Mixed Grammars and Tangled Hierarchies: An Austronesian-Papuan Contact Zone in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

The article is divided into two parts. In the first, I explore what is known about the precontact history of Collingwood Bay based on archaeological, linguistic, and oral evidence. While much must be left to speculation, the evidence strongly suggests that the Bay has long been a meeting point between Austronesian and Papuan peoples. The second and longer part of the paper attends to the political system found in most Collingwood Bay communities. I focus here primarily on the Maisin-speaking people residing in the southern part of the Bay with whom I’ve worked since 1981. More specifically, I describe how this system incorporates both hierarchical and egalitarian aspects and has proven remarkably adaptable to social changes from the time of European first contact in the 1890s.

KEYWORDS:

• Collingwood Bay
• Austronesian
• Maisin
• chieftainship
• contact zones

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 My thanks to Harry Beran for his careful reading of an earlier draft and helpful suggestions. I’m also in debt to colleagues working in Collingwood Bay, whose contributions are only sampled here: Elizabeth Bonshek, Elisabetta Gnecchi-Ruscone, Anna-Karina Hermkens, Jan Hasselberg, Anne Marie Tietjen, and David Wakefield.

2 I’m here relying on Dutton’s (1971) village-level survey for classification of language groups. Collingwood Bay people make finer distinctions. Wanigelans, for instance, break Dutton’s Onjob into two languages: Onjob and Aisor.

3 It should be noted, however, that two clans residing in the Maisin-speaking village of Uiaku are descended from and retain relationships with the Onjob community to the north. According to oral traditions, they allied themselves with Maisin when the latter migrated into the Bay. At least three communities in Collingwood Bay – Uwe, Wanigela, and Uiaku – are home to two or more language groups.

4 I discuss the vernacular conception of groups in the second part of this chapter.

5 Collingwood Bay people were themselves subject to raiding by groups from the west, most notably Okein and Doriri groups.

6 See Lin and Scaglion (2019) for a discussion of the challenges of defining ‘chiefs’ in Oceania.

7 Consider, for example, the Simboro clan. Once one of the largest clans in Wo ari Kawo, in 1981–83 it had been reduced to three households in Uiaku. To my surprise, two of the households considered themselves to be Simboro and members of Korafe clans on Cape Nelson based upon marriage and gifts of kawo that had occurred generations ago.

8 Missionaries and administrators alike initially misidentified Sabu leaders as the ‘chiefs’ of the Maisin, presumably between they took the lead in warfare. Afterwards, Kawo leaders are occasionally identified as chiefs, particularly on the part of the mission which needed to negotiate for land for its stations. As elsewhere in Papua New Guinea, the suppression of warfare and introduction of contract labour served largely to undermine traditional authority.