Beyond Bodies: Aspects of the Politicisation of Exchange in the South‐West Highlands of Papua New Guinea

2000

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Gift exchange among the Anganen of the Southern Highlands Province (PNG) may be a complex, multifaceted sensory experience for participants and audience alike. This article primarily looks at the sensory dimensions of the organisation of space, with attention also given to sound, the immense heat of large pork distributions and the possibility of heightened emotional states such as trepidation or expectation that may feature in some events. These provide the ambience for the specific meaning of exchange to emerge. I compare a number of exchanges primarily through focusing on what I term politicisation (which may variously concern prestige, the degree of social opposition, or the amount of aggression displayed). Be it through contextual factors, or the inherent structural orientation of any exchange, political intensity varies due to different manifestations of sensory criteria. Gender and space are a major focus. In events that lack overt political intensity such as the marriage ceremony, women occupy centre stage. However, in more overtly politically intense events such as the yasolu ceremonial pork distribution, it is men who command centrality. As far as sound is concerned, while oration may feature, most interest is directed at the role of silence at marriage, the keening of women mourners at mortuary exchange, and a number of non-discursive utterances by men in politically intense events that express aggression or exuberant pride. The argument is that these are not incidental but constitutive aspects of the politics of exchange. As such, the sensory dimensions of sight concern more than just the amount of wealth given, while the audible dimensions must go beyond oration alone.

Gift Exchange as Sensory Experience Among the Anganen

2000

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Not Feasting with Friends: the Meaning of Meat in Anganen

2001

There are two general ways that meat is deployed in exchange among the Anganen of the Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. One is communion that forges co‐identification between those eating together. The other is effectively the antithesis of communion. Food is given in formal prestation but explicitly through taboo or as an emergent property of how the exchange takes place; food giver and receiver do not consume meat from the same animal. These emergent properties variously come about through the meat being given raw, undercooked, or in portions far too large for the receiver to consume. My main interest is how these taboo or emergent acts of non‐communion effectively involve non‐food. Certainly part of the meaning of meat is that it will eventually be eaten. However, in the act of exchange because meat cannot be immediately eaten or shared that gives rise to its meaning. Part of this meaning is the degree of what I call politicisation. Acts of non‐communion are politically charged events, be they aggressive or motivated by men seeking prestige. A number of different types of exchange are compared to explore the role of meat in Anganen politics.

Dangerous Visions: the Cassowary as Good to Think and Good to Remember among the Anganen

2002

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The cassowary, although no longer a popular animal for possession or gift exchange in contemporary Anganen, is good to think in the Levi-Straussian sense and good to remember. Its excessive violence may stand for the violence of which men are capable. This is the case for inter-group warfare. It also refers to intra-community hostilities, not sharing cassowary meat being a frequent cause for clan fission and an agonistic exchange called rawa where those conceptualised as brothers engage in the competitive slaughter of, ideally, cassowaries. The article primarily concerns rawa and its extraordinary character. It is typified by paradox and danger despite the displacement of anger from direct attacks on humans to the slaughter of animals. Rawa protagonists throw blood and uncleaned entrails at each other while shouting the vilest of insults in the hope the opponent will eventually not respond and lose the contest. However, while escalation of a dispute to the level of rawa is evidence of failed mediation, this competitive exchange establishes the condition for eventual intervention and, via a communal feast of the slaughtered animals, the resumption of strong community relations, including those between the former protagonists. The final ethnographic section focuses on the fact that warfare and rawa were prohibited by the Australian Administration. Anganen men feel they were disenfranchised by the Administration, in part because they were denied access to the culturally lauded male pursuits of being warriors and rawa men. As such, that cassowaries are thought to have been much more popular in the past is central to my claim they are good to remember. 258Oceania 72, 2002