https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3157-0773
![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the namata ritual, common among Tolai people in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province. The namata is often presented as an event that contributes towards social order, both in the ethnographic record and by Tolai themselves. The namata is often experienced however as being highly ambiguous as various actors use the ritual to make sense of and intervene in hazardous processes of social change. In particular, the namata is a site where anxieties about perceived breakdowns of the socially cohesive power of reciprocal obligation are expressed and attempts are made to halt their corrosion. Paradoxically however these attempts are made from a position that is often experienced by those that they attempt to discipline as themselves being expressive of that very breakdown of reciprocal obligation, thus intensifying the sense that the namata has now become a site for the creation of uncertainty rather than social stability.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The Tolai are among the largest and well-known of PNG’s ethnic groups. They were among the first groups to receive both Christian missions and education in the early colonial era and became known throughout the twentieth century as something of an educational and political elite. This position had become increasingly insecure at the time of my field research in the early 2000s, due in part to a long process of economic growth in other regions and in part to the volcanic eruption that devastated the regional capital of Rabaul and surrounding Tolai villages, such as Matupit, where I conducted my research. The story of the Tolai is told in more detail in Epstein (Citation1969) and Martin (Citation2013).
2 I use pseudonyms throughout this extract from my field-notes. Throughout the rest of the text when I am using extracts from material written by A.L. Epstein I use the real names of the persons involved as they appear in his writing, except in two cases where I change them to accord with the pseudonyms used for these persons in my writing.
3 Pal na pidik literally translates as ‘House of secret(s)’ in the Tolai vernacular language Kuanua. It currently is used to refer to a structure in which the boy who has been secluded in the bush is ceremonially revealed at the namata.
4 Pubu (more commonly written ‘bubu’ is the term for grandchild or grandparent in the national lingua franca of PNG, Tok Pisin).
5 Line of papamama tupelo wantaim (Tok Pisin) would most literally translate as the clans or extended lineage groups of both parents together.
6 Olgeta lain bilong ples (Tok Pisin) meaning all the remaining general population of the village.
7 The meri bilong lain bilong papa go insait (Tok Pisin) meaning the women of the father’s clan go inside.
8 Les, you save? (Tok Pisin) meaning ‘lazy, you know?’.
9 Buai (Kuanua and Tok Pisin) meaning betel-nut (see below).
10 Bilong wanem em i kastom bilong mipela (Tok Pisin) meaning ‘because it is our custom’.
11 Tumbunas (Tok Pisin) meaning ‘ancestors’.
12 I no gat narapela moa, mi tasol (Tok Pisin) meaning ‘there’s no-one else, just me’.
13 Iniet was a secret male sorcery society that is now largely believed to have been concerned with malicious sorcery. Most informants at the time of my fieldwork stated that iniet practices had either died out or were practiced in secret by a handful of malignant actors.
14 My conversation with Charles took place almost entirely in Tok Pisin with some Kuanua and English words included for clarity of communication at various points. Where I paraphrase Charles in English in these notes that I wrote up later that day, it is largely an English translation of statements made in Tok Pisin. Tok Pisin extracts are direct verbatim quotations that I was able to write down immediately after the event. I do not know if the key Kuanua term ‘wariru’ was used in this conversation. However, on the basis of numerous other conversations with Charles and others I have no doubt that he would have used this term if we had switched to Kuanua and it was used by all Tolai I discussed these issues with as the translation of the English word ‘respect’ or the Tok Pisin word ‘rispek’. The English term ‘respect’ potentially covers a number of ways of conducting relationship that both have an apparent link to idioms of reciprocal obligation and others that do not. By contrast, while I do not claim that the Kuanua term ‘wariru’ always must carry that explicit connotation, in my experience it nearly always could be fairly clearly linked to such an expectation (see e.g. Martin Citation2013: 108).
15 Pal na mamarikai (Kuanua) literally translated as ‘House of revelation’. This is the term that was used in the 1960s for what was referred to as Pal na pidik (see footnote 2 above) during my fieldwork in the early 2000s (see Epstein Citation1969: 218–220).
16 Nidok conventionally refers the final stage of initiation in the secret male tubuan society. It is unclear to me precisely what this reference to ‘nidok’ means in this context.
17 Vakaina ra nuknukigu (Kuanua) literally translated as ‘ruined my knowledge’ (see below).
18 A malamalatene (Kuanua) meaning a man who is big-headed or conceited (see Epstein Citation1998: 24).
19 Epstein’s notes use this individual’s real name. Here I change the name to a pseudonym that I have adopted to refer to this person elsewhere.
20 Epstein’s notes use this individual’s real name. Here I change the name to a pseudonym that I have adopted to refer to this person elsewhere.
21 The Pacific Islands Regiment.
22 This tendency is modified in his later work, following return visits to Matupit in the 1980s, in which he describes the revival of ritual practices but in a manner that begins to suggest the emergence of tensions over their meaning and efficacy caused by their changing position in wider socio-economic networks (e.g. Epstein Citation1999).
23 See Martin (Citation2013: 34).
24 The concept of ‘obligation’ itself changes in definition and tone in different conversational contexts, both academic and non-academic (Testart Citation1998, Guyer Citation2012). Testart’s attempt to distinguish between, ‘feelings of obligation and what is obligatory’ (Testart Citation1998: 99) usefully reminds of us the manner in which the nature and existence of ‘obligation’ is itself a matter of social-contextual perspective.
