In addition, s©vera\ village type trade-stores were opened in
both Womsis and Welihika in the mid-1960s but were closed down soon after they opened up for business. Lack of both entrepreneurial skills and a regular source of income to keep the business going led to their closure.
The only village trade store that appeared successful at the time of research and which made a profit due to efficient management was the Womsis-Welihika co-operative store. In 1981, a sum of K200 (c.$250
was made. Since the departure in 1982 of Sister Coleen (a Catholic
nun who helped them establish and supervised the running of the
co-operative), the store has virtually run down and its continuity in
the future is doubtful.
To sum up, the economic situation among the Womsis and Welihika
is poor. Lack of vehicular roads induces a lot of Abu' people to
leave coffee and cocoa plantations unattended and trees unpruned.
Consequently, trees appear unhealthy and weatherbeaten. Until such
time as a road is built into the area, the economic situation will
2.1.2.6 Political
Most Abu' people are aware of the major political changes that
have been taking place in the country. Radios, local government
councillors, teachers, and educated Abu' have been responsible for
spreading and making people aware of such changes. Village level
politics has picked up tremendously in the past decade. It is a common experience to see most men and women of all ages and educational
background sit and discuss issues as well as expressing their
frustrations over the manner their elected members of Parliament (MPs)
and |L>rovnnc/\al government representatives have let them down by not
fulfilling their campaign promises. In view of these feelings, many
Abu' people have become politically apathetic and frustrated. Their
major concern has always been to do with the building of the
Suain-Womsis or Womsak-Womsis road to enable them to sell their cash-crops and to have easier access to markets in Aitape, Maprik and Wewak to sell their vegetables.
Unfortunately, it seems as if political party affiliations have
dictated political decisions in the local list of priorities. Abu',
being supporters of the Melanesian Alliance political party, hold the view that the proposed Suain-Womsis road is being neglected because
they did not cast their votes for the two P.A.N.G.U. (Papua and New
Guinea Union) party members, namely, Karl Stack, the Sandaun
provincial representative and the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and Gabriel Ramoi from Suain, who won the Aitape-Lumi seat in the 1982 national elections.
The apparent political neglect shown by their national and
provincial governments' representatives has, for the first time in the political history of the community, prompted the Abu' to have an Abu' man standing for the November 19ÖU Sandaun (West Sepik) Provincial Government elections. Thus Alphonse Salipen, who was the headmaster of
the Womsis community school till the time of election, stood for the Aitape-East-Coast and Inland provincial seat and had a landslide victory over the coastal candidates.
2.2 The Abu' Language
2.2.1 The Abu' Language Area
The Abu' language area is sociologically defined as the
geographic area in which members of the traditional Abu' speech
community live and assert their ethno-linguistic homogeneity without being questioned or challenged seriously about this status by related and unrelated contiguous language groups.
Linguistically, the Abu' language area is identified by a
specific set of lexical, phonological fand possibly grammatical)
isoglosses that exhibit considerable differences between it and other genetically related languages.
Having provided in broad terms the sociological and linguistic definitions of the Abu' language area, I wish to direct my attention to the Abu' reasons on why the Abu' language should be regarded as different from other Arapesh languages.
When asked about the relationship of Abu' vis-a-vis other Arapesh languages, the majority of the people interviewed asserted that the Abu' linguistic boundary ends at Balup to the north and Womsak N o .1 to the south., including the in-between villages of Maiin, Wolum, Womsis, Aspeis, Welihika, Amom, and Womsak No.2. A minority, however, expanded
the Abu' linguistic area identified- by the majority and included
Sparek, Niluk, Nakipeim, Arohemi and Matapau as Abu'-speaking villages as well, thereby maintaining that that is where a boundary line must be drawn to mark off the Abu' from Muhiang and Buki. Many Abu' people did not know that Weri' is a language of the Arapesh language family. What is obvious in view two is the inclusion of villages that are on the fringe of the Abu' area represented in view one (Fig 2-2).
Given these two partly conflicting views, the immediate concern
is to try to establish which of the views is more insightful. To
achieve that, some understanding of the sociological and linguistic arguments is necessary.
In view of the interaction among neighbouring villages through long-standing social contacts such as inter-ethnic marriages, child adoption from relatives of neighbouring language groups and intra language sociocultural activities., the task of establishing boundaries
(cf. Gumperz and Hymes, 1972) is a thorny one. The problem becomes
more acute when one deals with members of genetically related
languages as in our case.
Some Abu'-speaking villages shift linguistic loyalties for
socioeconomic advantage. For instance, Womsak No. 1 and No.2 and Amom
tend to accentuate their social, political and economic affiliation
with the Sparek at the expense of their traditional Abu' heritage. This is due to the fact that Sparek has become the socioeconomic outlet to Maprik or Vewak. When the abovementioned Abu' villages have conflicts with the Sparek, the Abu' re-emphasize their Abu' ethnicity.
In spite of the fluid nature of the Abu' linguistic boundary, the majority of Abu' insisted that Abu' is a different language from other Arapesh languages. This differentiation is marked by the degree of
mutual intelligibility between Abu' and its sister languages. To
demonstrate the linguistic variance, the Abu' have systematized a
number of comparative statements and used them to assert the
relationship. The phrases recorded were: 1. bulan etin 'one talk', same language
2. mamine' as d ua' 'we only hear (language X)