Stonhet and Yelotop: Body Images, Physical Markers and Definitions of Ethnic Boundaries in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The Wampar of Papua New Guinea are an ethnic group with contested boundaries and a strong ethnic identity and consciousness. Since their first contact with White missionaries, government officials and anthropologists, body images have changed and become more important. ‘Foreign’ migrants from other PNG provinces are now coming in great numbers into Wampar territory, where they find wealthy Wampar make good marriage partners. From peaceful relations with ‘foreigners’ in the 1960s and 1970s, the situation has changed to the extent that Wampar now have plans for driving men from other ethnic groups out of their territory. Within two generations, ideas of changeable cultural otherness have developed into stereotypes of unchangeable bodily differences. In this paper, I describe (1) changes in the perception of foreigners, and in the definition of ‘foreigner’ itself, (2) body images of the Wampar, and (3) conditions for these changes.

Keywords:

• Migration
• Interethnic Relations
• Boundaries
• Body Concepts
• Papua New Guinea

Notes

1. Clark (1992, 26) uses the term ‘body’ in a very vague way. It is ‘not used in any specifically biological sense. Following Foucault, body always refers to an entity which is historically located and culturally constructed.’

2. There are a few exceptions (e.g., Chowning 1986; Nash and Ogan 1990), and some ethnographies discuss body differences and ethnicity in passing (e.g., Epstein 1978; Malinowski 1929).

3. My data are based on research in Gabsongkeg. The situation in other villages is only slightly different, as reported by Christiana Lütkes (1999) for Tararan, Rita Kramp (1999) for Gabantsidz and Juliane Neuhaus for Munun.

4. Unpublished figures, of population by citizenship, sex and census unit, of the National Population Census 1980.

5. Tok Pisin (Pidgin English) is one of the official languages of Papua New Guinea. Wampar frequently use it in everyday life, not only when dealing with non‐Wampar but also amongst themselves, especially when expressing new concepts.

6. Today, it is no longer clear how Simbu (from Chimbu, which is the name of one language group and province in the Highlands) came to refer collectively to all Highlanders.

7. A very similar description was given in a report by the missionary, Georg Stürzenhofecker: ‘They think of all other people, except their own tribe, as pigs, sent by ancestor spirits for hunting. Only the Wampar have a right to exist’ (1929, 12; my translation). He described the Wampar as hunting ‘human game’ to get their soul substance, which they believed would enhance their own strength.

8. ‘Adoption’ means raising a child in one's household, not formal adoption under modern law.

9. Andrew Lattas describes, for the Kaliai, a clear distinction between two bodies: ‘As elsewhere in Melanesia, the soul for the Kaliai is corporeal (cf. Lawrence 1955; Panoff 1968). The soul which leaves the shaman's body and the captured soul of the sick person are made up of flesh, blood and bone. The soul is not spiritual but a second invisible body, which is often spoken of as one's reflection or shadow. The Kaliai speak of the human self as having two bodies, as double‐skinned. The first skin is the visible body left behind as a dead or sleeping body, whilst the second‐skinned body is what a person travels in during dreams or when they die’ (Lattas 1993, 63).

10. Compare the myth Ngempang a dzog (Wampar: Ngempang fruits) in Fischer 1994, 120–21.

11. Beauty contests are also organised nowadays in Papua New Guinea. During my fieldwork in 1999, Air Niugini sponsored a beauty contest as a publicity campaign in one of the big hotels in Port Moresby. The winner was a Papuan woman. I was told that, up to this time, Wampar women had not won any award in beauty contests at the level of the province. In 1998, the local government organised a beauty contest in Gabsongkeg, where in addition to physical beauty, in the European sense of the term, ‘traditional’ costume and adornment were also rated.

12. Early on, the missionaries emphasised the extraordinary body size of the Wampar. Outer appearance and character were equated. ‘The outer appearance of the Wampar confirms their reputation as savage and bloodthirsty fellows. They are tall, strong, and completely naked people’ (Berghausen 1912, 6, cited by Fischer 1992, 48). However, the missionary, Böttger, wrote in a 1912 report that he had seen some small, slim Wampar fitting neither the image of a bloodthirsty people nor his expectations (cited by Fischer 1992, 33). Comments on Wampar body size are interesting, because they show the relativity of observations during first contact. Today, Wampar measuring 180 or 190 cm are common, but there are much shorter men as well. Size varies among Wampar, just as in Europe.

13. This is a rough sketch of general ideas of moral and physical ‘beauty’, which are expressed in everyday discourses. However, as elsewhere among Wampar, individual tastes and preferences exist and have consequences, for example, in the choice of a partner.

14. There are differences between Wampar villages. In Tararan, for example, ideas about the link between sexuality and pollution are more pronounced than in Gabsongkeg. Ideas, norms and ideals differ with distances from Lae and the Highway.

15. I have not found stonhet in Tok Pisin dictionaries, neither in Mihalic 1971 nor in Murphy 1994.