Government in Wanggulam

227 Pages·1969·5.815 MB·English

by  A. Ploeg (auth.)

Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut
voor taal,- Land- en Volkenkunde 57
A. Ploeg
Government in
Wanggulam
GOVERNMENT IN WANGGULAM
VERHANDELINGEN
VAN RET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT
VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE
57
GOVERNMENT
IN
WANGGULAM
A. PLOEG
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
1969
ISBN 978-94-017-6723-1 ISBN 978-94-017-6810-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6810-8
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1969
PREFACE
During my stay among them the Wanggulam were deeply upset by
the sudden changes brought about since the arrival of the Europeans
only a few years earlier. In this book I discuss the expectation nourished
by the Wanggulam and provoked by these changes. Without the help
of this discussion I cannot clarify the nature of my relation to the
people and consequently I have to postpone the main acknowledgement
I wish to make.
This book is based on a thesis presented for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in the Australian National University. I would like to
thank the University for granting me a scholarship and the staff and
students of its Department of Anthropology and Sociology for their
comments and criticisms. Before all I have to thank Professor J. A.
Barnes, Dr M. Reay and Dr P. Brown, who supervised my work in its
different stages. I feel particularly indebted to Professor Barnes since
he supervised the final writing up of the material and later gave'me
the opportunity to prepare the thesis for publication.
I would like to thank Professors J. Pouwer and L. A. Fallers and
Dr H. I. Hogbin who acted as examiners of my Ph. D. thesis. Although
during the revision I tried to meet their criticisms as well as I could,
I realise I have not satisfied all their wishes.
I appreciate the support of Mrs D. A. O'Brien, then a graduate
student in anthropology at Yale University, in collaboration with
whom I wrote a paper 'Acculturation Movements among the Western
Dani', published in the American Anthropologist, Vol. 66, ii, pp. 281-92.
The better part of chapter 4, section III is based on this paper.
I am very grateful to the members of the Bureau of Native Affairs
of the Administration of Netherlands New Guinea, the administrative
personnel in Mbogondini and the missionaries of the UnevangeIised
Fields Mission for the support they gave me during my field trips.
I am further indebted to Professor Barnes, Professor S. A. Wurm,
Miss H. Leach and Miss S. Baume, as well as a great many other
people, who corrected my use of English.
Finally I would like to thank Mrs Y. McMahon for typing the
VI
GOVERNMENT IN WANGGULAM
second half of the manuscript and Mrs M. L. Ploeg for typing the
first half and for preparing the maps and figures.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part, conslstmg of
the introduction and first four chapters, contains a brief description
of some main features of the Wanggulam social system and provides
the background information to the analysis of Wanggulam government
which is presented in the second part consisting of the last five chapters.
Some topics mentioned in the first part are very briefly discussed,
since I intend to publish more extensive discussions in separate papers
later. By contrast, chapter 9, the last chapter of the book, is a rather
extensive discussion of theoretical developments in political anthro
pology since 1940. This discussion was appropriate as a part of a
Ph. D. thesis, but seen its length I consider it less appropriate as a part
of this book. However, my efforts to reduce the size of the last chapter
were largely unsuccessful. There are two reasons for this. Firstly,
I wanted to preserve the structure of chapter 9 and found that this
necessitated retaining most of its content. Secondly, I based my analysis
of Wanggulam government to a large extent on the writings of
M. G. Smith. Since I have become more critical of his views since
I wrote and presented my Ph. D. thesis in 1965, I had to extend my
discussion of his writings to show where I disagreed with him.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
v
PREFACE .
LIST OF FIGURES . VIII
LIST OF TABLES . VIII
LIST OF CASES . IX
SPELLING OF WORDS IN THE VERNACULAR. X
SYMBOLS INDICATING KIN RELATIVES AND
RELATIONSHIPS XI
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER
1 Material culture and mode of livelihood . 8
2 Kin and territorial groups. 12
3 Maintenance of social relationships . 24
4 Supernatural powers 46
5 Conceptual framework for the analysis of Wanggulam
government; autonomy and reciprocity. 66
6 Competitive leadership , 75
7 Partnership 112
8 Conflicts and settlements 133
9 Conclusion 168
BIBLIOGRAPHY 196
INDEX. 201
APPENDIX 208
MAPS 211
I Irian Barat . 212
II Western Dani area . 213
III Wanggulam territory (1) 214
V Wanggulam territory (2) 215
VI Feasting ground for the Penggu pandanus feast. 216
IV Aerial photograph of Wanggulam and surroundings
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Plan of fenced in hamlet 9
2 Sequence of prestation during a Wanggulam wedding 32
3 Flow of payments assembled and distributed during
the wedding of a mother and her daughter . 33
4 Perenatmendek's closest relatives 55
5 Closest relatives of Agalai 57
6 Inhabitants of Mbobigi's and Ngabengga's hamlets
in December 1961 82
7 Jiwaru's closest relatives 96
8 Skeletal genealogy of Karoba II . 126
9 Mbabuarek's sub-section 142
10 Kin relationships Ngwembanik - Anarak. -
Amianongga - Mbilumu 149
11 Partial genealogies of Karoba I and Karoba II . 155
12 Evans-Pritchard's diagrammatic representation of the
structure of a Nuer tribe 171
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Composition Df Wanggulam parish . 14
2 CDmpositiDn of Wanggulam parish in detail 15
3 Residence pattern Df full brothers . 20
4 Contributions to' uak (bride's father's prestation) 28
5 Contributions to bride price (kwe onggo, groDm's
father's prestatiDn) . 29
6 ComparisDn Df the size Df the uak assembled for a
girl with the size of the bride price assembled during
her weddi:ug 31
7 Wanggulam and fDreign contributDrs to uak 40
8 Wanggulam and fDreign cDntributDrs to bride price 41
9 Wanggulam and foreign recipients Df uak . 42
10 Wanggulam and foreign recipients Df bride price 43
11 U ak for Wauge and Mbukmba . 102
12 CDntributors to the jowam for Ambenggonok 145
13 Recipients of jowam for AmbenggonDk . 146
LIST OF CASES
Case 1 Tilubagatlak. kills Ngerenggaligwe's son. 54
2 The position of Wandin. 78
3 Mbobigi, Ikwenggorok (his son) and Erimawe (his
sister's son) . 83
4 Oil pandanus feast organised by the Wanggulam
Penggu. 86
5 Wandin versus Mbabuarek . 91
6 Wogogi.'s dog 92
7 Mbilumu tries to abduct Mbukmba . 92
8 Wanggulam versus Ngigamuli . 95
9 Jiwaru . 95
10 Ownership of earth ovens during the Penggu pan-
danus feast . 122
11 Luki versus Ambenggonok . 125
12 PreIirninaries to fights between Wanggulam and
Tukobak. 133
13 Liokwe recovers his pig . 136
14 Opening of Agawak 139
15 Mbabuarek moves south of the Kurip 141
16 Jowam taken by Luki after Ambenggonok's killing. 144
17 Ngwembanik versus Amianongga versus Mbilumu . 149
18 Jilobo's death 150
19 Enggawarek's death. 154
20 Ngwembanik kills Engganggok . 160
21 Kondaga tries to marry his daughter to Lembiagop 161
22 N gobak and Mbunarek try to kill Jikwanak . 163
SPELLING OF WORDS IN THE VERNACULAR
There is not yet an agreed spelling of Dani, or Ndani, the language
spoken in Wanggulam and the surrounding areas. There are differences
in the spelling used by various writers, and the spelling I use is different
again. I do not claim linguistic correctness, but have tried to follow
Dani pronunciation closely without bothering the English reader.
Vowels can be long or short; their quality and that of diphtongs are
approximately as follows:
'a' as in Northern English: cat (Dutch: af)
'e' as in English: bell
'i' as in English: reed
'0' as in Scottish: go (Dutch: bok)
'u' as in English: book
'au' as in English: cow
'ei' as in Australian English: late (Dutch: bijl)
Consonants should be pronounced as in English, but watch:
'g' as in: go, never as in: gin
'ngg' as in: finger
It would have been consistent if I had used the term 'Ndani' instead
of 'Dani', but I decided to use the latter term to conform with the
usage of other writers, for example Bromley (1960 and 1962) and
Peters (1965). Further, at the time of my field work, the term 'Bokon
dini' was used to refer to the mission and government stations located
in the areas where I worked. Since I presumed that after the Indonesian
government had taken over the administration of Irian Barat, this
name might have been changed into 'Mbogondini', I decided to use
the latter term. However, after the manuscript had gone to the press,
I noticed in the United Nations' publication 'A Design for Development
in West Irian' (New York, 1968), that the term Bokondini seems to
be still in use.