Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 2 - Oceania - W pps

364 Uvea taro cultivators were nucleated along coastal areas while the settlements were scattered in the more arid uplands Uvea is a well-watered, fertile island Yams, taro, and breadfruit were the traditional staples, complemented by fish, pigs and chickens Sea turtles were eaten only by the chiefs, who could also place conservation taboos on certain crops There were irrigation works for taro in the lowlands Artisans specialized in the three respected trades of canoe making, house building, and dye preparation Households and line, ages engaged in ritual feasting and property exchanges with each other Important kin groups included patrilineages, ramages, and broad bilateral kin groups Individuals had some freedom in the choice of a spouse Residence was usually patrilocal, but could have been matrilocal if specific advantages warranted the deviation Chiefs were formerly polygynous The people of a common residence group (api) occupied several dwellings and shared a single cook house Uvean families were ranked according to genealogical prestige Both noble and commoner ramages held land and comprised several households The chiefs tended not to play a central role in either economy or ritual The first paramount chief (aliki) was evidently installed by the Tui Tonga of Tonga Succession to this office was from oldest to younger brothers and then to the son of the oldest (deceased) brother Great deference was shown the paramount chief, who was very powerful and could put his subjects to death Uvean religious beliefs centered on the concept of tapu or sacredness, a quality greatly revered and feared There were originally three types of gods, hierarchically ordered by degrees of power The more important deities had associated maraes, which were administered by the priests See also Futuna, Rotuma, Tonga Bibliography Burrows, E G (1937) The Ethnology of Uvea Bernice P Bishop Museum Bulletin no 145 Honolulu Wamira ETHNONYMS: Bartle Bay, Wedau Orientation Identification 'Wamira" is the name for both the village and its residents, and it is used by Wamirans as well as by outsiders Location Wamira lies in Milne Bay Province, the most southeastern province of Papua New Guinea, at 10°1' S and 150°2' E The village is located directly on the southern shore of Goodenough Bay, midway between the rounded mouth of the bay at Sirisiri and the long spindly tip of East Cape The residential area stretches along the shore for about 2.5 kilometers between the Uruam and Wamira rivers A large alluvial plain with fertile garden land lies behind the hamlets and extends into the foothills that rise farther inland to become the Owen Stanley peaks These massive mountains create a rain shadow, and Wamira-like the 30 kilometers of coastal land to its west-is uncharacteristically dry and savannalike for a tropical lowland environment The region receives an average of only 140 centimeters of rainfall a year Seasonal extremes in rainfall create a dry and a wet season The dry season is unusually long, lasting from approximately April to December During this time it is not unusual for three months to pass with uninterrupted, scorching sun The temperature remains fairly constant during both seasons The mean annual temperature is 27 C; the lowest temperature at night is about 17° C, and the highest, around noon, is 350 C Demography The population, although large compared to the surrounding villages, is moderate in size From 1896, when the earliest population figures were recorded, until today, the population within the village has remained relatively constant, hovering around 400 Since contact and the first recording of population figures, however, there has been a threefold increase in total Wamiran population The excess population, which has increased exponentially, is drained off by out-migration from Wamira Thus the total Wamiran population in Papua New Guinea today is about 1,200, only onethird ofwhom live in the village The remainder of the Wamirans live in other villages and many now live in towns Due to the attraction of town life and its employment opportunities for young people, both men and women in the 20-30 age bracket are poorly represented within the village Unguistic Affiliation The language, which is Austronesian, was given the name 'Wedau" by early missionaries Wedau is the native language of the people who live in the neighboring coastal villages of Wedau, Wamira, Divari, and Lavora Wedau language belongs to the larger Taupota Family of languages, which includes the three languages of Taupota, Tawara, and Garuai spoken along the coast to the east of Wamira As one moves east within the Taupota Language Family, one encounters gradual shifts in vocabulary due to phonological and morphological changes between neighboring villages In classic dialect-chain fashion, although intermediate forms differ only by small steps, the farther away one moves, the more unintelligible in relation to Wedau the languages become The missionaries mastered Wedau within a Wamira 365 few years of their arrival in 1891 They then taught the local people to read and write, so that today nearly all Wedau speakers are literate in their own tongue Because Wedau was the language learned by the missionaries and was used to preach in church and teach in school, it soon became the lingua franca of the larger geographical area that extends along the coast and into the mountains Today, Wamiran schoolchildren are taught in English by teachers from other regions of Papua New Guinea Most younger Wamirans are fairly fluent in English, although they are often too shy to speak it History and Cultural Relations The region in which Wamira lies has had a long history of contact with Europeans In 1888, Britain annexed the southeastern portion of New Guinea, which became the Protectorate of British New Guinea With the passing of the Papua Act of 1905, the Protectorate of British New Guinea became the Australian Territory of Papua First missionary contact with Wamirans occurred in 1891 when two Anglican missionaries, Albert Maclaren and Copland King, landed on the shore between the villages of Wamira and Wedau Soon thereafter, the mission station of Dogura was built on the plateau above Wedau Dominating Dogura Plateau, as a majestic landmark visible from great distances, is the monumental white-walled, red-roofed Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul which, when completed in 1936, was the largest cathedral in the Southern Hemisphere The Anglican mission has had a major effect on the villages in the immediate area Most Wamirans express positive feelings toward the mission and demonstrate respect for most of the changes it has brought cessation of village warfare, improved health care, and formal education Since 1975, when Papua New Guinea gained independence from Australia, however, Wamirans have expressed regret that formerly the mission, and now the government, have not brought more in the way of development The area has neither roads, electricity, running water, nor any means of earning cash Settlements Wamira is bounded on all sides To the west and east lie the Wamira and Uruam rivers To the north and south are the sea and mountains Wamiran land, thus circumscribed, comprises a total of about square kilometers and is roughly square in shape The village is divided into two wards: the original old village at the western end called Damaladona or Wadubo (wadubo meaning 'old"); and Rumaruma on the eastern fringe Rumaruma originated several generations ago when the growing population of Damaladona spread out and settled land that formerly had been used for banana gardens Damaladona has about one-third of the population, and Rumaruma the remaining two-thirds Within each ward, settlements are scattered into seaside hamlets, of which there are a total of eighteen The larger hamlets are further divided into named sections Within these, people live in households of nuclear, and occasionally extended, families House construction was traditionally of woven coconut-frond walls and thatched roofs, although many roofs are being replaced by corrugated sheets of tin Tin roofs are valued because, coupled with gutters and water tanks, they allow for the collection of rainwater Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities The household is the main unit of production and consumption, with swidden horticulture as the subsistence base Wamirans divide their food world into two categories: tia (animal foods) and lam (vegetable foods) Although seasonal differences exist in the food supply, there is no annual "lean" time The category of tia, which constitutes about percent of the total calories consumed, has fish as its most stable ingredient This term includes saltwater fish, freshwater fish, and shellfish Wild animals, which used to be caught by communal fire drives, trapping, and spearing, are now primarily hunted with shotguns Although fishing is still practiced extensively, hunting is dwindling in importance The main domesticated animals are pigs, of which there are about 200 in the village Every major feast includes pork Two government cattle projects were established in Wamira in the early 1970s, and beef is also prized now Lam make up about 97 percent of the total calories in the Wamiran diet There are numerous wild vegetable foods, such as wild yams, arrowroot, pandanus fruit, licorice root, Cycas palm fruit, wild chestnuts, and numerous varieties of green leaves and seaweed Many large leafy trees stand within the village and produce coconuts, breadfruit, chestnuts, Java almonds, Malay apples, and mangoes All other fruit and vegetable crops are cultivated in one of two types of family gardens: banana gardens or taro gardens The most common garden foods include bananas, plantains, taro, yams, sweet potatoes, tapioca, pitpit, sugarcane, squashes, corn, papayas, and numerous varieties of beans, peas, and greens Taro predominates as the staple crop of ritual significance To enable the year-round cultivation of taro, which requires much water, the Wamirans, as well as the people in several of the neighboring coastal villages to the west, devised a means of irrigating their taro The Wamiran irrigation system consists of some 12 kilometers of unlined earth canals and subsidiary canals At the sites of the canal sources (one at the Wamira River and two at the Uruam River), stone dams approximately 15 meters long and I meter high are packed across the river to direct the water into the canals Moreover, in precontact times, the Wamirans alone created a hollowedlog aqueduct as part of their irrigation system to transport river water from the Uruam River across a dry riverbed and onto the plain behind the village Each aqueduct is used for only four to five years, by which time it breaks and lies dormant until another one is constructed In the past century, new aqueducts were built in 1892, 1904, 1914, 1928, 1948, and 1977 The 1977 aqueduct was financed by the Papua New Guinean government and constructed of metal pipe In addition to the traditional foods mentioned above, introduced foods, such as oranges, lemons, limes, pineapples, watermelons, tomatoes, scallions, and peanuts, are grown now as well and are usually sold in the market Due to the dry climate, the introduction of cash crops has been unsuccessful Industrial Arts Utilitarian goods produced by Wamirans include houses, canoes, clothing, mats, wooden bowls, coconut-shell drinking cups, lime spatulas, baskets, fish nets, net bags, drums, rattles, headdresses, various dance paraphernalia, and weapons The aqueduct, of course, is a major technological accomplishment and a distinguishing feature of the village It is flanked by carved wooden figures who are said to be its guardians 366 Wamira Trade In the past, intervillage trade was common Coastal goods such as coconuts and fish moved inland, while areca nuts and certain hardwoods used for digging sticks moved to the coast Trade also occurred along the coast, where items such as pottery, bark cloth, and food were exchanged among villages Today, the main form of exchange occurs between Wamira and towns like Alotau, Lae, and Port Moresby Wamirans send people to work in towns In return, money and purchased goods, such as food, tools, clothing, and construction materials for houses, enter the village The money is used to purchase kerosene, matches, tobacco, and food from the trade stores in Wamira and Dogura Division of Labor The village as a whole unites to work for only one activity, the erection and maintenance of the aqueduct that feeds the large, fertile plot of land behind the hamlets This event occurs every ten to twenty years, and it results in suspicion and antagonism when men from the two wards work side by side Within each ward, people cooperate for women's communal riverine fishing and men's hunting of wild animals Hamlet members cooperate on a number of activities Residents of each hamlet garden adjacent taro plots and cooperation exists among the men when they repair the irrigation canals and turn the sod to make new gardens The women of each hamlet work together to maintain the taro gardens, digging hollows around the plants to allow the irrigation water to seep in and weeding around the young shoots Otherwise, people work cooperatively mainly by household, with sex defining who does which task Men build houses, hunt, make gardens and tools, and climb coconut trees Women carry foods to the market at Dogura, collect firewood, cook, clean the house, wash dishes, wash clothes, and sweep the hamlet area Both men and women fish, although only women so communally Nowadays, women's clubs are active and each ward has its own club that works on various income-generating projects These projects include making sweet potato gardens, sewing uniforms for the hospital, and baking and selling bread Land Tenure Rights to both residential and horticultural land are passed down from father to son Although certain food trees are owned by individuals, anyone who walks by may pick fruit from the tree Rights to trees not include rights to the land on which they stand Kinship Kin Groups and Descent A Wamiran is born into his or her mother's lineage All members of a lineage claim common descent from an ancestor, although they cannot necessarily trace the links There are twenty named lineages, each distinguishing itself from the others by its geographical place of origin Each matrilineage has its own group of animals, usually birds, lizards, snakes, or fish, which are taboo to its members In the past, each had its prescribed exchange partner at revenge-death feasts, but these feasts have not been practiced for decades Kinship Terminology Kinship terminology is of the Iroquois type Marriage and Family Marriage Lineage excgamy is prescribed Because women move to their husband's land after marriage, matrilineal groups are geographically dispersed throughout the village Marriage ceremonies now often consist of two events-a traditional wedding, with the appropriate exchange of taro and pork, and a church ceremony followed by a European-style feast that includes such things as bread, butter, and jam Adultery was, and still is, fairly common Divorce may be initiated by either spouse and usually occurs when one simply moves away from the other Domestic Unit The domestic unit usually consists of a husband and wife with their offspring Occasionally an elderly parent or an unmarried sibling of the husband or wife lives with the nuclear family Inheritance Inheritance is through the father and the mother Residential and horticultural land and some types of garden magic are passed from father to son Other forms of magic are passed down from mother to daughter Socialization Cultural virtues valued by Wamirans include empathy, respect, politeness, and generosity, all of which are taught to children at an early age From the turn of the century until the 1960s, schooling was through the mission, but it is now run by the government It is not uncommon for large families to keep one or two children out of school to teach them "village ways." Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization Marriage and matrilineal affiliation are the only social links that crosscut the geographically separate units of patrilocal residence and horticultural production and patrilineal political organization Although lineage affiliation is the primary link across these otherwise separate and often antagonistic units, the links formed at marriages, which are rekindled and redefined at death, are neither strong nor numerous enough to bond the village together permanently as one unit This is for two reasons First, once a woman marries, she severs most ties to her natal family, including those to residential and horticultural land She remains on her husband's land even after his death, returning to her natal land after his death only if she bore no sons to anchor her to her husband's land The second reason is that about 82 percent ofWamiran women marry within their ward Thus, even marriages and deaths, with their accompanying rituals, exchanges, and feasts, fail to bring together people of the two wards very often Political Organization Leadership is hereditary, passing from a man to his firstborn son Leaders command the respect of Wamirans based upon observed qualities of wisdom, diligence, generosity, horticultural prowess, ceremonial skill, and their ability to organize their group to work There is one traditional leader for the village as a whole, as well as one in each ward Each of the eighteen patrilocal hamlets also has one acknowledged leader The hamlet leader's primary power, which rests in (but is not guaranteed by) his genealogical status of patrilineal primogeniture, must be continually reconfirmed He achieves respect through his ability to organize and unify his groups and expresses his leadership through the manipulation of food at feasts His group consists of smaller antagonistic hamlet sections, each of which also has its own genealogically ascribed leader of slightly lesser status than the hamlet leader The presence of these aspiring competitors challenges a leader's powers and makes his task of unifying Wantoat the group difficult Rivalries and conflicts among minor leadthreaten to erupt during the process of taro cultivation and harvest, when male powers are especially at stake Social Control Laughter at an individual's nonconformity and ostracism for more serious breaches of conduct function as the main forms of social control In extreme cases, an individual may be banished to his or her banana garden because of misconduct Since 1964, local government councils have been established, which also settle major disputes Conflict Prior to contact with Europeans and the cessation of village warfare, intervillage fights often resulted in cannibal raids Today, conflict and competition surface mainly during horticultural activities, feasts, dances, and organized sports competitions ers usually Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Belie&s Indigenous religious tenets are rooted in animism and beliefs in spirits and spiritlike beings These spirits reside in numerous forms: human beings, plants, animals, rocks, rivers, etc Since contact and exposure to the Anglican mission, many Wamirans have become Christian They are now baptized, take Christian names, and regularly go to church in the village or at the mission station The two types of beliefs, animism and Christianity, today exist side by side Religious Practitioners Traditional village healers perform magic to help the sick, bring rain, and entice taro to grow Black magic is practiced in the form of sorcery and witchcraft Men perform sorcery against one another, usually in their taro gardens Women practice witchcraft, usually aiming it at members of their own matrilineage such as siblings or children Ceremonies Feasts are held to celebrate marriages, deaths, and various stages of the cultivation of taro Nowadays, celebrations for club birthdays (women's clubs, men's clubs, boys' clubs, etc.) are also common Arts In the past, utilitarian objects, such as wooden bowls, coconut-shell drinking cups, lime spatulas, and drums, were embellished with carvings The figures flanking the aqueduct are elaborately carved and decorated with shells Wamirans engage in competitive dancing and perform buffoonery Medicine Traditional medicines were made from plants Many villagers go to St Barnabas Hospital at Dogura for medications The most common illness for which medicine is sought is malaria Other commonly occurring illnesses are respiratory infections and infected wounds Death and Afterlife Wamirans believe that upon death the human soul is released, crosses a body of water, and becomes a spirit of the dead Initially, these spirits roam the village, but ultimately they depart to special places of the dead They return to advise and haunt the living, chastising errant kin by bringing misfortune, illness, and even death upon them Death is usually believed to be the result of supernatural causes 367 Bibliography Kahn, Miriam (1986) Always Hungry, Never Greedy: Food and the Expression of Gender in a Melanesian Society Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ker, Annie (1910) Papuan Faity Tales London: Macmillan King, Copland (1899) A History of the New Guinea Mission Sydney: W A Pepperday Newton, Henry (1914) In Far New Guinea Philadelphia, Pa.: J B Lippincott Seligmann, Carl G (1910) The Melanesians of British New Guinea Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wethereil, David (1977) Reluctant Mission: The Anglican Church in Papua New Guinea, 1891-1942 St Lucia: University of Queensland Press MIRIAM KAHN Wantoat ETHNONYMS: Awara, Wapu, Wopu Orientation Idetifcaton.Like many ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea the people of the Wantoat Valley had no need to name themselves They knew their territorial boundaries and who were their enemies Expatriates named them after their principal locality, the valley of the Wantoat River, a tributary of the Leron River which flows into the Markham River Location The people live along the rugged, southern foothills of the Finisterre Mountains in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea, around 6- S and 146030' E at altitudes from 360 to 1.800 meters As the altitude increases the climate becomes more temperate Demography In 1980 the population was estimated at 5,500 for the Central dialect, 1,500 for Awara, and 300 for Wapu Linguistic Affiliation The language is a member of the Wantoat Family, Finisterre-Huon Stock, Trans-New Guinea Phylum of Papuan languages It has three dialects: the Central; the Awara in the west; and the Wapu in the south History and Cultural Relations The Wantoat homeland is in what was originally the German colony of Kaiser Wilhelmrsland Although Australia was given the administration of the area by the League of Nations following World War 1, the people were first contacted in 1927 by a patrol led by German missionaries In 1929 the missionaries began evangelization with national evangelists using the 368 Wantoat Kotte (Kite) language as a church lingua franca Rival evangelists from the nearby Kaiapit mission station in the Markham Valley to the south charged them with encroachment, and clashes followed Subsequently the Wantoat people were divided into two circuits, one having Kotte (Kate) and the other having the Yabem language as the lingua franca The results of the Australian administration establishing control and bringing peace to the area following World War II were increased mobility, marriage between people of more distant villages, the blending of minor dialectal differences, greater longevity for men, and less polygamy Administrative control also allowed for the introduction of a limited cash economy and for the young men to leave for employment in towns and plantations These trends were accelerated with the completion of the central Wantoat airstrip in 1956, the opening of a government patrol post with an English-language school, the arrival of trading companies, and the residency of an expatriate Lutheran missionary in 1960 With the connection of the Wantoat station to the national road system via the Leron Valley in 1985, one can expect ever greater changes Settlements In precontact times the people lived in small, relatively isolated hamlets of thirty to eighty persons located in defensible positions, usually on mountain ridges Generally, several related hamlets were located within two to three hours walking time of one another, but it often took a day to walk to the next complex of related hamlets Mutual hostility between these groups led to considerable linguistic variation; more than twenty-five minor dialects have been reported To aid in administration the government required related hamlets to combine into larger villages, thereby reducing the number of settlements substantially This policy, however, caused the garden areas to be situated farther from the village and hence more vulnerable to destruction by enemies; it also overloaded the capacity for village hygiene, thereby contributing to the more rapid spread of disease; and it renewed latent antagonisms so that village life generally became undesirable Consequently, many people live in shelters in the gardens and return to the villages to meet governmental officers and attend church Currently there are about sixty settlements with an average population of 120, but ranging from 43 to 318 Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities The people are horticulturalists, with the main crops being varieties of sweet potatoes, taro, yams, pandanus, sugarcane, and bananas Traditionally, a deficiency in animal protein was partially offset by hunting marsupials in the forest; today, canned fish and meat are purchased There were few wild pigs in the area, and the people practiced little pig husbandry Consequently, both the Lutheran missionaries and the government agricultural workers had limited success in introducing European pigs for breeding Attempts to introduce sheep and donkeys also met with little interest The introduction of European vegetables for cash cropping failed because of the inaccessibility of markets Some of the vegetables, such as maize, tomatoes, and cabbages, are still grown for local consumption More successful was the introduction of the Singapore (Chinese) taro, which is now preferred over local varieties The government introduced the cultivation of coffee, and with the construc- tion of airstrips in the Wantoat and Awara valleys, coffee has become a viable cash crop The recently completed road link to the coast should increase the marketability of all locally grown produce Industry" Arts For the most part, each local group of people was self-sufficient and able to produce all the neces- sary tools and utensils from local resources From bamboo they made containers for carrying water and baking by knock- ing out all but the last node Men carved basins and war shields from wood, used the inner bark of a tree for loincloths and protective cloaks, carved bows of black palm, and used cane for arrow shafts with points made of bamboo, black palm, or animal bones Women wove string bags from twine rolled from the leaves of an indigenous shrub They made skirts from the fibers found on the inside of banana plants and plaited armbands from rattan Trade What was not available from local resources was imported through trade contacts Shells and other sea products came from the Rai coast to the north via the neighboring Nankina and Yupna peoples Pandanus leaf mats came either from the coast or from the Atzera people of the Markham Valley to the south Division of Labor Members of each sex manufacture the artifacts concerned with their roles Men make the loincloths, drums, ornamental frames for the dances, items for hunting and warfare, lime gourds, and spatulas Women make grass skirts and string bags Whereas the men clear the land, the women prepare the gardens and care for most crops except bananas, sugarcane, pandanus, and yams Women carry food, firewood, babies, and almost anything that can fit in a string bag Men carry the heavier items such as beams and planks The introduction of European material culture has not affected this dichotomy of sex roles Land Tenure There is no concept of private landownership, and apart from the limited amount of land purchased by the government to establish offices and schools, all land in the Wantoat area belongs to patrilineal clans Kinship Kin Groups and Descent The largest functioning unit in Wantoat society is the patrilineal, exogamous clan, whose members claim descent from a common mythical founder The clan was the context for religious activities In times of conflict or stress the individual turned to the clan for refuge and support Today the clan still functions in this way, although increased individualism has weakened the authority of the elders Kinship Terminology The system is characterized by bifurcate-merging terms for aunts and uncles and Iroquois terms for cousins Marriage and the Family Marriage Marriages are generally arranged between participating clans to maintain a balance in the exchange of women The preferred exchange was by men exchanging sisters Although marriages were often arranged prior to the girl reaching puberty, the pattern was for postpubescent girls to marry men who were several years older If a period of premar- Wantoat 369 ital residence of the woman with the man's clan proved her acceptability, the families exchanged gifts Then the couple entered a new house, ceremonially rekindled a fire, and the wife cooked her first meal for her husband Divorce was rare Polygamy used to be common, but with the increase of available men due to the cessation of warfare and the prohibition of polygamy by the missionaries, it has largely given way to monogamy Arranged marriages are less frequent because the youth meet potential mates at school, and the young men are able to earn their own bride-payment through outside employment Such independence has resulted in an increase in divorce Domestic Unit The men and the initiated male youth used to live together in a men's house, while the women and children lived in separate residences Men who were polygamous maintained separate houses for their wives, daughters, and uninitiated sons When not staying with one of their wives, they would join the initiated young men in the men's house With the trend to monogamy the primary unit has become the nuclear family, and the married men only infrequently move in with the young men Inheritance Since land rights belonged to the clan and the people did not manufacture durable goods, there was little personal inheritance Shells, pig tusks, and other personal adornments and utensils, however, did have the potential of embodying the power of previous owners As such these heirlooms were inherited by a man's offspring, primarily his sons Socialization Parents were permissive in raising their children, particular in the case of boys Children learned their roles by working with their parents Girls helped their mothers with gardening, child care, and domestic chores Ofall the rites of passage, the most complex was that of male initiation Boys were initiated by their maternal uncles who explained the religious beliefs and gave them their first taste of yams and pandanus Thereafter they worked with the men in clearing brush, building structures, and hunting Adulthood came with marriage When the missionaries arrived, the initiation ceremonies were replaced with confirmation classes, and the responsibility of teaching was transferred to pastors from outside the Wantoat area In modem times the maternal uncles often provide for the educational expenses of their sororal nephews and nieces Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization Prior to European contact Wantoat society had no class distinctions, although the most successful warrior was the most influential person A man's strength was considered to be evident in the number ofhis children, so nearly one-third of the households were polygamous With European influence and the growth of individualism, a person's status is frequently determined by material possessions, particularly motor vehicles Political Organization The clans are the largest political units, each led by an elder who, in the past, demonstrated prowess in battle and successfully performed the religious rites Marital connections between clans entailed mutual support in times of conflict Prior to European contact, villages were small with clan members generally living in more than one village As a result, there were occasional alliances between villages for ceremonial purposes or for battle With the trend to larger settlements, modem villages usually consist of two such clans that cooperate in economic ventures Political control is exercised by a committee ofthe most respected clan elders Social Control The responsibilities of kin relationships and the dependence of members upon their clan for support entailed an acceptance of the clan's values and social constraints Men traditionally kept their cultic ritual secret, and today men readily admit that by this secrecy they were able to control the women With the arrival of the Europeans came the cessation of hostilities, greater mobility, private wage earnings, and the demise of the cultic religion-changes that have made individuals more independent and less responsive to the wishes of other clan members Conflict Loyalty was primarily to one's clan, so that Wantoat society was heavily fragmented An externally imposed peace has resulted in much latent hostility, particularly in matters of landownership Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Belie" A complex mythology, comprised of three major tenets, accounts for the origin of the people and their culture First, the center ofcreation for all the peoples of the world, including the more recently encountered Europeans and Japanese, is the Wantoat Valley Second, at the time of creation the gods provided the people with all the necessary plant and animal life, all the elements of culture, and, most importantly, all the knowledge necessary for their use No cultural trait or artifact, or the knowledge of its use, has a human origin Included were sacred stones from which one could through ritual draw power for fertility, healing, and success Third, because all the other peoples migrated out of the valley, the Wantoat people alone became the chosen people and the repository of the knowledge and rituals by which one maintained life and enjoyed its material benefits This belief system, however, was somewhat shaken by contact with Western peoples When the Europeans arrived with an obviously superior material culture, the Wantoat people wished to acquire the knowledge by which they could enjoy the same material culture and standard of living When they failed to grasp the concepts that the Europeans attempted to teach them, they assumed that the Europeans were withholding knowledge of the secret rituals that accounted for their wealth Life became centered on the quest for these secrets A creator god retreated to the sun and maintained contact via insects Yam gardens were dedicated to it and rats were sacrificed Culture heroes supplied the people with their culture, and when they died, various useful and edible plants grew from their bodies Today malevolent spirits inhabit springs, deep pools, and other unusual physical features Religious Practitioners The men formed a male cult from which the women were excluded Ritual knowledge was relegated to the men, and the more successful cult members became the practitioners who performed sorcery as well as fertility and curative rites When missionaries introduced the Christian religion, it was readily assumed that it would be the men who would be educated to perform the new rituals and learn the secrets Ceremonies Many ceremonies related to the productivity of the gardens which were planted on steeply terraced slopes 370 Wantoat and so were always in danger of being washed away by heavy rains Every few years, as many as 3,000 people would gather to witness a distinctive Wantoat ceremony, the breaching of the dams The men would build more than thirty shallow dams along an ascending mountain ridge for several hundred feet, and with precise timing they would breach the dams in sequence to form a cascade of water Other fertility ceremonies involving the use of sacred stones and the reenactment of creation legends were performed when the gardens were planted Arts Traditionally, there was little art apart from the elaborately painted bark-covered bamboo frames carried on the backs of men in the cultic dances These works of art either decayed or were destroyed when the ceremonies were over, so that new ones had to be built each year Today, musical instruments are few The cadence for the dances is maintained by the men with hand-held drums Panpipes used to be blown during the horticultural rituals Medicine Major illness was thought to be caused by either sorcery or by offended malevolent spirits Sorcery was rendered harmless by the practitioner performing the appropriate ritual Evil spirits could be either tricked or placated When Christianity was introduced, people often regarded illness as punishment by God Death and Afterlife According to traditional beliefs, at birth every person receives as his or her personality a particle of creative force from a general reservoir After death, this particle becomes an ancestral spirit, then a spirit of the dead, and then it returns to the reservoir to be directed to another person as another personality To increase the potency of their own particles, a person's surviving relatives used to exhume the skull of the deceased and keep it on a shelf at the back of the house Under the influence of Christianity, the people now bury their dead in cemeteries Wape ETHNONYMS: Olo, Wapei, Wape, Wapi Orientation Identification CWape" is a designation given by Westerners to the culturally similar Olo-speaking people on the inland side of the Torricelli Mountains of Papua New Guinea The term is derived from metene wape, which means a human being in contrast to a spirit being Location The Wape are located at 1423' E and 3°30' S, in the northwestern section of Papua New Guinea in Sandaun (or West Sepik) Province on the leeward side of the Torricelli Mountains in the Lumi Local, Somoro, and West Wape census divisions They live in fifty-five villages between 390 to about 840 meters above sea level The terrain, broken and rugged, is covered with tropical rain forests drained by many streams and small rivers Earth tremors are commonplace The humidity is high, there is little change in temperatures throughout the year, and rainfall is generally heavy, with an intense wet season occurring between October and April Demography The Wape number about 10,000 with approximately 19 people per square kilometer There are no reliable early population estimates Linguistic Affiliation Olo, the Wape language, is one of the forty-seven languages of the Torricelli Phylum These languages are divided into thirteen families and seven stocks, with Olo classified as being in the Wapei family (23,378 speakers) and the Wapei-Palei Stock (31,770 speakers) It is a complex language with six vowels, seven diphthongs, twelve consonants, six classes of nouns, four classes of verbs, and two tenses Tok Pisin, the lingua francs, is spoken by most of the men, many children, and some of the women Rudimentary English is spoken by those attending grammar school, while high school students are more fluent Bibliography History and Cultural Relations Schmitz, Carl A (1955) 'Zur Ethnographie der HuonHalbinsel, Nordost Neuguinea." Zeitschrift fuir Ethnologie 80:298-312 The linguistic and limited cultural data suggest that the Wape migrated from the north coast over the Torricelli Mountains to their present inland home several thousand years ago The area was first claimed in 1885 by the Germans who were very active on the coast, but there is no evidence that they visited the Wape After World War 11, the Wape area became a part of the League of Nations Mandated Territory of New Guinea administered by Australia; the first government patrols into the area were probably in the early 1920s The first known material on the Wape was collected in 1926 by E A Briggs, a zoologist from the University of Sidney In the late 1920s and 1930s, labor recruiters and explorers for oil and gold also visited the Wape, who received them peacefully The Wape were relatively undisturbed by Western intervention until World War 11 when a small military airstrip and base were established near Lumi village This post was abandoned after the war; then, in 1947, two Franciscan priests opened a mission station by the Lumi airstrip, and shortly afterward the government established a patrol station nearby Christian Brethren missionaries also have been active in the area and in the 1980s an indigenous evangelical church began winning some Schmitz, Carl A (1960) Beitrage zur Ethnographie des Wantoat Tales, Nordost Neuguinea Kolner ethnologische Mitteilungen K5ln: K6lner Universitits Verlag Schmitz, Carl A (1963) Wantoat: Art and Religion of the northeast New Guinea Papuans Den Haag: Mouton Reprint 1967 Melbourne: Paul Flesch KENNETH A MCELHANON Wape 71 adherents Nevertheless, most Wape continue to follow the rituals of the ancestors Although various small-scale developmental schemes have been attempted by the missions and government, none have been very successful and the people remain subsistence farmers To obtain cash to buy Western commodities, Wape men have relied on work as indentured laborers in other parts of the country With this source of work no longer available, some Wape villages are being depopulated as families move to coastal towns to find work In the 1980s an unpaved road reached Lumi from the coastal town of Wewak, but heavy rains and occasional blockades erected by angry landowners along the route make its use problematical Settlements Villages are usually situated on ridges and before contact were stockaded Villages are comprised of two or more hamlets and clans with an overall population of several hundred Houses are still made of forest materials and are either situated on the ground as traditionally or elevated a few feet on posts The interior of the house is restricted to family and close relatives while the veranda is used to socialize with neighbors and friends Each house contains several small fires with sleeping benches on either side Babies and toddlers sleep with their parents and sexual intercourse usually occurs in the garden areas Menstruating family members remain within the house but sleep at a separate fire If a man continues to eat his wife's cooking while she is menstruating, he will not hunt In the center of the village is a dirt plaza where children play and villagers assemble for ritual dancing and ceremonials Each village also has a men's house for sacred objects and one or two other houses where unmarried males live Traditionally, Wape men were naked and women wore a string skirt fore and aft; today men wear shorts and shirts and women skirts and blouses purchased from the mission and private trade stores Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities Although the sago palm is not indigenous to the Torricelli Mountains, the Wape plant it in wet areas and process the pith of the trunk into a starch that is their major staple Sago is extremely low in nutritional value and is eaten with various greens from their slash-and-bum gardens in which root crops like sweet potatoes and yam are also grown as well as bananas, coconuts, sugarcane, and tobacco The Wape also forage for grubs, mushrooms, frogs, and bush eggs Small fish are occa sionally speared by youths but are insignificant in 'the Wape diet A few domesticated pigs are kept for ceremonial purposes and, increasingly, a few chickens Hunting for wild pigs, cassowaries, marsupials, and birds is of great ritual and social importance to men Unfortunately, the introduction of the shotgun has further decimated the animal breeding populations, and so most Wape meals are very low in protein; this diet has adversely affected their rate of maturation and size Most villages now have indigenously run trade stores but they are usually padlocked and contain little or no stock Industrial Arts Wape men traditionally made wooden shields painted black with carved designs, wooden bowls, and shell decorations; they still make large wooden slit gongs, small dance drums, and bows and arrows Women traditionally made their string skirts and still make string Trade Traditional trade was primarily with the coastal people on the other side of the Torricelli Mountains, with imported and exported items usually being passed through nearby villages The Wape traded sago, black-palm bows, and bird feathers, including those of the bird of paradise, for pottery and the shells that Wape men then fabricated into ornaments used as bride-wealth and as personal and mask decorations in their large curing festivals This trade has ceased and today the Wape are part of the international commodities market using scarce cash to purchase essentials Division of Labor Men hunt, prepare gardens for planting, cut down the sago palms, build houses, perform curing rituals, and make their tools, ceremonial ornaments, and drums Women forage, fetch water and firewood, make string, sell produce at the government market in Lumi, and cook Men and women both participate in child care, garden weeding, and harvesting Land Tenure Land is identified with lineages and transmitted patrilineally with the eldest brother generally having the most authority The right to use garden land is sometimes given to others who come to live in the village Men often plant a few food trees on another person's land, especially that of their mothers' brothers, and these trees are inherited patrilineally Kinship Kin Groups and Descent Every Wape child is born into a named patrilineage that is identified by a special slit-gong signal Its members usually live in a single village These lineages are the most important economic and social units in Wape society Patrilineages are combined into much larger named patricians whose members reside in a number of different villages These clan ties provide access to others in time of hardship, although fellow clan members are not bound to assist as lineage mates are Kinship Terminology Kin terms are ofthe Omaha type Marriage and Family Marriage A person never marries a member of his or her patrilineage Although marriage within the patrician also is not allowed, this restriction is sometimes violated Even traditionally, women usually were given some say in their marriage choice Bride-wealth is still required, but money is now used instead of shell wealth Plural marriages are permitted but unusual Postmarital residence is virilocal Most marriages are amicable and wife abuse is very rare In the unlikely event of divorce, the woman returns to her village while the children stay with the father's kin If a woman's husband dies, she usually remarries a man of his lineage Domestic Unit A husband and wife live in a separate house with their children At or near puberty, boys move to a separate dwelling but usually take their meals with the family Because the majority of men and women die of disease in their forties, it is unusual for a child to know her or his grandparents Inheritance Inheritance of land and food trees planted elsewhere is patrilineal 372 Waoe Socialization Children are gently scolded and rarely struck A temper tantrum is simply ignored Today most children have access to government primary schools with instruction in English but, as the tuition is expensive by Wape standards, some children-especially girls-do not attend Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization The visible social units are the nuclear family and the village Kinship ties to a father's and mother's lineages and clans-and, by marriage, to those of one's spouse and one's children's spouses-are still of paramount importance in terms of mutual obligations throughout one's life The strict exchange obligations of these relationships, supplemented by a general passion for gambling among men, make it almost impossible for a man, even today, to amass wealth and power over others Political Organization Traditionally, each village was a minination composed of a number of patrilineages belonging to several different clans and, although some men were more influential than others, there was no custom of a village headman or chief Ties to other villages were via these clan ties and the kinship ties of in-marrying women These ties continue to be important although today the nation has imposed other political institutions including elected regional councils, the police, and courts The Wape also participate in elections to send representatives to the House of Assembly, the nation's highest law-making body Social Control Ancestral ghosts and the demons resident on one's land are perceived as being very active forces in everyday life Since these spirits are omniscient, a person offends them at her or his peril Lineage mates also keep close track of one another and any social infractions are met with disapproval Fear of sorcery as a reprisal for offending others is also still an active concern Conflict The Wape generally are a pacific people who dislike conflict and work hard to prevent it When a villager is deeply offended they go to the offender's house and, standing outside, give a haranguing lecture If a problem escalates, the village is called together to hash out the dispute and reach a consensus decision Villagers generally avoid using the courts for recourse when possible Traditionally, pay-back killings with enemy villages did occur, but sometimes there were intervals of several years between killings Some villages had abandoned feuding even before visitations by government patrols Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs AU things are believed to have a spirit When in distress, one calls to a strong ancestor, often a dead father, for help The spirits of the recently dead and demons are especially dangerous The introduced Western religions have many nominal adherents but, because the indigenous religious beliefs are anchored in an extensive exchange system that establishes one's worth, the two belief systems comfortably coexist in the thinking of most Wape While belief in an omnipotent Christian God might be acknowledged, he seems far removed and irrelevant to most Wape crises Religious Practitioners Indigenous curers are known as numoin and wobif The former is a feared shaman-witch with magical powers to both kill and cure, who is said also to have the power to become invisible and to fly Although no longer trained by the Wape, the numoin sometimes uses the services of those who live in the societies south of the Wape The wobif, whose powers are more benign, is expert at massage and sucking out bad blood and bits of tabooed food that cause illness The glasman, a Tok Pisin word, is a more recent type of practitioner who is clairvoyant, a diagnostician with second sight but with no curing skills All three types of practitioners receive nominal payments Ceremonies There are no important puberty or marital rites but curing festivals are of great social significance, sometimes bringing together many hundreds of people from diverse villages The spirit fish-curing festival is the largest and most important of these It is held in stages by each village every few years and involves an extensive network of economic exchanges among the relatives of the host village The mani festival is second in social importance and is held either to treat disease or to promote successful hunting Arts Dancing and most music are associated with curing festivals Dancing, restricted to females and youths, is mostly a shuffling step circling the dance plaza to the beat of the booming slit gongs and hand-held dance drums Chants are melodically restricted to a few notes and sung by both sexes at the curing festivals and by men at hunting festivals Masks of various shapes are constructed and painted with designs for curing and hunting festivals Women also compose words to a traditional chant lamenting their departure from their natal village at marriage, and these songs are later sung by both men and women when they are relaxing or at work Medicine Various plants-for example, ginger and stinging nettles-are used in the Wape pharmacopoeia; however, as all serious illness has a supernatural cause-frequently, the intrusion of demons-exorcism is of greater importance in effecting a cure Western medicine and procedures administered at medical aide posts and the hospital in Lumi also are popular as treatments, but they are mostly utilized after indigenous exorcisms or other procedures have been performed and are rarely given credit for a cure Death and Afterlife At death, the spirit leaves the body via the anus and becomes a rapacious ghost who eventually retires to his lineage lands as a protective vengeful spirit Traditionally the body was smoked in the village for many days while attended by mourners night and day, then finally buried Today, by government law, the body is buried the day of the death but relatives still come from surrounding villages to mourn See also Gnau Bibliography McGregor, Donald E (1982) The Fish and the Cross Goroko: Melanesian Institute McGregor, Donald E., and Aileen R F McGregor (1982) Olo Language Materials Pacific Linguistics, Series D, no 42 Canberra: Australian National University Mitchell, William E Mitchell (1973) 'A New Weapon Stirs Up Old Ghosts." Natural History 82:74-84 Warlpiri 373 Mitchell, William E Mitchell (1987) The Bamboo Fire: Field Work with the New Guinea Wape 2nd ed Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press Mitchell, William E Mitchell (1988) "The Defeat of Hierarchy: Gambling as Exchange in a Sepik Society." American Ethnologist 15:638-657 Wark, Lynette, and L A Malcolm (1969) 'Growth and Development of the Lumi Child in the Sepik District of New Guinea." Medical Journal of Australia 2:129-136 WILLIAM E MITCHELL Warlpiri ETHNONYMS: Ilpirra, Wailpiri, Walbiri, Walpiri Orientation Identification Warlpiri country lies in central Australia, with its center about 180 kilometers northwest of Alice Springs Location Traditionally the Warlpiri-speaking people oc- cupied the Tanami Desert; today they live mainly in various towns and on the Aboriginally-owned cattle station of Willowra A number of Warlpiri live in Alice Springs and others can be found scattered across the top of northern Australia and the Kimberly region Demography Prior to colonization, it is estimated that there were around 1,200 Warlpiri By 1976 the estimated number was put at 2,700, perhaps somewhat generously, but it can confidently be assumed that there are upwards of 2,500 speakers today These people all have Warlpiri as their first language and English as only their second, third, or even fourth language Linguistic Affiliation Warlpiri belongs to the Pama Nyungan Language Family, which includes the languages of Cape York and the southern three-quarters of the continent As with all other Australian languages, the genetic relationship with languages outside the continent is now lost Because widows had to observe a one-to-two-year speech taboo following the death of a husband, the Warlpiri women have developed a highly elaborated sign language still in use among the older people History and Cultural Relations There is no archaeological evidence indicating when the area the Warlpiri inhabited at first contact was originally occupied Other parts of central Australia were, however, sparsely occupied 22,000 years ago and parts of Australia for at least 40,000 years European explorers began passing through their country from 1862 onward, but it was the development of the pastoral industry in the Victoria River District to the north in the 1880s, and a gold rush at the same period in the Halls Creek region, that initiated sustained contact for some Warlpid In 1910 and again in 1930 there were short-lived gold rushes in the Tanami Desert; like the pastoral industry, gold mines utilized Aboriginal people for labor but, unlike the pastoral industry, only briefly Both industries brought conflict and displacement for those nearest to them From the 1920s onward pastoral settlement in the area northwest of Alice Springs impinged more directly on Warlpiri resulting in, among other things, the 1928 killing of a station hand at Coniston Station This led to major reprisal expeditions in which police and station workers admitted to killing thirty one people, although they probably killed many more This outbreak of violence scattered the Warlpiri in the area, some of whom retreated to other cattle stations for protection In 1946 the government established the settlement of Yuendumu, to which it moved many Warlpiri in the region, thus ending the period in which any Warlpiri were living a completely independent life in the bush Today, with government assistance, a number of small groups have set up outstations or homeland centers in the area of their traditional land interests, leading to a limited recolonization of the remoter desert regions, supported by modem technology Settlements Traditionally, shelter was provided mainly in the form of low windbreaks, but in rainy periods more substantial domed huts with spinifex thatch were used Nowadays, most Warlpiri live in towns ranging in size from 300 to 1,200 people, most of whom are Warlpiri speakers The core ofeach town includes a store from which all day-to-day nutritional and material requirements are bought, a clinic, a primary school, a municipal office, a workshop, usually a church and a police station, and a number of European-style houses The professional staff are nearly all non-Aborigines; all of them are assisted by Warlpiri coworkers and occupy the European houses along with a limited number of Warlpiri The remainder of the Warlpiri population live in a wide variety of housing, ranging from "humpies" (sheets of corrugated iron arranged in a tentlike structure), through one- and two-room huts, to various kinds of more substantial housing Access to immediately located water and electricity is poor for all but those in good housing; the situation is, however, slowly improving Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities Until settlement, the Warlpiri lived by hunting and gathering on a diet of roots, fruits, grass and tree seeds, lizards, and small marsupials, supplemented from time to time by large game in the form of kangaroos and emus Until the 1960s, a number of Warlpiri men worked for substantial portions of the year as stockmen on neighboring cattle stations and a few Warlpiri women worked as domestics in the station homesteads Those remaining in the settlements performed community maintenance and small jobs in return for rations and limited amounts of cash Following the introduction of equal pay in the cattle industry in 1968, most Aboriginal people were laid off, and the majority of Warlpiri are now unemployed and living on transfer payments A few work in the schools, hospitals, and municipal offices, and some are involved in running their own cattle station Within the last five years the main 74 Warlpiri commercial activity has been painting of traditionally derived designs for the local-and, increasingly, the internationalart market Industrial Arts Traditional technology included a small range ofversatile artifacts, such as spears, spear throwers, digging sticks, dishes, stone-cutting and maintenance tools, and hair string The greatest variety of objects made were religious, to be used in men's and women's public and secret ceremonies These items included sacred boards, poles and crosses, hats, and ground paintings, often combined in complex ways with mounds, pits, and colored decoration made of plant or feather down and ochers Trade There was extensive exchange of items of material culture in the past, but it was mainly in the nature of gift exchange rather than economic necessity Much prized, both locally and beyond, was the red ocher from a mine at Mount Stanley It was exchanged for balls of hair string, spear shafts, or shields Incised pearl shells and dentalia were exchanged into the Warlpiri area from the Kimberly range Such exchanges continue today as the exchanges of ceremonies with members of other linguistic groups in the region Division of Labor Tasks are organized along sex and age lines within the household Women gather vegetable foods and small game, while the men concentrate on hunting small and large game Land Tenure Rights in places and tracts of land (estates) are acquired from one's father or mother but also on the basis of one's place of conception, the burial place of a parent, or a shared ceremonial interest as a result of having interests on the track of an ancestral hero who traveled widely The Warlpiri have an ideology of patrilineal descent that gives primacy to rights inherited from the father, which confer an absolute right to use the everyday resources of the tract of land or estate with which it is associated These tracts are not well defined, but they tend to focus on a cluster of sites and lines of ancestral travel (also called mythical, ancestral, or dreaming tracks) linking important places Being linked to a place or estate by an interest raises the expectation that one will be consulted on matters relating to it; the importance given to one's opinions will vary with the kind of rights held and, more importandy, the depth of ritual knowledge associated with the place or estate As a person with a patrilineal interest, one has the right to expect to be taught the corpus of religious knowledge associated with the estate A maternal interest is of considerable importance, too, for when people with such an interest reach middle age they may be the custodians of their mother's and mother's brother's patrimony They play a crucial role in the organization of their ceremonial life, which cannot be accomplished without participation from some people with this kind of interest Since the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in 1976 and subsequent land claims, the Warlpiri now collectively own most of their traditional lands in inalienable freehold and receive royalty payments from mining activity on their lands Kinship Kin Groups and Descent The Warlpiri have an Arandic system of kinship with four terminological lines of descent but no named patrilineal or matrilineal descent groups They also have patrilineal, matrilineal, and generational moieties, semimoieties, and subsections The subsection system divides the population into eight named categories and provides for a distinction between female and male members ofeach These named categories are much used in day-to-day speech and in talking to Europeans, but they are not the persuasive organizers of activity they appear to be; instead, they are a shorthand way of referring to matters organized by genealogy, land, religious interests, and other factors Kinship Terminology The kinship terminology system is of the bifurcate-merging type, recognizing sex differences among primary relatives but ignoring collaterality among most categories of kin Marriage and Family Marriage In the past all first marriages were arranged, often when the girl was young or even before she was bom The average age difference at first marriage was 21 years, with a girl of about 10 marrying a man in his thirties These age differences are now in sharp decline as are the numbers of arranged marriages Middle-aged men at present can still expect to have two or three wives in the normal course of events, which is made possible by the delay in men's first marriage, but this is changing rapidly Permanent, stable unions were the ideal and separation and divorce were comparatively rare; however, because of the age differences between husbands and wives, most women could and can expect to have several husbands over a lifetime and to have more say in whom they marry as they get older Preferred marriage partners in the past were classificatory second cousins, but more people are now marrying first cousins, and a few are marrying classificatory mother's mother's daughter's sons In the past, intertribal marriages could result in the couple's living in the wife's tribal territory, but eventually at least the children would be taken back by the father to Warlpiri country Domestic Unit The domestic unit is composed of a man, his wife or wives, their unmarried children, and often some elderly dependent, usually one of the couple's parents Today and in the past, the widowed members of the household will usually sleep in a widows' camp, while the boys age 10 or older will sleep in a single men's camp Inheritance There is little material property to inherit The senior mother's brother supervises the distribution of his nephews' possessions among his own brothers and of his nieces' possessions among his sisters He also takes steps to arrange the avenging of the death Socialization While primary socialization takes place in the domestic unit, mothers spend much of their time with cowives and close female kin, all ofwhom may act as care givers All children are indulged; male children in particular have a great deal of freedom The freedom ends with marriage for girls and at initiation for boys, which involves seclusion and circumcision at about 11-13 years of age Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization Minor dialect variations among northern, southern, and eastern Warlpiri reflect loose regional kin networks sometimes called "communities" in the scholarly literature, but these networks have no corporate political or territorial significance Today as in the past, life is Warlpiri based on an economy of knowledge that confers respect and authority on middle-aged and older men and women Political Organization There are no institutionalized leadership roles or communitywide political structures, but senior members of a patriline have considerable authority in religious affairs Today there are also town council chairmen and councillors who control large sums of money and resources, which can make them quite influential-but usually only temporarily, as they eventually succumb to pervasive egalitarian pressures Social Control Control was, and is, exercised largely informally and on the basis of public opinion, fear of sorcery, or supernatural sanctions for the breach of religious taboos Older siblings exercise limited authority over their younger siblings In the contemporary context the lack ofbroad-based community political structures poses problems in dealing with issues such as alcohol and vandalism, now usually handled by non-Aboriginal police Conflict Most conflict in the past arose out of disputes concerning deaths (almost all of which were related to sorcery), women, or perceived breaches of ritual rights Conflict today is aggravated by the availability of alcohol, which can make people more combative and reduce the effectiveness of traditional dispute-settling procedures, which included formalized dueling and dispute-settling ceremonies In the past, deaths were sometimes avenged by small parties of closely related kin pursuing the killer Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs The central concept in Warlpiri religious beliefs is jukurrpa, usually translated as 'the Dreaming." This term refers to the period when the world was created, the features of the landscape made, and the pre-European rules for conduct laid down, all by the ancestral heroes These beings, at once both human and nonhuman, emerged from the subterranean ancestral spirit world and led a life much like that of traditional Warlpiri, only on a grander scale The land surface was transformed into its present-day features by their activity At each point where they engaged in creative acts are sources of water, and at some other places they left behind life force in the form of spirit children, which are responsible for new human and nonhuman life The ancestral heroes had designs on their bodies, which carried the life force and which are the designs that men and women reproduce in ceremony today to renew the life force by recreating the founding dramas of their world In addition to the ancestral beings, mildly malevolent spirits called gugu are often invoked to keep children close to adults at night or away from areas where men are holding ceremonies Mungamunga, female ancestral spirits, either men or women in dreams with new songs, dances, or designs Large or permanent bodies of water are thought to harbor rainbow serpents that can be offended if proper precautions are not taken Religious Practitioners There is no separate class of rehl gious practitioners since all adults play an active part in religious life Nevertheless, some people are regarded as particularly knowledgeable about specific bodies of religious knowledge, usually manifested in the mastery of a large repertoire of songs relating to the deeds of particular ancestors may appear to 75 Ceremonies The Warlpiri have a rich religious life with a wide variety of ceremonies These include: secular purlapa, based on songs and dance steps brought to people in dreams by ancestral spirits and then fashioned into performances; maturation ceremonies, principally for males; women's yawulyu and men's panpa ceremonies, which are separately held rites for paternal ancestral dreamings; community-based ceremonies to resolve conflicts and to celebrate the winter solstice; important religious festivals; and magical and sorcery rites performed by an individual or small group for immediate personal ends Settlement life has removed many logistic problems formerly associated with holding ceremonies, leading to an efflorescence of ritual and a greatly increased catchment area for participation in and exchange of ceremonies Arts Art is central to Warlpiri religious life The designs given to the people by the ancestors are principal elements of religious property, important in substantiating rights to land and essential to the reproduction of people and nature Even more important than the designs are the songs commemorating the deeds of the heroic ancestors, which often run into the hundreds for particular lines of travel Singing is essential for turning boys into men, curing the sick, easing childbirth, attacking enemies, ensuring fertility, and tapping the powers of the Dreaming In addition to various styles of dancing, there is a huge range of religious sculpture that is dismantled immediately following the ceremony for which it was constructed Medicine A number of older people, almost all of whom are men, are thought to have healing powers and are called upon to treat the sick, especially when the major problem is internal and has no obvious immediate cause A wide range of herbal medicines is known to people throughout the community and still used from time to time Death and Afterlife The individual personality dissolves with death but the spirit returns to the ancestral spirit world Traditional practices surrounding death and disposal of the body have been modified more than most aspects ofWarlpiri life At death the house of the deceased, if of a temporary nature, is vacated and destroyed In the past there was platform burial with disposal of the recovered bones in a termite mound Nowadays people are buried in cemeteries, although recently some people have been buried back in their own home territories See also Aranda, Mardudjara, Ngatatjara, Pintupi Bibliography Dussart, F (1989) "Warlpiri Women's Yawalyu Ceremonies." Ph.D dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra Meggitt, Mervyn J (1952) Desert People: A Study ofthe Walbiri Aborigines of Central Australia Sydney: Angus & Robertson Meggitt, Mervyn (1966) GadJari among the Australian Aborigines of Central Australia Oceania Monograph no 14 Sydney: Oceania Publications 376 Warlpiri Munn, Nancy (1973) Walbiri Iconography: Graphic Representation and Cultural Symbolism in a Central Australian Society Ithaca: Cornell University Press NICOLAS PETERSON Waropen ETHNONYMS: Wonti, Worpen The Waropen are an Austronesian group in the Vogelkop of Irian Jaya, New Guinea They numbered some 6,000 in 1982 and are located along the eastern part of Geelvink Bay, on the south coast of Yapen Island, and on the mainland from the Kerome River, south of the Mamberamo, to the mouth of the Woisimi River at Wandamen Bay Waropen is classified as part ofthe Geelvink Bay Subgroup of Austronesian languages The people live in some fourteen villages along various watercourses, just inland from Geelvink Bay Houses are built in the tidal forest, on stilts over the water Most dwellings are large multifamily buildings, each with several apartments for couples and children There is also a young men's house for boys and unmarried men Subsistence is based on the cultivation ofsago and coconuts, fishing, and swine herding Hunting is much less important The women typically collect firewood, carry water, gather mollusks, and produce sago Men generally build canoes and houses, hunt, and fish (with lines and hooks, nets, spears and arrows, poison, and traps) Formerly, a large trading network extended over all of Geelvink Bay, and pottery was an important import item for the Waropen Travel was most often by sea The Waropen are organized into clans, which are localized, nonexogamous kin groups, and localized patrilineages, which are exogamous The preferred marriage partner for a man is a mother's brother's daughter For each patrilineage, some lineages are considered wife givers and others wife takers At the wedding, marriage gifts are exchanged by both parties and bride-price is required Polygyny is quite common, and children are greatly desired Divorce is somewhat unusual and can only be concluded after the bride-price and all wedding gifts have been returned A group of related brothers lives in one longhouse (ruma) There is an apartment for each of the resident males' wives It also happens that some families live alone, away from their affiliated longhouse Several lineages are affiliated with a particular clan Certain clans and lineages are recognized as senior to the others and so are more influential and respected Many lineages are also linked through patterned marriage exchanges Each lineage has a headman; and the oldest male descendant of the oldest lineage in a clan is recognized as a chief (sera) Both of these leaders are respected and quite influential Personal distinction and influence are acquired by virtue of age or by possessing the quality of being kako (rough, hard, cruel) The Waropen also formerly had many honorific tides, acquired mainly through acts of warfare (i.e., killing people and taking slaves) Finally, there were non-kin-based leaders, or chiefs (serabawa), who were mainly from the senior lineages oftheir clan The serabawa were primarily military leaders, and most acted in consultation with other influential men The Waropen worldview is dualistic, dividing the world into sacred versus profane things and situations Ancestor worship is also an important part of Waropen religion Initiation ceremonies exist for both sexes, involving piercing ofthe ears and septum Sorcery can be practiced by anyone, and all of the men of a patrilineage are responsible for the worship of their ancestors Shamans (ghasaiwin) are most often old women, and one of their primary responsibilities is the recovery of stolen souls; the theft of a soul is believed to be the primary cause of sickness Bibliography Held, Gerrit Jan (1951) The Papuas of Waropen Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Translation Series The Hague: M Nijhoff Wik Mungkan ETHNONYMS: Munggan, Wik, Wikmunkan Orientation Identification In early ethnographies of the area, "Wik Mungkan" has been used both for the particular language and for the 'tribe" nominally speaking it In fact, dialect names throughout this region are commonly prefixed by a term meaning "language" (i.e., "Wik-") together with a lexi cal item that typifies the particular dialect Thus, "Wik Mungkan" refers to "those who say mungkan to mean 'eating.'" Location The various Wik-speaking peoples occupied an extensive zone on western Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland between roughly 13 and 140 S along the rivers of the area, in the sclerophyll forests between them, and in the coastal floodplains bounding the Gulf of Carpentaria to the west Particularly on the coast, the region was one of great ecological diversity and marked seasonal variations, with an annual intense monsoon period over two or three months and an extended dry season Demography Population estimates for the region before European settlement are difficult to make with any degree of accuracy There could have been some 2,000 Wik in the less ecologically diverse inland sclerophyll-forest zone, and at least as many could have lived in the much richer coastal zone There was rapid depopulation beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century from such factors as measles and influenza epidemics, punitive expeditions by cattlemen, and forced labor on pearling and fishing vessels Today, there would be some 1,200 or so Wik people in the settlements of the region, with a high birth rate in recent years Wik Mungkan linguistic Affiliation There were a great variety of dialects referred to by their speakers as "Wik Mungkan." With dialect exogamy being the dominant pattern, particularly in the coastal zone, people were commonly multilingual For complex social and political reasons, in the contemporary settlements Wik Mungkan and Aboriginal English have become the lingua francas for most people and there are no extant speakers for many of the original dialects History And Cultural Relations While the Cape York region could originally have been a major route along which migration into the Australian landmass occurred, little detailed archaeological or prehistoric research has been conducted in the area occupied by the Wik Linguistic and other evidence demonstrates the existence of links between various Wik groups and their neighbors on the coasts and inland Direct contact with Macassan fishermen or with Torres Strait Islanders appears to have been minimal on the west coast of Cape York The first Europeans known to have contacted Wik people were the Dutch, early in the seventeenth century Pressures from the outside world began in earnest for the inland Wik with the encroachment of cattlemen in the latter part of the nineteenth century and a consequent history of dispossession from lands and punitive expeditions that continued well into the present century, in living memory of some of the older Wik Along the coasts, there has been intermittent contact with itinerant timber cutters for many years, but it was the biche-de-mer fishermen working in the Torres Strait and looking for labor who caused the greatest depredations Partly in response to public disquiet about the situation, missions were established in the remote areas of Cape York from the early 1900s, operating under the assimilationist policies and legislative framework of the Queensland government These saw the gradual sedentarizadon of the Wik, with systematic attempts to inculcate a social, political, and economic regime based on settled village life rather than the precontact pattern of dispersed seminomadic groups A fundamental set of changes was set in train in 1978 with the institution of a secular administration under the state local-government model and by a concomitant massive increase in funding, capital development, and bureaucratic involvement-all of which have led to severe pressures on Wik internal social mechanisms Settlements Traditionally, people had a more restricted range of movement during the wet season, when they were generally confined to camps, typically centered on a focal male in his clan estate, on higher ground In the dry season, groups dispersed more widely, with base camps typically being made near lagoons and lakes People moved over the country for other than strictly economic reasons (e.g., to meet for ritual occasions and for social intercourse after living in the small and confined wet-season camps) Nowadays, most Wik people live in three small townships and settlements situated on the fringes of what once were their traditional lands Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities The Wik were hunters and gatherers, constrained by the generally flat ter- 77 rain and seasonal variations Food resources were scarcest at the height of the wet season when people also had a more restricted range; in the dry season, groups camped near lagoons and lakes to exploit such resources as fish, swamp tortoises, birds, and water-lily roots Yams were taken in large quantities from sand-ridge country, and fish and crustaceans from estuarine waters The forms ofeconomic life have changed radically in the contemporary settlements, particularly with the large-scale introduction of a cash economy in the late 1960s Some of the Wik still spend periods on or near their traditional lands, supplementing their cash incomes with hunting and fishing However, government transfer payments are the main source of income for the Wik, and almost all of the various attempts to institute economically viable industries, such as beef-cattle raising, have failed Industrial Arts Wik technology was relatively complex by Aboriginal Australian standards, and there are a variety of distinctive items (e.g., spears and spear throwers, woven bags, and fishing nets) that today form the basis for a small handicraft industry selling mainly to urban centers elsewhere in Australia Trade There is evidence of trade in material items such as pearl shells, originating in the Torres Strait and most likely being traded down by northern and eastern neighbors, with stone axes and stingray barbs being traded out Internal trade in the region also existed, as it still does to some extent, in spear handles, ochers, and resins However, trade was, and is, rarely a purely economic activity, serving social, political, and ritual ends rather than formal economic ones Division of Labor While the general picture is one where women and children gathered and men hunted, the finegrained picture is more complex Culturally appropriate tasks vared through the life cyde of individuals, and they also depended to some extent on the composition of the particular exploiting party Men and women both fish, although women rarely so with spears Women never hunt game with rifles or spears The material items associated with each sex's roles were in general manufactured by members of that sex, although certain women made spears on occasion The food gathered or hunted was usually prepared by the person obtaining it; thus men cooked game and women prepared vegetable foods It is fairly common today, however, to see men preparing bread baked in ashes Indigenous models of the division of labor in the contemporary settlements have been influenced profoundly by those of the cattle stations, missionaries, and European settlement staff Only Wik men work at cattle mustering or as mechanics or operators of heavy equip meant Nurses' aides and health workers are all female Some men have recently become involved as teachers' aides and clerical staff Land Tenure The model of the Wik presented by early ethnographers was essentially one of patrilineal landowning clans that combined to form dialectal tribes, with territories containing sites relating to species or phenomena that were the totems of the particular clans There is evidence that along the Archer River and in the sclerophyll-forest country there was some degree of isomorphic mapping of landholding clan estates and sites relating to their own totems and a lower degree of linguistic diversity than along the coast In coastal areas, and most probably in the inland zones as well, the ideo- 378 Wik Mungkan logical native model is indeed that of patrilineal totemic clans with unique bounded estates (although it is a form of custodianship rather than of ownership) But the actual picture is considerably more complex, with crosscutting land tenure, clan totems, totemic ritual cults, and linguistic affiliations This model has been rendered even more complex where landholding groups have died out and estates are now vacant Furthermore, claims to land and to sites through the mother's side and into the grandparental generation can in certain circumstances be legitimate, and a further complication is added by the necessity to consider the difference between tenure of land and access to it Kinship Kin Groups and Descent It is necessary to distinguish between actual social groups formed for a specific purposesuch as residence or fighting-and clan membership, even though to some extent the latter provides the benchmark against which the former are conceptualized by the WiL Residential groups in the bush, for example, may be comprised of members of several clans, including spouses of core clan members, visitors from neighboring estates, and those whose kin ties to the core residence group give them legitimate rights to be there Clans are patrilineal, exogamous, land, holding units, with shallow genealogical connections that are rarely traced beyond the second or third ascending generation Clan membership itself, however, may vary over time, with schism being a common feature, resulting from conflict and, in the past, possibly environmental and demographic pressures The web of kin ties, traced bilaterally, is much more important in mundane life, however, than is clan solidarity, which is realized mainly in events such as major conflicts and mortuary rituals Kinship Terminology Essentially, terminology is of a simple Dravidian type, with grandparents divided into parallel and cross varieties Marriage and Family Marriage The preferred marriage type was between classificatory cross cousins However, at least one group of Wik Mungkan speakers has shown a strong preference for actual cross-cousin marriages and liaisons, and there were numbers of marriages predating major European influence that did not conform to either of these types and were termed 'wronghead." In coastal regions there was a strong tendency for dialect exogamy and for marriages to form relatively endogamous regional clusters defined by the sclerophyll-forest/ coastal distinction and totemic ritual cult membership Domesc Unit Within local groups there would normally be a number of 'households," generally made up of a focal male and his wife or wives, their offspring, and perhaps inlaws and aging parents Residential groups also commonly would include a single men's camp In the contemporary settlements there is if anything even more fluidity, with a continual flux in household compositions A household, as a basic unit involving resource exploitation, distribution, and consumption, care of children, and so on, is not necessarily confined to one particular dwelling Inheritance Land, its sites, its associated ritual and mythology, its totems, and the rights to the pool of clan names that are oblique references to the totems, as well as totemic ritual cult affiliation, are all patrilineally inherited There are, however, rights of access to land and certain sites that may be realized through such factors as marriage or residential association with the landowning group Socialization While the daily minutiae of child rearing may be the province of women, men-older siblings, fathers, and uncles-take part in playing with and caring for young children Children are indulged, and once weaned they spend a great deal of their time playing with siblings and age mates from compatible kin groups Learning rarely took place in formal contexts, with the exception of male initiations The missions severely disrupted many aspects of family life and child socialization, with children being brought up in dormitories until their abolition in 1966 Of great concern to many of the older Wik today is the perceived lack of social control over children and young people, a matter about which they feel powerless Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization The kinship system formed a basic matrix by which social relations and organization were interpreted, but other forms of association included the basic inland/coastal dichotomy, regional marriage clusters, loose areal associations, short-term collectivities for certain seasonal economic pursuits and the ceremonies surrounding initiation, and the over-arching regional totemic ritual cults While clan and family structures have been undergoing major changes in the settlements over many years now, and many of the precontact regional and ritual associations are severely attenuated or no longer exist, kinship is still the basic idiom of everyday interactions New forms of group and corporate structures are emerging, centered on such activities as work, alcohol consumption, and on the governing and administrative bodies instituted in the settlements Political Organization A primary feature of the coastal Wik, but apparently less important inland, is the concept of 'bosses"-men who are knowledgeable in terms of country and ritual; who are politically astute leaders, skilled fighters, and commanding public orators; and who can mobilize large numbers of kin Women can be leaders, especially as they get older, but in general they command a more restricted influence Clans would normally have a senior man or woman who is a recognized 'boss," and there are regional leaders drawn from the ranks of these clan spokespersons While the bosses may have had major roles in decisions regarding ceremonies, alliances, camp locations, etc., there was and is a strong resistance to hierarchical authority and an emphasis on personal autonomy in much of everyday life The dominant contemporary settlement political organization consists of elected councils, set up under local-government models that, while nominally encouraging self-determination, are run very much according to European agendas and priorities Almost all service and administrative staff are White Australians or other non-Wik The locus of control of Wik affairs is firmly in the hands of the state Social Control and Conflict Conflict was an ever-present factor in the precontact society as well as today, but there were mechanisms to resolve or contain it-in particular, what has been called 'the resolution of conflict by fission." This Wik Mungkan option of moving away from potential or actual conflict is severely compromised in the settlements, built on European models of small compact townships for administrative and service convenience The parental and grandparental generations no longer have control of the sexuality of young people, and much conflict arises from unsanctioned sexual relations Older men no longer control crucial aspects of the socializanon of younger ones through initiations, which have not been held for some twenty years Large-scale alcohol consumption has further compromised the Wik's own conflictresolution mechanisms, and there are very high levels of interpersonal violence that ultimately lead to further bureaucratic intervention in Wik affairs Religion and Expressive Culture Rteigioua Belieb Culture in its broadest sense-land and its sacred sites, languages, totems, rituals, and body-paint designs; technology; and the fundamentals of social relations-is not the work of creative human agents in the Wik view but was "left" by culture heroes In the coastal regions, these heroes are two brothers, whose exploits form the basis of ritual cults that over-arch clan totemism and bind clans in regional associations For the inland Wik, the clans' founding heroes are as a rule also their major totemic species This creation time of heroic exploits is represented as being just beyond living memory of the oldest people, but its power is brought into the present through the performance of the various rituals Also populating the Wik cosmos are spirits of the dead and various other nonhuman beings and spirits, some of whom are malevolent Like people, however, they have language and are territorial Many Wik are nominally Christian today, but beliefs and their modes of expression show strong elements of syncretism with traditional Wik ones Religious Practitioners As in the past, there are ritual specialists, although their numbers are now few and the knowledge of many of the ritual and initiatory cycles is greatly attenuated Ritual leaders are not necessarily secular ones, especially in the settlements Ceremonies Minor ceremonies induded those performed at totemic increase sites, but the major ones were those surrounding birth, male initiation, and the complex cycle of mortuary practices The totemic ritual cult cycles figured prominently in the latter two Land and its sites, along with individual and corporate-group relationships to them, were at the core of ceremony and other social practices Many rituals were and are relatively public and had both men and women taking part in specific roles, while others traditionally were restricted, though this is seldom the case today Women had their own specific rituals in the mortuary cycles, as well as in certain increase ceremonies at particular clan totemic sites, but there was no autonomous domain of women's ritual life as such, apart from certain ceremonies surrounding birth Mortuary rituals, transformed to a degree from precontact forms, continue to be major features of settlement life, but initiation and formal birth rituals are no longer practiced Arts From the 1950s on, carved and painted ceremonial objects relating to totemic figures of the major ritual cults have been produced by the Wik for use in public and semipublic ceremonies Prior to this time, they were evidently much simpler, more abstract in form, and used for secret ritu- 379 als There are various body-paint designs that are a form of clan corporate property and today are seen only in mortuary rites There have been some small-scale art workshops developed over the past few years, producing screen-printed cards and clothing Medicine Sickness and misfortune are assigned ultimately to human causality through the medium of (always male) sorcery, or they are attributed to ritual infringements of various kinds, such as approaching a ritually dangerous site to which the individual did not have the right of access Healers, who counteract the sorcerers' work through their own ritual interventions, are referred to today as 'murri doctors." Remedies such as bark poultices and infusions are used for such conditions as wounds or diarrhea, but these treatments are not just the province of the healers and hence their application is somewhat idiosyncratic Death and Afterlife For the coastal Wik, there are at least two spiritual constituents of a person Immediately after death, what could be regarded as the "life essence" goes west, over the sea The "earthly shadow" of the deceased remains, infusing the places and objects owned and used by him or her, and purification rites are performed over time to resocialize them The totemic spirit is dispatched to the clan spirit, sending center a few days after death (though inland Wit not perform this particular ritual) Since mission times, burial has replaced cremation and a Christian service is used for this segment of the mortuary ceremonies Bibliography McConnel, U (1930) "The Wik-Munkan Tribe of Cape York Peninsula." Oceania 1:97-104 Sutton, P J (1978) "Wi Aboriginal Society, Territory, and Language at Cape Keerweer, Cape York Peninsula, Australia." Ph.D dissertation, University of Queensland, Brisbane Thomson, D F (1939) "The Seasonal Factor in Human Culture: Illustrated from the Life of a Contemporary Nomadic Group." Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 5:209-221 Thomson, D F (1972) Kinship and Behaviour in North Queensland: A Preliminary Account of Kinship and Social Organization on Cape York Peninsula Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies von Sturmer, J (1978) "The Wik Region: Economy, Terri totality, and Totemism in Western Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland." Ph.D dissertation, University of Queensland, Brisbane DAVID F MARTIN 380 Wogeo Wogeo much the same in appearance-raised on piles 0.9 to 1.5 meters off the ground and featuring a palm-thatch roof, veranda, and palm-wood floor ETHNONYMS: Roissy, Vokeo, Wageva Orientation Identification The Wogeo, who call themselves Wageva, are the Melanesian inhabitants of the island of Wogeo off the north coast of Papua New Guinea Wogeo is well described for the period from 1934 to 1948, but it has not been studied closely before or since that time The description here focuses on the traditional culture, although large political, social, and economic changes have probably taken place during the last forty years The contemporary Wogeo probably closely resemble the neighboring Maniam Location Wogeo is located near the intersection of 3' S and 1440 E and is one of the Schouten Islands, which include Manamn and Kairiru, among others About 24 kilometers in circumference, Wogeo is a mountainous island of volcanic origin with two peaks reaching about 600 meters above sea level There are two major seasons: June to September is governed by the southeast trade winds, and the monsoon season lasts from November to April Rainfall is plentiful and ranges from 228 to 508 centimeters per year The topography is a mix of rocky outcroppings, beaches, tropical forests, and hilly slopes Deinographxy The population at contact is unknown In 1934 there were 929 Wogeo on the island, 839 in 1948, and 1,237 in 1981 Despite a smallpox epidemic following first contact, the Wogeo evidendly escaped any serious depopulation caused by European contact Linguistic Affiliation Wogeo is a member of the Manamn Subfamily of the Siassi Family of Austronesian languages There are slight dialect differences between villages History and Cultural Relations was discovered by the Dutch navigators Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten in 1616 Regular contact with Europeans did not begin until the late 1800s through traders, plantation labor recruiters, and government agents from New Guinea In 1905 routine recruiting of plantation workers began; most men served for three to four years off the island In 1934 a Roman Catholic mission was established Contact with neighboring groups such as the Manam mostly involved organized trading expeditions every two or three years Wogeo Settlements Wogeo is divided into five districts: Wonevaro, Takul, Bukdi, Ga, and Bagiau Each district has a number of villages of about sixty persons, each of which is located along the coast In most villages the largest structure is the men's house (niabwa) located in the center of the village, with dwellings clustered in groups of two or three to the right and left of the niabwa The suzable village gardens are generally cleared out of the forest behind the village or on not-too-distant mountain slopes Dwellings are of different sizes, although all are Economy Subsistence and Conimercial Activities The Wogeo subsist through a combination of slash-and-bumn horticulture, fruit and nut collecting, fishing, and shellfish collecting The primary foods are taro, bananas, coconuts, yams, breadfruit sago, pawpaw fruit, and almonds Wild pigs are hunted and domesticated pigs slaughtered and eaten, as are lizards and dogs The climate is such that the horticultural cycle runs at a leisurely pace year-round, with little concern about food shortages About 40 percent of the gardens are planted near the villages in the coastal belt that circles the island, with the other 60 percent planted farther inland on hilly slopes Indkistiral Arts The Wogeo make dugout canoes, baskets, drums, bamboo flutes, fish nets, and various other tools, utensils, and ceremonial objects Most notable are the large seagoing canoes made from whole tree trunks and decorated with carved figureheads Trade Trade is primarily with neighboring island societies and societies on the mainland of Papua New Guinea Every five or six years about six Wogeo canoes head out on extended trading expeditions loaded with almonds and other nuts, fishing nets, and small, woven baskets They return with clay pots, produce bags, bamboo for flutes, and ornaments such as shell rings and pigeon feathers In between the Wogeo expeditions, other island groups launch similar trips, which include stops at Wogeo These aiding expeditions are an im-~ portant activity on Wogeo and involve communal building of large seagoing canoes, accumulation ofthe trade goods, magical ceremonies, and gift exchanges between trading partners Division of Labor Division of labor is mainly by sex, although some men enjoy increased status because they are better craftsmen or manifest better control of magical forces Women care for the children (men have almost no contact with infants), keep house, cook, plant taro, make their clothes, and collect shellfish Men the heavy gardening work, gather nuts, build houses, make most tools and uten-, sils, catch fish, and make their own clothes Despite the task segregation, men and women cooperate closely in the planning and working of the gardens, although thir lives are mostly separate otherwise Land Tenure Each district controls the forest area in its boundaries with all district residents having equal access to the forest and its products Entry by a nonresident into the forest often leads to suspicion of adultery or sorcery and to vengeance raids Rights to marshland are shared by village residents and rights to the beach are divided among the two or three clans in each village Every man has the right to build a house in the village nearest the gardens he has a right to cultivate This village is usually his father's, as gardens are usually inherited patrilineally Gardens are allotted to villages and clans, although once a man works a plot he "owns' it Men generally 'own" between ten and twenty garden plots Ownership of a plot rests as much on paying tribute to the headman and clan inheritance rules as on individual claims based on use All objects are owned by individuals and it is Wogeo considered a serious breach of etiquette to use someone else's property without their permission Kinship Kin Groups and Descent Wogeo society is divided into two exogamous moieties, associated with the bat and the hawk Beyond providing marriage partners, moieties play a major ceremonial role, with mutual ceremonial obligations existing between members of each moiety Wogeo is described as having a double descent system, as the matrilineal moieties are accompanied by primarily patrilineal rules of descent, inheritance, and political succession Each village population is aggregated into two or sometimes three clans While mostly patrilineal, clan membership really rests on ties (not always through descent) to the clan headman Kinship Terminology Kin terms follow the Iroquois system Marriage and Family Marriage Marriages are made through betrothal, elopement, bride capture, or simply setting up a household Elopement is most common, except for firstborn boys and girls, whose marriages are arranged by their parents Marriages are prohibited with members of one's moiety, one's clan, and cross cousins About one-third of all marriages are polygynous, although few men have more than two wives These marriages, effected mostly by older, wealthier men, are described as considerably more contentious than monogamous ones Postmarital residence is typically patrilocal-to be near the husband's father's gardens-but after two years most couples form their own households In the early years of marriage, separation and divorce are common, but after the birth of the first child divorce is discouraged However, adultery by the husband, which is quite common, is seen as a reasonable ground for divorce for wives Domestic Unit The basic residential unit is the husband, the wife, and their children, although other relatives may also be present In polygynous families, each wife has her own dwelling Inheritance Sons generally inherit land from their fathers, with decisions about the size of the inheritance made when the sons are still children Eldest sons generally inherit the most land When there are no sons, land is left to the daughters, who in turn leave it to their sons Succession to clan leadership and family magic are also inherited by sons Socialization Infants are raised by their mothers, with fathers having little to with their offspring until the children can walk The mother's and father's sisters have a special relationship with their siblings' children, and grandmothers and unmarried girls often help care for children Children are indulged until about age 3, after which much of their time is spent in play and assisting adults Boys' initiation begins with piercing of their ears during infancy, followed by residence in the men's house during childhood, scarification of the tongue at puberty, the first self-incision of the penis after puberty, and finally the wearing of the adult headdress A girl's first menstruation is often marked by body ornamentation, feasting, and the planting of extra gardens Adoption of children is quite common 381 Sociopolitical Organization Social and Political Organization As described above, Wogeo society is organized into residential districts, villages, and clans with an overlay of the two exogamous moieties Wealth and status differences are reflected in the number of garden plots 'owned" by a man and in polygynous marriage The village is the primary sociopolitical unit, with much contact and cooperation occurring between residents of the same village Each clan has a headman (kokwal) who adjudicates disputes and controls magic; the most respected clan headman serves as the village leader Headman succession usually, though not always, is to the oldest son Social Control and Conflict Violation of marriage and incest rules, the stealing of pigs, and adultery are serious offenses Sanctions include supernatural punishments achieved through sorcery, individual retribution, payment of compensation, change of residence, shunning, and gossip Which method is used depends on the seriousness of the offense, the reputation of the offender, and the relationship between the offender and the victim District rivalries are intense and short-lived battles often occur over charges of adultery and theft Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Belies Like many Oceanic groups, the Wogeo distinguish between those things that can be handled rationally-the secular-and those things that must be approached with caution because of their religious nature Three categories of supernaturals are found among the Wogeo: the culture heroes (nanarang) -the creators and shapers of the world and the ultimate arbitrators of the rules of daily conduct; the spirit monsters-lewa, whose power is called upon during district food distributions, and nibek, who is called upon during interdistrict festivals; and the souls of the dead (mariap), who actually play little part in the affairs of the living Magic plays a central role in daily affairs, and it is used by headmen to prevent misfortune and bring good luck Additionally, there is a strong belief in sorcery as a major cause of illness and death Religious Practitioners Headmen are the key religious practitioners and lead the local, distict, and interdistrict ceremonies, using flutes to call the power of the lewa The headman's power comes from his proven ability to use magic to provide favorable results for the clan or village, and thus he often has a monopoly on magic used for group activitiessuch as trading, planting, raiding, etc.-which is passed on to his sons Ceremonies Religious practices focus on the ritual involved in the use of magic Considerable mystery surrounds the use of sorcery Much attention has been given to the practice of "male menstruation" in which men cut their penises to make them bleed or 'menstruate." Arts Music, especially singing and the playing of flutes, drums, and slit gongs, is of ceremonial and recreational importance Costumed dancing is an important component of rituals Bamboo flutes ofvarious lengths made from imported bamboo are the primary musical instruments Medicine Illness is generally attributed to sorcery or, less often, to having trespassed on another's property or having failed to incise one's penis recently In the latter cases, an 382 Wogeo to the property owner or an immediate incision should cure the illness Each illness is associated with a specific magical system and at least one person in each community knows the rites for that illness Thus, people generally know whom to blame for their ailments and from whom to seek relief Death and Afterlife Death is almost always ascribed to yabous sorcery (intended to be lethal rather than simply cause illness or misfortune), and the relatives of the deceased demand an inquest to identify and punish the culprit However, these demands are short-lived, and in most cases death is ultimately blamed instead on some violation of incest or menstrual taboos by the deceased When a person dies, the event is announced to the community and spread to other communities by tolling a slit gong The length and elaboration of ceremocies depend on the status of the deceased, with ceremoniles for a headman being the most elaborate Gift giving, displays of anger, taboos on touching the corpse and eating, and ritualized wailing all lead up to the actual burial, which is followed by various purification rituals for the relatives of the deceased While there is the notion of an afterlife, it is not particularly important, as reflected in the little influence ascribed to the spirits of the dead See also Manam, Murik apology Bibliography Hogbin, H lan (1970) The Island ofMenstruating Men: Religion in Wogeo, New Guinea Scranton: Chandler Publishing Company Woleai there are twenty islets, totaling 3.9 square kilometers in area Eauripik's five islets only total 0.23 square kilometer, Ifaluk's four islets have 1.5 square kilometers, Faraulep's four islets equal 0.41 square kilometer, Elato's four islets total 0.31 square kilometer, and Lamotrek has three islets equaling 0.96 square kilometer The year has two seasons-that of the trade winds (November to May) and the other of variable westerly winds (June to October) All of these atolls lie within a region where tropical storms and typhoons are nearconstant threats Rainfall is high (250 to 300 centimeters) and relatively evenly distributed throughout the year, but the coralline soils are poor Each atoll, therefore, supports fewer than 200 plant species Terrestrial fauna are also limited, composed primarily of domesticated dogs, pigs, chickens, cats, wild lizards, rats, crabs, and a variety of tropical marine birds Demography In 1980 Woleai had 638 inhabitants settled on five of its islets; Eaunrpik, 12 1, all on one islet; Ifaluk, 389 on two; Faraulep, 132 on two; Elato, 51 on one; and Lamotrek, 242 on one islet The region's population density is a relatively high 600 persons per square kilometer The population throughout the region is growing at a rate of to percent per annum Linguistic Affiliation The peoples of these islands all speak dialects of Woleaian, a Micronesian language of the Eastern Oceanic Branch of Austronesian This language is part of a linguistic chain that includes Ulithian and Sonsorolese to the west and Satawalese and Trukese to the east They are only distantly related to the Non-Oceanic Austronesian Western Micronesian languages of Yap and Palau Hogbin, H Ian (1978) The Leaders and the Led: Social Control in Wogeo Carlton: Melbourne Uciversity Press History and Cultural Relations Woleai No firm dates for the first settlement of these islands have been established, although it is possible that migrants from the east (possibly Truk) arrived between A.D 300 and An.D 1000 Once settled, the residents of each atoll continued wide-ranging interisland voyages as far as Truk, Yap, Palau, and the Marianas European explorers found the islands in the late 700s and early I 800s These islands were claimed by Spain in 1885, and subsequently they have been administered by Germany (1898), Japan (1914), and the United States (1945) Since 1986 they have been part of the state of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia, which maintains a treaty of 'free association" with the Ucited States but is ETHNONYMS: Anangai, Mereyon, Oleai, Olnea, Thirteen Island, Uleai, Weleya largely self-governing Orientation Identficaion.Woleai is the largest of a group of closely related atolls in the central and west-central Caroline Islands of Micronesia that also includes Eauripik, Ifaluk, Faraulep, Elato, and Lamotrek Collectively, they are sometimes called "the Woleai.' Residents, however, label themselves by means of a nominal prefixed reweleya, which means their particular island name, as "person of Woleai [nationalityl." to in Woleai is located at 7'21' N and 143052' E kilometers southwest, Ifaluk 55 kilometers Eauripik lies east, Faraulep 150 kilometers north-northeast, Elato 250 ki- Location lometers east, and Lamotrek 280 kilometers Each atoll consists of a reef-enclosed islets distributed above sea along that reef These level with a maximum east of Woleai lagoon with a number of average I elevation or meters of?7 to meters At Settlements Lineal villages (gapilamw~) are found along the lagoon shore of each inhabited islet Most islands are divided into two or three districts (tabw) A village and its district usually share the same name, which is often descriptive of the village's location on the islet, such as, 'Ifang," meaning 'North," and 'Taliwogap," meaning "West District.' Some of the larger and more populous districts may have more than one village Dwellings are located 30 or more meters inland from the lagoon shore They are one-room rectangular or hexagonal structures, twice as long as they are wide, with mat-covered earthen floors, plank or plaited-mat walls, and thatched roofs In some cases (especially on Eauripik and Faraulep) they are built on raised stone platforms up to meter above Woleai the surrounding ground Several such houses may be found on a single named plot or estate (hwogot) Each estate has a separate cook house A main path parallels the lagoon and separates the dwellings from the canoe houses that are located nearer the lagoon The village or island menstrual house is also located near the beach, but it is removed from the canoe houses Early in the century each island had a centrally located men's house Only Ifaluk and Eauripik retain such structures today Economy Subsitence and Commercial Activities The economy is primarily subsistence-oriented, although it has been linked to the outside world for at least a century through the sale of copra The interiors of the larger islets are devoted to taro (Cyrtosperna and Colocasia) and breadfruit cultivation, while coconut palms and bananas are grown elsewhere Pigs, dogs, and chickens are eaten A wide variety of reef and pelagic fish are exploited Green sea turtles are hunted and provide an important part of the diet on Lamotrek and Elato In recent years some residents have become dependent on money they earn as employees of the state government (as teachers and medical services personnel) and money earned by emigrants who work on Yap and elsewhere Industrial Arts Canoes, woven loincloths and skirts, and shell belts and necklaces are manufactured primarily for local use rather than export Trade These islands have long participated in a number of interisland trading networks A formal exchange and redistribution system (chaufeimag) links the eastern with the western islets of Woleai atoll Elato is tied to Lamotrek by another system called the 'fishhook" (h6), and all of these islands (as well as others) were once linked to Yap in a "tribute" exchange system called the sawei These systems permit easy transfer of surpluses to alleviate shortages when an island in the network is damaged by storms or drought Division of Labor Men are primarily fishermen and women are gardeners Only men are permitted to fish from canoes or along distant reefs Women can fish reefs adjacent to an island with nets if they can reach the area by walking and wading, but their primary activities are to cultivate taro, weave, and cook Men tend coconut and breadfruit trees, build houses and canoes, and occupy themselves with tasks centered at the canoe houses, such as repair and manufacture of cordage, rope, nets, and other fishing equipment Land Tenure Control of land is in the hands ofthe senior women of matnrineal subclans and lineages These women assign plots for cultivation to their 'sisters and daughters" and those rights are defended by their 'brothers," the men of the lineage At marriage a man gains some exploitation rights to the tree crops of his wife's lineage Land can be gifttransferred between lineages, but it is not sold Reef and iagoon areas are also owned by subclars, clans, or entire islets Each lineage owns parcels of land along the lagoon and ocean shore and in the interior, this distribution ensures that each lineage has access to all environmental zones on an island However, those lineages or subclans with the longest settlement histories usually control the largest number of parcels 383 Kinship Kin Groups and Descent From four to twelve matrilineal clans (gailang) are found on each island Each is divided into subclans, lineages, and descent lines Kinship Terminology Woleai kinship terminology has a generation emphasis with Hawaiian cousin terminology Kin terms are referential as individuals always address each other by personal name The matrilineal emphasis of the society is reflected in separate terms for mother's brother and sister's children Terms can be compounded to guarantee clarity of meaning That is, although one's mother's sister is formally silei, meaning "my mother," she may be more descriptively identified as bwisifsilei, meaning 'sister of my mother." Marriage and Family Marriage Today monogamy is the most common form of marriage, although traditionally polygamy was permitted One's mother's brother arranges or has the power to veto a first marriage Ritually, only a small exchange of food between the lineages marks the occasion Clan exogamy is preferred and subclan exogamy enforced Postmarital residence is matrilocal Divorce and remarriage were very common until conversion to Christianity in the 1950s Domestic Unit Households average six to eight members Residents share meals within or near the estate's cookhouse The typical estate group includes an old woman (or set ofsisters), her/their daughters, unmarried sons, and in-marrying husbands Unmarried adult males not sleep at the estate but in the men's house or one of the canoe houses Inheritance Since land, canoes, and houses are collectively owned by lineages, issues of inheritance seldom arise When they do, property is transmitted matrilineally first within the lineage, then within the subclan, and finally within the clan Gender-specific personal possessions such as female weaving and gardening tools or male fishing equipment are usually passed from mother to daughter or father to son Socialization All members of a household have responsibilities for the care of infants and young children Adoption is extremely common, not only by childless couples but also by those with their own children Children have great freedom to move about the island and between households Only rarely are they punished, most usually if caught fighting with other children For that purpose a mother's brother may be called to lecture them or administer some form of mild physical punishment, such as ear flicking As they approach puberty socialization emphasizes conduct considered appropriate to each sex Boys are encouraged to spend more time in the canoe house while girls are told to remain in the vicinity of the dwellings and interior gardens Puberty ceremonies are held for girls at first menses and involve isolation in the village menstrual house for several weeks and a shift in dress to an adult woman's woven skirt Sociopolitical Organization Each island is largely self-governing but linked to others through intermarriage and exchange networks ofvarying size Social Organization The matrilineal clans on each island are ranked according to seniority of settlement and control of land Genealogy, gender, age, and specialized knowledge de, 384 384 W USCU6 termine an individual's rank within the community Men outrank women in public affairs and older residents have priority over younger Men who have mastered certain traditional mains of knowledge such as navigation, divination, and canoe building are respected and formerly were referred to as 'taboo men." Political Organization Each district of an island has a chief, usually the senior man (sometimes woman) of the clan that first settled or conquered it These chiefs are ranked and constitute the island's governing council along with a senior man from every other clan on the island Some islands have a paramount chief The Lamotrek paramount chief also has authority over Elato A chiefs authority permits him (or her) to receive first fruits from all other clans and subclans that reside in the district or (in the case of a paramount chief) on the island, to command and schedule community labor and rituals, and to invoke taboos The chief does not have the right to dispossess lower-ranking individuals or kin groups Today, Woleai elects three representatives by precinct to the Yap state legislature and, along with the other outer islands of Yap, one senator to the FSM national congress Traditional chiefs hold membership on a council that advises and oversees the activities of the state legislature Social Control The senior members of lineages and clans have the responsibility to maintain peace and harmony among members Chiefs can fine malefactors if they break the peace or taboos The offender's kin group is held responsible for paying such fines, which are usually levied in traditional goods Fines are not kept by the chief(s) but redistributed within the community In extreme cases a troublemaker may be denied harvesting rights by his or her kin group and thereby forced into exile on a neighboring island Conflict Warfare between islands, which occurred in precontact times, ceased about 100 years ago The presence of interisland exchange and trading networks probably has served to harmonize interaction Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs Nearly all residents are Roman Catholic Each island has a church tended by a lay deacon Each island is visited four or five times a year by a priest from the mission on Ulithi Perhaps no more than a dozen non-Christian residents remain The traditional religion was animistic and ancestor-focused Many Christians retain some degree of belief in various elements of the traditional system Yalus is a term applied to all gods, spirits, and ghosts A number ofgods (who were also patrons of important crafts) existed beyond the island Malevolent and benevolent spirits inhabited the sea, sky, and land Ancestral spirits and ghosts might remain on estate lands to aid their descendants or to punish them if taboos were broken Religious Practitioners Traditional specialists included diviners, curers, navigators, mediums, and weather, crop, and fishing magicians Ceremonies The main house of each lineage had an altar dedicated to ancestral spirits where offerings were periodically renewed Rituals were held when deemed appropriate by the chiefs, as before overseas voyages, or to ward off typhoons or guard against illness Church services and processions are now held on important Catholic holidays Arts Women have an inventory of complex weaving designs and men carve images or paint designs on canoe-house lintels Both sexes tattooed themselves in traditional times with an extensive set ofelaborate designs Song and dance are the most developed of the arts Songs are composed by women and both sexes have separate inventories of standing and sitting dances Medicine Most illnesses are diagnosed by a diviner and thought caused by malevolent spirits Medicines are prepared by curers from land and sea ingredients that frequently have some homologous association with the illness Massage is also a highly developed curing technique Death and Afterlife A period of mourning may last for several months, but the first four days are the most restrictive Dirges are sung from the time of death until burial on land or at sea the next day Today most bodies are buried in the church graveyard Taboos are placed on harvesting coconuts for a period of several weeks to several months, depending on the rank of the deceased Similar restrictions are placed on reef fishing if a chief or his sister or mother dies People who die in accidents or during pregnancy or childbirth may be captured by evil spirits and haunt the living Others may help the living by communicating through mediums See also Belau, Kapingamarangi, Truk, Ulithi, Yap Bibliography Alkire, William H (1965) Lamotrek Atoll and Inter-island Socioeconomic Ties Urbana: University of Illinois Press Allire, William H (1970) 'Systems of Measurement on Woleai Atoll, Caroline Islands." Anthropos 65:1-73 Alkire, William H (1974) 'Land Tenure in the Woleai." In Land Tenure in Oceania, edited by H Lundsgaarde, 39-69 Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press Burrows, E G., and M E Spiro (1953) An Atoll Culture: Ethnography of Ifaluk in the Central Carolines New Haven, Conn.: Human Relations Area Files Press Krimer, Augustin (1937) "Zentral-Karolinen." In Ergebnisse der Siidsee Expedition, 1908-1910, edited by Georg Thilenius 11 Ethnographic; B Mikronesien, vol 10, pt Hamburg: De Gruyter WILLIAM H ALKIRE Wovan Wongaibon male and approximately 50 percent of the total population were under 20 years of age The population appears to be rela- MTNONYMS: Wombunger, Wongai-bun, Wonghi, Wonghibon Wongaibon are an extinct Australian Aboriginal ranged over an area of some 70,000 square kilome- The group who in New South Wales ters 146'30' on E and 32' Tigers Camp the territory and cent groups Their territory was centered at the headwaters of Bogan Creek and and Boggy Cowal creeks They used more of S at sometimes moved into the territory of during dry periods when food adja- was scarce Bibliography Cameron, A L P (1985) 'Notes on Some Tribes of New South Wales." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 14:344-370 Woods, I D., ed (1879) The Native Tribes of South Australia Adelaide: E S Wigg & Son Wovan ETHNoNYms: Haruai, Waibuk, Wiyaw Orientation Identification The name "Wovan," applied to a small, culturally distinct population in Papua New Guinea, is derived from the label that the people themselves apply to their language (uovoan a mona, or "Wovan talk") It is quite possibly an adaptation or corruption of the term "Kopon" (Kobon) applied to the larger ethnic group to the east The majority of Wovan live in the Arame River Madang Province, located at Location the Schrader Range of Valley in about 5'10, to 5'15' Sand 144'14' to 144'18' E The Arame southerly flowing tributary of the Jimi River, and most of of the range thewr dwellings are located on the southern However, the Wovan claim ownership of and control large hunting and gardening territories on the northern fall of the range extending almost to the Sepik lowlands The area is ruggedly mountainous, with steep valleys cut by swift rivers is a Wovan territory varies in altitude from about 2,100 above sea level at above sea level at ers It thus zones the top of the range meters scarcely 200 meters the confluence of the Jimi and Aramne riv- provides the Wovan with to a variety of ecological from which subsistence may be extracted Rainfall is distributed throughout the year but a wetter season may be through February and a relatively from June through August discerned from December dry season 385 The total Wovan population as of 1980 was Demography approximately 700 persons About 53 percent of these were tively stable linguistic Affiliation Wovan is a Non-Austronesian language and is classified in the Walbuk or Piawi Family, which also includes the Aramo, Pinai, and Wapi languages It is still not certain whether or how this language family is related to already established, larger linguistic groups in New Guinea While there is a great deal of language borrowing from Kopon into Wovan, It is uncertain if these languages are related at some more inclusive level The closest linguistic neighbors of the Wovan are the Aramo people History and Cultural Relations Cut off by a mountain spur that ran parallel to the Jimi River, the Wovan remained undisturbed by European-Australian contact until 1962, when a patrol led by J A Johnston, out of Tabibuga, in the Western Highlands Province, entered Wovan territory While the Wovan treated the outsiders with considerable suspicion and caution, no hostilities were reported For many years large segments of the population simply avoided the yearly government patrols when they passed through the territory Only 161 persons presented themselves at the first census in 1968 Village leaders (luluai, tultul) were appointed by the patrol officers to act as intermediaries between the people and the government Government health and agricultural officers visited Wovan territory on a regular basis, encouraging changes in burial practices, improved hygiene, and the adoption of coffee as a cash crop A government-sponsored medical aid post, staffed by a medical orderly, was established at Fitako in the mid-1970s The Anglican church established a mission station, staffed by members of the Melanesian Brotherhood, at Aradip in 1977 The Church of the Nazarene, a fundamentalist sect, established outlier mission churches at Funkafunk and on the fringe of Wovan territory near Aradip The conflict in religious messages has engendered considerable confusion among the Wovan, leading a number of them simply to avoid the missionaries Settlements Despite government and mission pressure to relocate into convenient hamlets, the majority of the people still reside in the scattered homesteads that formed their traditional residence pattern The small hamlets (Aradip, Fitako, and Funkafunk) developed in the postcontact period Homesteads were constructed on ridge spurs, giving residents control of the valleys below Ideally, a homestead consisted of a set of married male siblings, their in-married wives, their married sons and their wives, and all their unmarried children Homestead populations ranged in size from a single nuclear family of three persons to a large extended family of thirty-seven Each house is internally divided into a male and female side with married couples residing in rooms located at each end of the main structure Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities The homestead (hramn diib, or "big house') is the basic unit of production and consumption Swidden horticulture and pig herding, supple- 386 Wovan mented by hunting, form the basis of Wovan subsistence Taro and sweet potatoes are the major crops but bananas, edible pitpit, sugarcane, beans, maize, and a variety of greens are also important in the diet Tobacco is grown in almost all gardens A wide range of "wild" crops are harvested Among the most important of these are betel nuts, maria pandanus, pandanus nuts, and a wide range of fungi Recently coffee has been planted, but it has not yet yielded significant harvests The Wovan keep domesticated pigs, dogs, and fowl Pigs are of central import both in terms of their contribution to the diet and in terms of their value as items of exchange Dogs are used in hunting and are generally treated well Recently introduced domestic fowl are proliferating but neither they nor their eggs are considered desirable food by the Wovan Animal protein supplied by hunting or foraging is obtained from cassowaries, wild pigs, many varieties of birds and marsupials, frogs, various rodents, grubs, and megapode eggs Eels are important both ceremonially and in terms of their contribution to the overall diet Sago is obtained in trade from the Sepik River area but does not contribute substantially to the diet 1ndustrial Arts The most significant items produced in- clude black-palm bows, arrows, net bags, pandanus-leaf mats, and elaborately carved bamboo combs Wovan men invest considerable energy in producing elaborate dancing finery This decoration includes large "busby" hats decorated with beetle shards, opossum fur, and, nowadays, cloth These hats are crowned with rings of eagle feathers, cassowary plumes, and bird of paradise plumes The Wovan produce kundu drums, small panpipes, and bamboo Jew's harps Trade Trade has always been important both to provide access to desired goods and to solidify friendships and alli ances As well as trading items of their own manufacture, the Wovan acted as intermediaries in the long-distance trade networks that extended from the Sepik River area into the central highlands Wovan black-palm bows and net bags, as well as ax heads that the Wovan had obtained from their central highlands trading partners, were highly valued among lowlanders to the north They, in turn, supplied the Wovan with tobacco and shell valuables These shells and a wide range of marsupial pelts and bird of paradise plumes were traded to the highlanders to the south for ax heads, for salt, and, increasingly in the postcontact era, for cash Division of Labor A division of labor is evidenced in most activities, but, as in many areas, the Wovan tolerate considerable overlap Men and women cooperate in gardening Men fell the trees and build fences to prepare the plots Men and women both plant crops Women the daily harvesting and garden maintenance Coffee is almost exclusively a malecontrolled crop While men are the nominal owners of pigs, women tend them on a daily basis and no man would kill a pig for exchange without obtaining his wife's agreement Females are more likely than males to be accused of witchcraft but both males and females may act as shamans Land Tenure Theoretically, land is owned by corporate patrilineal descent groups An individual's rights to both gardening and hunting land are derived from membership in these patrilineages Parallel-cousin marriage and flexibility in affiliation, however, allow the Wovan considerable room to maneuver Actual gardening and hunting decisions are made at the level of the homestead rather than the patrilineage Kinship Kin Groups and Descent The term yam is applied to all social groups, irrespective of whether these groups are based on recognized genealogical relationships or not When qualified by the name of a senior male, the term designates a nuclear or extended family When qualified by the name of a place, it designates a coresidential or local group or a group of people who believe themselves to be derived from a particular locale Despite an ideology of patrilineal descent, group affili- ation is flexible Fulfillment of the obligations of kinship is fr-equently of greater importance than actual genealogical relatedness in establishing and maintaining kinship Kinship Termninology Kinship terminology is basically of the Iroquois type, with generational skewing of both the paternal and maternal same-sex senior sibling Marrage and Family Marriag The Wovan are monogamous by rule, although a few isolated instances of polygyny occur They state a rule of preferential parallel-cousin marriage with sister exchange, but genealogical manipulation to achieve the desired relationship status after the fact is common The majority of marriages are the products of elopement rather than arrangement, with women taking an active role in initiating marital transactions While fathers play a prominent role in disputes over their daughters' marriages, brothers (whose own marital futures are dependent on their sisters) take the leading role in all marital arrangements Bride-prices are small and men boast of not paying Postmarital residence is patrilocal (both ideally and statistically) Woven marriages are remarkably stable In the first month following elopement, relationships are very unstable, but once a domicile has been established, one can expect a permanent relationship Normatively, divorce is impossible; even infertility is not considered grounds for divorce Domestic Unit The household- consisting of an extended family (or minimal lineage) of brothers, their wives, and unmarried children-forms the basic domestic unit Inheritance Inheritance of land rights is through the patriline, and, theoretically this is immutable Numerous cases of affiliation through matrilateral connections can be demonstrated Individually owned wealth is also inherited in the patriline Socialization The arrival of the Anglican church in 1977 introduced a mission school for the first time Prior to that, socialization was accomplished by the explicit teachings of parents and elder siblings, as well as the imitative strategies of children Children may occasionally be reprimanded verbally and even more occasionally be subjected to a cuffing, but physical punishment of children is rare Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization The social system is characterized by a great deal of flexibility despite an ideology of patrilineal descent The rule of parallel-cousin ('sister") marriage provides added flexibility in terms of landownership and access to forest resources Homesteads in many, though not all, cases rec- ognize their membership in larger landholding units and their consequent kinship with members of other homesteads with Wovan 387 whom they co-own hunting and gardening lands Genealogical depth is shallow, with only six of forty-eight 'big houses" claiming relatedness through connections as distant as or more distant than father's father's father Kinship and social relations are forged by a continuous flow of gifts and counter gifts, by cooperative gardening relationships, and by the construction of ties of partnership either through ritual or exchange Political Orunization The Wovan lack the big-man phenomenon so prominent in the central highlands To them, all men (especially those who have completed their initiation cycle) are big-men (numbe diib) Despite the fact that some men are recognized as better hunters, some as better traders, and some as better orators, shared initiation and other experiences are used to ensure that men continue to regard each other, and behave in relation to each other, as equals Elders have authority over juniors and males in general have authority over females, but the dominant character of the political organization is egalitarian The homestead rainn dilb, or 'big house") group was the only unit over which any particular individual could claim authority Social Control While it was expected that members of the same minimal lineage would not normally use violence to solve disputes, traditionally there were never any restrictions that extended the peace community to the whole Wovan people Disputes could be solved peacefully by public moots wherein anyone might express an opinion Restitution payments were offered after public opinion had been heard and evaluated In cases where the defendant suspected that the punishment would be violent, he or she could choose flight and take up residence with kin among the Kopon or Aramo people Conflict Internal and external conflict took the form of small-scale ambushes and retaliatory raids Permanent relations of enmity existed between particular Wovan kin groups and some Wovan would align themselves with non-Wovan against their Wovan enemies if the opportunity arose Raiding ceased immediately after contact The Wovan assisted both Kopon and Aramo neighbors in conflicts against more distant people Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Belie& Wovan religious life, as one finds generally on the northern fringe of the highlands, focuses on the spirits of the dead The spirits (souls) of deceased relatives are rarely far away These spirits inhabit stagnant water pools and large trees but venture into the village during the ceremonies surrounding initiation Animal and forest spirits also affect the fortunes of humans, particularly in relation to the hunt Religious Practitioners The Wovan not appear to be overly concerned with the supernatural on a daily basis They lack religious specialists and concede that the Kopon to the east possess more powerful sorcery than they A few men are regarded as having influence over the weather Most, if not all, adult men are familiar with spells and incantations that protect them and their children from attack by malicious ghosts Men's most important religious and ritual obligations revolve around the initiation of young men Ceremonies The Wovan have an elaborate set of initiation rites through which all males must pass The first of these takes place when the boy is about 5-7 years old and the last may occur when he is already in his forties Adolescent (hamo) rites are the most elaborate in this ritual calendar and take several days to complete All such rituals are accompanied by the ceremonial distribution of pork and by dancing Arts Arrows, drums, combs, and Jew's harps are decorated by abstract designs Considerable energy is devoted to body decoration during festivals and dancing celebrations All dancing is accompanied by singing and drumming and some Wovan men have gained reputations as being particularly inventive songwriters Medicine Witchcraft and sorcery are pervasive as sources ofillness and other misfortunes, though the Wovan deny that they are particularly adept sorcerers or shamans The use of stinging nettles, medicinal herbs, and tobacco are important among Wovan shamans, who are able to treat some illnesses effectively Serious illnesses require the intervention of spe cialists from among the Kopon people to the east Death and Afterlife The Wovan conception of the soul is complex, consisting of both a shadow and a life force These things have very different careers after death The shadow departs to life in the land of the dead-a place of uncertain location accessed through pools of water and in which the order of the world is largely inverted The life force remains close by and continues to have an impact on the lives of living human beings It is these spirits who are placated by the performance of male initiation rituals that form the core of Wovan religious life These spirits also assist men in hunting Death, except in the case of the elderly or in the case of violence, is never accepted as the result of anything other than supernatural forces Bibliography Comrie, Bernard (1988) 'Haruai Verb Structure and Language Classification in the Upper Yuat." Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 17:140-160 Davies, John, and Bernard Comrie (1984) "A Linguistic Survey of the Upper Yuat." Papers in New Guinea Linguistics 22:275-312 Flanagan, James G (1983) "Wovan Social Organization." Ph.D dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Flanagan, James G (1987) "Temporary Out-Migration and the Disruption of Indigenous Law and Order." Journal ofAnthropology 61:25-49 Flanagan, J G (1988) "The Cultural Construction of Equality on the New Guinea Highlands' Fringe." In Rules, Decisions, and Inequality in Egalitarian Societies, edited by J G Flanagan and Steve Rayner, 164-180 London: Gower Jenkins, Carol, M Dimitrakakis, I Cook, R Sanders, and N Stallman (1989) "Culture Change and Epidemiological Patterns among the Hagahai, Papua New Guinea." Human Ecology 17:27-57 JAMES G FLANAGAN ... Gruyter WILLIAM H ALKIRE Wovan Wongaibon male and approximately 50 percent of the total population were under 20 years of age The population appears to be rela- MTNONYMS: Wombunger, Wongai-bun, Wonghi,... Natural History 82: 7 4-8 4 Warlpiri 373 Mitchell, William E Mitchell (1987) The Bamboo Fire: Field Work with the New Guinea Wape 2nd ed Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press Mitchell, William E Mitchell... Sepik District of New Guinea." Medical Journal of Australia 2: 129 -1 36 WILLIAM E MITCHELL Warlpiri ETHNONYMS: Ilpirra, Wailpiri, Walbiri, Walpiri Orientation Identification Warlpiri country lies