Academic literature on the topic 'Finisterre Range (Papua New Guinea)'

Commands are pervasive in everyday conversations held in Tayatuk, a Finisterre language of the Morobe province in Papua New Guinea. Imperatives in Tayatuk usually order people around but also frequently express approval. The future and the non-final morphologies can also be recruited as command strategies to express, respectively, a command remote in time and space and an appeal. Formally, imperatives do not constitute a uniform paradigm. Canonical imperatives are expressed by the bare form of the verb (for 2sg) and with dedicated imperative morphology for 2pl and 2du. Non-canonical imperative

New Guinea is a crucial region for the study of prehistory as a key witness for a precontact situation before colonial disruption and/or state formation. The New Guinea region is the most linguistically diverse on earth, but even within it, the Sepik-Ramu basin region takes diversity to an extreme without parallel. This chapter investigates the likely causes of its stupendous linguistic diversity. It looks at geomorphological changes in the region in the last 8,000 years due to rising sea levels and inundation of the low lying land and the gradual filling in of this again by sediment, with a consequent remigration of new peoples into reclaimed land. Further, indigenous beliefs with regard to language and a wide range of language codes to select from, even in a single village, have led to widespread mixing and shifting of languages, as economic advantages and political alignments altered.

Although archaeologists have long shown an interest in drawing on ethnographic parallels to further understanding of their findings (e.g. Orme 1981), anthropologists proved reluctant to engage in such endeavours for most of the 20th century. This was a reaction to the excesses of 19th century social evolutionary thinking that Europeans used in part to justify colonialism in various parts of the world, which they portrayed as an inevitable process as they, the ‘fittest’, encroached on the territories of ‘savages’. We have gradually been moving towards a more constructive engagement with archaeologists, and it is in this spirit that I offer this contribution to this volume, and have cooperated with archaeologist colleagues on other projects (Shott & Sillitoe 2001; 2004 Sillitoe & Hardy 2003). Nonetheless it comes with the usual anthropological warning about the need to maintain a culturally relative frame of mind when reading this chapter with a view to illuminating any archaeological data. There is no suggestion that the practices discussed here may be taken as somehow representative of any prehistoric population. Although those who live in a subsistence economy may offer more apt, better-scale comparisons with respect to pig-keeping than those who live in a market economy, the implication is not that they are stuck in the past. One cannot assume that such practices reflect those of ancient populations in Europe or elsewhere. They are unique cultural arrangements with their own histories. One of the most valuable lessons that we might draw from a consideration of ethnographic evidence is how enormously variable are human cultural formations, in this case in relation to pig management. In the Papua New Guinea Highlands it is with respect to socio-political exchange, which is developed in this region to extraordinary lengths (Sillitoe 1998), that we have to consider pig-keeping arrangements. The exchange focus conditions attitudes to pigs in ways that are unique, even surprising, for those of us accustomed to think in market terms. Furthermore, the data presented here should not be taken as typical of the Pacific region as they come from only one valley in the Highlands. The Melanesian region displays great cultural variety with regard to pig-keeping, as in other domains, and for a representative view one needs to consult a wide range of sources.

The topics of sin and salvation have played important roles in anthropological work on Christianity. But surprisingly, theological debates about atonement have not. From an anthropologist’s perspective, theological discussions of this topic are particularly rich because they are diverse and unsettled. Correlating the range of cross-cultural ethnographic data on approaches to issues of sin and salvation with the range of positions on atonement found in theological debate, this chapter argues that drawing concepts from the theological literature can not only help anthropologists recognize patterns of ethnographic variation in this area, but can also help them to make some important contributions to the currently developing anthropology of ethics. And for theologians, this chapter provides an opportunity to consider with fresh data the different kinds of social lives diverse theologies of atonement support. These arguments are developed through ethnographic materials from Papua New Guinea and sub-Saharan Africa.

In the Arapesh communities of northern Papua New Guinea, where language shift to Tok Pisin is now advanced, villagers express regret about the loss of their local language. However, they do not seem motivated to actively reclaim it. This chapter illustrates how the ideological stances that bear on this situation derive from a distinctively Melanesian cultural logic that assigns value to, and works to attract, items and activities that are associated with distant others, via what has been called an ‘openness of attitude’, or an ‘importing culture’. For Arapesh people, this desire for importation is elaborated through talk about and practices involving ‘roads’, which are both real physical pathways and metaphors for social interaction and exchange. The Arapesh case points to the importance of exploring the full range of cultural ideas that lead even people who positively value their languages to nevertheless act in ways that diminish their use.

Women across the world migrate for a wide range of reasons. Some gravitate to towns and cities in their own countries seeking safety, education, health care, and employment opportunities. Others cross international boundaries, fleeing from the atrocities of war and extreme poverty. Migration within countries is also on the rise, as people move seeking resources, services, education, and employment opportunities. In addition, they may want to escape from violence or natural disasters. This movement of people from rural to urban areas has resulted in an explosive growth of cities around the globe. Women migrate to enhance their life experiences and that of their children and kinsfolk. This chapter draws on a research case study undertaken with the Kewapi language group in Port Moresby and the Batri Villages of the Southern Highlands in Papua New Guinea. It highlights the perspectives of women migrating from their home communities in order to seek education and health care. It explores the implications for developing user-focused health care systems designed to meet the needs of mobile and vulnerable women. The study suggests that if women and their families from remote rural communities participate in health promoting initiatives, they can dramatically improve their life and health experiences and that of their community.

Flying over the patchwork quilt of land uses that comprise Southeast Asia, one often sees extensive tracts of rugged topography with plateaux pitted with depressions, deep gorges, rivers arising at the bases of mountains, and towers arising from alluviated plains. These are the karst lands, formed on limestone bedrock and subject to the solutional erosion of that bedrock above and below ground. With a total area of about 400 000 km2, Southeast Asia contains some of the more extensive karst regions in the world. Many of these karst areas are of high relief with spectacular arrays of tower and cone karst. Many have now been inscribed on the World Heritage list in recognition of their unique geomorphology and biology. They are scattered throughout the islands of the Malay archipelago as well as the adjoining fringe of the Asian mainland. Karst is found in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Lao PDR, and Papua New Guinea. Geologically the carbonate rocks hosting karst range in age from Cambrian to Quaternary, a span of about 500 million years (Letouzey, Sage, and Muller 1988). Over that time limestone solution and other landscape processes have produced an array of karst landforms including towers, cones, plateaux, and dolines, underlain by extensive cave systems. There have also been strong external influences of tectonism, eustatic, and climatic change. Today human modification of karst processes and landforms is proceeding at a rapid pace. Despite their characterization as the ‘botanical hothouse extreme’ (Jennings 1985) the karstlands of Southeast Asia are most diverse, reflecting the influence of varied geology, uplift history, eustatic change, and climates past and present. Karst landscapes range in elevation from sea level to nearly 4000 m, and comprise extensive plateaux with dolines, tower karst, cone karst, and lowlying swampy terrain. The carbonate rocks on which they have formed range widely in age, and can be soft and impure or hard and crystalline. Many areas have been wholly or partially blanketed by volcanic ash during their evolution.