BETRAYAL: THE CASE OF THE NEW GUINEA BARUYA

This article is situated within the discussion started in 1962 by John Barnes, whose observations on the fluidity of social organization in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea raised the question, what binds together a certain number of individuals belonging to distinct kinship groups? Is it defense of a common territory? Is it participation in initiation rituals which institute a general order between genders and between generations? Or is it, as in the Big-men societies, participation in cycles of ceremonial exchanges which involve all the local groups of a same region? These questions have been discussed by various authors: De Lepervanche (1967–8), A. Strathern (1968, 1970), and Feil (1981, 1984) to mention just a few. The fabric of Baruya society is generated by two principles: direct exchange of women and an elaborate system of male and female initiations. The Baruya share the same culture and the same language with their neighbours and enemies, but they distinguish and define themselves by claiming a common territory conquered at the expense of local groups and by the fact that their women circulate primarily between kinship groups residing on this territory. However, from time to time these two principles are transgressed by individuals or segments of lineages who betray their kinship or tribal solidarities, generating situations which reshape the internal composition of the Baruya tribe and its relationships with its neighbours. I intend by analysing the mechanisms of these betrayals to throw some light on this key-moment in the dynamics of New Guinea Highlands societies.     

THE FLIGHT FROM THE FEN: THE PREHISTORIC MIGRATIONS OF THE BOIKEN OF THE EAST SEPIK PROVINCE,PAPUA NEW GUINEA

This paper has two goals. Its specific aim is to establish the prehistoric migrations of the Boiken people of the East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, using a large corpus of Boiken settlement histories supplemented by linguistic, genetic, and ecological data. In the course of the analysis, a method of applying cluster techniques to detect underlying directional patterns in settlement histories is demonstrated. The migration history thus revealed fits well with the picture of Middle Sepik prehistory emerging from recent geoarchaeological research. At a more general level, the paper seeks to verify that the spatial aspects of Boiken settlement traditions are indeed historically accurate. This finding is of intrinsic importance for anyone attempting to understand the construction of ethno-historical knowledge, and particularly for regional analysts and historical ethnographers, who are often faced with reconstructing the diachronic dimensions of ethnography in regions of New Guinea where archaeological research is little developed. In the case of the Boiken, the migrations that emerge from ethnohistory help resolve the puzzle of why the symbolic culture of the Ndu-speaking Yangoru Boiken exhibits much closer affinities to that of the Torricelli-speaking Mountain Arapesh than that of any Ndu-speaking group, including some of the Boiken dialect groups to the southeast.     

THE HEIGHT OF MT. QOMOLANGMA

Mt. Qomolangma is the loftiest mountain at the top of Himalayas;the mountain peak is shaped like a pyramid and penetrates directly into the sky offering a spectacular view.