The Bride in Bridewealth: A Case from the New Guinea Highlands

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of Pittsburgh-Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethnology. Studies of bridewealth in tribal societies usually have emphasized the importance of the transaction itself in transferring rights over women from one social group to another. The economic functions of exchange of property at marriage have also received attention (Goody I973), as has the composition of the groups involved in the payment. In writings on Papua New Guinea societies, the themes of compensation to the bride's group for the loss of her labor, the ceremonial and prestige-seeking aspects of marriage payments, and the political relationship of the groom and contributors to his bridal gift have been highlighted (Glasse and Meggitt I969; Ryan I973). This paper deals with marriage transactions of the Tombema-Enga of the Western New Guinea Highlands, and while all of the above are important features of them, my aim here is to explore how the bride herself emerges as the central character in the marriage exchange process. Anthropologists have effectively countered the mistaken judgment of missionaries and others that bridewealth (or brideprice) represents the purchase of a woman as chattel, but still have largely ignored the role of the bride in bridewealth.Specifically, this paper seeks to make the following points about Tombema bridewealth. (I) Bridewealth and indeed all transactions whatever their specific name or occasion are intricately bound up in the ceremonial exchange cycle called tee. (2) Bridewealth is one event in a series of transactions betsveen persons. Parties to bridewealth may have transacted before the marriage, in which case the marriage payment must be seen in the context of their existing exchange arrangements. If parties have not transacted prior to the marriage, bridewealth is often the initial payment in what becomes a lonaterm partnership. (3) Almost all bridewealth is eventually returned to the groom by the recipients, so that notions of compensation and property transfer to the bride's group may be more apparent than real. The return of bridewealth is a signal by the recipient that he would like to continue a tee partnership. (4) The pre-existing relationships to the bride of contributors to bridewealth are as important as their relationships to the groom.(5) The bride herself is a key figure in marshalling and distributing bridewealth. These points lead tO the general assessment that bridewealth cannot be viewed as an isolated event, but must be analyted within the wider perspective of ceremonial exchange. TOMBEMA SOCIETY AND THE TEETombema are a group of Enga speakers numbering roughly I 2,000 (i...

تحليل دور سياسات المصارف التجارية في تحفيز الادخار دراسة تطبيقية لعينة من المصارف التجارية العاملة في أربيل لعام 2021

“…Fixed Deposit Account: This is another savings offering by commercial banks. This savings account is suitable for specific group of people with high income since the minimum opening balance is quite high and withdrawing is optional (Feil, 1981).…”

Brideprice and Prejudice: An Audio‐Visual Ethnography on Marriage and Modernity in Mt Hagen, Papua New Guinea

“…Their comments support many accounts in the ethnographic literature that portray brideprice as part of a series of transactions, including birth and death exchanges, concerning segmentary group politics and the reproduction of persons, social relations and social groups ( e.g . Feil 1981, 1984; Glass 2015; Lederman 1986; Merlan 1988; Merlan and Rumsey 1991; Strathern 1972, 1984; Telban 1998; Wardlow 2006). The women talked of brideprice not as payment for their bodies, but as recompense for the work that their kin had done in raising them as persons.…”

“…5 5See also Feil (1981) who argued that in the case of the Tombema‐Enga that once exchange relations are established between the intermarrying groups nearly ‘all bridewealth is eventually returned to the groom by the recipients, so that notions of compensation and property transfer to the bride's group may be more apparent than real’.…”

Recent kuru‐induced female gene flow disrupted the coevolution of genes and languages in the Papua New Guinea highlands

“…By exploring endemic Pandanus nuts and yams right after settlement (Summerhayes et al, ) and experiencing minimal impact of malaria (Riley, ), Highland populations gradually reached high densities surpassing those of the lowlands, and previously isolated populations would increasingly come into contact with each other (Bulmer & Bulmer, ). Although patrilocal exchange of brides among territorially adjacent clans have been reported to occur often in the Highlands (Feil, , ; Gajdusek & Alpers, ), long‐distance travel was still discouraged by the mountainous landscapes, cultural differences (e.g., language) and constant, low intensity warfare with surrounding groups (Podolefsky, ). As part of the culture, languages would also diverge and evolve through a similar process like genes in Highlands, accompanying colonization, isolation, and subsequent migration of people (Levinson & Gray, ; Nettle, ).…”