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CASE STUDIES IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY GENERAL EDITORS George and Louise Spindler STANFORD UNIVERSITY THE TROBRIANDERS OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA THE TROBRIANDERS OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA ANNETTE B. WEINER New York University IN CULTURAL > I1I/1I Z-c Q :z: :s ~ ~ 1/1 ~ III g 1/1 0< \J < Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers Fort Worth Philadelphia San Diego New York Orlando Austin San Antonio Toronto Montreal London Sydney Tokyo Cover photo: About to leave the house for the first time after giving birth, a young Trobriand woman wears a long cape and covers her head. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weiner, Annette B., 1933- The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea I Annette B. Weiner. p. cm.-(Case studies in cultural anthropology) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-03-011919-7 1. Ethnology-Papua New Guinea-Trobriand Islands. 2. Trobriand Islands (Papua New Guinea)-Sociallife and customs. I. Title. II. Series. GN671.N5W43 1987 306' .0995'3-dc19 87-18614 CIP ISBN 0-03-011919-7 Copyright © 1988 Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. All rights reserved. No p~rt of this pU?licat.ion m~y be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electromc or mechamcal, mcludmg photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to: Permissions Ilarcoun Brace Jovanuvich, Publishers Orlando. Florida 32887 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 6 7 8 9 016 11 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. The Dryden Press Saunders College Publishing L To the chiefs of Olnarakana and the villagers of Kwaibwaga, who, troln the beginning, took the work of this naive "dimdim" seriously. To all of thein, agutoki kweverka besa. gumugwe guyau. ) Foreword ABOUT THE SERIES These case studies in cultural anthropology are designed to bring to stu dents, in beginning and intermediate courses in the social sciences, insights into the richness and complexity of human life as it is lived in different places. They are written by men and women who have lived in the societies they write about and who are professionally trained as observers and interpreters of human behavior. The authors are also teachers, and in writing their books they have kept the students who wiH read them foremost in their minds. We believe that when an understanding of ways of life very different from one's own is gained, abstractions and generalizations about social structure, cultural values, subsistence techniques, and the other universal categories of human social behavior become meaningful. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Annette B. Weiner, the eldest child and the only daughter of four children, was born on Valentine's Day, 1933, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grad uated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls and became an X-ray technician. Married in 1951, she then studied art and wrote and published a series of childrens' foreign language learning books. In 1964, when she was 31, she entered the College for Women, University of Pennsylvania, as a freshman. She continued her art studies, but during her sophomore year she read Stranger and Friend, Hortense Powdermaker's autobiographical account of her anthropological fieldwork experiences. It was this book that redirected Weiner's interests to anthropology. Upon graduation in 1968, she began graduate work in anthropology at Bryn Mawr College, where she studied with Frederica DeLaguna, Jane Goodale, and A. J. Hallowell. In 1971 and 1972 she undertook her predoctoral field work in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea. She received her Ph.D. in 1974. She taught at Franklin and Marshall College, the University of Texas at Austin, and, since 1981, has been chair of the Department of Anthropology at New York University, where she holds the David B. Kriser Professorship in Anthropology. vii viii . FOREWORD She made a total of five field trips to the Trobriand Islands. In 1979 she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship a~d in 1980 was a Men:tber of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She IS the author of Women of Value, Men of Renown, New Perspectives in Trobriand Exchan~e and many articles on Trobriand kinship, politics, and gender. In 1980, ~he did. fi~ldwork in Western Samoa and recently has been writing on Polynesmn socl~tles. She is the coauthor (with Jane Schneider) of Cloth and Human Experzence and has written various articles on comparative aspects of exchange, gender, and political hierarchy in Melanesia and Polynesia. She has two children-Jona than Weiner, a lawyer, and Linda Matisse, an artist-and two grandchildren, Alexander and Nicholas Matisse. ABOUT THIS CASE STUDY There are a few cultures around the world that have served the anthro pological community as classic cases to which one refers to illustrate, and sometimes to document, points or generalizations. These cases became classic because the way of life was interesting, because it was either the prototype of a significant phenotype or unique in the array of the world's cultures, and because the anthropologist-author made it interesting. Without these classic cases we would find our lectures and writings poor in living substance. The unity that anthropology had in its past and what little unity it has in the fragmented present is due more to the ethnographic examples we use than to our theories, which tend to factionalize rather than unify us. Trobriand culture is one of the most classic of cases, and Trobriand society is one of the "holy places" in the anthropological cosmography. Bronislaw Malinowski put it on the anthropological map with a series of brilliant writings. He did his fieldwork a lifetime ago. Annette Weiner did hers only yesterday. There are two attributes, among others, that particularly distinguish Pro fessor Weiner's case study. One is that she found so much as Malinowski described it to be. The other is that she discovered some things that Mali nowski did not and was able to correct some things that Malinowski misun derstood or overlooked. And, of course, she pays attention to those changes that have occurred over the sixty years between the time of her fieldwork and his. The Trobrianders is not intended as a criticism of Malinowski's fieldwork or a rebuttal of his interpretive arguments. This case study stands on its own. Nevertheless, t~e :xp~nsion and emendati~~ of.~ alinowski's findings give the study a speCial slgmficance and add to the claSSIC case" status of Trobriand culture. Professor Weiner provides us with a view of Trobriand behavior and cultural knowledge that is notable for both its depth and clarity, One is able to see further than even Maljnows~i can lak,e us into what yam exchanges. matriliny. the famous kula ring, sexuo:lhty- parllcularly adole~cent sexuality- and chiefly power mean to the Trohnandcrs and what mcanmgs these matters have for FOREWORD ix us as interpretive ethnographers, theorists, students, and armchair tourists. Annette \Veiner takes us into the heart of one matter that Malinowski does not-the importance of women's work, influence, and wealth in determining male behavior and the nature of Trobriand society. We read very little about women's wealth or influence in Malinowski's works. It is difficult to see such relationships across sex-role boundaries. As a woman, Annette Weiner was led into, but also actively sought, knowledge of women's roles. We see the structure of a more balanced social system, and one where the mother's brother, on whose role Malinowski hung a challenge to orthodox Freudian interpretation of the Oedipal struggle, is not quite the person we thought he was. The author balances her written expression, providing ancedotes and de scription of events to put the reader into the analytic context. The complexities of the exchange patterns and their relationship to the social organization become clear. These are some of the attributes that make The Trobrianders an important case study and one that should prove useful in both introductory and more advanced courses. It is a contribution both to anthropology as a discipline and to instruction in anthropology. GEORGE AND LOUISE SPINDLER Series Editors Calistoga, California Acknow ledgmen ts This book represents over fifteen years of study on a wide range of topics about Trobriand society and culture. I first went to the Trobriand Islands in 1971, and I returned in 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1981 for a total of twenty-two months of field work. In addition I did archival research in museums and libraries abroad and in the United States. My research, however, could not have been carried out without the cooperation and support of many people. I am especially indebted to Bryn Mawr College, the National Institute for Mental Health, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Texas at Austin, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for An thropological Research. Without the support of the Papua New Guinea government and the Milne Bay provincial government I would not have been able to continue my re search after national independence. I also thank the Department of Anthro pology and Sociology, University of Papua New Guinea, and the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies for their cooperative assistance. The final draft of the manuscript was completed through the support of the National En dowment for the Humanities and New York University. Various versions of the manuscript were read by Fred Myers and T. O. Beidelman, whose com ments, as always, were astute and penetrating . . Two people deserve special thanks. My daughter, Linda Weiner Matisse, stayed with me in the Trobriands in 1972 when she was fifteen years old. Her presence and the diary she kept provided me with stimulation and insights. William E. Mitchell was not only a sharply discerning and untiring reader of multiple revisions of this manuscript but also an unfailing source of encour agement and wisdom. My greatest debt, however, will always be to those Trobrianders who gave so generously in an effort to make me understand a way of life that was for me confusing, exhilarating, depressing, maddening, and wonderful. The beauty of a moment could be totally reversed by someone's unexpected angry words, my own mistakes, or a villager's attempt to undermine what I needed to know. Fieldwork was never easy, but it was the most profound experience of my life. I treasure not only what Trobrianders taught me about their own lives, loves, fears, and desires but even more what I was forced to face about my own strengths and weaknesses. xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XlI One night at a large village meeting, Chief Waibadi spontaneously an nounced that the book I would write would be important long after everyone assembled had died. "Your children and your children's children," he said, "will read Anna's story and learn about the customs they may have lost. Nothing will be forgotten."