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Akali taiyoko ongo kunao napenge.
on warfare in contrast to exchange? (2) Given egal- itarian constraints operative in Enga history, what role did warfare play in generating the hierarchical complexity that unfolded during the period consid- ered? (3) Did the Enga experiment with warfare to try to circumvent egalitarian constraints and use warfare more productively in their strategies?
Background
The Enga are a highland horticultural population in Papua New Guinea (fig. 1) who live at altitudes of 1500-2500 m above sea level cultivating sweet pota- to and other crops in an intensive system of mulch mounding to feed large human and pig populations. They are well known in the anthropological litera- ture through the works of Feil (1984), Gordon and Meggitt (1985), Lacey (1975; 1979), Meggitt (1965; 1972; 1974; 1977), Talyaga (1982), Waddell (1972), and Wohlt (1978), amongst many others. The Enga population, which numbers approximately 230,000 today, is divided into a segmentary lineage system of phratries or tribes composed of some 1000 to 6,000 members, and their constituent exogamous clans, sub-clans, and lineages (Meggitt 1965). Patrilineally inherited clan membership furnishes a pool of people who cooperate in agricultural enterprises, defence, procurement of spouses, raising wealth for a variety of payments, and in the past, communicating with the spirit world. Affinal and maternal ties estab- lished by exogamous marriage and maintained by reciprocal exchange provide access to resources and
assistance outside the clan. Except in times of war- fare when affines may be on the enemy side, there is little conflict between agnatic and affinal loyalties – the clan sees the wide range of affinal ties held by individual members as enhancing the clan’s strength (Wiessner and Tumu 1998: 172). Approximately 10% of men in eastern Enga and 30% in western Enga join the clans of maternal or affinal relatives.
Enga women devote themselves primarily to fami- ly, gardening, and pig husbandry, while the politics of warfare, exchange, and pursuit of ‘name’ or repu- tation, occupies much of men’s time and effort. ‘Name’ can be obtained through several channels: warfare, ritual expertise, mediation, organisation, and the management of wealth. However, great warriors have little say outside of the context of battle, the power of ritual experts is limited to their realms of practice, while big men, the masters of mediation and exchange, are the most revered leaders who exerted strong influence in many contexts.
The Enga hold a rich body of historical traditions (atome pii) that are held distinct from myth (tindii pii) in that they are said to have originated in eyewit- ness accounts. Historical traditions contain informa- tion on subsistence, wars, migrations, agriculture, the development of cults and ceremonial exchange net- works, leadership, trade, environmental disasters, and fashions in song and dress. They cover a period of some 250-400 years that begins just prior to the introduction of the sweet potato along local trade routes and continue into the present. Accompanying genealogies allow events to be placed in a chrono- logical framework (fig. 2).
Between 1985 and 1995, Akii Tumu, Nitze Pupu, and I collected and analysed the historical traditions of 110 tribes (phratries) of Enga (Wiessner and Tumu 1998).1The results of our studies indicate that
the period between the introduction of the sweet potato and first contact with Europeans was one of rapid change. The earliest of historical traditions recording events prior to the introduction of the sweet potato describe the population of Enga as diverse with people practicing subsistence strategies that varied by altitudinal zone. Eastern Enga (1500- 1900 m above sea level) was occupied by horticul- turalists who cultivated taro, yams, bananas, sugar- cane, and other crops in the wide, fertile valleys of the Lai and Saka. In central Enga (1900 m - 2100 m) roughly equal emphasis was placed on gardening, hunting, and gathering. In the high country of
western Enga above 2100 m lived scattered mobile groups who depended heavily on hunting and gath- ering, while shifting horticulturalists lived a precari- ous existence in the steep and infertile valleys below. Marriage and exchange, on the one hand, and ten- sion and misunderstanding, on the other charac- terised relations between the two. In these early tra- ditions, the thriving exchange economy is described as revolving around the circulation of stone axes, cosmetic oil, salt, plumes and shells; pigs receive little note.
The introduction of the sweet potato released many constraints on production and made it possi- ble to produce a substantial surplus of pigs for the first time (Watson 1965a; 1965b; 1977). Immediate reactions to the arrival of sweet potato differed by area, however, historical traditions from all areas report substantial shifts in population distribution, population growth, and the expansion of ceremonial exchange and religious ritual in response to mount- ing social and political complexities. Three large net- works arose that can all be counted as systems of ceremonial exchange (fig. 3). The first of these was the Kepele cult network of western Enga that linked more than fifty tribes of western Enga in a ritual net- work. Kepele ceremonies drew hundreds, and, in later generations, thousands of participants to initiate boys, express the equality of male tribal members, communicate with the ancestors, and host guests from other tribes for the massive Kepele feasts. The second was the Great Ceremonial Wars of central Enga, tournament fights fought recurrently between entire tribes or pairs of tribes to demonstrate strength and brew the feasts and exchanges of enormous pro- portions that followed. The exchanges following the four Great Ceremonial Wars forged links between the inhabitants’ four major valley systems and adja- cent outlying areas. The third major exchange net- work was the Tee Ceremonial Exchange Cycle, a three-phase cycle of enchained exchange festivals that encompassed the majority of clans in eastern Enga and many clans of central Enga by first con- tact. As the Great Ceremonial Wars and Tee Cycle expanded in eastern and central Enga, bachelors’ cults, female spirit cults, and ancestral cults were developed and circulated within Enga or imported from neighboring linguistic groups. The circulation of these cults did much to standardise values between areas and specify what was valued (Wiessner and Tumu 1999).
F I G . 2 : Chronological scheme of events discussed in text.
Generations before present:
c. 9-12 • Introduction of sweet potato to Enga
and beginning of Enga historical tra- ditions. (c. 250-400 B.P.)
8 •Population shift from high altitudes
to lower valleys
•Beginning of early Tee cycle
7 •Kepele cult first practiced by horticul-
turalists of western Enga
6 •First Great Ceremonial Wars fought
5 (c.1855-1885?) •Kepele cult imported into central
Enga, called Aeatee
•War reparations initiated for peace
making
4 (c.1885-1915) •Tee cycle expanded to finance Great
Ceremonial Wars
•Aeatee (Kepele) cult linked to the Tee
Cycle and Great Ceremonial Wars
3 (c.1915-1945) •Tee cycle begins to subsume Great
Ceremonial Wars
•Aeatee/Kepele cult used to organise
the Tee
•First contact with Europeans in early
1930s
•1938-41 last Great Ceremonial War
fought
•Tee cycle subsumes Great War
exchange routes
2 (c.1945-1975) •Tee cycle continues to expand
1 (c. 1975-2005) •1975 Papua New Guinea's
Independence
Note: We have calculated a generation to be 30 years, though certainly for the earliest generations time distor- tions such as telescoping may occur. In view of this, events that occurred in the second to fourth generation before present were roughly dated in relation to known occurrences; from the fifth to eight generation before present, they were sequenced by genealogy but no attempts were made at dating. Prior to the eight generation, they can be neither dated not sequenced. It is reassuring to note that trends such as the spread of the Tee cycle or major cults do show temporal consistency within and between areas.
Around the fourth to fifth generation before present, as the Great Ceremonial Wars expanded under the forces of dramatic inter-group competition, leaders of central Enga constructed complex alliances of exchange to effectively tap into the wealth of the Tee Cycle and to reinvest the great quantities of wealth that flowed out of the Great War exchanges. The cost, conflicts, and complexity of organisation of the Great Ceremonial Wars and Tee Cycle became formidable. In response, leaders imported the inte- grative Kepele cult from western Enga and used it as an occasion to unite clans and tribes for exchange and organise the timing and flow of wealth within and between the Great Ceremonial Wars and Tee Cycle. The three networks became linked. In the late 1930s the Great Wars were discontinued and their networks replaced by the Tee cycle. The full- blown Tee was vast, involving a population of some 40,000 people in eastern and central Enga at first contact.