared to major events; rather, pigs are killed irre
gularly at small-scale, usually local events, which have little, if any,
impact on wider social relations (see below). J. Watson suggests a
slaughter of as many as five to ten pigs 'would be outstanding' in
Northern Tairora ( 1 9 8 3 : 52). Here, village populations number
about 1 85 persons. The Awa are similar. Boyd (1985a: 123) reports
that one or two pigs might be killed at very limited, local events, in a
community like Irakia, which numbers 272 people. Awa have re
cently 'intensified' pig production efforts, but ceremonial occasions
are few and the size of their distributions extremely modest. Gadsup
rarely include pigs or pork in distributions, and Du Toit advises that
even a 'vague' pig complex is absent there ( 1 975 : 1 63 ) . Auyana
(Robbins 1982) also closely follow this pattern. The point is that
pigs are raised primarily to be eaten, not to be distributed as 'gifts'
outside the local community. The production and exchange of pigs
has barely developed in the economies of narrow, domestic orienta
tion.
It is in the Asaro societies of Siane, Usurufa, Gahuku-Gama,
Gururumba, and perhaps Fore,2 that production and exchange
arrangements have increased. In this set of societies, periodic pig
festivals occur for the first time. Aside from the Siane pig feast,
1
J. Watson ( 1983 :54) notes that, in Northern Tairora, 'European' events were used
as contexts within which to make larger distributions, involving more people and
pigs, than were ever held in precolonial times.
2
Fore are questionable here (see Lindenbaum 1979: 154n. in which she notes thai
Fore have only recently begun to stage pig festivals). Lindenbaum also writes that
these festivals 'advertise group strength'. 'Parishes give pigs to one another in bois
terous, competitive ceremonies, in which the predominant theme is self
aggrandisement and the embarrassment of recipients. They communicate
dominance and distribute wealth.' 'New' Fore festivals thus fall neatly into the
eastern highlands pattern documented here.
which is held every three years (Salisbury 1 962:93 ), other societies

in this family stage festivals every five to seven years; the Fore every
five to fifteen years (Sorenson 1 976:54). Few quantitative details on
the number of pigs killed and extent of their distribution are avail
able. Sorenson suggests that up to 1 00 pigs per village may be killed
in Fore feasts. Fore villages average 230 persons, so that about 0.4
pigs per head were killed and given away during these festivals. I
would argue that this figure might well apply for all festivals in the
Asaro group. Hide (n.d.) has shown that in Chimbu herds, at least,
the rates of pig production are very low, as is the survival rate of
piglets, and that growth of pigs is also slow. Mating of sows in
Asaro societies depends on wild boar (unlike Chimbu and other
societies westward: see Chapter 3 ) . With festivals held so fre
quently, it is unlikely that particularly massive slaughters could take
place.
It will be further emphasised below, but it must be remembered
that in Asaro groups it is the initiation of boys which is of para
mount social importance, rather than the 'adjunct' pig festivals
which follow. New age-grades of warriors must be periodically
inducted and if pig herds are ready too, so much the better. There is
no indication that there is a delay in initiation if pigs are in short
supply. The timing of events is predicated on the requirements of
warfare and initiation, not exchange. Salisbury ( 1 962:93n.) long
ago summed up this important comparative point: the 'economic,
calculating aspect of deliberations about the timing of Pig Feasts is
outweighed in importance for the Siane by the need to initiate a new
group of boys and to obtain ancestral blessings. A significant con
trast might be made with the somewhat similar Pig Feasts of the
Mae (Enga) and Mount Hagen peoples to the west . . . where econ
omic considerations appear to be primary.' Given such motivations
for pig feasts in Asaro societies, the view of Langness, given at the
end of the preceding chapter, is more understandable.
In the central Wahgi, especially among Chimbu and Kuma, the
scale of festivals, in terms of the number of pigs killed per'person,
more than doubles. The production of pigs is more intensive in these
societies and geared to very large events which take place every
seven to ten years in Chimbu (Hide n.d. : 1 4 reports eight years in
Sina Sina in recent times), while in Kuma they occur about every fif
teen years. The evidence for Maring (Rappaport 1 968) is that pig
production is less intensive: no uncastrated boars are kept and rates
of farrowing are very low. Maring rely almost exclusively on the
slow build-up of their herds, that is, on natural increase rather than
the importation of pigs and, accordingly, kaiko may be staged every
twelve to fifteen years (Rappaport 1 968: 156).
In Chimbu and Kuma, the number of pigs killed at major festivals
is about one per head. Luzbetak ( 1 954: 1 12) reports that, during one
day at various grounds around Nondugl (in the middle Wahgi
valley), 'some two thousand large pigs were slaughtered' while
'silent European on-lookers called the ceremony "sickening" '. Of
all the societies whose festivals involve the slaughtering of pigs and
distribution of pork, those of Chimbu and Kuma are, by far, the lar
gest, and the most integrating and politically salient. They far
outstrip those in the eastern highlands whose festivals involve fewer,
smaller pigs, shorter cycles, and events of mainly local significance
(Brown 1 978 :222; Hide n.d. :2n.). About the only way these festi
vals could be further increased in scale would be to broaden the pro
ductive base, by using the pigs of others, and then to avoid the cyclic
depletion of herds to such an extent that reproduction is less jeo
pardised and slow: to wit, by exchanging live pigs rather than pork.
Societies immediately westward of Chimbu and Kuma, Melpa and
Enga, exchange live pigs in moka and tee, the exchange institutions
of greatest span and scale in all of the highlands. They are thus at
one end of the continuum, that of most elaborate exchange activity.
To their south, however, are other congeries of groups which
organise pig festivals on a scale perhaps intermediate between
Chim bu and Kuma, and Asaro societies. Mendi, W ola, Kewa and
Wiru all kill pigs at periodic festivals held every five to fifteen years.
Further to the southwest, Huli (Glasse 1 968 ; Goldman 1983) and
Duna (Modjeska 1 982) participate in no cyclical festivals, but make
considerable payments of live pigs and pork as war indemnity and
other compensation reparations. Thus, Melpa and Enga are sur
rounded by exchange systems of lesser scale, intensity of produc
tion, and elaboration of detail. The tee and moka may well be linked
historically, even prehistorically, and have as their common origin
the area around Mount Hagen, where intensive agricultural produc
tion first effloresced in the highlands and the wide-ranging exchange
of surpluses became possible.
The scale of moka and tee is hard to compare with festivals in
which pigs are killed and pork distributed. The fact that pigs are pre
sented live means, of course, that there are more pigs in circulation
at any one time, and can be handled successively by different
people. 3 In both exchange systems the object is not to build up herds

for a climactic slaughter, but to transact continually; pigs are con
stantly changing hands and production does not vary to the extent it
does in 'pig festival societies', inclined as they are to slow, inexor
able increases in herd size. Ceremonial production is continuous, as
is the unabated give and take of transactions.
A. ]. Strathern (1971a, Chapter 7) provides details of one moka
sequence involving three prestations in a chain of four clans. Up to
400 pigs were involved. The highest average contribution was 4.28
live pigs per contributor. In addition, over 1200 shells were included
in the payments, at an average of over ten shells per contributor. It is
important to remember that shells have, in part, been acquired from
the exchange of pigs (A. J. Strathern 1971a: 146), so that the number
of pigs 'represented' in this moka is very large indeed.4 Melpa
groups are linked in moka chains (A. ]. Strathern 1 969b:54) and the
cycle for the return of payments, made previously, is four to five
years (A. ]. Strathern 1 969b:60). Reciprocal payments will un
doubtedly contain increments on the original prestation, for they
are an inherent aspect, indeed, the very meaning of moka.
The tee cycle traditionally took three to four years to complete,
including initiatory, main and final phases. Transactions were
spread (unevenly) during this period, and the whole cycle began
again immediately that the final phase was over. There was a con
stant flow of pigs between people, the marking of phases being
mainly heuristic. During one tee in the late 1 960s and early 1970s,
42 men in one clan (with their families, about 250 people) gave 2267
pigs, an average of 54 pigs per man and just under 9 pigs per person
(Feil 1984b). Over 400 shells were also presented to partners. The
overwhelming majority of pigs were given live. Meggitt ( 1 9 5 8 ) esti
mated that 30,000 pigs were involved in a tee among Mae-Enga.
Feachem ( 1973) suggests that there may be 160,000 pigs in central
Enga. I have estimated that three-quarters of those would be
involved in tee transactions (Feil 1984b:244). Quite clearly, the
scale of tee dramatically exceeds that of other pig cycles, moka in
cluded.
With live pigs transacted in tee, the size of an individual bigman's
3
The Melpa moka may not just involve the exchange of live pigs. A. ]. Strathern
( 1 969b:54n.) writes that some Mount Hagen groups hold large pig kills. Stra
thern classifies moka with tee, rather than with the Chim bu bug/a gende or Mendi
mok ink, but it is not clear-cut. See below for further discussion of these interrela
tionships.
4
A. ]. Strathern (1971a:l04) gives some rates of exchange, pigs for shells.
prestation can be very large. Bus ( 1 95 1 : 820) reports that one

bigman gave away 3 00 pigs on one occasion; several others gave
more than 100. Elkin ( 1953) saw one man give 106 pigs; Bulmer
( 1960a) reported 5 8 pigs given by one man; Kleinig ( 1 955) writes
that several men gave away 200 pigs, some as many as 500. At one,
admittedly 'minor', tee, one bigman known to me gave away 1 0 1
pigs (Feil 1 984b: 1 66). The tee system and, to a lesser extent, the
moka, are based on credit, on obtaining pigs from many sources,
not just from 'home production'. The degree to which this feature of
the exchange process is utilised sets these two systems apart from all
others in the highlands. Exchange of live pigs implies transactional
continuity;5 many, many people are linked through relentless give
and take. Tee and moka are not so much events, as they are pro
cesses with no fixed beginning or end, requiring unceasing energy
and attention both to production of valuables and to their place
ment.
Contexts
Not only does the scale of ceremonial events increase dramati

cally from east to west, but so do the specific occasions on which
pigs are obligatorily exchanged and, more importantly, the inter
relationship of these occasions with the periodic pig festivals and
cycles.
In the far eastern highlands where no festivals occur, there are
relatively few contexts in which pigs are required. They were not
used in bridewealth among Awa (Boyd 1 985a: 123) nor to compen
sate enemies and allies; in Gadsup and Tairora, the uses of pigs were
similarly modest, but with 'post-contact activities' (baptisms, elec
tions, court settlements) new opportunities arose to distribute pork
on a scale greater than in traditional times (J. Watson 1 983 :52). In
5
Pigs in the tee are inalienable from their producers. While they are sent out along
tee networks, replacements for them, or, less frequently, the very pig (as pork)
returns to the original source. In tee thinking, as long as the pig is still alive,
wherever it may be, the original owner still has claim on it. There is thus a long
period of interest in specific transactions. In the eastern highlands, on the other
hand, once pigs are killed and distributed, the transaction process is closed and
comes to an end. Transactions, like social relations with outsiders, are prema
turely truncated, not as continuous with pork as they are with live pigs. As well,
when sows are sent out in the tee, the litters they eventually bear are considered in
part, at least, the property of the original owner. Again, the continuity of trans
actions between partners and the inalienability of original production are empha
sised.
Plate 6. Aided by his partner, a man calls the names of recipients of

his pigs in an Enga tee
Auyana, 'life crisis' events were marked by the killing of pigs, but
more often, garden produce was used in transactions of first men
struation, marriage and initiation (Robbins 1 982). Distributions
were not part of any wider exchange system, and whatever debts
were incurred were diffuse. Throughout much of the eastern high
lands, vegetable produce, rather than pigs, is the major item in cer
emonial prestations. In the western highlands, garden produce
would never be so used.
Where pig festivals first occur, among Gahuku-Gama, Siane,
Gururumba, and Bena Bena, the use of pigs increases, in marriage,
death and initiation contexts. But food remains a valuable wealth
item. More importantly, periodic pig festivals are not related to
other contexts of exchange. Distributions at these festivals are
aimed, predominantly, to discharge debts to one other group only
and are collective events (see below). 'Gifts' at festivals repay those
received at earlier festivals; there have been few, if any, transactions
between major events. There is no way of bringing gifts made on
other occasions into the sphere of pig festivals; they are essentially
unrelated. There can be no conversion of debts from one nexus of
exchange to another, and there is little systematisation to the total

exchange process. This is, perhaps, no more than to be expected,
where production for exchange is less intensive than elsewhere and
where warfare prevents continuous transacting with those outside
one's own group.
Contexts requiring the exchange of pigs increase further in
Chimbu. In addition to initiation and bridewealth (in both of which
there are more pigs given than in societies to the east [Brown
1970: 109]), death payments, compensation payments to allies,
injury, truce and other prestations must be made with pigs. There
are also large collective distributions of specific 'scarce' foods be
tween clans (mogena biri). At Chimbu pig festivals, pork is given to
a wide range of persons linked to the giver. Recipients are likely to
be the same as those who receive and reciprocate in other contexts.
We may find here the first signs of an all-encompassing exchange
'system'. Brown (1970 : 1 10) hints that this is the case. Different
groups take it in turns to make bug/a gende (pig festivals) which
would further suggest some coordination to the build-up of debts in
several contexts, and then their repayment.
In both Melpa and Enga, we find the greatest number of contexts
which oblige the exchange of pigs, but also the total organisation of
every 'subsidiary' occasion into a single, all-embracing system, tee
and moka. A. J. Strathern ( 197la:93-4) lists some of the categories
under which gifts of pigs and shells are made: bridewealth, child
growth payments, first hair-cut, payments as a child grows up,
death payments, homicide payments, compensation and injury pay
ments, and so on. Brandewie ( 1 968) notes several others. Every
event of social import is marked by the exchange of pigs. While A. J.
Strathern (197la:94) emphasises that 'war payments' are the most
likely to be 'converted' into the moka system, his discussion makes it
amply clear that every other type of payment is a potential vehicle
for the initiation of continuance of moka partnerships and moka
payments. While gifts are called by specific names, the moka
appears to encompass them all under one umbrella so that transfers
and conversions are possible and all events feed into one system.
This is explicitly so in the tee. Enga remarked to me that 'a man
can call a gift anything he chooses, but it is still the tee'. The tee is
best understood to be a 'general' all-encompassing exchange insti
tution, within which all kinds of debts are both incurred and repaid.
Tee partnerships can develop from any specific event (see Feil
1984b: 137) of which there is an endless multitude, matching those
of the Melpa. Even marriage and the direction from which brides are
taken and, most certainly, bridewealth itself, must be seen as part of
the tee system (Feil 1 980b). Both tee and moka as systems are, by
far, the most fully developed in all of the highlands, and facilitate
continuous transacting between partners and would-be partners.
The same features of credit, finance and delayed reciprocity govern
the flow of all payments, regardless of context, which all ultimately
merge indistinguishably into the wider, enveloping institution.
In both Mendi and Wola, contexts and occasions of pig trans
actions are also numerous. Ryan ( 1 9 6 1 ) makes it explicit, further
more, that whatever the specific exchange, whether for death,
mortuary, bridewealth, injury, or warfare (and many others), it is re
lated to the system of twem partnerships, similar to those operating
in moka and tee. Gifts made on any occasion can instigate twem re
lations, or can be used to repay outstanding debts to twem partners.
Wola exchange contexts, while equally numerous (Sillitoe 1 979),
appear to lack the same systematisation, yet major pig kills are used
as occasions to repay debts incurred at other times.
With the increasing production of pigs in the western and
southern highlands, it comes as no surprise that the contexts of
exchange have also proliferated. Production, and demands on pro
duction, operate in continuous feedback. Large pig herds result
from the density and importance of social and political relationships
which create a demand for pigs and require increasing exchange
contexts to reinforce and maintain social relations. With new
demands have also developed novel mechanisms for securing pigs;
'home production' had to be exceeded and complex financial and
credit procedures necessarily grew.
'Home production', finance and consumption
The scale of pig festivals and pig cycles reflects quantitative dif
ferences in rates of production, finance and consumption. Some pro
duction indices were given in Chapter 3; here I want to concentrate
on where pigs (to be killed or given away live) come from, and how
they are disposed. A. J. Strathern ( 1 969b) has proposed a very useful
distinction about one feature of ceremonial exchange systems in the
highlands. Some, he argues, are marked by heavy reliance on home
production; others rely primarily on 'financial' methods. Where
finance prevails, men maintain partnerships with others and secure
pigs from them at the time of ceremonial prestations. As Strathern
points out, there are definite advantages and potential liabilities as
sociated with each 'strategy'. These polar types, which vary strik
ingly, yet predictably, from east to west in the highlands, also clearly
document the increasing social and political dimensions of exchange
in societies which have broadened their economic bases beyond
domestic concerns.
In eastern highlands societies, a high proportion of pigs slaught
ered for distribution are produced by the givers; there is little or no
finance from extra-group sources and pigs killed are mostly con
sumed by the community in which they were raised. Production
units and consumption units largely overlap. In many of these
societies, it is considered improper to eat one's own pigs, but this
injunction does not extend beyond the community to which one be
longs. This taboo may be indicative of 'low production' formations
(Modjeska 1 982:55). J. Watson, for example, notes that in Nor
thern Tairora, pigs used in the 'small-scale' distributions which
characterise this society are 'largely limited to the animals contrib
uted by one locality' ( 1 9 8 3 :52). Robbins ( 1982:23 1 ) estimates that,
in Auyana, 'only about 1 0 per cent' of pigs distributed at events
come from sources outside. Furthermore, it is clear from his tables
that the greater part of the pork is consumed by the immediate pro
ducers (termed the 'pooling unit'), or trickles outside to a few others
for war aid. Exchange provides little of the integration evident else
where. In Auyana too, when pigs are given to others to raise, they
are always community members, never persons resident outside
(Robbins 1 982:225) . Boyd's ( 1 984) detailed material from Irakia
Awa further confirms these patterns. In one year, 126 pigs were
added to the village herd, 61 by farrowing (49 per cent) and the
remainder by importation. This may appear high, but 30 pigs (24
per cent) were obtained by trade, which Irakia 'insist' rarely
occurred in the past. Indeed, Boyd ( 1985a) stresses that pig intensifi
cation in Awa is a very recent 'post-colonial phenomenon'.
Exchange partnerships accounted for only 13 pigs, about 10 per
cent of the additions. During this same period, the village herd was
reduced by 83 pigs. Of them, only 10 (about 12 per cent) were
exported live to 'exchange partners'; 32 (39 per cent) died and 23
(28 per cent) were slaughtered. Seven of the 23 were certainly con
sumed by Irakia themselves; 1 6 were slaughtered for 'ceremonial
feasts' which appears to mean, predominantly, male initiation in
which initiates eat pork supplied by their fathers (Boyd 1984:36). It
seems the case that Irakia, in the past at least, exported few pigs and
Ceremonial exchange 24 7
even in the present, precious little pork escapes the domestic units
which compose a village. In this group of societies, we can certainly
agree with J. Watson that 'pigs are in principle raised to be presented
to others for consumption' (1983 :53). The contexts of consumption
are focussed on intragroup events. We can anticipate the contrast
with Enga, for example, where it is axiomatic that 'good people
think only of exchanging pigs' while 'bad people think only of eating
them'. Pigs are not raised with consumption in mind, although that
will, in time, be a pig's ultimate fate. This fact highlights a major dif
ference in emphasis, west and east.
Very few empirical details are available for Asaro societies on the
relative importance of home production versus finance, and the pat
terns of consumption of pork. The overwhelming impression is that
the large majority of pigs distributed at pig festivals are locally
reared and the people who receive pork are very narrowly defined.
Read ( 1 952), writing of the Gahuku-Gama idza nama, says that, as
a festival approaches, people may agist pigs elsewhere, move to
areas where pigs may grow faster, or in the later stages only, trade
for pigs to augment a herd. Few financial transactions are involved
in the build-up. The people who receive pork at the periodic festivals
are as follows: one group is selected, as a traditional ally, to receive
the most highly valued pigs in terms of size and quality. Apparently,
each festival is directed towards one group only. In these circum
stances, exchange can hardly serve as a continuing, integrating
mechanism. Indeed, exchange seems the wrong word. The hosts
also consume a large share of pork, from smaller animals, and 'suck
ling pigs' are distributed and consumed at the concluding dance. A
large share of pork, from animals reared 'at home', is consumed by
the producers themselves or by a very select group, once in every
five- to seven-year period.
The Siane show a heightened pattern of finance. Salisbury
( 1 962:93) reports that, ten months before a pig feast, there is a ban
on pig dealings so that animals do not leave the village to repay out
standing debts. This ensures a feast of adequate size. It is also the
case that men with one or two pigs claim to have loaned ten or more
to other clans. Clans in Siane vie with one another in making their
pig feasts and, since all may hold feasts at about the same time, the
calling in of outstanding debts when they are needed is always prob
lematic. As Salisbury states: 'the number of real pigs in circulation is
nowhere near as large as the number of publicly avowed claims to
pigs' ( 1962:93). The level of finance does, however, allow Siane to
stage festivals larger than is possible through home production

alone. Siane also 'farm' pigs out to hide the number they really own,
and to avoid the depredations of anthrax. While finance has broad
ened, the range of recipients at pig festivals is narrow. Pork is given
to sisters who have married into other clans and to 'friends' ('male
sisters') who have previously given valuables. Thus, finance and
consumption of pork involve more than the immediate group, but
the scale of pig feasts and the lack of organisation of their timing is
not great or significantly elaborate to be widely integrating. As both
Read and Salisbury remark, the overtly competitive element of
group festivals and their link to warfare prohibit any regulation of
festivals.
Pig festivals reach their greatest scale in Chimbu and it is clear
that finance, as well as home production, have much increased.
Hide (n.d.:23-4) shows that trade and exchange are very important
to the build-up of herds following a pig festival. These level off as
home production increases in the inter-ceremonial period. He also
shows that, in one year, for two groups at different stages of pre
paredness for a forthcoming festival, 64 per cent of additions to pig
herds came via gift exchange and trade and 33 per cent of exports or
disposals of pigs left the group via the same channels. During this
same period, for one group, 50 per cent (at least) of pigs slaughtered
were distributed to persons outside the immediate group. The com
parison with the data from Irakia is very striking. The evidence from
Brookfield and Brown ( 1963) supports the empirical detail of Hide,
and shows a high emphasis on finance to augment production. They
write that a person 'has very important ties to his personal kin and
affines outside' his group, and that these 'are the basis of the
exchange system'. Furthermore, 'each adult man is deeply immersed
in his relations with debtors and creditors, who include members of
his own clan and also affines and non-agnatic kin outside the clan'
( 1 963 : 1 3 ) . It is very clear as well, that Chimbu groups are on dif
ferent ceremonial cycles, an 'alternating system' (Brookfield and
Brown 1 963 :58) of pig festivals, which allows a more regulated dis
tribution of pork, better chances for financial manoeuvring and
greater ease in rebuilding depleted herds. Pig festivals in Chimbu are
regional affairs to a much greater degree than in societies eastward.
At one pig festival (bug/a gende), Brown ( 1964) showed that all gifts
of pork went to affines, close cognates, and 'friends'; none to agna
tic kinsmen. Finance and consumption have spread well beyond the
immediate community of close, male-related kinsmen and some
measure of areal, political and economic integration has been

achieved.
The Maring material, at first glance, does not appear to place
them with Chimbu in terms of financial activity. Rappaport
( 1 96 8 : 153) reports that only 13 per cent of kaiko pigs came from
sources outside the immediate, local community. However, in other
Maring groups, apparently almost half of the pig herd originated
outside the territory. 6 This latter figure compares more favourably
with the Chimbu data. Rappaport gives details on pork distributed
at a kaiko: one-third was consumed by the group that slaughtered
the pigs; the remaining two-thirds was distributed to other local
populations.7 'Almost all Tuguma, Aundagai, Kauwasi, and Mon
ambant, totalling in population about 2,000, must have received
some Tsembaga pig, and it is not unlikely that over 3,000 people
eventually received portions from the Tsembaga slaughter' (Rappa
port 1968 :214). These periodic kaiko thus affect a large proportion
of the total population and in terms of 'regularity' are on a scale
with Chimbu.
Bypassing temporarily the exchange systems of Melpa and Enga,
the pig festivals of the southern highlands show a similar emphasis
on finance to that of Chimbu, and patterns of distribution for con
sumption are equally wide-ranging. Ryan ( 1 9 6 1 ) stresses that, in the
Mendi mok ink, a man relies heavily on his affines for pigs to kill, in
addition to those he and his wife have raised. A bigman, who might
have 12 to 15 pigs in his own house, 'must so arrange his affairs
that, by the time of the killing, he has 24 or more' (Ryan 1961 :220).
Thus, finance appears to account for about half of the pork distribu
ted. This pork is exchanged with other twem partners for shells,
which are then used to satisfy other debts. Some shells go to affines
for future interest in pigs. Pig kills take place every fifteen years or
so, but the last five of these years are spent in vigorous preparation.
Minor pork prestations (mok lusha), between major mok ink, are
made to affines, sisters, and sister's children, and to twem partners.
Gifts to the latter are credit arrangements which are eventually util
ised at major mok ink festivals. At the great mok ink, on one day,
'from 500 to 1000 pigs are killed and the pork distributed to several
6
Buchbinder (n.d.), using perhaps a wider sample of Maring groups than Rappa-
port, shows that almost half of Maring pigs originate outside the group.
7
Consumption continued for five days; 11 to 13 pounds of pork per person was
consumed and the meat was preserved by smoking it (Rappaport 1968:214).
Lipuma ( 1981) also notes that much pork was consumed within the clan to propi
tiate ancestors between major ceremonial kaiko events.
thousand people from as far as two days' walk away' (Ryan

1 96 1 :208). Clearly, finance and distribution of pork in Mendi bring
many communities into one exchange nexus and thoroughly breach
narrow, local groups. The Wola (Sillitoe 1979), neighbours of the
Mendi, are also highly enmeshed in credit transactions reaching well
beyond the local group. More than half of the pigs of Wola festivals
come from outside the local community (Sillitoe 1 979:25 8 ), while
three-quarters of the pork from a pig kill is distributed to relations
resident elsewhere (Sillitoe 1979:263). The Wola are involved in a
highly complex set of financial and credit arrangements which punc
tuate every occasion of exchange, not only major pig kills.
Further south in the southern highlands, emphasis on finance
decreases to a level similar to Asaro groups. In Wiru festivals, only
1 1 per cent of pigs killed came from financial transactions with out
siders (A. J. Strathern 1 978:95). In explicit comparison with the
Melpa, Strathern remarks that 'Wiru pig-kills follow a cycle of pro
duction of herds, largely uncomplicated by financial manoeuvrings'
( 1978 : 9 8 ) . However, unlike Asaro societies, all pork gifts are made
to affines and matrilateral kin, and are linked to bridewealth, child
and mortuary payments (A. J. Strathern 1 978 : 80). In south Kewa,
the 'principle of finance' is attenuated (Le Roy 1 979a: 183), but
affines are still the major recipients of pork and shells at periodic
festivals. Thus, as one moves further south and east from the Melpa
and Enga, the ramifying, integrating effects of finance and prolifer
ating distribution of pork lessen.
It is among Melpa and Enga that financial methods are most elab
orate, complex and utilised in exchange. The fact that pigs are pre
sented live, that individuals and groups are linked in 'chains', that
increments are expected in return and that there are explicit phases
in which donations from outside are sought, make tee and moka
intricate financial institutions which have no parallel in the high
lands. These widespread transactions provide a scale and level of
political and economic integration and coherence which other
systems cannot and do not achieve.
Moka payments are financed from many donors. Initiating gifts
may come from affines and cognates, as well as from unrelated men
whose interests are primarily transactional. In the moka of the
bigman, Ongka, A. J. Strathern ( 1 969b:59) writes that forty pigs
were given away. The origins of thirty were known; twenty-three
had been obtained from moka partners, and only seven were from
Ceremonial exchange 25 1
home production. Ongka also gave away more than 1 8 0 shells at the
same time, and financial methods were employed, no doubt, to gain
a majority of these. Recipients at moka come from many different
groups and categories of relationship. In one moka 70 per cent of
pigs and shells were given to 'affines' and unrelated partners, over
ninety different people. Few moka transactions take place within
groups and its whole purpose is to distribute pigs and shells as
widely as possible for alliance and future considerations.
The tee represents financial schemes in their most elaborate de
velopment. I have shown that in one tee in which details of forty-two
men were collected, of 2267 pigs given, only 689 of them (30 per
cent) were raised 'at home' (Feil 1 984b: l 16). Seventy per cent were
received from financial sources. As well, in the same tee sequence, of
4641 valuables given and received by the same sample of men, only
8 per cent of these were taken from, or presented to, fellow clans
men. The tee is quite clearly and explicitly an 'outward-looking' in
stitution which places little priority or value on internal group
transactions. Some bigmen have partners in as many as nineteen dif
ferent clans; 'rubbish men' in as many as seven (Feil 1984b: 1 72). It
is important to reiterate that both tee and moka, while highly
finance-oriented, also rely on home production to provide security
and to increase payments to important partners. Production in these
societies has reached a point beyond which expansion is virtually
impossible; financial methods have taken over. As A. J. Strathern
( 1 969b:41) first noted, home production 'is subject to the decisions
of only a few people'. But finance requires the participation of many
men in different locales who are linked only by individual 'steps'.
Uncertainty, fostered by the lack of 'coercive sanctions', is a poten
tial drawback to finance. The existence and expansion of these
systems demonstrates that the disadvantages of reliance on others
are far outweighed by the rewards of alliance and integration. Trust,
through credit, has been created.
The details of this section confirm the portrait of societies drawn
in earlier chapters. Eastern highlands societies have economies of
small scale and 'domestic' orientation, reflected as well in
boundary-conscious groups, sexual antagonism and parochial
leaders. Western highlands economies are those of widely ramifying
effect, 'regional' to a degree unknown elsewhere, and this fact is
equally evident in the domains of social structure, male-female re
lations, and the leadership of bigmen. The evolution of exchange in
the highlands can be 'read' in the scale and contrasting complexity

of festivals and pig cycles from east to west.
Units
At most times in eastern highlands societies, when pigs are killed,

domestic concerns predominate. The consumption of pork because
of illness or injury, for instance, ensures that productive units and
consumption units are often almost identical. It is in this sense, I
have argued, that Sahlins' 'domestic mode of production' can be
invoked to characterise these economies of low level. However, we
have seen that a small proportion of production is geared to larger
pig festivals in the eastern highlands. At these times, domestic units
merge and a communal or collective effort is called for. On these
rare occasions of limited scale, local consumption is forgone and
statements of a corporate character are made. These pig festivals
have some integrative effect beyond the palisaded village of course,
but it is not wide-ranging or continuous. Arguments of previous
chapters have demonstrated that these societies are highly corpo
rate. At events when surplus production is distributed, clans and vil
lages are the units which participate and exchange 'its' pigs.
Individual identities or those of separate domestic units are sub
merged, and the distribution is regarded as a collective show of
strength and solidarity, of competition, even hostility to outside
groups. Festivals are a part of a social environment of group enmity;
'better safe than sorry . . . '
It can be shown here that, to the west, exchange has a more indi
vidual flavour; domestic units infrequently, if ever, surrender their
surplus products, their exchange potential, to some larger entity.
Instead, they promote ties of their own to persons in other groups,
thereby participating in exchange networks which have a broaden
ing, integrating aspect at the individual level. In some societies,
exchanges are best interpreted, not as univocal statements of corpo
rateness, but as individual ties of alliance to important people resi
dent outside. In some western highlands societies, it is difficult to
locate a 'group' element in exchange. Exchanges can, of course, sim
ultaneously secure and express collective and individual ends; it is a
matter of emphasis which varies. In the final analysis, however
'group' and 'individual' concerns are highlighted, there can be little
doubt that, on the highlands continuum, exchange has a much less
corporate character and function in the western highlands.
The scale of festivals may have an effect on the degree of corpor

ateness. Where a group has few pigs to kill, say less than one per
head, members may seek to pool them in order to create the impres
sion of a bigger slaughter. But a more important determinant is the
aforementioned climate of intergroup hostility. A major, stated
attribute of Auyana social units ('sovereignties') is that its members
must marshal wealth and present it to outsiders at certain 'life-crisis'
events. Wealth is assembled in a 'collection area' and individual con
tributions are not ear-marked. If members did not contribute, the
'unit' would be angry (Robbins 1 982:86). Intergroup distributions,
although rare, were made for protection and defence. Significantly,
individual pig distributions have increased in the postcolonial
period, while, because of pacification, social units have lessened in
importance. Boyd's ( 1985a) discussion of Awa pig intensification,
in their quest to 'follow the Fore' and stage their own pig festivals,
shows clearly that the initial phase is predicated on interclan compe
tition. Can we infer from this that the first stages of intensification in
pig production have a collective, overtly competitive impetus and
motivation ? All groups at the eastern end of the highlands see pig
distributions as corporate enterprises held in opposition to other,
similar units (see also J. Watson 1 9 8 3 : 5 5 ; also note 2).
Where pig festivals associated with idza nama occur, the collec
tive emphasis of pig kills is also strikingly apparent. Read ( 1952; see
also Newman 1 965 :58) remarked on their competitive element and
that group prestige was at stake. Idza nama festivals discharged a
group's obligation, incurred in past wars, by presenting pork to a
major, traditional ally. Such recognition of one group immediately
signalled opposition to others. The corporate character of the festi
vals is apparent on a number of other levels. The event is heralded by
the sounding of nama flutes, belonging to the 'sub-tribe' as a whole.
Each subclan also plays its own flutes, but only if one of its members
has donated a large pig to the festival. Thus, a single contribution
allows all of a subclan's members to bask in the collective flute
playing prestige. Prior to the killing of pigs, the recipients receive a
bundle of sticks representing the pigs to be given them. The payment
is a collective one. While suggesting that there are individual ele
ments in idza nama, Read emphasises that pig festivals, like the male
initiations which precede them, are 'supreme expressions of group
unity' ( 1952:24). Each segment of the sub-tribe combines to reaf
firm its common purpose and ties upon which group continuity
depends. Similarly, Langness ( 1964), discussing aspects of Bena
Bena festivals, interprets them as 'group functions'. In ceremonial

exchanges, like warfare and initiation, Bena Bena act as 'single
units' (Langness 1 964 : 1 64). Pigs received are shared among a
group's members. Langness also remarks that 'the raising of pigs is
fundamentally a group rather than an individual enterprise'
(1964 : 1 76). He fails to give further substance to this point.
In Siane, pig festivals belong to the sphere of 'gima activities'.
These events are the affairs of corporate clans (Salisbury 1962 : 93 ) ;
a person's donation is made in the name o f his clan; a recipient does
not know the origin of the specific portion of pork he has received.
Siane pig festivals 'stress the distinctiveness of groups who are
involved' (Salisbury 1 962 : 1 04). While other items are used in 'sub
sistence' and 'luxury' spheres, pigs are part of the 'ceremonial' nexus
in Siane life; pigs cannot be converted or exchanged against other
commodities, or used in another nexus. Only in the corporate, com
petitive relations between clans are pigs the appropriate medium of
transaction which serves 'to maintain intergroup boundaries' (Salis
bury 1962: 102).
The Chimbu bug/a gende is not only bigger in scale than idza
nama and similar festivals, but there is also a significant change in
its corporate character. Festivals like idza nama are focussed on re
lations between two groups only, the givers and receivers of war aid
in the past. Bug/a gende distributions focus on interpersonal re
lations in many different clans. They are not made 'in honour of one
tribe . . . but for kinsmen, affines, and friends in every tribe' (Brown
1 978 :224, my emphasis). Individual recipients are given sticks rep
resenting promised pigs; a bundle is not presented to a clan at large
(Brown 1 978 :223) . Certainly, there is a collective element to bug/a
gende: they require the cooperation of a large group (tribe) ; they are
named after the group which stages them; a group's strength and
wealth are on display, and intergroup relations and alliances are
highlighted in speeches and associated activities. However, the over
riding emphasis is on individual transactions. A person gives pork to
specific other people who are closely linked to him. Debts are
created at the individual level and interpersonal ties and continuity
are stressed. Pigs are killed at a cemetery (to propitiate ancestors)
and then assembled at the communal ceremonial ground. Group
prestige is gained according to the size of the slaughter. Immediately
thereafter, however, individual owners take their pigs home where
they are cooked and privately distributed to kin, affines and friends
who have helped with the proceedings (Brown 1 972:49). There is no
equivalent at idza nama. In Chimbu, too, women have become the
crucial links between givers and receivers of pork (Brown

1 970: 1 10), a fact related to increased individualism in exchange.
Chimbu festivals are much less the corporate statements of group
solidarity than are festivals to the east. Scale and increasing empha
sis on individual transactions appear to have developed concomi
tantly (see also Criper 1 967: 1 95ff, 2 8 1 ff).
In Mel pa and Enga, this trend continues. A. J. Strathern, in many
statements on the moka, has argued that exchange in Mount Hagen
has meaning simultaneously at the group and individual levels
( 1 979c: 104). A person's participation in moka activities 'decisively
symbolizes group-membership' (A. J. Strathern 1 972: 100). Group
planning is necessary for the lead-up to a major prestation of wealth
which is a 'concerted' effort (A. J. Strathern 1 978 : 8 3 ) . There appear
to be 'block gifts' made by groups (headed by a bigman) to other,
former enemies. Speeches made on moka occasions emphasise inter
group relations and competition between them. As well, there is a
'lack of explicit reference to the implicit networks of individual ties
between partners' (A. J. Strathern 1 978 : 8 3 ) . Recipients speak as if
groups are involved in moka, even though, in one instance, only 60
per cent of a group participated in the contribution (A. J. Strathern
1 979c: 1 05 ) . Moka partnerships exist between men of the same clan,
which allows for a funnelling of gifts and a more collective stamp to
be placed on a final moka prestation. 8 When a gift of live pigs is pre
sented, they are tied to stakes in a single row which represents a
'group's' contribution. These facts give a clear impression of a col
lective orientation to moka.
But they hardly present the total picture. A. J. Strathern also
points out that the great majority of moka exchanges are made in a
contributor's own name; they establish an individual debt which
demands a return, and that individuals give directly to other indi
viduals without any mediation or group construction (A. J. Stra
thern 1979c: 102). Some men have moka partners in other clans
which are enemies to their own. Private moka is sometimes made at
a donor's house between paired partners (A. J. Strathern 1 975 : 372).
When moka is made, many men give to a wide range of partners in
many different clans, which would seem to dissipate, somewhat,
any collective statement.
The group character of moka exchanges surfaces essentially in
8
Rubel and Rosman ( 1978 :20 1 ) have argued that these are not moka partnerships
in the strict sense, following A. ]. Strathern's (1 97la) logic that moka concerns
ceremonial prestations between groups.
the actions of bigmen who 'represent' their groups. A. J. Strathern's

analyses of moka (for example, 1 971a) are overwhelmingly con
cerned with their activities. Bigmen compete as rivals, they occasion
ally make exchanges of their own to partners in other clans, and
vigorously seek the support of fellow group members for exchanges
in which their name shines (along with that of their group). 9 In
Mount Hagen, as already noted, the great bulk of exchanges are in
dividual ones, yet there is an overlay of rhetoric proclaiming that a
group is responsible for the prestation, or otherwise, that a bigman
himself has put on 'such a magnificent show on behalf of [his]
group' (A. J. Strathern 1 978 : 83 ) . We may conclude that moka has
both collective and individual elements, but it seems as if it is pre
dominantly bigmen who assert the corporate nature of moka.
Recalling a previous argument, wealth exchange in Mount Hagen
has historically and prehistorically been controlled and monopol
ised by a few men, who may have formed a 'class', and who also con
trolled other strategic material resources and access to them.
Whatever corporate character the moka has today may be seen as a
legacy of that past: bigmen claim to speak for their groups and to be
'in charge' of wealth distributions. But underlying their boast, the
evidence suggests that moka revolves on individual transactions be
tween partners in intricate exchange networks, featuring credit,
finance and other economic arrangements. Empirically this is so,
but bigmen, for ideological, historical and political reasons of their
own, draw attention away from this essentially individual compon
ent by making claims, collective and controlling, to the contrary.
The dual emphasis of group and individual interest in moka is
supported by the interpretation of R. Bulmer for the Kyaka ( 1960a).
A group's members derive prestige from a good corporate showing.
Yet the moka in Kyaka places utmost significance on individual
partnerships outside one's narrow group, to such an extent that
these 'devalue' genealogically reckoned agnatic kinship (R. Bulmer
1 960a: 10). At a moka event, partners in many different clans
receive pigs; it is a time for demonstrating 'individual enterprise'
and through transactions with partners, and then the partners of
partners in a chain, the moka curbs 'the physically and socially de
structive expression of inter-clan hostility and competition in war'
(R. Bulmer 1 960a: l2).
To the west of Mount Hagen and beyond the sphere of the related
9
This differs from Chimbu (Brown 1970: 1 1 1 ) where rivalry 'does not take the indi
vidual focus' between bigmen as it does in the moka.
moka, the Enga tee is an exchange institution in which individual

transactions far outweigh any collective orientation. The tee is built
on individual partnerships; no group is involved in the overall plan
ning and timing of events; individual domestic units make decisions
on the distribution of pigs and would never relinquish interests of
their own to some wider entity. Tee prestations, or any others in
which Enga engage, are never made in 'block'. A man's tee contribu
tors form no acknowledged entity; his recipients recognise no ties or
bond except the dyadic one to him as giver. Tee partnerships are in
no sense collectively held or sanctioned, nor determined by other
than individual considerations. There are, furthermore, no situ
ations when groups exchange valuables or when precise accounting,
placement, or direction of specific items of value might be confused,
taken from individual hands, or might not matter. Tee accounts are
managed by individual domestic units, husband and wife, and, as
mentioned previously, very few transactions occur between mem
bers of the same group. There is, thus, no funnelling of gifts to
bigmen, and partners outside are rarely shared by members of a
group. When a tee is made, each individual lines his pigs in a
separate row, demonstrating his personal achievement and
blatantly comparing his ability and that of his network of friends
with those of fellow subclansmen who are also transacting on that
same day and at the same place. There are, then, significant con
trasts with the Melpa moka, but in the tee we reach one pole of
exchange phenomena in the highlands, where individuals and the
vertical exchange networks they constitute are the crucial units of
analysis.
Enga bigmen exert little control over the transactions of others.
They marshal pigs in the same way as ordinary men, more of them
of course, but do not claim to speak for the 'interests' of some social
entity. Several men of bigmen status exist in every group, which fur
ther militates against a single representative, as appears to be the
case among Melpa. Speeches by bigmen at tee gatherings emphasise
the accomplishments of a network of partners spanning many dif
ferent clans, rather than the corporate prestige of a narrower unit.
This pattern of tee-making places the major locus of competition
within social units, not outside them. Clansmen and subclansmen
compete to make the biggest tee by relying on contributions from
persons in other groups linked by ties of affinity, maternal kinship,
and friendship. The tee may be seen as a logical extension of the
moka; leadership is more attenuated in the exchange realm, for
Enga leaders have held little monopoly over valuables, their acqui
sition and production, as Melpa bigmen have, historically and pre
historically (see Feil 1 982, 1 984b).
Other analyses of the tee have accorded greater salience to corpo
rate political ends. Meggitt ( 1 971, 1 972, 1 974) has attempted to
link the hierarchy of Mae-Enga groups with the ceremonial pres
tation in which each engages. Thus, clans act as 'corporate groups'
(Meggitt 1 971 : 1 97) in the making of tee, and individuals are 'con
strained' in exchange contexts by their obligations to their descent
groups (Meggitt 1 977: 121). Prestige achieved in tee helps a clan
maintain its boundaries against potential usurpers of land, and to
attract allies and wives. My reservations on this interpretation have
been noted elsewhere (Feil 1984b). Meggitt ( 1967) also acknow
ledges that Mae-Enga society has been marked by periods of 'diasto
le', 'when an extended network of relationships is significant . . .
during which men set up fairly free, contractual, dyadic relations of
exchange with each other' ( 1 967:33). While 'diastole' alternates
with contracting 'systole', it is difficult to understand how the mech
anics and importance of individual partnerships and transactions
could be so regularly, radically, and systematically converted from
one period to the next.
The question of the relationship of group to individual is ancient
in anthropology (A. J. Strathern 1979c) ; my point here is that, in the
western highlands, there is a palpable trend in exchange activities
away from corporate solidarity towards individual alliances which
are wide-ranging and politically significant.
In the southern highlands, the ethnography suggests that this
trend is equally apparent. Sillitoe ( 1979) emphasises the individual
in exchange and eschews any corporate orientation to the trans
actions that take place in Wola society. 'Action groups' which unite
people from diverse locations are the units that pursue common
exchange interests. Here, too, bigmen, while more prominent in
exchange than others, neither represent groups of any scale, nor op
erate as nodes through which valuables are distributed or received.
Much like Tombema-Enga (Feil 1 984b), the Wola are 'loosely' or
ganised in named groups with territories, but exchange interests are
not so circumscribed and individual obligations to linked partners
take priority over narrower allegiances.
Mendi twem is 'delayed gift-exchange between individuals, sig
nifying a more or less permanent socio-economic relationship'
(Ryan 1 9 6 1 : 66). Twem partners are personal friends who exchange
and aid each other in many ways (see below). Mok ink pig kills in
Mendi are organised at the clan level and focus on interclan re
lations. However, Ryan makes it clear that, within this loosely or
ganised event, individuals 'publicize' relations to kin, affines and
friends in recipient clans (Ryan 1 96 1 : 205). Clan wealth and pro
ductive ability are there for all to behold, but no transactions, other
than precise, individual ones, take place. Also, importantly, no pork
is consumed within the group. Ail mok ink pork 'must pass outside
the host's clan or, more strictly, outside the residential group' (Ryan
1 9 6 1 :207). Mendi bigmen do not appear overly influential in direct
ing the affairs of social groups (Ryan 1 9 6 1 :210), though they kill
more pigs than others in mok ink. Lederman (1980) has also dis
cussed the importance of twem networks which share a 'balanced
cultural emphasis' with groups ( 1980:495).
In explicit comparison with the Melpa moka, A. J. Strathern
( 1 978) has stressed the individual nature of Wiru pig-kills in which
gifts to a network of kin and affines are specifically highlighted and
in which scant reference is made to intergroup political relations.
This 'structural inversion' from Melpa to Wiru (A. J. Strathern
1978 : 84) is linked to differing marriage patterns and ties of alliance
and enmity in the two societies. In Wiru, interpersonal relations are
affirmed in exchange, and they are separate from the political re
lations which are the focus of moka prestations.
From Chimbu westward, the ethnography shows clearly that
individual transactions have increased salience. To the east of
Chimbu, an individual's contribution to a pig kill is subsumed in
the collective statement ·of his clan. Growing 'individualism' in
exchange east to west is also mirrored in heightened individualis
ation of production activities along the same continuum. As Wad
dell ( 1 972:21 1 ) noted, in the western highlands, dispersed
homesteads and proximity to 'open field' gardens 'reduces the need
for cooperation between households'. As production increases and
larger pig herds result, settlements disperse and domestic units
become both the units of production and the units of exchange (see
Chapter 3 ) . Increased individualism from east to west is marked in
many spheres of social life. One cannot deny, however, that in those
societies in which exchange is most elaborate, some leaders may
symbolically allude to group achievements and stress the intergroup
component of an exchange event. Yet belying such 'representational
models', as A. J. Strathern ( 1979c: 106) has termed them, is the
patent understanding, often taken for granted, that individual trans-
actions make the whole and that individual partnerships have

gained at least an equal significance, whatever the collective effects
of exchange may be.
Partnerships
Growing, proliferating individual transactions in the western
highlands are the basis for a category of persons which has scant rel
evance in societies to the east. Where exchange systems are highly
developed, 'exchange partners' as a separate set of people find insti
tutionalised form. In the eastern highlands, there are scattered
references to such partnerships (for example, Boyd 1984 : 3 1 ), but
there is little sense of an enduring bond between people defined by
mutual and wide-ranging exchange interests. In these societies, the
collective stamp on prestations prevails; individual partnerships,
such as there are, remain ad hoc, and narrowly defined. In a society
like Enga, on the other hand, exchange partners, called kaita min
ingi, those who 'hold the way', are explicitly designated as a
separate category of persons; they are tied to an individual and, in
no sense, are they the automatic outcome of kinship or affinity.
Common tee interests and mutual exchange support are the sine qua
non for being called a kaita miningi, but obligations and appro
priate behaviour, not strictly tee-related, must also be observed by
people who share that status. On a multitude of grounds, Enga say
that 'we don't call a person a kaita miningi without reason'.
Where scale, individual focus of exchange, and the political
import of marriage increase, in Chimbu, we encounter initial signs
of institutionalised exchange partners. They are not named, and
they fall predominantly into affinal and nonagnatic cognate cat
egories, although Brown ( 1 964:346) lists a substantial number of
partners simply called 'friends'. Transactions take place between
partners in a number of contexts and, as well, the relationship
includes the 'transaction of services' (Brown 1 970 : 1 10). A partner
helps in garden work and house construction, in pig-killing and
preparation for cooking, and in the supply of festival finery, plumes
and feathers. Partnerships can be inherited and partners 'may con
tinue for generations as "friends" when the source of the relation
ship is forgotten' (Brown 1 970 : 1 10). Such partnerships are
impossible in the east where continuous transacting cannot occur
and where the pattern of warfare and social structure forces the near
abandonment of intimate ties of any sort outside narrowly con
ceived corporate groups.
A. J. Strathern ( 1971a) has emphasised the competitive side to

the moka, but confirms that moka partnerships are equally 'friendly
and positive' ( 1979c: 107). Men often have moka partners in enemy
groups which suggests a level of trust and security not determined by
the current patterns of intergroup politics. Moka partners are often
unrelated 'friends' and in several moka analysed by A. J. Strathern
(197la: 144-5, 147), unrelated partners were the most numerous
and largest recipients of pigs and shells. Moka partnerships can be
inherited, and the intricate finance and credit arrangements on
which moka dealings are predicated, presume a high degree of trust
and cooperation between partners.
Mendi twem partners involve a 'special degree of personal friend
ship' (Ryan 1 9 6 1 : 6 8 ) . Like Chimbu and Enga exchange partners,
obligations between twem partners include more than just the trans
fer of valuables. Ryan notes that mutual assistance in house
building and garden work are expected, that hospitality must be
offered to twem, and that hostility is incompatible with twem who
exchange. 'In short, twem can take place only between friends, and
all friends are expected to make twem' (Ryan 1961 : 68 ) . Although
twem partners are not usually inherited, the deep affection they
share for each other often leads one to suggest that their children
should marry.
Enga tee partners are a set of highly stable exchange allies with
whom one often transacts continually over the course of an entire
lifetime. Elsewhere (Feil 1 984b: l 5 5 ) I have shown that some older
men have transacted, without interruption, with major partners for
more than thirty years. While a person always seeks to add to his set
of partners by giving to new ones on appropriate occasions, very few
partnerships dissolve, probably less than 1 0 per cent. In a system of
exchange based ultimately on the goodwill and integrity of indi
viduals, and lacking formal sanctions, this fact tells us much about
the spirit of tee. Tee partners can also be inherited, which leads to
enduring ties of exchange down the generations.
Tee partners, in addition to 'holding the way' for exchange, are
also known as 'remaining men', those who stay and are dependable.
They should never fight, they can always be counted on for hospi
tality and security in foreign places, and they should offer help in
gardening and other chores. Tee partners never make public any dis
putes between them; any differences should be handled privately
with 'gentle talk'. The personal, private content of tee partnerships
was always emphasised by my informants. When scoring rhetorical
points in public speech, a man never mentions individual tee part

ners by name or allusion; remarks are general in nature and seek to
heighten fame by boasting of personal achievement, rather than
defaming the performance of others. Kaita miningi as a category of
persons is often distinguished from ordinary men (mee akali) with
whom no tee and, therefore, no other obligations are felt to be bind
ing. The formalised, institutionalised features of tee partnerships
place heavy demands on those who exchange. They are wrapped in
protocol, punctilio and ceremony, too valuable to be left to chance.
The stable partnerships found in tee and apparently also in moka,
coupled with transactions of live pigs in intricate and far-reaching
financial and credit dealings, mean that tee and moka 'chains' can
be built from the dyadic links of partners. Tee and moka are 'cyclic,
lineal and continuous' while exchange systems like mok ink and
bugla gende are 'radial' (Ryan 1972 : 789). This fact separates these
two great systems from all others. Widespread regional integration
is one outcome. Moka chains are explicitly recognised by Melpa,
but they are not of the same length as tee chains (A. J. Strathern
1 97 l a : l 2 1 ) . They involve fewer individuals and groups, they have a
more limited span, and vary from one moka to the next. The timing
of moka is crucial; chains of finance cannot be spread too far or a
person's ability to recall valuables at the precise time they are
needed may be jeopardised. Still, in any moka event, the 'ropes'
which tie individuals together in exchange create a political and
economic community unprecedented in much of the highlands.
Enga further expand this pattern of chains. All Enga clans and
individuals in them are involved in the same tee system. There is a set
order of tee-making which, while known only in piecemeal fashion
by any person, orders all tee transactions in a formal and cyclic way.
Some tee chains described to me (see Feil 1984b: l 8 1) spanned more
than twenty clans in over fifty miles of direct distance. Moreover,
such lengthy chains are not a recent development or the result of
pacification. Similar chains were known and operated throughout
the tee's past. Even today, many members of these long chains know
of each other by name only; they have never met and have only a
vague idea of where each of the others lives, for they have never
visited the place. Yet, they know that the pigs they handle will
eventually flow to that linked partner in a far-away community.
The tee proceeds in a step-like fashion; each partner depends on
the next for pigs and valuables essential to his own prestation. Bus
( 1 95 1 : 8 1 8-19) described in vivid detail the anxious waiting
experienced by men in anticipation of pigs from distant sources. A.

J. Strathern ( 1969b:60) noted the 'hazardous nature of investment
in chains as large as that of the tee and the risk that mistakes will be
made in the complicated financial arrangements which underpin it'.
Yet, Elkin ( 1 95 3 : 1 98 ) states, and I can confirm, that failure does not
incur blame, but an outstanding man will make up the losses from
his own herd. Home production becomes the vital safety margin.
Unparalleled, certainly in the highlands, is a transactional system
that links so many individuals and communities in time and space.
This is the tee's elevated and noble aim; it fosters unity and co
operation well beyond local, political confines. In the institution of
tee partnerships, parochial interests are muted and narrow polities
and economies are significantly broadened. In an occasional speech
or remark by an Enga bigman, this vision is made explicit: 'the tee
belongs to everyone, let's stop quarrelling and send pigs onward
quickly'. In times past, wars would stop for a tee to go on, and tem
porary truces could be made permanent. While the exchange of
valuables is the basis of tee, one cannot help but comment, irresist
ibly, as did Elkin ( 1 953 :201), that there is in tee-making a pervading
'spirit which allows values other than material to exercise effective
influence in life'.
Moka and tee (and mok ink) : their interrelated past
All of the features so far mentioned make it abundantly clear that

moka and tee are both qualitatively and quantitatively different
from other systems of exchange which surround them. More people
are linked in the same 'cyclical system' and continuous transactions
take place between partners. I have argued throughout that patterns
of warfare, leadership, social structure and male-female relations
are also manifestly different in Melpa and Enga, where these two
exchange institutions are total phenomena. In the course of their
evolution, these elements were transformed together in a complex
and interrelated fashion. Melpa and Enga are not 'typical' of other
highland societies; certainly as one moves eastward from them,
every seeming commonality of social practice and cultural detail
diverges markedly. The area around Mount Hagen is the probable
birthplace of intensive agriculture in the highlands, and the develop
ment of these two exchange systems is the direct outgrowth of that
earliest, intensive horticultural regime, related pig production which
depended upon it, and increasingly elaborate socioproductive re-
lations which utilised surplus products and, in turn, continually

created the demand (in pigs) for them.
The moka and tee (and probably mok ink too), are unquestion
ably related, prehistorically and historically. They are ancient insti
tutions when compared to exchange phenomena in the eastern
highlands. As mentioned, tee is sometimes referred to as maku
pingi; tee talk is called maku pii, and to boast loudly is maku lenge.
Moka, maku, and mok appear to be cognates of common origin.
Almost all early writers on the tee suggested an eastern origin, from
around the Mount Hagen area. Bus ( 1 95 1 : 8 18 ) remarks that it 'is
very likely that the Te originally came from the tribes east of the
Hagen range, where a similar festival is known under the name
moka. Our interpreters even use this word moka when interpreting
the word Te to us'.10 Elkin ( 1 95 3 : 177), A. J. Strathern ( 1969b) and
Meggitt ( 1974) have also noted interconnections between tee and
moka and the boundary where the two systems blend and merge.
Kleinig ( 1 955 :4) reports the 'rumour' that the tee came from the
region of Mount Giluwe, home of the people called 'Kola' by Enga
(Kakoli [Bowers 1968]), who took its essentials from their neigh
bours in Mount Hagen. From 'Kola', Mendi is close, and the mok
ink could well have derived from the Mount Hagen moka as well.
An eastern origin of tee is further suggested by the fact that it is
coterminous with the language border in the east, but not so in the
west (Bus 1 95 1 : 8 1 8 ; Elkin 1 95 3 : 1 77; Kleinig 1 955 :4). Where
moka and tee interlock, men participate in both systems (Meggitt
1974) which means, of course, that they are significantly similar to
permit mutual understanding and strategy, yet different enough in
features such as timing and valuables deployed, to allow overlap
ping participation. Moka and tee place differential value on pearl
shells and pigs (Feil 1982) which facilitates conversions where the
two systems meet. While moka has little room to expand, the tee
continues to do so, west of Wabaga and north of Kompiama, where
population densities are low and agriculture and pig production are
much less intensive. 11 Exchange systems of this sort have inherent
10
The word moka has become the pidgin term for exchange of all sorts in many parts
of the highlands.
11 I visited the area north of Kompiama, called Wapi, where people still recall that the
complex of tee, pigs and sweet potatoes all arrived together only a generation or
two ago, as marriages with southern Enga first took place. I also met men from the
Schrader Mountains, across the Jimi River, who had recently married women
from Wapi and were bringing pigs for the tee. The tee is expanding far and wide,
using marriage to create and proliferate partnerships.
expansionary properties; they demand investment and financial

opportunities further 'abroad' and can readily incorporate more
valuables and people into their chain-like, lineal arrangements (Feil
1 984a : 6 1 ) . Marriage is the most important way of bringing people
into the tee' s ambit. These features provide some insight into the de
velopment and spread of exchange phenomena like tee and moka.
Kleinig (1955:4), accepting that the tee 'came across' from Mount
Hagen, asks the further question, 'where did the Hagens get it
from?', noting, as well, that institutions of this sort do not exist
widely elsewhere in New Guinea. The answer must surely be that
this set of complex exchange 'systems' originated in Mount Hagen
with growing agricultural and pig surpluses (unavailable elsewhere)
and that western and southern expansion of moka resulted, inexor
ably, from the 'ripple' (or Jones) effect of transactions in surplus
production. Increasing population growth in the Mount Hagen
area, very early, may have prompted the migration of people west
and south who 'colonised' with moka and created the lineal charac
ter it has, along with tee today. Not only with regard to exchange
institutions do the Melpa of Mount Hagen appear as the major cul
tural exporters in the highlands (see Chapter 7).
There is other, related evidence, which indubitably links the
history of tee and moka. A. J. Strathern ( 1969b:54, 1 971a:94) has
written that moka prestations basically derive from compensation
payments and war reparations to allies and minor enemies. Mok ink
(Ryan 1 9 6 1 : 224) distributions are also bound up with payments to
allies and former enemies. Lacey ( 1979), in an ethnohistorical
account of tee development, cites the testimony of a bigman from
Wabaga: 'In the time of his ancestors before Yama (great
grandfather of present adult men) first made the tee, they had a form
of exchange also called tee pingi. This was a compensation payment
made by one group to another after death in warfare . . . At the
earlier tee men would perform the pig exchanges in the men's
houses, not in public on the ceremonial ground' (Lacey 1979:287).
Today, the tee incorporates various compensation payments known
by other names (Feil 1 984b) and is a much less narrowly defined in
stitution, as Lacey's informant clearly notes. However, it seems un
deniable that the tee originated as a system of compensation
payments. Moka and mok ink retain this overriding emphasis to the
present; the tee has developed even further (concomitant with more
intensive agriculture and pig production) into an all-encompassing
exchange institution of grander scale, integration and purpose.
Lacey further relates an expansion of tee grounds and emergence

of bigmen in Enga in the period 1 720-50 'or earlier' ( 1979:292).12
He hypothesises that this expansion of tee 'could quite properly
have been the time when the effects of the introduction of sweet
potato were beginning to be felt' (Lacey 1 979:292). If we piece
together all the material, we can speculate that the Enga tee grew
from the moka in the ancient past, or was brought by Mount Hagen
immigrants to what is now Enga, first in the form of compensation
payments (perhaps of pork) made privately. Then, with increased
production opportunities through sweet potato cultivation, the tee
expanded to something like its present, wider meaning: a public
event involving much more than reparation payments. Under this
new banner, and given the possibilities of sweet potato cultivation in
ecological zones previously unusable for taro, the tee effloresced
and spread to encompass the hundreds of thousands of people it
does today, throughout the Enga province and beyond. As noted
earlier, the Enga language family is, by far, the largest in the high
lands. The overwhelming majority of Enga speakers are involved in
the tee, which demonstrates the networks, integration and com
munication which exchange, in part, precipitated. Finally, as I have
argued throughout, and Lacey also confirms, this 'new version' of
tee required a high priority being given to peace so as to facilitate the
transfer of an increased flow of pigs. The tee 'created an atmosphere
of confidence and security', and 'is the reason why the natives do not
give themselves up either to war nor to headhunting, and why they
are not given over to the hatred of neighbouring tribes' (Wirz
1 952b : 7 1 ) .
While the tee was transformed from restricted beginnings, moka
and mok ink were undergoing other changes of their own. Mok ink
involves the distribution of large quantities of pork. While Melpa
emphasised that moka involves the presentation of live pigs, A. J.
Strathern ( 1969b:54n.; see also note 3) writes that 'certain' Mount
Hagen groups hold large pig killings too, in which pork is distribu
ted widely ('radially') as is done in mok ink. In this form, moka and
mok ink appear more similar than not. Timing is crucial for both
moka and mok ink; exchanges must take place on designated days
or else prestige is lost. All preparations are made with that end in
mind.
12
Lacey's reconstruction of Enga history is based on genealogical material and eth
nohistorical narratives.
Ryan ( 1 96 1 : 207) mentions that one meaning of ink is 'taro

garden cycle'. It might well be that the killing of pigs and distri
bution of pork, in both mok ink and to some extent moka, reflect an
earlier pattern of exchange based on taro production. The earliest
distribution of pigs, reliant on taro surpluses, might have been of
cooked pork. Other protein sources were becoming increasingly
rare and pork prestations may represent an exchange phase prior to
transactions in live pigs. 13 The Melpa moka could be interpreted as
'intermediate' between mok ink and tee, the latter dealing with live
pigs only.14 Increasingly, as moka became a system of, predomi
nantly, live pig exchange, it developed 'exchange chains' and
financial arrangements, but on a more restricted scale than those in
the Enga tee, the chains of which are 'vastly greater' (A. J. Strathern
1 969b: 62).
Both moka and mok ink, additionally, place high value on the
exchange of pearlshells; the Enga tee, much less so.15 If Mount
Hagen is the place of origin for these related exchange institutions,
immigrants from this area, moving southward, might have exported
moka, but at the same time been well placed to link up with the
major pearlshell trade routes to the Papuan coast, which run
through the Mendi area. Pork, or pigs, were exchanged for pearl
shells, and these found their way back into Mount Hagen where, in
precolonial times, they may have become the basis of social stratifi
cation through their monopolised control. The timing of the ascen
dancy in value of pearlshells is uncertain. A. J. Strathern
( 1 971a:236) mentions an old bigman's view that the 'arrival of
pearlshells and the introduction of moka-making were historical
events, belonging to the time of his father'. Strathern believes this
account significantly foreshortens the time scale, however. While
the Enga tee evolved ultimately into a system of live pig distributions
(the tee is more fully called mena tee - 'pig tee'), moka and mok ink
13 As in eastern highlands societies today. In evolutionary terms, distributions of

pork may have been supplanted later by the exchange of live pigs, as is the case
from east to west in the highlands.
14 Interestingly, homicide compensation in Enga today sometimes involves the kill
ing of pigs rather than live presentation. Its ties to moka and moka ink are evident.
15 The earliest ethnographic sources from the Enga area describe a situation in
which pearlshells were scarce, but, even so, less important than pigs (Leahy and
Cram 1937:254). Wirz ( 1 952a, 1952b) said that, unlike the moka, in the tee,
pearlshells had a decidedly secondary importance, and that a man's wealth was
measured by his pigs, not his shells.
increasingly, though perhaps recently, gave pearlshells pride of

place and highest value, a major transformation of exchange insti
tutions based originally on pigs (see Feil 1 982).
The interrelationship of these three systems is complete if we
note, following the evidence of Lacey ( 1979 : 3 00), that the yae pingi
phase of the tee cycle1 6 (which, when held, involves the distribution
of pork following a major tee prestation of live pigs) appears to have
been imported to Enga from the Mendi mok ink region in the south.
Southern Enga groups, bordering on Mendi, stress yae pingi (mok
ink ?) over the exchange of live pigs much more than do central Enga
groups who regard it merely as an occasional adjunct to the main
tee.
The tee, moka and mok ink all interlink, and merge at the seams
of language boundaries. 17 They have separately been subject to
developments and transformations of their own, but the major
point is that over 200,000 people are linked into a system of simi
larly structured exchange activities. Details and variations have
been exported and imported. As I have argued here, all the evidence,
prehistoric and historic, points to their origin, if not to their flower
ing, in the earliest, intensive, surplus-producing agricultural (and
linked pig) regimes, centred in the Mount Hagen area.
The paradox of exchange
Across the spectrum of highlands societies, only some have devel

oped exchange institutions of sufficient scale and intensity to inte
grate, politically and economically, large numbers of people and
their communities. In the others, exchange is ad hoc, derivative, or
motivated by parochial issues and interests. One need not succumb
totally to romantic Rousseauesque ideals of social contracts and
human cooperation to see that ceremonial exchange 'functions' to
promote social order and is, 'on balance', a positive integrating
force in societies lacking formal, all-encompassing political and
economic structures. The chastening reality is that exchange some
times causes disputes, even wars, and that it creates inequalities
16
The yae pingi phase is a variable, occasional part of the tee cycle. When it does
occur, pork sides are sent back in the opposite direction to tee. Partners who gave
live pigs in the tee are entitled to receive one pork side in return for each. This
'phase' is discussed in detail in Feil ( 1984b).
17 People at the borders of tee, moka and mok ink are bilingual too; exchange
systems and languages blend and become intertwined.
more firmly grounded and enduring than in societies where it is only

nascent or symptomatic. This study has analysed variations across
the highlands, some subtle, others vast, and it must be concluded
that societies in the western highlands have evolved an economic
rationality, supplanting an aggressive way of life, the effects of
which are utterly apparent in every sphere of social life and culture.
Analyses of exchange in Papua New Guinea have always high
lighted its functional value, as has been done, in part, here. High
landers themselves continually allude to the social and political
dimensions of the act of exchange. A great amount of time is spent
giving and receiving, discussing strategy and financial manoeuvring,
and in making the public displays as grand as possible. The produc
tion of valuables, on the other hand, holds no real interest; no one
would produce pigs without the thought of eventually giving them
away. This is the paradox: exchange depends on the intensive pro
duction of surpluses, but highlanders and anthropologists have
largely ignored it. Production is mundane, compared to the cer
emonial prestations to which some societies are forever geared.
Whatever 'functions' ceremonial exchange may serve, they are a
partial outcome, a result, never a cause of exchange in some teleo
logical way. Nor can exchange institutions be treated as sui generis
structures (see A. J. Strathern 1982a : 1 60n.), somehow springing up
full-blown, or inherent in the Melanesian mind. In the evolutionary
view adopted here, systems of exchange in the highlands were
spawned in areas where the intensive production of agricultural sur
pluses were first possible, apprehended, and taken up. Social re
lations created the contexts of exchange and the demand for surplus
products to conduct them. The scale and intensity of production and
exchange reflect the maintenance levels required by such relations.
Once this course was set, other options were closed off, and these
specific societies developed and transformed in a way and at a rate
different from others where production was less intensive until
much later. The first exchanges were probably 'politically' or 'econ
omically' motivated (as if these could ever be separated or dis
tinguished), and created social inequalities which are still partially
evident. But transformations occurred, productive forces altered,
social relations changed, external factors intervened, and blatant in
equalities were muted. Other societies in the highlands 'lagged'
behind these indigenous economic developments until their political
economy was, more recently, profoundly affected. Their efforts and
energies were trained on other tasks. The practices which consume
highland societies, east to west, are better understood if one 'reads

backward' into their pasts, and then proceeds forward in a pro
cessional way. Only then can the continuous interaction of econ
omic, political and social variables, related in this book, be shown to
account for the different social and cultural configurations of the
present.
9 The legacy of the past
Thi.ts, the resurgence of tribal "fighting is, in part, a result of the

reduction of constraints which might otherwise have facilitated
the containment of conflict rather than its expansion into war
fare'.
Podolefsky ( 1 984:73 )
Now traditional big-men have invariably modernized.

Connell (1979 : 1 1 7)
Gahuku in 1 981 have by no means achieved a thoroughgoing

mutuality in male-female relations.
Read (1982:77)
In harnessing cash to the structure of moka partnerships, today's

big-men have clearly repeated the manoeuvres of their prede
cessors thirty years ago.
A. J. Strathern ( 1979a:536)
This book has been concerned primarily with tracing continuities

from the prehistoric and historic past into the ethnographic present.
It has spurned synchronic or structural comparisons between
societies in favour of an evolutionary one. The diversity of social
forms evident in the ethnographic record of the highlands has been
viewed as the outcome of the differing growth of productive forces,
their utilisation and concomitant social relations bearing on them
through time. Within this framework, I have argued that the west
ern highlands of New Guinea was the scene of intensive agriculture
and the surplus production of pigs at a very early date. The objec
tives of the economy did not remain narrow; wide-ranging ex-
271
change developed which in tum stimulated greater surplus production.

These societies became and remained 'high production' societies,
and this fact is the key to understanding configurations of leadership,
warfare, social structure and male-female relations. These fac
tors are all interrelated as has been stressed, and the connections
between them have been amply demonstrated. Western highlanders
project an economic rationale on to social life and the advantages
and disadvantages of this stance have been repeatedly noted.
Eastern highlands societies have, much more recently, followed
the path towards intensified agriculture and pig production. Yet,
well into the ethnographic present their economies remained trunca
ted and fractured and a label of 'low production' is an apt and con
vincing description of them. The evolutionary continuum of
highland societies postulated here shows clear divergence in every
aspect of social life and culture. Eastern highlanders continued to
devote their energies towards the production of things foreign to the
calculus of their western highlands counterparts. The highlands,
then, are not unitary; we can palpably discern and trace differing
histories and prehistories which mark one region from the other and
allow a clearer appreciation of the transformations which have
occurred through time.
The arrival and adoption of the sweet potato has been pinpointed
as one 'revolution' which had far-reaching implications for some
highlands societies. How many other such 'internal' revolutions
took place in the past is unknown. However, it is clear that societies
of the highlands were never static in precolonial times; institutions
and ideas diffused and were taken up and reincorporated; pro
ductive arrangements and social relations transformed continually,
even if, perhaps, only incrementally.
In the evolution of the highlands, the other momentous revolution
known to us is the advent of colonialism, and all that it entailed.
Highland societies in the 1930s were brought into the sphere of the
national and international order and microscopic changes were
magnified beyond those experienced previously. While the colonial
impact was by no means subtle, one should not underemphasise the
resilience of precolonial structures and institutions. Traditional
societies were not instantly made over into incipiently capitalist
ones. In this concluding chapter, I propose, very briefly, to examine
the legacy of the past in the 'post-ethnographic present' and as well,
to highlight those discontinuities between past and present which
have been subject to the moulding influence of external fa<:tors.
The legacy of the past 273
Renewed warfare
From the 1 930s onward, and with intensified effort after the dis
ruption of World War II, the Australian colonial presence was ex
tended in the highlands. Among its first goals was to exert its
authority by contacting all groups in the highlands, and 'pacifying'
them. Warfare was banned, violence outlawed, areas 'derestricted'
to whites and control in all ways vested in Australian field officers
who came to be known as kiaps (captains). From accounts across
the highlands it appears that warfare was quickly suppressed;
indeed, it was willingly given up by the people themselves and the
power of the kiap unquestioningly accepted. Those who had lived
under the constant threat of death were only too relieved to adhere
to the ban and, while suspicions, covert hostility, even minor skir
mishes persisted, the new-found security was welcomed by all.
Kiaps were not numerous and often relied on projecting an image of
uncompromising strength, impartiality and power, to implement
policy and prevent bloodshed (Gordon 1983).
Peace reigned in the highlands until the 1 970s when, after a
period of thirty-five years, warfare and violence began in earnest
again. States of Emergency have been declared, police forces bol
stered, and jail sentences for offenders lengthened, but death and de
struction have continued to increase. In 1 983, the police minister
recounted that 'Highland tribal fights in the last three years had left
423 people dead, . . . between K[kina] 15 million and K 20 million
worth of property damaged, . . . and 66,000 items of property -
including coffee trees, houses, food gardens and livestock - were re
corded destroyed [in some 49 5 officially recorded tribal fights]'
(Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, 1 2 May 1983, p. 14, quoted in
Westermark 1 984: 1 15 ; see also, for other details, Podolefsky
1 984:74-5).
The reasons for this renewed fighting have been addressed by a
number of anthropologists and others. Opinion seems divided on
whether contemporary warfare is best interpreted as a revival of an
historic pattern or the result of strains and pressures first set in
motion in the colonial era, and exacerbated in the move towards
independence and statehood. A. J. Strathern ( 1 9 77), for example,
believes both are contributory. Highlanders faced an 'administrat
ive gap' as Australian kiaps were replaced by indigenous officials,
local courts and provincial governments. People perceived white
kiaps as 'strong'; the diffuse institutions controlled by Papua New
Guineans that replaced them, as weak (Gordon 1983). Violence

became a way of handling matters in the absence of a powerful post
colonial administration. The suppression of warfare 'by' kiaps
could not be sustained by those who followed. A. J. Strathern has
noted that land for cash crops increasingly became more scarce (see
also Nilles 1 974; Orken 1 974), but also that traditional enmities
had not been forgotten despite the passage of time. These factors
together produced a climate in which warfare could recur. Tra
ditional bigmen, whose authority had been eroded in the economic
and political domains during colonialism, now exhorted younger
men to violence, perhaps in an attempt to regain lost prestige for
themselves and their groups.
Others have viewed the upsurge of fighting as the product of pol
itical uncertainty in the immediate postcolonial period (Standish
1 974) or, more generally, as a 'protest rising out of a psychological
strain created by the drastic social change of an imposed economic
and political system' (Kerpi 1 976:2). Certainly, fighting is now
adays often precipitated by incidents which have no precolonial
counterpart: car accidents, drunkenness, gambling and so on. How
ever, disputes jnvolving women, theft, insult, and former homicides
continue to incite violent reprisals. There is, moreover, the general
feeling among highlanders that development goals have not been
achieved and that national and provincial governments, which have
promised so much, have failed to deliver (Brown 1982).
Relatively few writers have noted that warfare in the 1 970s and
1980s has been confined largely to Chimbu and western highlands
areas; the eastern and southern highlands have been immune from
the most serious outbreaks of violence common in the west. As
noted previously, this is perhaps paradoxical, for, as I have argued
above (see Chapter 4 ), warfare in the eastern highlands, in precolon
ial times, was far more severe, widespread, bloody and 'unrestric
ted' than it was in the western highlands or Chimbu. Westermark
( 1984) and, to a lesser extent, A. J. Strathern ( 1 977), have addressed
this variation and their perspectives are apposite for linking war
fare, past and present.
Before the advent of colonialism, eastern highlands leadership
was based on enmity and violence as the discussion of despotism has
clearly demonstrated. Despots promoted warfare and their person
alities displayed quick temper, anger and revenge. Occasions of cer
emonial exchange between groups were virtually non-existent, and,
therefore, leaders had no role in linking entities. When the colonial
administration banned warfare, the 'organizational basis' of leaders

was undermined, intertribal warfare came to a rapid halt, and peace
has been far more lasting into the present (A. J. Strathern 1 977: 143-
4). Concomitantly, as Westermark shows, the internal solidarity of
eastern highlands groups, so evident in the past, and oriented over
whelmingly towards warfare and defence, has been diminished by
accusations of sorcery from within, linked to competition for land.
In sum, intragroup divisions, a 'contraction in the boundaries of
support' (Westermark 1 984: 108 ) and the initial removal of the
structure of leadership has led to a situation in which minor conflicts
do not automatically 'escalate' into full-scale wars in much of the
eastern highlands. In modern Papua New Guinea, however, news of
war travels quickly over distances once silent. Westermark notes im
portantly that, despite the constraints, eastern highlanders are
increasingly turning to the western highlands example, gleaned
from radio and other reports, that 'self-help', through warfare, may
be an option that they must ultimately accept.
In the western highlands and Chimbu, where warfare has most
dramatically recurred, an additional factor must be added to those
above, in a discussion of contemporary warfare. During much of the
colonial period, traditional social relations and mechanisms of
social control were held in place. Ties of exchange between groups
and individuals persisted; sometimes they were even fostered by
kiaps who recognised their value (see, for example, Feil 1 979). Dis
putes of all kinds, even homicides, were 'settled' and compensated
through negotiated ceremonial exchange and we cannot under
emphasise its importance in the past as a controlling institution,
absent throughout much of the eastern highlands. 1 For many
reasons, ultimately rooted in the colonial encounter, systems of cer
emonial exchange have increasingly broken down under the
influences of cash or other pressures, or have been transformed into
institutions bearing scant resemblance to what they once were.2 The
1
The colonial administration prosecuted homicides and sentenced offenders. Com
pensation proceeded locally, nonetheless. Other, less serious, offences were also
handled locally within traditional paramet�rs which usually included the payment
of valuables within a wider exchange nexus (see, for example, Feil 1979).
2
Some exchange systems have fragmented. The tee, for example, once united
almost all Enga areas into one exchange cycle. However, today, in some parts of
the tee' s former ambit, cash-cropping and other concerns have replaced it in im
portance. There is a growing regional emphasis in the institution which once
covered all Enga. Enga cite increased mobility and movement, accentuated by
pacification, in which men can 'step-over' near links and deal directly with those
distant from home, as a major cause of trouble in the tee' s orderly operation.
demise of exchange and the perceived ineffectiveness of a weak indi

genous administration have offered few alternatives to western
highlanders, aside from violence, for settling grievances, disputes,
and for pressing claims. A. J. Strathern ( 1977) has suggested that a
contributing cause of renewed warfare is that 'inter-tribal structures
of enmity and alliance were kept alive and dramatised in ritual form
by the great exchange festivals' ( 1977: 143). However, in most
cases, those exchange festivals have been so totally transformed in
character, that they no longer retain what was surely part of their
raison d'etre in precolonial times.
In a paper which broadly supports the view here, Podolefsky
( 1984) argues that the web of Chimbu alliances, through marriage
and matrilateral links, has 'decayed'. Chimbu marry nearby now;
men claim that they are 'tired' of searching for women distant from
home, as their fathers did in the past. Important exchange and trade
networks outside the tribe have dissolved; important relations
which formerly constrained conflict (see Brown 1 964; see also
Chapter 4) are absent now. Thus, according to Podolefsky, 'the res
urgence of tribal fighting is, in part, a result of the reduction of con
straints which might otherwise have facilitated the containment of
conflict' ( 1 984:73). Intergroup and interpersonal linkages of the
past are no longer recreated and maintained.
A complex set of factors is responsible for renewed fighting in the
highlands. But, as in the past, the intensity of warfare varies mark
edly. While there may be an historic legacy of violence, increasingly
diminished in significance are structures and relationships of
exchange which, in some parts of the highlands, kept it within toler
able limits and allowed a measure of security and social control to
prevail.
Bigmen and 'big peasants'

Pacification undermined the basis of leadership in much of the
eastern highlands. However, in some areas, wealth accumulation
and exchange provided an alternative path to prestige, although the
ethnography overwhelmingly attests to the fact that, in precolonial
times, strength in warfare was the primary road to leadership (for
example, Read 1 95 9 :428 ; and see Chapter 5). When warfare was
banned in the eastern highlands, this secondary path became more
prominent, and economic achievement became a defining criterion

of leadership more rapidly than in the past.3
The colonial administration which enforced peace, also created
the opportunity for certain men to become wealthy, certainly more
wealthy than their village counterparts. The 1 950s saw the growth
of coffee cultivation and the establishment of coffee plantations near
Goroka owned by former kiaps and others.4 Some European plan
ters entered into 'partnerships' (patron-client relationships) with
New Guineans who became relatively 'rich'. Other highlanders
were appointed as luluais, government representatives in the vil
lages who introduced cash-cropping, but also had a hand in other
affairs, including, it seems, the negotiation of land deals with Euro
peans (Donaldson and Good 1 98 1 : 145). Other New Guineans
worked as agricultural officers and assistants, and came to control
access to information on coffee and other cash-crop cultivation and
sometimes even to coffee seedlings and nurseries. Others still
became influential in missions, worked in trade stores, local govern
ment and other business activities owned and ultimately dominated
by expatriates. While colonial policy was explicitly aimed at
improving every subsistence farmer's standard of living, in practice
only a few men benefited from the opportunities offered by the col
onial administration.
It is clear that 'traditional' bigmen were the first to seize the possi
bilities presented. They often managed to combine traditional activi
ties with novel business and other enterprises. The congealed roles
of former bigmen gave way to increased specialisation, but bigmen
excelled in several spheres of influence and simultaneously height
ened their standing in their communities. In an environment where
cash became more desired and necessary (for taxes and other pur
poses), some have argued that, not only was a peasantry created in
3
Finney ( 1973) suggests that Goroka society was 'preadapted', through traditional
structures and behaviour, for the coming of capitalism. In arguing Gorokans' pen
chant for wealth accumulation and exchange in precolonial times, it would seem
that his material contradicts an argument developed in this book. However, it
should be emphasised, as Finney himself does, that studies of leadership in the
highlands all date from postpacification (Finney 1973 : 16). By this time, eastern
highlands warrior leaders had been forced to give up this road to prestige and
might have turned towards exchange activities to maintain some power. In other
words, the preadaptation which Finney hypothesises may not be very old nor may
it stretch back very far before the advent of colonialism. The evolution of leader
ship types was treated in Chapter 5 where attention to a longer span of history
was urged.
4
In 1 948, the colonial administration allowed the establishment of plantations
owned by expatriates.
the highlands, but those who were strategically placed and who
recognised and took up the opportunities offered by a colonial
system, became 'big peasants' and growing inequalities have been
the result (see, for example, Howlett 1973; Connell 1 979; Gerritsen
1 9 8 1 [originally 1 975] ; Donaldson and Good 198 1 ; Sexton 1 9 8 3 ) .
Many modern business leaders i n Goroka society, for example
(Finney 1973), are either traditional bigmen or, more commonly,
use the methods and style of past leaders to gain prestige and wealth.
These often include marshalling the collective labour, land and
other assets of fellow clanspeople, who formed a united entity in the
past and who are prepared to follow new leaders in novel ventures
in the present. A class of indigenous elites has arisen (Gerritsen
1 98 1 : 10) who have, to some extent, replaced the now departed
expatriates. Good ( 1976:3) has argued that 'the comparative speed
of such change [the transformation of subsistence villagers into
peasant farmers] , despite the weakness of Australian capitalism,
strongly suggests that Papua New Guinea pre-capitalist societies
already possessed significant inherent inequalities'. Whether or not
this is the case across the highlands, there is clearly a continuity in
the legacy of leadership from past to present.
In societies of the western highlands, these same processes are
also evident. Meggitt ( 1 9 7 1 ) was one of the first to recognise that the
Enga transformation 'from tribesmen to peasants' was 'well
advanced' (1971 :209). Brown (1 979) has written of developing
rural stratification in Chimbu, and the mediating role that Chimbu
leaders play between the structures of modern capitalism and those
of the village, gaining power in that capacity. Standish (n.d.) has
shown how contemporary Chimbu leaders employ the political
techniques of the past, 'deliberately acting with tactically useful ver
sions of the old-style of Simbu politics' (Standish n.d. :24).
In both Chimbu and especially Mount Hagen, not only were
former bigmen the first to adopt new avenues of wealth and power,
but the evidence is that, just as in the past, they have passed on the
status of bigman to their sons. The remnants of an indigenous 'class
system' at the time of first European contact remain (see Chapter 5 ) .
A . J. Strathern ( 1 970:55 1 ) notes that fifty-eight o f ninety-seven
bigmen in Mount Hagen in 1 964 were the sons of bigmen. Further
more, twenty-seven of forty councillors were bigmen or the sons of
bigmen, and some had also had previous government service. In
sum, elites of the past are self-perpetuating in the modern context.
Standish cites the case of Iambakey Okuk, a national political
figure, criticising his current Chimbu political opponents by saying

that they are not the sons of former bigmen (and hence cannot effec
tively lead) as he is (Standish n.d.:24). He continues to show
strength and force in rhetoric and debate which were undoubtedly
part of his father's political repertoire. In former times, bigmen of
the western highlands were the outstanding manipulators of wealth;
inequalities were grounded in economic terms. That tradition
remains and, with enforced pacification, even some men in the east
ern highlands have followed suit.
It is inevitable, however, that new contexts of wealth acquisition
have served to create 'leaders' who, in the past, could never have
aspired to such positions. A. J. Strathern ( 1982b) writes of an intra
lineage cleavage in one Mount Hagen group: one man remains com
mitted to moka and prestige gained through traditional channels,
albeit with the incorporation of money into exchange. The other
might be a 'rubbishman' except for his cash income from coffee and
his association with the Lutheran church. Their support groups are
divided, but the traditional bigman faces a difficult task in keeping
his following together, for the lure of money and conspicuous con
sumption attract younger men away from the business of moka.
If peasantries and big peasants have been created in the immedi
ate colonial and postcolonial period, what is their fate? Howlett
( 1 973) suggested that a stage of 'terminal peasantry' would soon be
reached (see also Gerritsen 198 1 ) . Without large capital inputs, new
techniques of cultivation and crops, there will be a limitation on fur
ther development. Gerritsen has hypothesised that increasing 'indi
vidualism' at the 'expense of communalism' will be a concomitant
effect ( 1 98 1 : 17). In eastern highlands societies, that would be a rad
ical departure from the past. The immediate future of the highlands
points to growing inequalities between people, a fragmentation of
former solidarity and an increasing emphasis on other than tra
ditional paths to leadership and power.
Males and females
Colonisation and pacification saw the end of male initiations and

secrecy surrounding nama flutes in much of the eastern highlands.
In Gahuku-Gama, for example, the last group of boys was initiated
in 1950-2 (Read 1 9 8 2 : 73 ) . Read writes that, with peace assured,
Gahuku no longer needed to produce warriors, and men were glad
to forgo the constant and onerous vigilance of their neighbours.
Youths also increasingly took up wage labour way from home when
initiation was due. Read admits, however, that even in the precolon
ial period, before cults waned, some men were less than committed
to the harsh treatment of initiates and the pain of nose-bleeding
which the ideology of their culture prescribed. Concomitant with
the demise of initiation were the growing opportunities for women
to escape the bounded spheres which had circumscribed their lives
previously. Read ( 1 982) documents how women in Gahuku-Gama
society have become involved in business, have gone to school, and
have taken some control over marriage and their sexuality, all of
which would have been impossible in times past. Much of the ideol
ogy of sexual antagonism, female danger and inferiority has also
diminished in the postcolonial era.
However, much of the basis of that ideology and behaviour in the
past, as argued in Chapter 7, remains. Read writes that 'men still
own and control the basic resources of production and women have
made almost no inroads on their [men's] political power and auth
ority' ( 1 9 82:76). Gahuku men still characterise women as 'way
ward' and 'irresponsible' in matters of sex and marriage. Women
may have greater freedom to express opinions, but wives are
'still beaten by husbands on occasion' (Read 1 982:77). It can be
forcefully argued that the underlying foundation of male domi
nation of women persists as it did in the past, based on the absolute,
monopolistic control of the means of production by men.
Much of the mystifying ideology justifying that control has become
diluted.
In the same area of the highlands, furthermore, women's concern
over their lack of control of production has manifested itself in the
development of women's 'collective action' groups known as Wok
Meri (Sexton 1982). Women collectively invest small sums of
money in business ventures of all kinds. Sexton forcefully points out
that this modern investment scheme is a direct result of women's
lack of control over resources in land, and crops and coffee pro
duced by them on it, which is inherited in a strict patrilineal fashion
and of which men are sole owners. Strict patrilineality in the eastern
highlands endures (see Chapter 6). Women see men squander cash
in gambling and drinking and Wok Meri is the context in which they
exert modest claims over money they have earned by their work.
A great deal of ritual, reminiscent of the past, accompanies Wok
Meri gatherings. Groups of women 'marry' each other and give
'bridewealth'. They construct genealogies in which only women
The legacy of the past 28 1
figure (see Chapter 6). 'Big women' organise meetings.5 As well,

Wok Meri groups employ men in two capacities. One is as 'chair
man' (Sexton 1 982: 1 9 1 ) . Chairmen protect women as they move
about the areas carrying money to attend Wok Meri meetings. Their
role is akin to that of a traditional warrior (Sexton 1982 : 1 9 1 ) . Men
are also given the job of 'bookkeeper' to Wok Meri organisations.
They take care of the money and keep accounts in order. Some men
see these two roles as a path to individual advancement; other men
greatly ridicule Wok Meri groups and argue that they are women's
'secret societies' which have no parallel in traditional Asaro culture.
Some men assist women for, like idza nama, a successful Wok Meri
venture provides the whole clan with prestige (see Chapter 8 ) . The
amount of control that men exert in Wok Meri arrangements is
unclear. Sexton emphasises that Wok Meri is a way to 'reaffirm that
women are the source of wealth', and that women 'shoulder the
burden of insuring the "fertility" or reproduction of money which
has become a requisite . . . for the reproduction of society' (Sexton
1 982: 1 97). In the past, men, secluded in cult houses, mimed
women's procreative ability and contribution to social life and its
reproduction. With the demise of initiation, women's role and value
as producers of wealth, children and social relations have become,
belatedly, more publicly recognised by all.
In a more recent comment on women's growing involvement in
modern business enterprises, Sexton (1983) notes that one corpor
ation, the Goroka Women's Investment Corporation (GWIC), in
augurated to assist women in business, is plagued by a low level of
capital investment and participation in activities which have been
channelled into ventures 'that are not competitive with male
dominated interests in the region' (Sexton 1 9 8 3 : 134). Men's econ
omic dominance in the eastern highlands remains firm in the
modern context and such development schemes widen rather than
reduce the economic disparity between the sexes. These inequalities,
Sexton argues, continue to be based on differential property rights
between dominant, owning men and property-less women (Sexton
1 9 8 3 : 149).
In most parts of the western highlands, economic development
and the innovations of cash-cropping have been more slowly taken
up than in the eastern highlands. Traditional exchange economies,
albeit somewhat modified, have persisted into the present. It is
5
Sexton points out that 'big women' are not the wives of bigmen. It is in the context
of Wok Meri alone that 'big women' gain this title (Sexton 1982: 171).
perhaps ironic that eastern highlanders, with little tradition of elab

orate economic exchange, have been transformed from domestic
oriented, subsistence producers to cash-cropping 'peasants' in
barely three decades, while the exchange-oriented western highlan
ders have clung tenaciously to 'economic' objectives and practices of
the past. Impressionistically, the transformation of the eastern high
lands appears to have been more devastating without the 'buffer' of
social relations and societal constraints on the economy rooted in
traditional exchange. It is this very ancient commitment to exchange
and all it entails interpersonally which has resulted in more gradual,
less catastrophic economic change in the western highlands. These
economies continue to resist the narrow objectives which, else
where, have fostered incipient 'peasantries'. A. J. Strathern
( 1 982c:309) makes this same point when he writes that Melpa
sought both subsistence and prestige in production. Working for
money on plantations brought prestige only to the owner of the
plantation. Melpa liken this prestige to that gained through tra
ditional exchanges. Therefore, they would rather stay at home and
gain it themselves than be 'unsatisfactorily exploited' by some capi
talist employer.
As in the past, most male-female issues in the western highlands
today revolve around exchange and production. There were no male
initiation cults and, as I argued, male-female relations were less an
tagonistic and dichotomous here than elsewhere. Men continue to
stereotype women negatively in novel contexts (A. J. Strathern
1 9 8 1 ) but, in Mount Hagen, the introduction of the cash-cropping
of coffee has added a further dimension to the transactor-producer:
male-female equation noted in Chapter 7. Men plant coffee and
claim the cash that it brings on that basis. Women do much of the
labour associated with harvesting and processing and feel that they
have some right to the cash gained from coffee because of their work
in its production. The basis of the women's claim is that, in the past,
they 'owned' (A. J. Strathern 1 982c:3 12) the garden produce of
their labour, sweet potatoes, and to some extent, the pigs that fed on
them. Nowadays, they sell garden produce in markets and retain the
cash for themselves. Coffee, however, is an 'ambiguous crop' in
which the claims of both sexes have some force. The outcome,
according to A. J. Strathern, is 'negotiable . . . in which different
married couples are making different choices' ( 1 982c:3 12). In the
present, as in the past, women continue to assert their partial juris
diction over the control of the products their labour creates.
Money has entered the moka (see below), and while women were
only occasional 'quasi-transactors' in pig and shell moka pre
viously, their access to cash has prompted their increasing involve
ment in 'money moka'. In several recent moka documented by A. J.
Strathern ( 1 979a), women donated and received sums of money. In
the words of Strathern ( 1 982c : 3 1 3), this demonstrates 'the develop
ment of independent female action in exchange, resulting from
women's special position in the new cash economy and transcend
ing the producer/transactor division between the sexes'. Men con
tinue to try to obfuscate women's contributions, to insist that
money is 'too strong' for them to handle, and to remake women's
moka involvement and use it for their own ends (A. J. Strathern
1 979a). But it appears that women are gaining increasing recog
nition as transactors in their own right, and a further say and share
of the income generated from cash-cropping based on the contri
bution of their labour. We might forecast that the ambiguous
producer-transactor dichotomy, which was never absolutely sex
linked in the past in Mount Hagen society (A. M. Strathern 1978), is
further under attack today and the relatively greater control over
productive resources that Melpa women historically have had,
remains a feature of contemporary society there.
The resilience of ceremonial exchange
If any one feature of Melanesian society could be singled out as

'typical', exchange, ceremonial or otherwise, would almost cer
tainly qualify. Most Melanesian societies are characterised by the
constant give and take of valuables, and the earliest ethnographers
of the region noted its pervasive significance. If exchange is some
how 'inherent' to Melanesian thinking and behaviour, it is perhaps
no wonder that it has persisted remarkably in the colonial and post
colonial periods. This is especially true in the highlands. The incor
poration of cash into ceremonial exchange is merely the latest
transformation. We have seen how in some areas, at least, pearl
shells once supplanted pigs as items of highest value. The inflation
ary effects of the massive importation of shells led to their decline. In
an ironic twist, Finney ( 1 974) reports how, in Goroka, shells
became so valueless that plantations bought them up cheaply and
ground them for 'chicken feed'. The power of cash to transform cer
emonial exchange systems is, however, potentially more devastating
than shell inflation ever was. While exchange systems continue, we
can only agree with Gregory ( 1 9 8 2 : 1 16) that highlands economies

today are 'ambiguous', perched uneasily between past concerns and
present pressures.
In some parts of the eastern highlands, pig festivals have been
replaced by events known as singsing bisnis (Boyd 1 985b). On these
occasions, pigs are slaughtered and meat sold to people who come to
watch dancing and other activities. Admission is paid for and large
sums of money are gained by the sponsors. The crass commercialism
of these festivals belies a secondary feature. Money secured by spon
sors is often given in bridewealth and other 'traditional' contexts;
loans (credit and debt-incurring) are extended for prestige as well as
profit. Some money goes to finance subsequent business pursuits. In
sum, singsing bisnis represents a partial continuity with the past.
They are cyclical, spectacular, competitive and prestige-oriented
events. But more fundamentally, they represent a profound transfor
mation of the past. In eastern highlands societies, where a tradition
and history of exchange institutions lack development in compari
son with other areas of the highlands, the 'commercialization of
ritual' (Boyd 1 985b) has been swift and more total. Here, there is
little legacy of exchange, social relations validated through it, or the
moral and community constraints on the economy evident else
where. The 'leap' towards commodity exchange and nascent capi
talism has been less fettered. To quote one singsing bisnis man: 'This
is a new pasin [custom] here. It is good and we will keep it. The pig
festivals are gone and now all we think about is money' (Boyd
1 985b:336). One can hardly detect a note of regret at their passing.
In Chimbu (Brookfield 1973), after a major pig ceremony was
last held in 1 956, coffee production attracted prime interest and
land was increasingly given over to it at the expense of sweet
potatoes used as fodder for pigs. When, by the mid-1 960s, land for
more coffee plantings became scarce and the price of coffee fell,
Chimbu turned back to ceremonial exchange and staged a major pig
festival in 1 972, sixteen years after the previous one - double the
interval of traditional festivals (see Chapter 8 ) . Brookfield
(1973 : 13 8 ) reports a 'resurgence of old ways' and a return to the
more secure prestige-seeking channels of former times. But even
during the 'heyday' of coffee, many Chimbu remained committed to
pig cycles; now Chimbu have come 'full-circle' and a synthesis of
past concern and modern practice is evolving.
Among Maring, where trade traditionally was more important
than ceremonial exchange, money is treated as a 'valuable' and
traded like other goods; it is used as currency only in highly specific

contexts (Healey 1 985). As a trade item, it freely serves as a valuable
and, as such, it is a vehicle of sociable intentions between long
standing partners rather than an impersonal medium of buying and
selling. By categorising money so, the 'total transformative force of
capitalism' has been denied by Maring, at least for the moment,
'with the effect of preserving . . . essentially traditional, pre
capitalist idioms' (Healey 1985: 142).
In the two societies in which exchange was most elaborate in pre
colonial times, the effects of money have been differentially felt. In
Enga, the tee transactions I witnessed between 1 974 and 1980 never
included money. Pigs remained the most valuable items. On the one
occasion when money was given, it explicitly represented a pig that
had died; it was passed on as a 'valuable' between partners. In other
parts of Enga, money has apparently penetrated tee dealings more
thoroughly (Meggitt 1 9 7 1 ) . The tee, from the beginning of colonis
ation and missionisation, has been under attack, but has, up to now,
withstood the pressures to abandon it (see Feil 1 979, 1 9 8 3 ; Meggitt
1974). Enga told me that 'the tee will die only when all men are
dead'. Perhaps they realise that when the gift exchange economy is
no more, a new sort of man will be born. Meggitt, too, notes that the
tee is 'tenacious . . . I for one would not assume its demise unless I
actually attended the funeral' (Meggitt 1 974: 1 82).
Among Melpa, the advent of money has had more serious impli
cations. As bigmen formerly had done with pearlshells, they have
tried to keep firm control of money, by defining it as a valuable and
attaching ritual to its handling as a moka item (A. J. Strathern
1 979a) . But as pearlshells were subject to inflation, so is cash, and,
as well, cash cannot be retained solely within the exchange nexus; it
has too many other uses outside, and too many people can earn it.
Thus, the control and availability of cash and participation in cer
emonial exchange are contradictory, opposing forces currently
operating in Melpa society (see A. J. Strathern 1 976) . Furthermore,
the growing of coffee has encroached steadily on the garden land
necessary for the cultivation of sweet potatoes, for both human con
sumption and pig fodder. A. J. Strathern writes how Melpa must
now often buy sweet potatoes in the market for themselves and their
pigs, which are to be given away in a forthcoming moka. Further
more, pigs are now bought with coffee cash, and given in moka, in
an attempt by some men to escape the productive claims, tradition
ally exerted, by their wives (A. J. Strathern 1 979a:544). The press-
ures on moka are considerable; 'younger men frequently declare

that they want to move out of moka and concentrate their efforts
instead on making money in business' (A. J. Strathern 1 982c:3 15).
A prominent bigman, on the other hand, argues that the past and
present are in 'competition', but 'one will not overcome the other -
they will carry on together' (Ongka, quoted in A. ]. Strathern
1 976:286).
It has recently been argued that there appears to be a 'remarkable
mapping of Highland systems of prestige gift-giving . . . on to an
introduced capitalist system' (A. J. Strathern 1982d:55 1 ) . This
point can surely be debated; however, the moka system more than
the tee, for example, was traditionally characterised by inherent
increments in transactions, 'over-gifting', virtual profits in its
exchanges. The moka has proved highly resilient in the face of capi
talism. The moka today, as it was many times in the past, is at the
very forefront of change and transformation. The Mount Hagen
area has seen the genesis of intensive cultivation and elaborate
exchange, the transition from pigs to pearlshells, a return to pigs (A.
J. Strathern 1 976:285), and, more recently still, the incorporation of
cash into the ceremonial system. This latter development is just one
more of many transformations in the history of exchange in an area
which, arguably, has been the scene of the most momentous and far
reaching developments in the evolution of the New Guinea high
lands.
The total institutions of the past thus remain part of the present.
This legacy bears a distinctive stamp and will remain as highland
societies and their people confront and, one hopes, succeed in shap
ing their future in a culturally meaningful way.
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Index
Abiera, 75, 105, 106, 1 1 0 Batainabura, 75

affines, 62, 76-80, 8 1 , 8 9 , 9 1 , 127, 154, Batari, 19, 2 1 , 22
155-6, 23 1 , 276 Bateson, G., 56, 60, 88, 8 9
Africa, 69, 128, 129 Bedamini, 1 7 8 , 1 80, 1 8 3
'African models', 124, 128-33 Bena Bena, 44, 45, 6 9 , 7 3 , 76, 8 6 , 108,
Agarabi, 69 133, 134, 137, 150, 1 5 1 , 152, 153,
age-grades, 109, 152, 203-4, 239 1 74, 1 99, 210, 213, 243 , 253, 354
agriculture, 8, 23-32; evolution of, 13, Bergmann, H. F. W., 107
23-6, 30-1, 62-5, 1 15-16; Bern,J., 1 90
intensification of, 4, 8-9, 34, 35-7, Berndt, R., 2, 3, 66, 67, 69, 71, 76, 8 1 ,
39-40, 53-61 107, 109, 145, 1 8 1 , 200, 204, 206,
Aibura, 19, 2 1 , 22 237
Aiyura, 14, 1 9 Bettleheim, B., 172
Allen,J., 1 9 bigmen. See leadership
Allen, M., 3, 93, 1 1 1 , 121, 122, 127, 'big peasants', 276-9
133-6 passim, 152, 166, 170, 1 73, Binumarien, 1 1 1 , 145, 146, 147
1 74, 1 83, 210, 2 1 7, 222,225 Blackwood, B., 141, 142
amb kor and kor wop (Melpa), 221-2 Blong, R. J ., 26
Anga, 6, 7, 100, 101, 141-4, 1 76, 177, blood: letting of, 1 93-4, 201 ; maternal,
178, 179, l 84-7 passim, 1 92, 1 99, 1 59-6 1 , 1 62; menstrual, 1 72, 1 83,
202, 205, 236, 237, 238 1 90, 224-5
Arnhem Land, 1 8 1 Boserup, E., 54, 55
Arona Valley, 1 3 , 1 9, 74 Bougainville, 120, 121
Asaro, 7, 14, 15, 44, 45, 77, 150-4, 1 85, Bowers, N., 16, 28, 264
199, 204, 212, 238 , 239, 240, 247, Boyd, D., 30, 39, 44, 45, 47, 49-52
250, 281 passim, 55, 56, 75, 144, 145, 206,
Australian Aborigines, 1 , 1 89, 1 90, 191 208, 2 12, 237, 238, 242, 246, 253,
Auyana, 41, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 85, 260, 284
105, 109, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, Brandewie, E., 70, 107, 1 12, 224, 228,
205, 237, 238, 243, 246,253 244
Awa, 30, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 5 1 , brideservice, 142; societies, 1 8 7-92
52, 55, 56, 74, 75, 85, l41, 144, bridewealth, 142, 144-5, 226, 23 1 , 242
145, 146, 206, 2 1 2, 237, 238, 242, Brookfield, H. C., 6, 14, 15, 1 6, 27, 28,
253 32, 33, 39, 44, 45, 48, 49, 54, 55,
58, 59, 86, 156, 237, 248, 284
Banaro, 3 Brown, P., 3, 4, 6, 39, 41, 44, 45, 48, 49,
Barnes,]. A., 1, 3, 69, 79, 124, 128, 129, 53, 54, 70, 73, 78, 82, 86, 96, 97,
130, 132, 161 98, 1 14, 155, 156, 158, 159, 210,
Baruya, 6, 100, 101, 102, 103 , 1 04, 141, 2 1 1 , 214, 215, 2 1 6, 2 1 7, 237, 240,
143, 144, 176, 1 79, 1 84, 1 86, 1 87, 244, 248, 254, 255, 256, 260, 274,
1 92-9, 209. Seealso Anga 276, 278
307
308 Index
Buchbinder, G., 3, 45, 2 1 1 , 2 14, 215, Du Toit, B., 44, 69, 74, 145, 148, 237,
2 1 9, 249 238
bugla gende (Chimbu), 244, 248, 254-5,
262 eastern versus western highlands, 8-9,
Bulmer, R., 2, 6, 12, 15, 33, 40, 70, 210, 13, 1 8-19, 34-7, 39, 53, 62-3,
2 1 1 , 242, 256 69-70, 90-2, 98-100, 120-2,
Bulmer, S., 6, 12, 15, 18, 33, 40 1 25-7, 133-4, 168-9, 230-2,
Bus, G., 235, 242, 263, 264 233-5 , 25 1-2, 268-70, 271-2
Elkin, A., 233, 235, 242, 263, 264
cash-cropping, 28 1-3 elopement, 2 1 9
Casuarina, 3 1-2 Enga, 3 , 4, 32, 33, 34, 36, 40, 41, 44, 45,
ceremonial exchange, 233-70; contexts 46, 48, 49, 57, 59, 63, 70, 73, 78,
of, 242-5; partnerships of, 260-3 ; 79, 8 1-4 passim, 87, 94, 98, 1 08,
resilience of, 283-6; scale of, 1 12, 133, 134, 136, 139, 140,
235-42; timing of, 237, 239, 1 60-3 passim, 212, 220, 222-7
240-2; units of, 252-60 passim, 229, 230, 232, 233, 236,
Chimbu, 4, 7, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 237, 240, 241 , 243, 244, 247, 249,
50, 5 1 , 52, 55, 59, 70, 73, 78, 82, 250, 255, 257, 258, 260-3 passim,
86, 90, 95, 96, 97, 98, 104-9 264, 266, 267, 268, 275, 278, 285
passim, 1 14, 137, 154, 155, 156, environmental contrasts, 14-19, 54-5
158, 159, 1 99, 210-18 passim, Ernst, T., 178, 1 8 0
237, 239, 240, 241, 244, 248, 249, Etoro, 1 76, 1 77, 1 78 , 1 80, 1 82, l 8 6
254, 255 , 256, 259, 260, 261, 274, evolution, 3, 7-9, 166, 231-2, 272
275, 276, 278, 279, 284 exchange, 2, 26, 34, 36, 57, 64-5,
Chowning, A., 93 1 1 1-15, 1 69, 179, 226-30,
Christensen, 0. A., 18 23 1-2; bigmen and, see leadership;
Clarke, W., 24, 45 sister, 143, 144, 159, 160, 178; and
Cole,]., 12, 1 9 , 2 1 , 22, 23 warfate, 57-8, 6 1 . See also
Collier, ]., 1 89, 190, 1 9 1 ceremonial exchange
colonialism, 1, 2, 1 1 8-20, 271-86 'exchange values', 9, 58-9
comparative issues, 4-5, 10-1 1
'complementary relationships', 60, Faithorn, E., 204
88-9, 1 65 Feachem, R., 45, 241
Connell, J., 271, 278 Feil, D. K., 25, 32, 34, 4 1 , 45, 57, 60, 63,
Cook, E., 3, 155, 156, 158, 159, 2 1 2, 70, 79, 83, 87, 95, 1 15, 1 1 8 , 1 19,
215 127, 128, 130, 132, 136, 138, 156,
Crain, M., 267 157, 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 62, 1 63, 222, 227,
Criper, C., 105, 156, 2 1 6, 255 229, 23 1 , 241, 242, 244, 245, 251,
cultural configurations, 5-7, 39-61 258, 261, 262, 264, 265, 268, 275,
285
Dalton, G., 95 female cannibals, 206-7
Damar, 107 female initiation, 207-9
Dani, 4, 50, 56 Finney, B., 277, 278, 283
Daribi, 30, 158, 164, 165 Fischer, H., 141
de Lepervanche, M., 129, 130, 135, 137 Fisher, N., 142
descent. See social structure Fore, 28, 30, 4 1 , 44, 55, 56, 63, 73 , 74,
despots. See leadership 75, 86, 109, 125, 141, 150, 1 5 1 ,
division of labour, 34-7 153, 1 77, 194, 204, 205, 206, 237,
Dole, G., 146, 147 238, 239, 253
Donaldson, M., 277, 278 Fortes, M., 128, 130, 153
Douglas, B., 93, 96, 121 Fortune, R., 62, 76, 85, 8 6
Duna, 7, 57, 100, 121, 237, 240 Frankland, L . , 7 8 , 7 9 , 157, 1 5 8 , 159,
Dundes, A., 172 1 60, 218
Dunlop, I., 195, 1 96 Fried, M., 7
Index 309
Friedl, E., 214 'high production' formations, 9, 139,

214, 23 1-2
Gadsup, 41, 44, 69, 73, 74, 144, 145, Holy, L., 130, 134, 153
146, 148, 237, 238, 242 homosexuality. See ritualized
Gahuku-Gama, 41, 44, 69, 73, 76, 86, homosexuality
97, 150, 152, 170, 1 77, 1 99, 201, Howlett, D., 278, 279
204, 210, 215, 234, 237, 238, 243, Hua, 166, 205, 206, 207, 213
247, 279, 280 Hughes, !., 95, 1 15, 1 1 8
Gajdusek, C., 101, 150 Hughes, P., 8
Gerritsen, R., 278, 279 Huli, 6, 7, 44, 45, 70, 71, 78, 80, 84, 87,
Gillison, G., 1 5 1 , 1 67, 206,207 138, 1 60, 163, 164, 210, 220,225,
Gimi, 8 1, 150, 1 5 1 , 206, 207, 213 226, 237, 240
Gitlow, A., 1 17, 1 18, 119 hunting and gathering, 8, 21-2, 23, 32,
Glasse, R. M., 2, 3, 70, 71, 72, 75, 80, 63-4
84, 109, 150, 1 5 1 , 1 60, 163, 164,
203, 210, 225, 226, 227,237, 240 Iambakey Okuk, 278
Godelier, M., 94, 98, 100, 101, 102, Ilongot, 1 9 1
141, 143, 144, 178, 192, 193, 1 99, individualism and individualization of
209, 238 activities, 56, 252-3, 255-6, 257,
Goldman, !., 7, 8 258, 259-60
Goldman, L., 44, 138, 237, 240 inequality, 1 15-20, 278-9
Golson, ]., 8, 13, 16, 1 8 , 20, 23-8 'ipomoean revolution', 27-3 1 , 57
passim, 3 1 , 39, 54, 59, 60, 1 15, IrakiaAwa, 47, 5 1 , 55, 144, 238, 246,
1 1 6, 1 17, 1 1 8 248. See a/so Awa
Good, K., 277, 278 IrianJaya, 1 76
Gordon, R., 273, 274
Gorecki, P,, 26, 44 Jimi River, 264
Goroka, 14, 277, 278 , 2 8 1 , 283 'Jones Effect', 29, 33, 56, 1 84, 265
Gourlay, K., 212 Josephides, L., 220, 230
Gray, B., 223, 224
great-men. See leadership Kafiavana, 19, 21, 22
Gregory, C., 284 Kaimbi, 28, 1 64
Gururumba, 44, 76, 77, 86, 150, 152, Kainantu, 3, 6, 7, 14, 15, 19, 30, 3 1 , 32,
202, 204, 205, 234, 237, 238, 243 128, 144-50, 152, 154, 1 85, 199,
204, 238
Hallpike, C., 66, 141, 142, 176 Kakoli, 28, 264
Hart, D., 15, 28, 39, 49, 54 · Kaluli, 176, 178, 1 80, 1 82, 1 86, 1 88
Hawkes, K., 1 1 1, 145, 147 Kamano, 41, 44, 63, 75, 76, 77, 8 1 , 86,
Hawkins, M., 222 9 1 , 109, 150, 1 5 1 , 152, 204, 205,
Hayano, D., 7 1 , 74, 75, 206 209
Hays, P., 9 1 , 1 9 1 , 205, 207, 208 Kapauku, 4, 24, 50, 56
Hays, T., 9 1 , 1 9 1 , 205, 207, 208, 2 1 2, Kaugel Valley, 28
213, 2 1 5 Kavagl, 90, 104, 1 06, 107, 109, 1 1 4
Healey, C . , 1 1 1, 1 13, 1 5 6 , 158, 285 Keesing, R . M., 6 6 , 124, 169, 1 70, 171,
Heider, K., 4 173, 175, 177, 1 89, 209
Hengonofi, 14, 15 Kelly, R., 162, 176, 1 77, 178, 1 80, 1 82,
Herdt, G., 6, 10, 103, 141, 142, 143, 183
1 70, 1 72, 1 73, 176-80 passim, Kenmore, P., 30
1 83, 1 84, 1 85, 1 89, 192, 193, 194, Keraki, 177
196, 1 97, 198, 200, 2 1 0, 227, 236, Kerpi, K., 2 74
237 Kewa, 7, 1 14, 220, 237, 240, 250
Hiatt, L. R., 1 72, 1 89, 190 Kimam, 1 77, 178, 1 79, 1 82, 1 85, 1 8 8
Hide, R., 45, 51, 237, 239, 240, 248 kinship. See social structure
highland fringe, 5 Kiowa, 12
3 10 Index
Kirch, P., 7, 8 Long Island, 26

Kiwai, 177, 1 80, 1 82, 1 85, 187 Loving, R., 146
Kleinig, I. E., 223, 234, 242, 264, 265 'low production' formations, 9, 139,
Koch, K. F., 66, 71 179-80, 214, 23 1 , 246
'Kola', 264 Lowman-Vayda, C., 1 1 3
Kompiama, 264 Luzbetak, L., 2 17, 2 1 8 , 237, 240
konggol (Kuma), 2 1 7
konj kaiko (Maring), 2 1 9, 249 McAlpine, J., 14
Korofeigu, 14, 15. See also Bena Bena McArthur, M., 134, 153, 1 6 1
Kottak, C., 177 Madang, 26
Krakatoa, 28 Mae-Enga, 67, 71, 72, 84, 108, 128,
Kuikuru, 146 133, 134, 153, 2 1 0, 239, 241 , 258
Kuk, 8, 16, 17, 18, 23-3 1 passim, 34, malaria, 26
40, 44, 46, 54, 55, 59, 60, 1 15 male cults and initiations, 166, 169-76,
'Kukukuku', 141, 176 1 8 1-2, 1 85-7, 1 93-8, 200-4, 239;
Kuma, 7, 73, 82, 87, 1 14, 120, 154, absence of, 215, 2 1 8 , 220;
155-9 passim, 162, 210, 2 1 1 , 215, appropriation of women's labour
2 1 7, 218, 220, 237, 239, 240 and, 173; functionalist theories of,
Kumara, 76. See also Kamano 1 70-1; psychological theories of,
Kung San, 1 9 1 1 72-3
kuru sorcery, 1 4 1 male-female crops, 32;_3
Kyaka-Enga, 33, 45, 70, 210, 220, 222, male-female relations, 2, 124, 154,
25 6. See also Enga 166-7, 168-232, 279-83 ; in
exchange, 225-30; in production,
Lacey, R., 265, 266, 268 179-83, 1 84-5, 1 99, 202-3,
La Fontaine,]., 132 204-5, 214-15, 23 1-2, 280-1;
Laiagam Enga, 224. See also Enga and mystification of labour and
Laiapo (Raiapu) Enga, 32, 45, 48, 56. reproduction, 1 87-91 , 197-8,
See also Enga 202-3 ; status of women and, 170,
Landtman, G., 180, 1 82, 185, 186, 187 226-32
Langness, L., 67, 69, 76, 80, 86, 93, 108, male pregnancy, 205-6
130, 133, 134, 135, 137, 152, l53, Malynicz, G., 45
154, 1 68 , 170, 174, 176, 1 85, 1 9 1 , Mamu phase, 21-2
199, 209, 210, 213, 227, 232, 239, Mandeville, E., 75, 76, 77, 8 1 , 86, 9 1 ,
253, 254 150, 204, 209
language groups, 33-4, 40-3 Manim Valley, 1 8
Lawrence, P., 3 , 6, 67 Manton, 24
Leach, E. R., 1 68 Marind-anim, 177, 178, 1 80, 1 8 1 , 1 85,
leadership, 90-122, 127-8; bigmen, 1 86, 1 8 7, 1 8 8
92-6, 98-9, 101, 103, 1 1 1-20, Maring, 7, 44, 45, 47, 48 , 49, 50, 5 1 ,
141, 241-2, 256-8, 277-9; 1 13, 1 14, l54-9 passim, 2 l l , 215,
despotic, 97-9, 103-10, 123; great 218, 219, 220, 237, 239, 249,284,
men, 98, 100-3; satraps, 96 285
Leahy, M., 267 Markham Valley, 15, 29
Lederman, R., 226, 259 marriage, 139-40, 143, 1 60, 23 1 ; cross
Le Roy,]., 1 14, 237, 250 cousin, 150-1, 152-3, 158-9;
Lindenbaum, $., 63, 75, 80, 86, 109, endogamy and, 74-6, 139, 145-6,
141, 150, 1 5 1 , 152, 171, 177, 178, 148, 150; exogamy and, 78-80,
179, 1 83, 1 84, 1 87, 188, 1 9 1 , 194, 139; incorporation of women and,
200, 203-6 passim, 2 1 1 , 230, 237, 76-8, 139, 15 1-2; political
238 functions of, 73-80, 1 5 1
Lindstrom, L., 92, 93, 94, 96 Marx, K., 58
Lipuma, E., 158, 2 1 9, 249 maternal kin, 78-80, 8 1, 89, 91, 127,
Lloyd, R., 144 154, 1 57-8, 166, 231, 276
Index 311
Matoto, 90, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, initiations

1 10, 120, 123 Narak (Manga), 7, 154, 155, 156, 158,
matrifiliation, 161 159, 212, 2 1 5
matrilineality, 1 21-2, 166 Ndumba, 91, 208
Mauss, M., 1 10, 1 69 Nebilyer Valley, 28, 164. See also
Mbowamb, 133, 134. See also Melpa Kaimbi
Mead, M., 96 Nelson, I-I., 164
Meggitt, M. J., 2, 3, 6, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, Newman, P., 30, 44, 73, 77, 82, 145,
83, 84, 96, 108, 128, 134, 153, 1 6 1 , 152, 199, 202, 204, 205, 206, 208,
1 76, 210, 2 1 1 , 222, 229, 237, 241, 212, 213, 234, 237, 253
258, 264, 278, 285 Ngarawapum, 109
Meigs, A., 166, 205, 206 Nilles,]., 213, 215, 2 1 6, 274
Mekeo, 93 Nondugl, 240. See also Kuma
Melpa, 32, 33, 41, 57, 70, 73, 78, 79, Nuer, 1, 129, 1 3 1 , 138
8 1-4 passim, 87, 94, 98, 103, 108, Nupasafa, 153. See also Bena Bena
1 12, 1 13, 133, 134, 160-4 passim,
221, 222, 224-30 passim, 232, O'Brien, D., 3
237, 240, 241, 244, 245, 249, 250, O'Brien, P., 30
255, 257, 258, 259, 262, 263, 265, O'Connell,J., 1 89
266, 267, 282, 283, 285 O'I-Ianlon, M., 78, 79, 157-60 passim,
Mendi, 7, 4 1 , 44,45, 70, 78, 79, 81, 84, 218
87, 1 14, 1 19, 160, 1 63, 220, 222, Ok groups, 7
226,237, 240, 241, 245, 249, 250, Oliver, D., 93, 120
258, 259, 261, 264, 267, 268 Onabasulu, 178, 1 80, 1 86
Miyanmin, 47, 57 Ongka, 250, 251, 286
Modjeska, N., 24, 39, 53, 57, 59, 82, 94, Orie, 80, 8 1
100, 121, 1 23, 139, 173, 1 75, 214, Orken, M., 274
230, 231, 232, 237, 240, 246 Ortner, S., 183
Mogorofugwa swamp, 24
mok ink (Mendi), 4 1 , 8 1 , 249, 259, 262; Papua New Guinea highlands
history of, 263-8 anthropology, 1-1 1 ; comparative
moka (Melpa), 40-1, 52, 79, 8 1 , 83, 98, studies in, 3-4, 6
1 12, 1 13, 1 14, 1 17, 122, 222-7, Pataki-Schweizer, K., 44
232, 235, 240, 241, 245, 250, 251, patrifiliation, 129, 1 3 1 , 1 6 1
255, 256, 257, 261, 262, 279, 283, patrilineality, 122, 1 2 3 , 1 2 8 , 129, 130,
285, 286; history of, 263-8 142
Morren, G., 25, 39, 47, 48, 57 pearlshells, 1 16-20, 267, 283
Motuans, 141, 1 76 Pflanz-Cook, S., 155
Mount Giluwe, 264 pigs, 8, 9, 21-2, 25-6, 27-3 1, 60, 64,
Mount l-Iagen, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, 193, 215; breeding of, 5 1-2;
26, 36, 40, 4 1 , 44, 45, 46, 57, 60, consumption of, 245-6; contexts of
70, 79, 82, 97, 103, 1 07, 1 12, use of, 52-3, 242-5; festivals,
1 15-20 passim, 2 1 0, 2 1 1 , 2 1 2, 238-9, 242-4; 'finance' of, 245-6,
218, 220, 222, 228, 239, 240, 241, 24 7-8, 249-52; herds, 44-6,
256, 263-8 passim, 278, 279, 282, 236-8; 'home' production of,
283, 286. See also Melpa; 245-52; production of, 35-6,
Mbowamb 47-9, 57-8, 60-1, 65, 90-2, 120-1,
Mugugamp, 24 238-40; and residence patterns,
Murdock, G., 146, 147 49-5 1 ; and sweet potatoes, 46-9
Murngin, 190 Podolefsky, A., 39, 4 1 , 44, 49, 53, 54,
Murphy, R., 1 73, 175, 1 79, 183 73, 271, 273, 276
Poole, F., 170, 227
nama, 171, 1 99-204 , 209, 213-14, population, 4, 28, 40-1, 44, 1 77;
253-4, 279. See also male cults and density of, 4, 41-4
3 12 Index
Pospisil, L., 24 234, 237, 239, 247, 248, 254

post-partum sex taboos, 196, 209-1 1 salt manufacture (Baruya), 192
prehistory, 4-5, 12-3 7; eastern and Sambia, 6, 103, 141, 142, 143, 176, 177,
western contrasts in, 13, 1 9-26, 179, 183-7 passim, 1 89, 1 9 1 ,
34-7 192-9, 200, 201, 202, 210, 236,
production, 4, 5, 8-9, 30, 126-7, 23 7. See also Anga
180-1, 235; 'domestic mode' of, Sanday, P., 2 14
126, 252; intensification of, 8-9, sangailsandalu (Enga), 222-5
13, 53-61, 23 1-2; 'social', 58-60 satraps. See leadership
'protoagriculture', 63-4 Schafer, A., 97, 104, 106, 107, 109, 1 14
Pueraria lobata, 16, 18-19, 32, 34-5 Scheffler, H., 130, 1 3 1 , 132, 134, 138
Schieffelin, E., 176, 178, 1 80, 182, 1 86,
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 8 1 188
rainfall, 14-15 Schneider, D . , 135
Rappaport, R., 44, 45, 50, 5 1 , 65, 66, Schrader Mountains, 264
1 13, 154, 155, 158 , 2 1 1 , 215, 2 1 9, secret flutes, 203, 21 1-14, 215. See also
237, 239, 240,249 nama
Read, K., 2, 3, 6, 49, 69, 77, 96, 97, 98, semen, 1 8 1 , 1 87, 1 97
108, 109, 128, 136, 152, 170, 176, Sepik, 6, 34, 4 7
1 77, l99-204passim, 209, 2l0, Serpenti, L., 178, 179, 1 80, 1 82, 1 85,
234, 237, 247, 248, 253, 271, 276, 1 86, 1 8 8
279, 280 Service, E . , 7
Reay, M., 2, 70, 78, 82, 1 13 , 1 14, 120, settlement patterns, 49-5 1 , 62-4, 65,
155, 157, 158, 159, 210, 2 1 1 , 217, 80-1, 148
218 Sexton, L., 77, 1 5 1 , 278, 280, 2 8 1
recruitment and conversion. See social Siane, 28, 41, 44, 45, 5 1 , 52, 73, 76, 77,
structure 82, 86, 105, 1 10, 128, 129, 130,
religion, 2 133, 150-4 passim, 159, 202, 213,
residence. See social structure 234, 237, 238, 243, 247, 248, 254
Rhoads, J., 17 Sillitoe, P., 3, 44, 66, 67, 70,71, 73, 109,
ritualised homosexuality (RH), 177-89, 1 14, 1 1 9, 133, 163, 170, 230, 237,
193-8 245 , 250, 258
Robbins, R. G., 15 Sinasina, 5 1 , 107, 239. See also Chimbu
Robbins, S., 65, 69, 71, 72, 82, 85, 109, Siuai, 93
144, 145, 148, 149, 205, 237, 238, socialisation, 209- 1 1
243, 246, 253 social structure, 1 23-67, 1 68 , 1 78-9;
Roheim, G., 1 8 9 and descent, 128-33, 134-5,
Rosaldo, M., 1 89, 190, 1 9 1 137, 163-5; and kinship, 1 32-3,
Rosman, A., 3, 139, 146, 255 135-6, 148, 1 62-3 ; and locality,
Ross, W., 1 1 7, 1 1 8 129; and male-female relations,
'rubbishmen', 103 173-6; and residence, 1 3 6-7,
Rubel, P., 3, 139, 146, 255 142-4; and recruitment/conversion
Rugara, 121 137-9, 147, 149, 153, 156, 157,
Rumsey, A., 41 162
Ryan, D. J., 2, 41, 70, 79, 84, 87, 1 14, Songi, 93
160, 1 63 , 226, 227, 237, 245, 249, Sorenson, R., 28, 30, 36, 44, 63, 64,
250, 258 , 259, 261, 262, 265, 267 1 0 1 , 125, 236, 237, 239
Sorum, A., 178, 183
Sahlins, M., 7, 8, 30, 58, 92, 93, 95, 96, Southwestern New Guinea (SWNG), 5,
97, 98, 100, 101, 1 1 1 , 1 1 8, 126, 176-87, 192, 193, 199
130, 252 Standish, W., 93, 95, 107, 1 15, 120,
Salisbury, R., 2, 28, 45, 5 1 , 52, 82, 96, 274, 278, 279
97, 98, 104, 108, 1 10, 128, 129, Stanner, W., 234
130, 138, 152, 153, 154, 202, 213, Steensberg, A., 8
Index 313
Steward,]., 148 Van Baal, J., 1 78, 180, 1 8 1, 1 82, 185,

Strathern, A.J., 3, 25, 26, 41, 52, 57, 60, 186, 187, 189, 1 9 1 , 235
65, 70, 78, 79, 82, 87, 92, 95, 96, Vayda, A., 29, 66, 171
97, 98, 1 07, 1 12, 1 15, 1 1 6, l l9, vegetation patterns, 15-16
120, 123, 126, 130, 133, 134, 135, Vicedom, G., 60, 1 17, 1 1 8 , 222, 226
138, 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 62, 1 64, 210, 2 1 1 ,
212, 220, 221, 222, 230, 237, 241 , Wabaga, 3 , 7, 128, 265. Seea/so Mae
244, 245,250, 25 1, 255 , 256, 258, Enga; Enga
259, 260, 262-7 passim, 269, 271, Waddell, £., 4, 32, 39, 44, 45, 48, 49,
273, 274, 275, 276, 278, 279, 282, 50, 55, 56, 259
283, 285, 286 Wagner, R., 30, 158, 1 64, 165
Strathern, A. M., 3, 16, 32, 45, 79, 139, Wahgi, 7, 13, 26, 41, 107, 154-60,
1 60, 210, 227, 228 , 283 214-20, 239, 240
Swadling, P., 13, 19 Wanlek, 1 8
swamps, 23-7, 59-60 Wanton, 1 9
sweet potato, 8, 16, 21, 23, 24, 26-3 1 , Wapi, 264
46-9, 54-5, 141, 1 79, 266, 272; warfare, 62-89, 90-1, 1 1 0, 1 1 1 , 123,
introduction and spread of, 29-3 1 ; 141, 276-7; and male-female
revolutionary and evolutionary relations, 1 71-2, 209; and
implications of, 27. See also 'Jones marriage, 73-80; and migration
Effect'. and mobility, 85-9; casualties in,
'symmetrical relationships', 60, 88-9 71-3; compensation in, 80-5 ;
renewed, 273-6; 'restricted' and
Tairora, 30, 4 1 , 44, 45, 5 1 , 63, 65, 68, 'unrestricted', 66-70, 154-5
69, 73, 74, 75, 8 1, 85, 86, 88, l05, Watson,]., 3, 4, 6, 13, 1 6, 18, 26-32
106, 107, 1 1 1, 123, 144, 145, 146, passim, 34, 36, 45, 50, 5 1 , 52, 56,
148, 149, 159, 233, 237, 23 8, 242, 57, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75,
246 8 1 , 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 9 1 , 96, 97,
Tallensi, 1 3 1 104-10 passim, 120, 123, 138,
taro, 8, 16, 24-5, 27-8, 32-3, 34, 60; 145, 146, 148, 149, 150, 1 84, 233,
ecological requirements of, 24 234, 237, 238, 242, 246, 247,253
Tauna-Awa, 71, 74, 75. See also Awa Watson, V., 12, 1 9 , 2 1 , 22, 23
tee (Enga), 34, 40-1, 52, 70, 79, 8 1, 83, Weiner, A., 220
84, 98, 1 12, 1 1 3, 122, 227, 232, Weiner,]., 1 65
233, 234-5 , 240, 241 , 242,245, Westermark, G., 273, 274, 275
250, 251, 257, 260, 285; history of, White,J. P., 12, 14, 15, 1 9, 21 , 22, 23,
263-8; partnerships in, 261-3 27, 33, 39, 189
Telefomin, 7 Whitehead, H., 1 83, 1 8 7
Temika phase, 21-2 Whiting, J., 209
Thurnwald, R., 121 Wiesenfeld, S., 101, 150
Tibito ash, 26 Winefield, G., 2 1 0
Tischner, H., 60, 1 17, 222, 226 Wiru, 7 , 45, 164, 230, 237, 240, 250,
Tiv, 1 3 1 , 1 3 8 259
Tombema-Enga, 32, 45, 5 1 , 127, 1 3 8 , Wirz, P., 70, 1 17, 1 18 , 227, 229, 234,
1 6 1 , 1 62, 1 6 3 , 226, 2 5 8 . See also 266, 267
Enga Wok Meri, 280-1
Trobriands, 93 Wola, 7, 44, 7 1 , 1 14, 163, 230, 237,
Tsaka Valley, 84. See also Laiapo 240, 245, 250, 258
(Raiapu) Enga; Enga Womai, 107
twem (Mendi), 245, 249, 258-9, 261 Wurm, S., 40, 1 76
'use values', 9, 58 Yen, D., 28

Usurufa, 71, 144, 145, 146, 237, 238 Yuku, 12

D K Feil The Evolution of Highland

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The Evolution of Highland Papua New Guinea Societies

This book is an explicitly comparative, anthropological analysis of the

Tit<' right fl/th!!

H1·,,,y f'/11 in 15J4.

Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press

© Cambridge University Press 1987

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 1987

A catalogue record/or this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

National Library of Australia Cataloguing in Publication data

ISBN 978-0-521-33423-5 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

List ofmaps and tables x

1 Prologue: anthropology in the

This book began as a 'straightforward' comparison of the

slighted or misrepresented, for which I apologise, but it is with grati­

The Highlands of Papua New Guinea have come to be recog­

The highlands o f Papua New Guinea offered anthropologists a

these findings to what was known elsewhere in the tribal world, to

We are blessed with intensive descriptions of highland societies

appears to exist prior to intensive production upon which it is

Almost all ethnography of the highlands and, therefore, the com-

These points are addressed in this study. The available prehis­

Configurations of highlands societies

Kainantu westward to Wabaga, but the relevance of Anga groups

related set of societies through time. In contrast to Sahlins and Gold­

raised to be eaten if they can be exchanged for political capital.

Comparative dilemmas and methodological pitfalls

A work, explicitly comparative as this one aims to be, is from the

existence. Even a cursory reading of highland ethnography reveals

[There is a tacitly held view that] ethnographic and archaeologi­

While anthropologists have viewed the highlands a s homo­

ently so different from data so far recovered in the eastern highlands

examining this archaeological evidence, I will present ecological

Although there are a number of environmental features which

lowest ratings, 3.0, which suggests virtually no seasonality in rain­

reappears in the western highlands under more favourable ecologi­

the history of agriculture is shallow in the eastern highlands when

ever, to examine some aspects o f the archaeological record for the

Kuk • Sites of investigation

Land over 1200 metres

the introduction of the sweet potato would have allowed inhabitants

remains only in the late (Tentika) phase in the sites analysed by

Without so stating, V. Watson and Cole relate this heightened

amount of land subject to drainage decreases. Secondly, a major

political and ritual enterprises involving pigs and other valuables'

The sweet potato

Charred fragments of sweet potato have been dated at Kuk at

areas like Kuk and importantly to support growing pig populations

the highlands further east. Additionally, this intensified agricultural

use (or slightly more than that) was transformed to widespread

Valley (O'Brien 1 972:360-1 ) . There may well have been many

earlier capitalised on the arrival o f the sweet potato to accentuate a

Some further points

The very different prehistories of the western and eastern high­

and fencing is needed to thwart the depredations of numerous,

women were in charge of the cultivation of taro, and at an early

hunted, but were also responsible for a large share of cultivation as

Land over 1 200 metres

Map 2. Peoples of highland Papua New Guinea

If the prehistoric past reveals different patterns of agricultural de­

slighted or misrepresented, for which I apologise, but it is with grati

The Highlands of Papua New Guinea have come to be recog

These points are addressed in this study. The available prehis

related set of societies through time. In contrast to Sahlins and Gold

[There is a tacitly held view that] ethnographic and archaeologi

While anthropologists have viewed the highlands a s homo

lowest ratings, 3.0, which suggests virtually no seasonality in rain

reappears in the western highlands under more favourable ecologi

The very different prehistories of the western and eastern high

If the prehistoric past reveals different patterns of agricultural de

In addition to human population sizes and densities, pig popu

highlands. Awa horticulture and pig production has a nascent qual

The previous sections have marshalled various data which con

beyond doubt that there is an intensity continuum across the high

Morren ( 1977) has suggested a 'Susian' rather than an 'Ipo

movement were being curtailed by more dense, permanent settle

One dimension in which the distinction of unrestricted versus re

Aspects of marriage in relation to social structure and male

As with so many other social facts, the pattern of marriage, war

The strength and fortitude of ramparts were matched by the single

If the argument and trend in warfare, east to west, so far pre