New Guinea: Ecology, Society, and CultureAuthor(s): Paula BrownReviewed work(s):Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 7 (1978), pp. 263-291Published by: Annual ReviewsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2155695 .Accessed: 14/10/2012 15:03

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Ann Rev. Anthropol. 1978. 7:263-91 Copyright (?) 1978 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved

NEW GUINEA: ECOLOGY, .9615

SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

Paula Brown

Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794

INTRODUCTION

Social system, culture, and ecology have often been studied and interpreted separately by anthropologists as though they were self-contained. Yet we often use physical and biological information to explain the limitations upon social and cultural development. American ecological anthropology has long been dominated by the concept of adaptation. More recently, the popular conservation and environmental interests have shown how people affect, and often destroy, the natural environment in which they live. There has been debate concerning the relative importance of environmental forces and human decision in shaping social action and cultural form.

A contemporary ecological/anthropological approach might consider the total social-ecological system of a people. Here the aim is to study the interrelations of social, cultural, and environmental elements in a larger system. This paper attempts an understanding of the relations of people and land in New Guinea from this viewpoint. Recent cultural and ecological anthropology has stimulated research, the analysis of data, and commen- tary on ideas and terms. Among the concepts to which this paper may have useful application are those of adaptation, agricultural intensity, and popu- lation density, as they are related to group structure and cultural values.

An ecological analysis begins with the land, the plants and animals, and the climate, which are the natural resources of New Guinea. New Guinea people have adapted to this environment so that they could survive, and have also introduced or accepted new plants and animals for their use. It is essential for the understanding of social and cultural processes to see that people have created and acquired techniques, social and cultural practices, and beliefs associated with these resources and their life in this environment.

263 0084-6570/78/101 5-0263$01.00

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Natural and human resources are allocated and managed by social groups in conflict, alliance, and ceremony. Local land and resources are a group's most precious possession; thus the continued use of this land is valued, and these rights are defended and protected.

This position will appear as a middle stance on some current debates in ecological and cultural anthropology. I shall discuss current issues in the relationship of New Guinea society and environment from this perspective: the interaction of ecology, culture, and society in a developing, innovative, dynamic system. The availability, allocation, and use of land is a most important factor in social relations, but it is not the only one.

NEW GUINEA

New Guinea is the world's largest populated island, 305,557 square miles. It presents the anthropologist with an important region in which to examine the relations between environment, technology, culture, population, and social structure. The island is unusual in that communities are dispersed and somewhat isolated, in mountainous terrain, utilizing local resources augmented by some trade. Interior people have many separate languages and cultural traditions; they mistrust their neighbors even as they trade, intermarry, and celebrate with them. No large-scale political organization has developed even though population is dense and agriculture is complex in several areas.

Most of New Guinea is rain forest ranging in altitude from sea level to over 15,000 feet (4,800 meters). This paper will concentrate upon inland and mountain New Guinea. Few general regional studies of New Guinea have been completed. Indeed, most interior peoples have only been in contact with the outside world for 50 years or less. The central highlands region has the largest total population (about a million) in some concentrated groups, while most of the interior is sparsely settled by groups of small size. Interior New Guinea has a range of agricultural and land-use intensities correspond- ing to density, but a broad similarity in culture, group structure, ritual, and social organization. In an effort to restrict the subject somewhat, I have decided to consider only the New Guinea area and not to discuss the many offshore island groups and coastal peoples. These would be better examined in an interisland context, extending into other parts of island Melanesia. The coastal peoples, many of whom speak Melanesian languages, have been affected by outside influences over a long period and are diverse. The sea, as source of food and trading area, is an important element in the ecology of New Guinea coastal peoples, many of whom have trading relations with island Melanesians. Interior peoples have trade links to the coast, but their knowledge of the sea is at best indirect. Inland peoples near the coast are

NEW GUINEA 265

trade links, but a man's trading activities are restricted to neighboring communities and trading partners in most cases.

The Sepik River region has been of special interest to anthropologists, especially ritual and art scholars. It is a large low-lying area extending from the coast to the lower mountain zone. Great cultural and linguistic diversity are found here. Other lowland areas of smaller extent and less cultural diversity are known all around the island. Coastal mountain ranges such as Finisterre and Saruwaged are little populated, as are the large delta plains of Papua and Irian Jaya.

The peoples of the mountainous area between coastal lowland and high- lands settlements are extremely varied in many respects, but their land and resource use provides a most interesting background to the Sepik, high- lands, and other local and regional specializations. These are small groups of people who live largely as hunters and gatherers, prepare their staple food from the sago palm, and cultivate food crops as a small part of their diet. By comparing studies of interior New Guinea peoples we are beginning to see the processes by which tropical cultivators develop intensive techniques of agriculture and animal husbandry. With this has come increased food and livestock production, larger settlements, ritual activities, and political developments which culminated, before contact, in large alliances, elabo- rate art, ritual, feasts, and exchange ceremonies. None of these could have occurred without the creative use of local resources and development of the land's potential. The expansion of productive capacity has kept pace with population increase; the two variables are interdependent.

The Interior The interior of New Guinea long seemed to be characterized by peoples inhabiting small scattered settlements; their isolated language and cultural groups were once believed to be of extraordinary diversity. The past 20 years of research have, however, established physical and language interre- lations and have shown how these are linked to intercommunity and interre- gional trade and exchange. The large cultural groups of the central highlands, especially the Chimbu-Wahgi-Hagen-Enga peoples of Papua New Guinea and, as a similar but more separate development, the Dani of Irian Jaya, are now known to be densely populated and to have a common cultural heritage, both in subsistence base and social institutions. I consider these to have grown to specialized, intense, dense population from a com- mon interior cultural and linguistic base. As a subcategory of Melanesia, these peoples have been called Papuan or non-Austronesian; now Central New Guinea Macro Phylum (126) is a suggested linguistic designation which includes many of the languages. Numerous other, apparently un- related language stocks and families are also present in New Guinea.

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NEW GUINEA 267

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Our ethnographic knowledge of interior New Guinea, except for pioneer studies such as those of van Baal (2), Bateson (6), Fortune (32, 33), Kaberry (54), Mead (69), Thurnwald (102, 103), Whiting (120), Williams (121-123), Williamson (124), and Wirz (125) is largely based on research since World War II. The coastal and some inland areas were in the war zone in the 1940s. Then Australian observers, missionaries, and scholars began to pub- lish reports on the peoples. Many areas were visited only by exploratory patrols until the 1950s or 1960s; some, especially those in the interior of Indonesian Irian Jaya, the former Netherlands New Guinea, are still nearly unknown. Many important studies were carried out under the auspices of the Netherlands New Guinea Bureau for Native Affairs (35). The popula- tion of Irian Jaya, estimated at 837,000 in 1971 (37), is only an approxima- tion; the latest figure for Papua New Guinea, excluding the island provinces, is 2,185,300. Of course the isolation and instability of some groups make location and study difficult.

Ethnographers focused attention upon the large settled highland groups, especially in Papua New Guinea, from 1950-1965, and results of research in the region as well as among outlying small groups have not all been published nor are available for review. However, while 20 years ago review- ers could see more gaps than reports, now it is hardly possible to keep abreast of newly published research findings. The highlands region was available for study only as Australian or Dutch posts were established in the more remote areas. Long-term field research resulted in thorough ethno- graphic reports; in the 1960s and 1970s challenging conclusions have at- tracted attention far outside the Melanesian area. This is a partial list of dissertations and ethnographic studies: C. H. Berndt (7), R. M. Berndt (8), Bowers (10), Brandewie (12), Brookfield & Brown (14), Bulmer (19), Clarke (23), Cook (25), Criper (26), DuToit (29), Glasse (40), Heider (49), Howlett (52), Koch (57), Langness (58), Meggitt (70), Newman (74), O'Brien (75), Ploeg (77), Pospisil (78, 79), Rappaport (84), Read (86, 87), Reay (88), Ryan (90), Salisbury (92), Sorenson (97), A. J. Strathern (99, 100), A. M. Strathern (101), Waddell (109), Watson (116). Many other studies deal with particular questions and problems outside the subject of this review.

Beginning after 1950 and continuing, so that theory-revising published work is still to be expected, are two kinds of research: archaeology: S. Bulmer (21), Golson (42-45), White (119); and ethnography among remote inland peoples: Barth (5), Dornstreich (28), Gell (38), Godelier (41), Kelly (56), McArthur (65), Morren (73), Schieffelin (93), Steadman (98), P. K. Townsend (104, 105), W. H. Townsend (106), Wagner (111, 113). Finally, new studies in depth among peoples or areas known earlier have produced new information and interpretation: Forge (30), Gewertz (39), Hallpike (47), Lewis (62), MacDowell (67, 68), Schwimmer (95), Tuzin (107).

NEW GUINEA 269

The Culture History of New Guinea

The current state of culture history depends on very recent research, diverse information, brief reports, and the coordination of many fields of scholar- ship. Speculation and hypotheses are swiftly revised with new facts and ideas.

New Guinea's first human settlers, perhaps 50,000 years ago, hunting and gathering for their subsistence, found many birds, including the large flight- less cassowary, numerous marsupials, and a great variety of small fauna and plants. After 14,000 B.P., a warmer climate prevailed. Large marsupials became extinct by about 9000 B.P. (11).

The earliest peoples must have utilized the resources of the area without techniques of food production. At the present day some inland peoples derive their main food from the wild or semicultivated sago palm, and many other wild plant products are eaten. In interior New Guinea reliance on agriculture varies from slight to complete. Animal foods, away from the ocean's seafood resources, consist of birds, some marsupials, and small rodents, bats, insects, fish, reptiles, amphibians (20). They are east of the area of insular Southeast Asia which is separated from the Pacific islands by the deep ocean trough known as Wallace's Line, over which mammals did not migrate. Pigs, introduced by early agriculturalists, now provide the most important meat.

Of the 1035 plant species known and used, 251 are food plants. 157 (63%) of these are gathered from forest, savanna, and grasslands (82). A further 51 (20%) are both cultivated and harvested as wild resources today. Horti- culture has become universal. It dominates as a food source except in moist low altitudes where sago palm is abundant. In most areas a food crop, usually a tuber-sweet potato, taro, or yam-has become the staple, and a variety of other crops are grown for food in an extensive, shifting form of agriculture. The 43 plants always cultivated, 17% of total species, include many indigenous to New Guinea. While most of the major food plants- taro, yam, and banana-are of Southeast Asian origin, many of the large variety of cultivated greens, stalks, cucurbits, beans, and trees bearing nuts and fruits had wild New Guinean ancestors. These subsistence foods, essen- tial to human life, are subject to the climatic and soil conditions of New Guinea. Technological control, selection, cultivation, domestication, and preparation transforms them into human food.

Archaeological investigations have yielded important evidence of early pig introduction and complex agriculture in the highlands. The artifacts are wood and stone, first flaked and later ground. Axe or adze heads were the main tool for clearing and building. Some specialized stone and wooden blades, hoes, or paddles have been found in connection with the more

270 BROWN

complex tillage, ditches, and mounds. Local materials: wood, cane, grass, vines, gourds, bamboo were used to make houses, fences, tools, weapons, clothing, and ornaments. Animal materials-bone, tooth, fur, etc-were used in weapons and artifacts. A trading system connected the coast and interior; shell, minerals, manufactured goods, salt, feathers, tree products, stone, and many other items were exchanged along these routes (53).

Except perhaps in the central and western highlands of Papua New Guinea, where agricultural development and swamp drainage date back thousands of years, most New Guineans of the interior have long depended upon a mixture of wild resources and shifting agriculture. Feral pigs are hunted and interbreed with domestic sows in many areas. Permanent, intensive, and specialized agriculture is found in a few highland centers of dense population where forest and wild resources have nearly disappeared. In all other areas, shifting agriculture prevails. But the natural forest has been disturbed by clearing for shifting agriculture and burning for thou- sands of years, and increasingly in the past 500 years. Grasslands, cultivated trees, and bush regrowth have replaced the original forests (89). Now commercial crops, especially coffee, have been added to the agricultural inventory.

Population is extremely uneven in New Guinea. While environmental potential varies, in many areas the population density has remained below that which the environment would support with the subsistence economy practiced (114). Population increased in some areas, and settled village life was established. Domestic pigs and vegetable foods are exchanged on a large scale. The two best known centers of population concentration are the Sepik River region and the highlands. Nearly everywhere else population has remained relatively sparse; communities usually contain less than 100 peo- ple. Many scholars have speculated about the stimulus for growth in these few places and its absence in others. Since our knowledge of prehistory is so limited still, we may yet discover previous increases and declines in areas now sparsely occupied. Population movements, epidemics, devastating earthquakes, landslips, volcanic falls, frosts, drought, flood, crop destruc- tion, and other events may depopulate an area. The evidence suggests a generally low rate of population growth, due to the low or moderate levels of fertility, high mortality, physical and technological limitations to food production. Yet some Sepik peoples, and a few others in lowland New Guinea, produced larger communities and more settled agriculture; dense population, and some competition for land developed. Taro or yam were the main crops. In highland New Guinea, a few prehistoric sites (most notably Kuk near Mt. Hagen) show evidence of intensive agriculture, swamp drainage, and erosion control at an early date (6000 B.P); taro fields seem to be indicated, and a relatively high population is assumed (44, 45).

NEW GUINEA 271

The highland forest was reduced by 1800-1200 B.P. (82). However, popula- tion expansion and development of agricultural intensification in the high- lands as a whole is more recent, and involves the crop best suited to the high altitude tropics, sweet potato. This plant, of South American origin, most probably reached New Guinea after 1600 A.D. (1, 16, 81).

Greatest interest and speculation surrounds the spread and adaptation of sweet potato and its role in recent highland culture and in demographic change. In lowland New Guinea, malaria is endemic and presumed an important cause of low fertility and high mortality; lowland population is generally sparse. However, malaria seems to have been restricted to lower altitudes before 1900, and is still largely confined to the moister lower slopes in the highland region. Thus upper slope settlement based on sweet potato cultivation could and did develop denser populations. This may have been due to the combination of freedom from malaria and a potential for in- creased food supply for people and pigs which sweet potato provided. Intensive agriculture with tillage, drainage ditches, slope retention, planting in mounds of mulch, green compost, or enriched soil, casuarina fallow cultivation, permanent and specialized garden plots, and pig husbandry with sweet potato fodder all developed in the highlands (110), evidently within a few hundred years. In a few highland centers ecological conditions, population concentration, and agricultural specialization developed to re- markable climax. Some are areas of overpopulation, land competition, and frequent warfare. Highlands agriculturalists have developed a great variety of techniques for intensifying agriculture. There has been a highly variable rate of expansion and development. Since 1930 external contact has had a profound effect. But this is the only documented period, and one must attempt to assess precontact change. It is evident that the scale of food and pig feast exchanges has increased in Chimbu, and also that the Moka of the Hagen area and Te of the Enga have involved more people in exchanges of larger scale in recent years; these institutions certainly have a capacity for growth. Thus highland development from a more modest Melanesian base since 1600 is not surprising.

S. Bulmer (21) believes that the archaeological evidence for mountain Papua New Guinea is best set out in the following sequence:

1. 25,000-11,000 years ago. Archaic hunters and collectors. 2. 11,000-6,000 years ago. Proto-agriculturalists, hunters, and collectors.

New lenticular ground stone axe/adze tools introduced into the high- lands.

3. 6,000-3,000 years ago. Hunters, collectors, and agriculturalists in moun- tain New Guinea. Pigs, trade, forest clearance in evidence. Most sites are rock shelters and caves.

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4. 3,000-400 years ago. Hunters, collectors, and agriculturalists. A change in technology and increased trade, planilateral axe-adze. Discontinua- tion of use of rock shelters and probably development of sedentary agricultural settlements.

5. 400 years ago to present. Agriculture with sweet potato.

Lowland Papua New Guinea has only recently been known at all archae- ologically. Most of the sites are coastal, in areas now occupied by Austrone- sian-speaking peoples. Pottery and trade goods indicate relations with island Melanesia.

Recent Anthropological Research Some regions of special anthropological interest have such a distinctive cultural character that they are quickly recognized. The Sepik River area, highlands, and Papuan coast are perhaps best known. While anthropolo- gists have not wholly neglected the remainder of New Guinea, their studies have not been integrated into distinctive regional types (94). Just as the catch-all "Papuan" or Non-Austronesian (as contrasted with Austronesian or Melanesian languages of the islands and coast) was long used to distin- guish languages little known and believed to be unrelated, so the peoples outside the few recognized cultural regions do not seem to fit into types.

Throughout interior New Guinea there are small settlements and hamlet clusters in which the sexes are segregated to some extent. There may be a separate men's house or men's section of a long house, where sex distinc- tions are reinforced by exclusive male ritual, and often male initiation. Women and uninitiated boys are excluded. Patrilocality is maintained by male succession to land ownership and the preempting of leadership roles by men. Wealth and power are maintained with feasts, exchanges, and warfare. In these activities women are supporters by producing and main- taining food and other household supplies, and serve as the links between intermarrying communities and trading partners. Village settlement is the usual form except in the central and western highlands of Papua New Guinea where a scattered homestead pattern is more common.

As a quick characterization: land is mountainous over a wide altitude range, resources varied, subsistence is mixed, and settlements are small. Such things as the highland concentration upon pigs and sweet potatoes or Sepik arts and yam ritual elaboration are absent. Yet, on a smaller scale, exchange ceremonies are organized by big men for local communities (24). There are some complex institutions such as initiation ritual sequences, elaborate architectural constructions, and long-distance trade. Communi- ties are small and scattered but not isolated. It is perhaps most realistic to suppose that with a reliable agricultural subsistence base the highlands and

NEW GUINEA 273

the Sepik became centers of population, cultural elaboration, and inter- change. Few of the other regions of New Guinea have become specialized centers of cultural development; these are still little studied. Perhaps the Orokaiva may become an example on a smaller scale.

Many of the interior peoples obtain their subsistence from a great variety of wild resources and cultivate food crops in small shifting plots. Their hunting and collecting take them to a great range of resource zones and several residence sites within a large territory. Sago palm swamps are an important resource: seedlings may be transplanted, and growing trees are often marked by owners. At maturity the trees are cut down, then the palm pith is processed, stored, and traded as a staple food (105). The mixed subsistence and characteristic mobility between resource sites of many inte- rior peoples has not produced population concentrations. Their small and independent communities may have only intermittent contact with others.

Small groups and communities in the mountainous terrain around the densely populated highlands have been among the last to be studied. While the exploration parties of the 1920s and 1930s penetrated these areas, little research was carried out until much later. The ethnographic data are still scattered and incomplete; however, findings are so interesting that they must be mentioned. Several groups of peoples seem distinguishable in the highlands fringe area. On the Papuan plateau shifting settlement and re- grouping of families is characteristic in utilizing the full variety of resources. Most often, land and territory are patrilineal lineage or clan domains. Settlements are often long multifamily houses. But individuals and families are mobile and maintain ties of affinity and kinship across local territories. Marriage and reciprocal exchange are the basis of sharing, movement, and alliance. Thus the small local and descent groups are intricately interwoven with one another and extend into adjacent areas. Kelly (56) proposes that Etoro structure must be perceived as based upon the principle of siblingship. This, rather than descent, guides choices and structures relationships. Per- haps his formulation will be best applied to understanding marriage and exchange between groups, especially where, as in so many of the peoples of the interior, sister exchange is a preferred pattern.

In the Sepik-Fly headwaters and Star Mountain region of eastern Irian Jaya and western Papua New Guinea is another constellation of somewhat similar peoples. They differ from the highlanders east and west of them by having taro as the major food crop, with some access to sago swamps at lower altitudes. In the Star Mountains sweet potatoes and taro are grown by people speaking languages of the Ok family, people who hold domestic pig feasts and seem to be rather more like highlanders than the Telefomin area groups (80). Among the latter the Baktaman, one of many small autonomous groups of the Murray-Palmer Rivers headwater area, have a

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very complex series of initiation rituals involving wild foods and game animals (5).

To the north, in the Sepik and Karawari headwaters, are the many small groups of mixed subsistence hunters, gatherers, and cultivators who utilize a great range of resource areas. Contact is recent and far-reaching; for some, their seminomadic way of life is rapidly being replaced by settled agriculture (48). This acculturation process appears to be occurring on several flanks of the highlands. As isolation disappears these peoples have penetrated outlying areas more often for trade and resettlement, while airplanes and new roads to the centers of government and commerce have brought visitors from remote areas. Highland life is impressive, flamboyant, and attracts imitation; this is even greater with European goods now available in high- land towns.

Highland fringe groups seem insecure and isolated; the complex and bizarre forms of initiation and preparation of youths for manhood seem to emphasize these themes, as does the importance of marriage and sibling links between persons and small groups. Such an emphasis stresses recent events and contemporary relationships (22, 56, 95). It provides an interest- ing contrast to the central highlands peoples with their large segmentary phratries, clans, and patrilineal descent groups.

The very diverse Sepik River valley area is known through a few impor- tant studies, and generalizations must be very tentative. The low-lying rainforest soils are not highly productive, although food supplies are in- creased with cultivation of sago palms. Land is prepared by clearing and tillage before planting yams and other foods, with special tillage and mounds for the long yams (15, 60). Sepik social, ritual, and exchange patterns express the dualism within the community; the most important item is long yams, up to 12 feet in length, presented to competitors in prestige exchange which also serves to honor the spirits.

While trade links communities, the exchange patterns are mainly be- tween persons and groups within the village and its neighbors. Elaborately decorated men's houses attest the focus of residential groups upon ancestor spirits; initiation rituals place young men in the clan and exchange system. The Ilahita Arapesh community grew to about 1000 people. Local en- dogamy, intermoiety exchange, and dual organization integrate the com- munity. Tuzin finds the dual organization wonderfully adaptive in the Sepik, its "sensitive action blends varied conditions of demography, culture and socio-physical environment into a rich and ever-changing array of workable societies" (107, p. 318).

If the Ilahita Arapesh represent a long-settled, large, and forceful group, the Umeda community of the West Sepik is a small aggregate of hamlets whose people rely mainly on sago, supplemented with a little gardening and

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hunting. Ceremonial exchange is absent although moieties are recognized. The Ida ritual concerns cassowaries, which are imitated in dance. Fertility, reproduction, and societal renewal are the goal of the cassowary ritual. Such themes of survival and continuity are especially found in the small moun- tain societies of interior New Guinea. In contrast, big man and intergroup competition are the major themes in the densely settled Sepik and highlands region. Where the group is threatened with extinction, the dominant ritual theme is fertility and survival; where the population has expanded to fully occupy its land, intergroup competition becomes the dominant theme.

Observations of latmul behavior led Bateson to conceive of schismogene- sis (6). Closely related peoples may exhibit contrasting attitudes in this regard: the Mountain Arapesh described by Mead (69) seem less secure and competitive than the Ilahita. And of course within a cultural group there may always be contradictions and ambiguities, fear and aggression ex- pressed in ritual and in interpersonal behavior.

Thus while ecology, social organization, ritual, and symbolic analyses of New Guinea societies are still rare, recent studies seem to bring out the contrast. At the same time, the improved communications resulting from national government and development programs bring some formerly small and remote peoples into intensive contact with highlanders and other peo- ples; domination or acculturation may result (112).

POPULATION DENSITY AND AGRICULTURAL INTENSITY

Nodes of dense population appear in several widely separated locations. These were observed by the first visitors to the Wissel Lakes Kapauku, Dani of the Balim valley, Chimbu, Central Enga, Orokaiva of the foothills, Wosera area of Abelam, and Central Basin Tari. "In New Guinea wide areas are occupied at extremely low density, if at all, and high density concentrations ... are very limited in extent" (15, p. 68). At Mt. Laming- ton, where population is higher than in other parts of the Orokaiva area, the special fertility of volcanic slopes is a factor. The causal factors of high density among the Wosera and others of the Maprik area, Sepik Province, are less clear (61). Competition for land and sago resources have become tense. Both Mt. Lamington Orokaiva, a taro staple people, and Wosera Abelam, a yam staple group, are shifting cultivators. A period of fallow follows cultivation. Neither has developed the more intensive agricultural practices of highlands groups. Density has reduced fallow but has not significantly changed techniques.

Prehistorically the population concentration at Kuk in the western Wahgi valley may have occurred twice, around 2300 B.P.-1200 B.P. and

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300400 B.P. The swamp cultivation was abandoned again several hundred years ago (45). Such processes of intensification and disintensification (13) may have been common, perhaps related to physical, disease, and techno- logical changes. The introduction of sweet potato may well have caused population redistribution as well as increases. Large areas of grassland which were created by cultivation and burning have been little used. Now they may be used for cattle or crops.

Although there may remain grounds for debate about the time during which these processes have been under way, and the causal chain involved, there is clearly a positive relationship between population density, agricul- tural intensity, and the individualization of land tenure. This has been demonstrated in the highlands (18) and may also be present in other regions where data details are not available. Comparisons between areas with differ- ent staple food crops raise some additional questions.

In the highlands, the core areas of high population density-Chimbu, Grand Valley Dani, central Enga, and Kapauku-are also areas where sweet potato agriculture has become technically complex with the use of special techniques of tillage, soil enrichment, soil retention, mulching, com- posting, and water control by drainage ditches. Although there has been diffusion of crops and techniques, each densely settled region has a distinct complex of intensifying techniques adapted to local conditions. In these areas improved garden plots are used for several crops before planting casuarina trees as a fallow crop. Such plots are permanently owned by individuals, inherited patrilineally, and allocated for special uses by friends and relatives. This intensively used land contrasts with the land in extensive agriculture. Long fallow land is fenced during cultivation and fallowed in grass, bush, or casuarina for a longer period. Pigs browse in fallow land, turning over the soil as they eat vegetables, and adding manure to the field. Highland agricultural techniques are adaptable to a variety of crops and can be intensified when requirements change. Thus plantings of sweet potato can be increased when pig fodder is needed before a feast, and large plant- ings of banana, sugar cane, peanuts, and other foods can be made for exchange feasts. These forms of intensification adapt to population move- ment and growth. Intensification has been observed as population has in- creased in the past 40 years. Many areas experienced severe influenza and other epidemics and high mortality after first contact, to be followed by population increase under new social and health conditions. Now lower mortality rates and high birthrates and infant survival rates are causing rapid population growth.

Sweet potato is fast-growing and yields more food per area than taro or other food crops of the area. It is more readily adapted to intensification

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(45). Many features of sweet potato cultivation are common throughout the highlands. Plots may be large enough for a community's garden (92). A garden plot is prepared at any time of the year by clearing, the grass and brush is burned, and the plot is fenced with wood and/or reeds from the clearing. Ditches may be dug in or around the plot. The ground is tilled and vine cuttings placed in raised beds or mounds. There may be other crops planted in sections. During the 4-9 months of growth, the garden is weeded, and sweet potato tubers are removed as needed for one or two days' food supplies. The tubers and other crops are harvested as they ripen. When all has been harvested, a short or long fallow precedes replanting. Intensifica- tion, higher yields, and special adaptations for local conditions apply to various phases of this basic technique. Ditch patterns serve as drainage for growing crops; deep ditches are cleared of sediment which is added to plots in Dani, and soil thrown up in the overall ditch pattern of the Wahgi valley is tilled and mounded (83). In both cases the soil in which the crop grows is enriched, and recultivation of the plot introduces new nutrients. Soil- retaining fences are used on steep slopes in the Chimbu area. Composting mounds provide heat and nutrient in Enga gardens; after a crop is fully harvested these mounds are remade with fresh materials. These techniques all improve the soil and make more frequent cultivation or shorter fallow possible. Nevertheless, soil degradation may result after long periods of continuous cultivation. Land preparation techniques can transform broken land, grass, bush, and forest into productive garden plots. However, the soil is not equally rich, and infertile land is less frequently cultivated and used mainly as pig grazing or for wild resources. Some areas have been used intensively, abandoned, used again, and again left in shifts of population and perhaps changes in crops and techniques (82). Sweet potato is so new as a subsistence crop that agricultural adaptations are still developing (16, 117).

We may attempt to test general hypotheses of the causal relations be- tween population growth and intensive agricultural technology in the New Guinea highlands. There is a great range of density patterns and techniques within a generally similar culture area. Do improved techniques lead to population growth, or does population growth demand improvement in the technology of food production? The variety of practices suggests no single direction. The agricultural systems are flexible and the people have devel- oped techniques of intensification well suited to the local conditions (18). Observation and comparison suggest that population increase requires some intensification, and improved production permits greater density: the two are mutually stimulating and interdependent. Within and between areas a variety of forms is known and practiced, as appropriate to local conditions and group needs.

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Population fluctuations may not always or immediately stimulate techno- logical change, but rather competition between groups. Where competition becomes violent, migration is the only solution for the losing group. Then, sooner or later, the land is reallocated. Sorcery belief and accusation, mis- fortune, and population decline affect population distribution (64). Some- times there are differences, perhaps short-term, in density between neighboring groups.

With population growth, more permanent occupation of settlements, and short fallow for garden land has come more precise inheritance and owner- ship of improved land, trees, house and garden sites, and ceremonial grounds. The community groups are larger and more closely allied for defense and group activities. There are more people within a territory; interpersonal relations involve hospitality and exchange. However, this growth did not result in group territorial conquest and political centraliza- tion.

Groups, Territories, and Density

The New Guinea peoples, whether densely or sparsely settled, have a close attachment to a territory and its resources. Most maintain continuity from generation to generation by patrilocality and inheritance from father to son. Men are born, live, and die associated with a locality; a group of men of a clan segment are "one blood." The local group of men is never exclusively unilineal: everywhere there is adoption of young kinsmen, and visits to kin and affines extend into long-term residence and de facto incorporation. If one were to trace the genealogy of all men in a local group, some proportion, perhaps from 10% to 30%, of the men residing in the local group at any time would be born members of other groups. In the lowland and fringe areas, local kin groups are often small groups of ten men or fewer who may be allied with other such groups. In the highlands they are larger, some- times comprising lineages of five or more generations, and these are linked as segments of a subclan, clan, and perhaps a clan cluster or "phratry." When groups are large and highly segmented, there is local collaboration for domestic activities and combined action for group prestations and larger-scale joint ventures such as ceremonies and warfare.

In a comparative study of 17 highlands areas, Brown & Podolefsky (18) found that exogamous clans varied in average size of population from 39 to 650, and the average size of the largest political unit varied from 180 to 4200. However, these differences are not reflected in the size of group territory. Rather, in the majority of highlands peoples, the mean of exoga- mous clan group territory remains between a minimum of 1.1 square miles and a maximum of 6.25 square miles and the average territory of the largest

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political group remains between 3.7 and 12 square miles. These are conve- nient visiting distances for members. Very large territories could not be utilized or protected by the techniques of highland peoples.

Much has already been written to support or criticize Meggitt's hypothe- sis that the Enga stress on agnation and rigidity of patrilineal groups is an effect of land shortage (4, 66). Meggitt generalizes that sedentary horticul- turalists who exploit a limited territory rely on agnation as an organizing principle (70, p. 265). Information about the composition of groups and land allocation among the Chimbu and Dani, the most densely settled highlands peoples, has clearly demonstrated alternative modes of coping with land scarcity. Among the Chimbu and Dani land is often loaned or given to kinsmen and affines. In Chimbu individual mobility and inter- digitated holdings among clans within a tribe (and sometimes on tribal borders) provide alternative land sources in the very dense areas (14, 26, 51). In Dani the moiety structure and residence patterns have a similar effect (49).

The idea of assessing the strength of agnatic ties, as compared with affinal, nonagnatic, and local ties, has equally attracted numerous commentators, including Lewis (63), Sahlins (91), Strathern (100). Some writers suggest that in New Guinea local and personal relations are more important than quasi-descent groups in assigning loyalties and responsibilities. Thus people who leave their natal clan to reside with nonagnates participate in local affairs and are expected to behave as members in most if not all respects (27, 58). The argument has been broadened, and many different interpreta- tions of incorporation, membership, and commitment are possible. Without genealogical dogma or ancestor cults, "descent" group membership can be adaptable (3). We cannot understand all New Guinea peoples' principles and practice of organization by reference to a single causal factor, as Meg- gitt proposes. We must agree with Fortes: "I think it would now be gener- ally agreed that the comparative evidence is against assumptions of one-way ecological or technological or even economic determinism in the structure of kinship and descent systems" (31, p. 289).

As Fortes continues, quoting Goody, in the discussion of descent and corporate groups, property in land is a central common interest of such groups. In New Guinea, settlements, land, and territory are associated with named groups, described as though they were formed by descent. But this does not make descent group members the exclusive occupants of their territory, or give nonagnatic residents low status. The competition between groups in- food production, expressed in exchange feasts, is in the name of the descent group but is a product of the locality and kinsmen of the core group. The actual genealogical status of contributors and their current place of residence is little noted.

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WARFARE

Intertribal warfare has been reported nearly everywhere in New Guinea. Fights break out within local, clan, or tribal communities which may lead to the mobilization of fighting parties and intracommunity warfare. In the absence of political centralization, courts, or mediating institutions, inter- personal conflicts turn to fighting and warfare when no solution is reached.

Many scholars have collected stories of past fights and wars from warri- ors and war leaders. Further analysis might compare and tabulate them in terms of the underlying or precipitating causes, incidents of conflict, groups and persons involved, casualties, and outcome. Among different peoples, the usual reasons for war are wife abduction, the ghosts' demand for re- venge (36), and competition for land (72). Yet we have not the data or a standard measure to assess the frequency or severity of interpersonal or intergroup hostility, conflict, or warfare, or to compare peoples on the frequency or severity of warfare and losses of warriors or territory.

Between local communities hostility is a normal state, raiding and fighting are common, and long-term peaceful relations are unknown. Inter- community attacks and counterattacks, vengeance for past thefts, and kill- ings are said to be ceaseless and incapable of resolution. Despite these intercommunity hostilities, exchange ceremonies and trade between indi- vidual partners continue. The initiation of young men and the men's house organization give each village or hamlet a center for military organization, recruitment, and strategy. Wedgwood, writing when the interior of New Guinea was almost unknown, says that in Melanesia "war serves the double purpose of enabling a people to give expression to anger caused by a distur- bance of the internal harmony, and of strengthening or reaffirming the ties which hold them together. Further, it is a means whereby a community can express itself as a unit and emphasize its distinction from all other units" (118, p.33). This is equally true of the interior, including those highland groups where hundreds of men may be assembled to fight against another tribe. Clan and tribal reputation is based upon this display of solidarity and success against enemy groups. Land and territory, as the basis of contention or prize of war, may be involved. The close identification of a group with its territory makes defeat and loss of land a serious threat to group continu- ity.

Many conditions produced warfare among New Guinea peoples. The diversity of particular reasons for individual fights-theft, land, adultery, revenge, and so on might be generalized as, for example, personal and group pride, property, and scarce resources. A concern with survival, defense, and protection of property in land, crops, goods, and group members is perhaps not quite universal but is certainly characteristic of settled, agricultural

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peoples. The sparsely populated semiagricultural groups who have a large undeveloped hunting and gathering domain have less opportunity for inter- group conflict. It has been suggested (48) that closer settlement at Telefomin has increased competition and fighting. In the Sepik area, densely settled Abelam and Arapesh peoples made war and conquered land, forcing the losers to flee (30, 107).

Changing social conditions may bring about different attitudes and prac- tices. For example, Orken (76) notes that land has become more valued in the highlands since the introduction of cash crops, and Meggitt (72) states that Enga gave up fighting when they expected land disputes to be settled by the Australian administration. Another assessment of fighting may be by reputation. While Tuzin (107) characterized the Ilahita Arapesh as "reluc- tant warriors," the Chimbu, who make war in group conflicts and attack travelers on the highway, are reputed to be violent by nature throughout Papua New Guinea. In contrast, most of the eastern highlands peoples, whose burned-out villages, fortifications, and fear of traveling outside tribal territory clearly demonstrated a general state of warfare in 1933, now have apparently accepted pacification and the authority of village courts to pun- ish violence (115).

New Guinea warfare might be attributed to personality type or political- legal structure and organization, or both. After reviewing arguments of several kinds, and rejecting several, Koch (57, pp. 162-75) feels that Jale have a propensity to resort to violence and forceful self-help because of their pattern of socialization. More specifically, he says the separation of the sexes produces a conflict of identity among males which results in assertion of rights, revenge, and warfare. He also argues that warfare occurs where there is an absence or breakdown of peaceful means to settle disputes. In the New Guinea highlands, local communities are autonomous; this inhibits the development of third-party authority. While these factors of personality and political-legal structure are not incompatible, the explanation is not wholly satisfying. We cannot conclude that one factor is sufficient or that both are necessary before conflict and warfare reach a high level. Koch rejects land shortage as a cause of warfare. In his recent study of Mae Enga warfare, Meggitt discusses the situation of politically autonomous communities in armed hostility. He states that "the basic preoccupation of the Mae is with the possession and defense of clan land" (72, p.9). Violence is the means to acquire territory. Meggitt does not undertake an explanation of warfare in all New Guinea communities, or discuss personality here, but Enga political structure clearly allows and stimulates interclan warfare.

Evidently the Melanesian type of political-legal system cannot control intercommunity warfare. Local autonomy is usual, varying from a village of under 100 people to a local clan, tribe, or confederacy of as many as 4000.

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The larger tribal or alliance groups are highly unstable, depending upon a combination of territory, putative common descent or kinship, and joint ritual and military activity under a temporary leader, the big man. Individ- ual and family mobility, dispersal after military defeat, and the uncertainty of reassembly under a new leader combine to produce the instability of these groups. The groups of primary allegiance are not always united by an ideology of clanship, but may be little more than a temporary local aggrega- tion or a "security circle" (59). Such social units are not merely flexible or "loosely structured"; they are competitive and not subject to mediation by external authority or a third party. Recent events since independence indi- cate that a national legal and political system may not be acceptable to all. In Chimbu Province there is very strong resistance to surrender of local autonomy. During the Australian colonial administration, 1933-1975, local self-help was suppressed, but more recently the Papua New Guinea police have not effectively stopped Chimbu tribal warfare.

Many writers have discussed New Guinea warfare, and recently the controversy over its causes and results has become heated. The argument of the relation of land shortage and warfare is most appropriate for discus- sion here. Hallpike presents a general criticism of the ecological-functional explanations of land pressure, survival, and expansion as cause and conse- quence of warfare (46). The argument may be advanced by separating initial disputes, escalation, and outcome of war. Specific questions would be: what role have land disputes in the conflicts which arise between groups? How frequently do wars arise from land disputes? Is the usual outcome of war land conquest or reallocation? Land disputes and conquests then may be assessed in relation to the population density and actual shortage of arable land or scarcity of resources associated with territory. Certain valued types of agricultural land, land with tree crops or other improvements, cere- monial or burial grounds may be disputed or excluded from consideration. Whatever the precipitating incident of warfare, land loss or gain may result. Burning and looting of the loser's land by victors may follow a devastating defeat, with the losers fleeing to sanctuary with relatives. Yet there may not be immediate or permanent occupation of this land by the victor. The former owners may return to reoccupy later. "The Tauade didn't fight because of population pressure on land, and never permanently occupied land from which the occupants had been driven," Hallpike states (47, pp. 205-6). While Meggitt attributes Enga warfare to land shortage, studies of other densely populated and land-short peoples have not found land dis- putes to be the sole or most common beginning of war (17, 55, 57).

Vayda (108) discusses escalation of war processes and its relation to population pressure and land conquest. Since Maring is composed of many local subgroups, each numbering a few hundred people, the different condi-

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tions of land pressure among subgroups can be compared. Vayda points out that disputes and raids or "nothing fights" do not inevitably escalate to wars or "true fights"; nor is success in routing the enemy inevitably followed by land conquest. He is nonetheless concerned with population in relation to garden land and forest. Local intergroup differences in density are assumed to indicate differences in population pressure. Vayda's analysis of the pro- cesses of war deals with phases: fights, routs, refuges, return to former territory, and land redistribution. He does not discuss precipitating causes such as land disputes, and he does not compare groups in terms of frequency of fighting. Although territorial conquest may be an aftermath of war among Maring, territorial needs are not shown to cause disputes; they do not stimulate escalation of a dispute into war, nor is war more frequent among groups short of land.

Sillitoe discusses the relation between warfare and land shortage (96). His contribution is especially effective in evaluating the relation between the aim of warfare, routing of the defeated, and territorial conquest. In the great majority of cases, while the defeated may flee, and their property in houses, crops, and livestock is sometimes destroyed by the enemy, the victor does not occupy the land of the defeated. Only among Chimbu, Enga, and Abelam is land conquered. Nevertheless, he concludes, war is not always fought in order to gain territory even among these densely settled peoples. (Meggitt's 1977 book on Enga warfare does supersede Sillitoe's informa- tion.)

There is another facet of the relation between land and warfare. Whether closely or sparsely settled, autonomous local communities usually clash on their boundaries. Disputes include land encroachment, pig theft, food theft, adultery, and many other incidents which depend upon access to territory, property, and neighboring people. Fights require a meeting place, a border to be raided, or a battleground. The victors may invade to destroy or loot when the defeated flee. An abandoned settlement becomes an intercom- munity buffer zone; further meetings, quarrels, or raids do not occur. Many ethnographers report fear of sorcery, spirits, or new attacks as reasons to refrain from settlement in conquered territory. Even in the dense areas of Chimbu, invaders do not quickly make gardens or build houses, nor do the defeated return to their former homes immediately. The border land and battle area is avoided as long as intergroup relations are tense and retaliation attempts are expected.

The short-term result is a loss, perhaps destruction of property, and creation of a buffer zone. After some years a gift of food and pigs may reestablish exchange relations. The defeated may return to their land. The buffer zone may be occupied by the conquerors if they have kept their dominant position, or they may form an alliance with some subgroups or

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kinsmen in the defeated group. Then the buffer zone is occupied by kinsmen and friendly people from both groups, with neighboring and interdigitated holdings. While this redistribution of land may be peculiar to Chimbu, the buffer zone is common between discrete village communities. As Berndt points out, "Land conquest, as an explicit or implied aim, occurred only in some areas; but the aim of dispossessing an enemy unit at least temporarily, driving its members from their territory, was widespread" (9, p. 200).

Another result of war was the dispersal of a defeated group as refugees to relatives in other communities. The result of such individual and group movement is a redistribution of population in relation to land resources. Relatives may be welcome to add to numbers and defensive forces where a group's land is threatened, and they may also help to acquire new land.

Surely this argument suggests some connection between people, land, territory, and peace or war between neighbors. But it does not show that population pressure causes land conquests. Buffer zones are always impor- tant as a guarantee of local autonomy. This applies to all groups of whatever density. These areas may be reoccupied later by members of either or both groups as land needs and intergroup relations change.

CEREMONY

Ceremonial activities and the accompanying exchange of produce demon- strate the links between ecology, ritual, and social behavior. A group's feast and exchange patterns and cycles require large gardens of feast foods and pig fodder crops before a major feast. Gardens are much smaller afterwards (14, 84). Thus garden and land needs may oscillate while population changes slowly.

Among the sparsely settled, partly agricultural groups of the highland fringe, small settlements and scarce resources are typical. Initiation and other ceremony involve one or two settlement groups; their small-scale feasts do not require long planning with large gardens or many domestic pigs.

Many transactions concern individuals in intergroup relations. Since exogamous quasi-unilineal local groups are the most common form of social structure, most life events of adults and children are celebrated by the origin groups of a husband and wife. A gift of food and pork is usual. Marriage and kinship are the important links between local and clan groups. Visits, sanctuary, cooperation of individual kinsmen and affines provide means of migration and access to land. These are evidenced by intermediaries, pro- viding access to more distant resources and the interchange of products and ideas. Thus while each person in each local group knows and relies upon his own land, his kinship connections provide him with help, loans, and donations when his group holds a festival.

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In the highlands, ceremony tests the group's capacity to cooperate in producing food and goods and to conduct exchanges with other groups. At festivals a group displays its products, which may be nuts, wild fruits, game, domestic animals, cultivated foods, or, nowadays, purchased foods and liquors. The aim is a lavish display presented with ceremony, dance, song, and speeches of pride. Recipients, whether individuals, specific groups, or persons from many groups, recognize the competitive challenge of the festival and their obligation to reciprocate on an equal or larger scale. Harvest festivals may stimulate trade in products of different environments. They often combine food with raw materials or manufactures of objects used in adornment or artifacts, such as salt, mineral oil, pigments, tree oils, stone for tools, feathers, and pottery. The small fragments of seashells which were highly prized in remote areas were replaced after contact by large whole goldlip and other shells. In the Mt. Hagen area these became a major element in Moka exchange.

Pigs are the most important feast food, and raising them in the central highlands requires a large investment in fodder crops, principally sweet potatoes (109, 117). They are also the cause of much anxiety and dispute among their owners' families and neighbors. Some New Guinea peoples castrate all male pigs and allow sows to interbreed with feral pigs. This breeding is less controlled than that of central highlanders who arrange for mating between their sow and a locally owned boar. Pig raising is not easy: the litters are small, many sicken and die before full growth is reached, and grown pigs are fattened and kept for special feast occasions. In the Chimbu and Dani areas pigs are fattened for years in preparation for a large-scale feast held at intervals of at least 4 years and more usually 8 to 10 (17, 50). Many pigs are raised and cared for by relatives outside the local group, thus integrating many activities in neighboring tribes. Group wealth, pride, and strength are expressed in ritual. The Moka and Te of the western highlands and Enga involve an extraordinary coordination of gifts in a cycle. Pigs are transferred from person to person and group to group over a very large area. Reciprocally, pigs are killed and cooked pork is presented from group to group in sequence. A new cycle reverses the direction of gifts. Chimbu Province feasts are held by each large tribe at intervals. In addition to the care and fattening of pigs, large ceremonial villages are built, and a number of tribes conduct their ceremonies at about the same time. Failure to present and display an adequate number of pigs humiliates the group and damages tribal reputation. In these and in eastern highlands areas where feasts may be more frequent (86, 92), male initiation and often marriage, death, and other ceremonies are held at the time. At the pig feast these events are recognized and the appropriate relatives are given pork. Feasts may also be held to acknowledge peace settlements between groups, with pork gifts to compensate those who have suffered losses or helped the combatants.

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Rappaport's application of the ecological theory of homeostasis has been the subject of much recent comment. In his field studies and interpretation of the Tsembaga Maring, Rappaport (84) puts forward the view that the ritual cycle regulates domestic labor and thus the ecosystem. In the interval between feasts, as the number of pigs increases, their food requirements place an increasing strain upon peoples' capacity to grow fodder crops. The kaiko feast, which must be held to recognize a peace treaty between former enemies, alleviates this pressure. Thus pig growth would be unrestrained unless the community responded by scheduling periodic large-scale ritual slaughters. A mounting desire for protein is satisfied by the feasts, and Tsembaga Maring society obtains relief and begins a new war and another pig cycle. In the hands of some interpreters, this has become extreme ecological determinism: one imagines that the Tsembaga are threatened by the voracity of their domestic pigs and hasten to hold ritual slaughter before they exhaust their own food supplies. Maring are a small group whose land is on the flanks of the highlands, partly in a lower altitude zone. Studies of the central highland peoples have not confirmed such a ritual regulation process. Observers of highland peoples have described the long extended planning, exhortation of leaders to restrict personal payments and coordi- nate community feast preparations, preparation of large group gardens for feast and fodder crops, coordination of plans between leaders of different local groups, clans, and tribes, and the anxiety for group reputation which underlies the coordinated effort of thousands of people to display and distribute food, pigs, and valuables (14, 17, 19, 26, 50, 71, 88, 92, 99).

Rappaport's homeostatic theory was criticized by Friedman, who consid- ers it a form of functionalism (34). In replying to this criticism, Rappaport proclaims that his analysis refers only to Tsembaga Maring, a population of 204 in 3.2 square miles. His interest is restricted to this local ecosystem and the circular causal structure in which the Tsembaga adaptive system persists. He does not find the Tsembaga integrated into a wider exchange system, nor does he invite comparison with larger highlands ritual cycles (85).

This seems to me a very restricted view of the complex interrelations and processes of ecology, culture, and behavior. Human community life, plans, and goals are said to be regulated by ecological processes, and there is no criterion for studying or discovering change in the system. While Rap- paport considers Maring subgroups self-contained ecological systems, small localities elsewhere in New Guinea are not. In contrast with Maring, studies of Enga, Hagen, Chimbu, and Dani peoples show a dynamic expansion of groups and active competition between groups. These societies of the high- lands are not in stable equilibrium; cycles are irregular, groups and activities expand, big men compete for prestige in feasts, and tribes engage in warfare.

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All these are groups of thousands in larger areas, as contrasted with the 200 Tsembaga. Homeostatic processes in small localities cannot be shown.

CONCLUSION

This review has had several goals and cannot be brought to a single conclu- sion. It began with a few sections summarizing the present state of knowl- edge of resources, prehistory, and ethnography which bear upon the major theme, man and land in New Guinea.

All New Guinea peoples have a close attachment to their land and its resources. Subsistence activities of all include the use of wild resources; all are agricultural. But peoples vary from primary dependence on wild vegeta- ble products and game, with movement between settlement sites and shift- ing cultivation, an adaptation of many mountain peoples, to the permanently settled central highlanders who depend very little on wild products and mainly upon cultivation of one root crop, sweet potatoes, supplemented by other vegetable crops, and raise pigs for ceremony and exchange.

Although patrilineal descent concepts are very important in identifying groups, membership is demonstrated in participation, while genealogy may be forgotten. The group dwells upon its land, whose resources and improve- ments are necessary to group existence. Land outlives individual members: group territory is the most important continuing evidence of group identity and status. Loss of territory disperses and may destroy the group. Migration is usually by families. Resettlement may be the beginning of new group establishment, but the process must take many generations. For this reason it has been suggested that locality is more important than descent as a principle of grouping (27) or that residence becomes kinship (58).

Some cultural regions, linked to environment, subsistence, community organization, and ceremonial practices, can be distinguished within a gen- eral Melanesian type. The Sepik River region and the highlands are the largest distinctive types, with complex and large-scale ceremonial exchange systems. Many of the smaller and more isolated peoples conduct only local ceremonial exchanges and stress male maturity, stability, and continuity in their ritual. The majority of New Guinea communities have not expanded and become integrated in such large competitive intertribal exchange complexes as the central highlanders have developed. Dense settlement, intensive agriculture and pig raising, large-scale group organization, inter- personal and intergroup rivalry are found only in the highlands. Many areas of the highlands have continued at low or moderate density, practicing extensive agriculture, with small-scale communal exchanges. Where large- scale festivities have developed these have expanded to include many thou-

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sands of people in periodic exchanges. Production and distribution integrate the activities of many independent groups. This activity involves more people, communities, and tribal groups than any known in any other area of Melanesia. It depends upon the development of sweet potato agriculture, pig husbandry, and exchange of valuables obtained through trade. While each local group is dependent upon its land and technology, a wide social network connects individuals across community and tribal boundaries. The pattern of land occupation and social relations is always changing.

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