Gender and Society in the New Guinea Highlands

An Anthropological Perspective on Antagonism Toward Women

Marilyn G. Gelber

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367011345
• eBook ISBN: 9780429712364
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The societies of the New Guinea Highlands are among the last-contacted horticulturalist peoples of the world. Endemic warfare, elaborate systems of exchange, flamboyant personality styles, and exaggerated forms of antagonism between the sexes have made them a subject of interest to anthropologists for three decades. This book examines the relationship between the sexes, especially the attitudes and behavior of men toward women, as a result of the economic, political, and structural constraints of Highland social organization. Hostility toward women, which is evident in a high level of violence toward women and an articulated fear of association with them, is given special attention. Dr. Gelber's study is unique not only because it treats gender relations in the entire culture area of the Highlands, but also because a broad array of types of anthropological analysis—ecosystemic, population-regulatory, economic, sociopolitical, psychological, and ideational—are considered for their relevance to the phenomenon of intersexual hostility. The author's emphasis on underlying problems of explanation and theory, as well as the treatment of attitudes and beliefs as a function of socioeconomic constraints, is a departure from previous modes of analysis and raises new issues in anthropological theory and in the study of gender.

" ... either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral ... " Polonius, Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

1
Introduction

I

"If a young woman offers you food and you eat it, your skin will become no good. You must not eat from such a woman; her hand is taboo." "If you meet a young woman, do not look at her face; if you look at her and she looks at you, then you will copulate. If you do this, something will come up all over your skin, your body will be spoilt. Hear what we say." Warrior leader of the lineage, Fore tribe, Eastern Highlands, speaking to male novices undergoing initiation (1).

What gives rise to attitudes such as those expressed by the lineage leader of the Fore tribe? How can we explain their existence, and their relationship to the economic and social organization of Highland societies? And of what do the explanations themselves consist? These three questions form the structure of an inquiry into the relationship between the sexes in the New Guinea Highlands.

II

"Men [of the Mae Enga, Western Highlands] believe that the vital fluid residing in a man's skin makes it sound and handsome, a condition that determines and reflects his mental vigor and self-confidence. This fluid also manifests itself as his semen. Hence, every ejaculation depletes his vitality, and over-indulgence must dull his mind and leave his body permanently exhausted and withered" (2).

Meggitt, "Male-Female Relationships in the Highlands of Australian New Guinea."

"Have you ever loved a woman ... physically loved her? There's a feeling of loss, a profound sense of emptiness. Luckily, I was able to interpret the signs correctly. It was a loss of essence ... Women sense my power, and they seek me out ... But I deny them my life essence" (3). "God willing, we shall prevail in peace and freedom from fear and in true health through the purity and essence of our natural fluids" (4).

General Jack Ripper, Dr. Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The relationship between men and women is complex in every part of the world. As a set of structured relations between two groups of people in a society, it has a special character unlike any other, combining in one relationship economic, social structural, political, reproductive, psychological and ideational elements.

In the New Guinea Highlands, many of the structural and interpersonal tensions which characterize the relationship between the sexes in American society and in other societies present themselves in an exaggerated form. The Highlanders of New Guinea hold up not a mirror, but nearly a caricature of certain aspects of our own society, and probably for this reason, they have been a source of great fascination to anthropologists for several decades (5).

Fear and disgust toward women, an intense interest in the body and its products, sometimes disguised by phobias, and a feeling that men and women are so different as to be almost two different species - these attitudes exist in a milder and more repressed way in American society, but pervade Highland society in an explicit, almost flamboyant, form. Violence toward women is a commonplace both in Highland society and in our own (6), but is met with fewer sanctions in the Highlands.

Although we may see certain similarities between the New Guinea Highlands and American society, it is not an easy task to explain the existence of these attitudes in either case. The relationship between the sexes is interwoven into a complex reticulation of other socio-economic and political structures and processes in both Highland society and our own.

The New Guinea Highlands area is an especially apt region in which to study the relationship between men and women, its causes, and the way it is enmeshed with other aspects of the socio-economic system. Because the Highlands have distinct geographical boundaries, were contacted by the West only since World War II, and make use of relatively simple technology, it is reasonable to treat the various aspects of ecological, economic, and social organization as an articulated set of relationships within a defined system. It is certainly simpler than trying to do the same for American society, if we were attempting to explain the relationship between the sexes there. But some of the causal linkages and types of processes we uncover in a simpler society may be useful to the understanding of sex roles in our own society as well.

An exceptionally large literature concerning sex roles, economy, and socio-political structure in the Highlands also provides an excellent source of description, seen from various points of view.

The Highlands are of great interest to the study of anthropological theory for another reason: the phenomenon of the relationship between the sexes has been explained, in part, by using nearly every major type of anthropological theory (7). By "type of theory" I refer to those causal factors which are given the most weight in the explanation, although very often the theory itself is not made explicit in the argument, and problematical aspects of the theory may be accepted as given. Explanations have been offered in terms of ecological relations, population regulation, economy, social structure, warfare, psychology, and belief system, and sometimes in combinations of these. Like Polonius, we can find ourselves speaking of the techno-environmental, socioeconomic, ideational-psychological, ecological-materialist and so forth - as we grapple with the multiple and interlocking causes of behavior and belief.

All of these perspectives are worthy, but each of the explanations taken by itself does not account for significant aspects of the problem. Anthropological explanations are notably difficult to give, hampered by the lack of a well-defined and generally accepted body of laws and a hierarchy of causal relations, such as those common in the physical sciences (8).

Because the Highlands area is so well described, it represents an almost unique test case for the various theories and for bringing to light certain problems which the theories themselves present.

There are two concurrent areas of inquiry in this study, then: the explanation of antagonism toward women in the Highlands, and a look at the problems implicit in some of the explanatory suggestions themselves.

In particular, I will examine some aspects of the theory underlying explanation in ecological and population regulatory terms, and in psychological terms. In attempting to extricate some of the tacit assumptions of these theories, I do not mean to suggest that the theories, or the explanations which they support, are invalid or lacking in usefulness. Rather, I am trying to exemplify the problems sometimes posed by anthropological explanation, when the terms in which the explanation is given are themselves in need of clarification, and when a structure of relations in the theory needs to be brought to light, which would order the meanings of the terms with respect to one another.

Perhaps it is superfluous to say that our understanding of a subject is dependent on description (itself based on an implicit theory of what is important and needs mentioning) and on explanation. By making the theory underlying an explanation clearer and more explicit in its own right, the explanation can be strengthened, and our understanding of the subject obviously enlarged. It is for this reason that some of the major theories which have been used to explain the relationship between men and women in the Highlands are the focus of attention in the present study, as well as the relationship between men and women itself.

The fundamental problem in explaining the nature of the relationship between men and women in the New Guinea Highlands is that antagonism between the sexes is mostly describable as a psychological or ideational problem (with behavioral ramifications, of course), and yet its explanation cannot be given only with reference to psychological causes, or in terms of its "fit" with other aspects of a conceptual scheme. Factors stemming from the economic and sociopolitical organization of Highland society, as well perhaps as from the overall adaptation of the society to its environment, must be taken into account in explaining these attitudes and beliefs. One of the most important questions, and one which is very difficult to answer, is how these various types of phenomena - psychological, economic, political, and so forth - are to be linked in a causal sequence, or set of interlocking sequences. It is probable that a direct linear chain of causality will not do justice to the complex interactions among them.

III

The societies of the New Guinea Highlands, with a total population of approximately 750,000, lie between 4500 and S000 feet in altitude, in the Central Cordillera of New Guinea, one of the largest islands in the world.

Although the Highlands resemble other parts of Melanesia in certain respects, such as leadership by big men and the importance of ceremonial exchange, and have features in common with Coastal and Sepik New Guinea, such as rituals which express a strong dichotomy between the sexes, they have usually been treated as a discrete area for study.

According to Brookfield, a geographer, the cultivation practices of the Highlanders are "at all points ... readily distinguishable from their lowland neighbors" in terms of "much greater elaboration of land preparation, crop rotation, inter-cropping, and special techniques" (9). The agricultural region may be "precisely defined" by the methods of control of water, soil nutrients, and soil erosion (10), which allow a much more productive use of land than the employment of simpler techniques would (11).

Anthropometric and serological studies have shown that the peoples of the Highlands have significant physical and genetic similarities as well (12).

The present study is limited to the Highlands per se, as defined by Brookfield and others (13), and by the features noted below - that is, from the Enga in the west to the Fore in the east (the Mendi and Huli being the southernmost and the Maring the furthest north), as well as some notes on the Kapauku and Dani of Irian Jaya.

Although they are very interesting, groups on the fringe areas of the Highlands and at lower elevations, such as the Sambia, the Etoro, the Kaluli, and the Baruya, are not a part of the present study, since they differ considerably from the Highlands in population density, horticultural practices, staple crop, reliance on hunting, comparative unimportance of pigs, and lack of elaborate exchange, as well as in ritual organization and in their sexual orientation and concerns (14).

The societies of the Highlands, on the other hand, share many characteristics of economic and social structure. Subsistence activities are typified by the intensive horticulture of a single crop, the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), the keeping of pigs, and a virtual lack of dependence on wild foods. Specialized horticultural techniques are used in combination, such as tilling, contour planting, terracing, soil fences, ditching, and composting.

Women are responsible for most repetitive horticultural tasks, including planting, weeding, and harvesting, and also for cooking, the care of children and animals, net manufacture, and transportation of food, water, children, and firewood. Men clear the land of large trees, make fences, and employ specialized horticultural techniques. Men's activities are done on a sporadic basis and occupy comparatively little of their time, particularly since the introduction of the steel axe, which occurred prior to the time during which the ethnographic studies were undertaken.

Exchange, ceremonial or through trade, of pigs, pork, and non-utilitarian valuables, culminating in populous feasts in which many pigs are killed, is the most important focus of activity for men. Prestige, gained through the size and scope of display, prestation, and exchange, is an important goal of rivalry and competition, and generally determines the political alignment within the society.

Leaders, called "big men," are in many groups (particularly in the Western Highlands) those who are the most successful in ceremonial exchange. They exercise their power by virtue of consensus and by force of personality, without the support of formalized structures of authority.

Highland societies maintain a patrilineal ideology, but the actual recruitment to local groups takes place through various sources, including affinal and cognatic connections and the efforts of big men to recruit supporters, and through the incorporation of refugees produced by chronic feuding between neighboring groups.

Residence is normally patrivirilocal, and village exogamy is practiced. Nucleated villages are more common in the Eastern Highlands, and dispersed homesteads in the Western Highla...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Ideology About Women as a Form of Gerontocratic Control
• 3. The Social Matrix of the Relationship Between the Sexes
• 4. Socio-Economic Structure and Personality
• 5. Aversion Toward Women as a Population Regulatory Device
• 6. Aversion Toward Women as a Population Regulatory Device, II: Problems in Explanation
• 7. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index