Guardians of the Flutes: Idioms of Masculinity

400 Pages·1981·12.88 MB·English

by  Gilbert Herdt

Guardians
the Flutes
IDIOMS OF MASCULINITY
Gilbert H. Herdt
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Herdt, Gilbert H
Guardians of the flutes.
Bibliography: p.
lncludes indexes.
l. Sex customs-Papua New Guinea. 2. lnitiations
(in religion, folk-lore, etc.)-Papua New Guinea.
3. Homosexuality-Papua New Guinea. 4. Masculinity
(Psychology)-Papua New Guinea. l. Title.
GN671.N5H44 301.2'1 79-23417
ISBN 0-07-028315-X
Copyright © 1981 by McGraw-Hill, lnc. Ali rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
123456789 DODO 8987654321
The editors of this book were Lawrence B. App/e and Suzette H. Annin.
The designer was Naomi Auerbach, and the production supervisor
was Pau/ Malchow. lt was set in Garamond
by Western Publishing Co., /ne.
lt was printed and bound by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co.
To Ted, Jesse, Cindy, and Thom

Contents
A Note on Language
viii
Foreword
ROBERT A. LEVINE ix
Preface
xiii
Introduction
People of the Mountain Forest
ONE 21
Idioms and Verbal Behavior
TWO 57
The Inward Cosmos
THREE 71
Genderizing the Pandanus Tree
FOUR 97
FIVE The Phantom Cassowary 131
s1x Femininity 159
SEVEN Masculinity 203
Male Parthenogenesis: A Myth and Its Meaning
EIGHT 255
NINE Conclusion 295
"Tali Says": On the problem of symbolic
APPENDIX A
meaning and its relationship to field conditions
among the Sambia 327
APPENDIX B Nilutwo 's Dreams 342
APPENDIX C The Myth of Cassowary 348
APPENDIX D On the Origins of Warfare and Initiation 351
APPENDIX E The Myth of Gandei 352
References
355
Name Index
369
Subject Index
373
vii
A
Note on Language
There are no written materials available for the Sambia language. 1 have
thus tended to follow the conventions adopted by Lloyd (197 3) in his
representations of the related Anga languages, employing conventional­
ized English spellings of Sambia words. The following values, then, apply
to the text:
a as a in father
aa as a in cat
ai as in kite
au as ou m out
e as i in hit
but er as ur in curb
ei as ei in vei/
as ee m seen
o as o in for
00 as 00 in roo/
u as u m sun
as g m germ
sh as sh m shine
ch as ch in church
Glottal stops are usually indicated by and tones are not rendered.
·
viii
Foreword
Once in a great while, a study of one society profoundly challenges exist­
ing conceptions of human development and forces a reevaluation of basic
assumptions concerning the range of normalicy for ali humans. One thinks
of Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) and che Kinsey
reports ( 1948, 195 3) as examples of research conducted in a single cultur­
al setting that compelled revision of generalizacions abouc adolescence and
sexual development for che species as a whole. Guardians of the Flutes is
such a scudy. In ic, Gilbert Herdt reports on the customs of che Sambia
people in che Highlands of New Guinea, bue che implicacions for theories
of sexual development and gender identity pertain to ali humanity. For
psychoanalytic and psychosocial cheories, che evidence presented herein
is of central significance. No fucure discussion of gender identity and its
development as a human phenomenon will be able to ignore che contents
of chis book.
Dr. Herdt shows us a people who believe chat che oral insemination of
boys is necessary for chem to grow into men, and he describes the cultural
beliefs and ricuals that encourage homosexual practices for ali men before
marriage. The echnographic evidence, based on intensive and prolonged
fieldwork, is rich and decailed. le contains no real surprises for chose
familiar wich the anthropological literature on New Guinea, bue Dr.
Herdt is che first to conduct fieldwork among a people who had not yet
abandoned these indigenous practices. The intact patterns of culture and
experience he describes are not anticipated by current developmental
models of sexuality and gender. Indeed, from a Western perspective it
may seem almost unimaginable that any society would risk universal
homosexuality among young males without endangering its survival. The
ix
x Foreword
fact that the Sambia do so and have created a symbolic environment in
which it seems natural, normal, and necessary is convincingly demon­
strated in this book. This fact poses a fundamental challenge to develop­
mental theories of gender identity, which will have to be rewritten to
encompass it.
It may surprise sorne readers that novel anthropological data are still
coming in from other parts of che world. Hasn't cultural variation shrunk
while our sophistication about it has expanded? The answers are instruc­
tive. First, the advance notices on the cultural homogenization of che
world were grossly exaggerated. While it is both true and tragic that many
hunting and gathering peoples have been exterminated or are currently
threatened, this fact <loes not mean that the rest of the world is a melting
pot. On the contrary, despite a superficial homogeneity imposed by
bureaucracies and consumer goods, the larger and more isolated non­
Western populations are proving to be more resilient in their cultural
adaptations and more resistant to simple Westernization than had been
imagined. Second, sophistication about cultural variation is still not wide­
spread in developmental psychology or psychoanalysis, and one reason is
that there have been few anthropological studies in these areas thorough
enough to compel theoretical attention and explanation. This is particular­
ly true of sexual behavior, on which anthropological documentation is thin
and growing at a slow pace. Psychobiological investigators of sexual
behavior and development will not cake ethnographic reports seriously if
they are superficial and impressionistic.
New Guinea is a case in point. As Dr. Herdt points out, homosexual
practices in New Guinea rituals of manhood have been reported for more
than half a century; they were offered by Ruth Benedict as illustrations of
"discontinuity in cultural conditioning" in a well-known article published
in 1938. Without the detailed documentation that Dr. Herdt has finally
achieved, however, che problem posed by New Guinea ethnography to
developmental psychology and psychiatry has not been seriously confront­
ed. His book marks che beginning of a scientific confrontation that is long
overdue.
Dr. Herdt devores a great <leal of chis book to explicating the cultural
terms in which the Sambia conceptualize and experience masculinicy and
femininity, che development of children and adolescents, and sexual
behavior and relationships. He examines che symbols by which these
categories and processes are represented in folklore and ritual. His anal­
ysis is cultural, but he also pursues che psychological significance of che
symbols. As someone who has never visited New Guinea but has long
been interested in antagonism between males and females reported from
the New Guinea Highlands, I found Dr. Herdt's account clarifying and
empathic.