BODY, PSYCHE and SOCIETY: Conceptions of illness in Ommura, Eastern Highlands, Papua New Guinea

The importance of cultural factors in the planning of rehabilitation services in a remote area of Papua New Guinea

“…Barker 23 commented that most villagers assume foul play with accidents or illness among the Maisin in Milne Bay, and Herdt 24 found that illness or injuries do not 'merely happen' among the Sambia of the Eastern Highlands. Mayer 35 also described conceptions of illness in the highlands of PNG that linked the state of the body and the state of one's social relationships.…”

“…23 The pattern previously discussed, where two categories of causation of illness are identified in PNG ('sik nating' and 'sik bilong ples'), has also been found in other developing countries. 35 However, it is not clear how this process of categorizing illness relates to disability.…”

Languages of Suffering Healing: Alexithymia as a Social and Cultural process

“…However, this map may be expressed not in abstract psychological or social terms but through somatic metaphors or even inscribed directly on the body. Mayer (1984) has described the illness beliefs of the Ommura, another people of highland Papua New Guinea. For the Ommura, most illness is caused by an imbalance in social relationships.…”

“…However, emotions do at times behave as quantitites; the metaphor of energy, with the thermodynamic model it implies, fits with some of the universal phenomenological aspects of emotion (Ekman, 1984). It is possible to reformulate the process of the cathartic release of tension with emotional expression in information processing terms as the result of the completion of a goal-directed plan (Miller, et al, 1960). When an emotion-evoking situation is experienced it engenders a plan of action that has as part of its criterion for completion the appropriate affect display.…”

Sorcery and Warfare in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

“…What is common to all these different types of sorcery is that throughout most parts of the Eastern Highlands, they are all performed exclusively by men. Accounts from the Gadsup (Leininger :145), the Tairora (Johnson :26; Mayer :100; Watson :319), the Auyana (Robbins :28), the Kamano (Levine :50), the Gimi (Bragginton :210; Gillison :297; Glick :118), and the Benabena (Johannes :128, 148; Langness :166) all explicitly state that sorcerers are exclusively adult males and that women are incapable of sorcery. Other reports on sorcery do not specifically mention if women are incapable or ignorant of sorcery but describe sorcerers always as men, as among the Agarabi (Westermark ), the Keyagana, Kanite and Yate (Bamler ), the Gahuku‐Gama (Read :27–8), and the Siane (Salisbury :58) (Fig.…”