Tsembaga Maring tribe

Last updated

Tsembaga Maring are a horticulturist people who live in the highlands of New Guinea. They have been extensively studied by ethnographers, the foremost of which is Roy Rappaport.

Contents

Background

The study done in the Maring community of Papua New Guinea by Roy A. Rappaport during 1962 and 1963 is a good illustration of the bush fallow system of subsistence farming.

Ethnographies

Rappaport conducted research on the Maring in the 1960s, publishing his work in a book entitled Pigs for the Ancestors .

Lifestyle

The Maring are known for a special pattern of farming, hoarding of pigs, and warfare. Warfare usually proceeds after a ritual pig feast, known as kaiko.



Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papua New Guinea</span> Country in Oceania

Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of 462,840 km2 (178,700 sq mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guinea pig</span> Domesticated rodent from South America

The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig, also known as the cavy or domestic cavy, is a species of rodent belonging to the genus Cavia in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word cavy to describe the animal, while in scientific and laboratory contexts, it is far more commonly referred to by the common name guinea pig. Despite their common name, guinea pigs are not native to Guinea, nor are they closely related biologically to pigs, and the origin of the name is still unclear. They originated in the Andes of South America. Studies based on biochemistry and hybridization suggest they are domesticated animals that do not exist naturally in the wild, descendants of a closely related cavy species such as C. tschudii. They were originally domesticated as livestock for a source of meat, and are still consumed in some parts of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shifting cultivation</span> Method of agriculture

Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned while post-disturbance fallow vegetation is allowed to freely grow while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The period of cultivation is usually terminated when the soil shows signs of exhaustion or, more commonly, when the field is overrun by weeds. The period of time during which the field is cultivated is usually shorter than the period over which the land is allowed to regenerate by lying fallow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dani people</span> Ethnic group of Western New Guinea

The Dani people are a people from the Central Highlands of Western New Guinea in Baliem Valley, Highland Papua, Indonesia. They are sometimes conflated with the Lani group to the west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enga Province</span> Place in Papua New Guinea

Enga is one of the provinces in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It is located in the north most region of the highlands of PNG, having been divided from the Western Highlands to become a separate province when the provinces were created at the time of independence in 1975. The people of Enga are called Engans—they are a majority ethnic group—speaking one language in all its five districts: approximately 500,000 people. A small minority of Engans' land on the eastern side of the region remained in the Western Highlands, their territory being accessible by road from Mount Hagen but not directly from elsewhere in Enga territory.

The Fore people live in the Okapa District of the Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. There are approximately 20,000 Fore who are separated by the Wanevinti Mountains into the North Fore and South Fore regions. Their main form of subsistence is slash-and-burn farming. The Fore language has three distinct dialects and is the southernmost member of the East Central Family, East New Guinea Highlands Stock, Trans–New Guinea phylum of Papuan languages.

Ecological anthropology is a sub-field of anthropology and is defined as the "study of cultural adaptations to environments". The sub-field is also defined as, "the study of relationships between a population of humans and their biophysical environment". The focus of its research concerns "how cultural beliefs and practices helped human populations adapt to their environments, and how people used elements of their culture to maintain their ecosystems". Ecological anthropology developed from the approach of cultural ecology, and it provided a conceptual framework more suitable for scientific inquiry than the cultural ecology approach. Research pursued under this approach aims to study a wide range of human responses to environmental problems.

<i>Cordyline fruticosa</i> Species of plant

Cordyline fruticosa is an evergreen flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae. The plant is of great cultural importance to the traditional animistic religions of Austronesian and Papuan peoples of the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Island Southeast Asia, and Papua New Guinea. It is also cultivated for food, traditional medicine, and as an ornamental for its variously colored leaves. It is identified by a wide variety of common names, including ti plant, palm lily, cabbage palm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of Papua New Guinea</span> Traditional Ceremony in PNG

The culture of Papua New Guinea is many-sided and complex. It is estimated that more than 7000 different cultural groups exist in Papua New Guinea, and most groups have their own language. Because of this diversity, in which they take pride, many different styles of cultural expression have emerged; each group has created its own expressive forms in art, dance, weaponry, costumes, singing, music, architecture and much more. To unify the nation, the language Tok Pisin, once called Neo-Melanesian has evolved as the lingua franca — the medium through which diverse language groups are able to communicate with one another in Parliament, in the news media, and elsewhere. People typically live in villages or dispersed hamlets which rely on the subsistence farming of yams and taro. The principal livestock in traditional Papua New Guinea is the oceanic pig.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy Rappaport</span> American anthropologist

Roy A. Rappaport (1926–1997) was an American anthropologist known for his contributions to the anthropological study of ritual and to ecological anthropology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ritual warfare</span> State of continual or frequent warfare

Ritual warfare is a state of continual or frequent warfare, such as is found in some tribal societies.

Cognized environment is a concept first introduced by the late anthropologist Roy Rappaport (1968), in contrast to what he called the operational environment. Rappaport was an ecological anthropologist, like Andrew P. Vayda, and wished to contrast the actual reality and adaptations within a people's ecological niche – say, the existence of tsetse flies and their role in causing sleeping sickness among humans – with how the people’s culture understands nature – say, the belief that witches live in those areas that science knows is the habitat of the tsetse. Rappaport’s principal concern was the role of ritual in mediating the cognized and operational environments.

The Papuans are one of four major cultural groups of Papua New Guinea. The majority of the population lives in rural areas. In isolated areas there remains a handful of the giant communal structures that previously housed the whole male population, with a circling cluster of huts for the women. The Papuan people are Melanesian people composed of at least 240 different peoples, each with its own language and culture. Sago is the staple food of the Papuan supplemented with hunting, fishing and small gardens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abelam people</span>

The Abelam are a people who live in East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. They are a farming society in which giant yams play a significant role. They live in the Prince Alexander Mountains near the north coast of the island. Their language belongs to the Sepik language family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Guinea</span> Island in the Pacific Ocean

New Guinea is the world's second-largest island, with an area of 785,753 km2 (303,381 sq mi). Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the 150-kilometre wide Torres Strait, though both landmasses lie on the same continental shelf. Numerous smaller islands are located to the west and east.

The Urapmin people are an ethnic group numbering about 375 people in the Telefomin District of the West Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. One of the Min peoples who inhabit this area, the Urapmin share the common Min practices of hunter-gatherer subsistence, taro cultivation, and formerly, an elaborate secret cult available only to initiated men.

The Etoro, or Edolo, are a tribe and ethnic group of Papua New Guinea. Their territory comprises the southern slopes of Mt. Sisa, along the southern edge of the central mountain range of New Guinea, near the Papuan Plateau. They are well known among anthropologists because of ritual acts practiced between the young boys and men of the tribe. The Etoro believe that young males must ingest the semen of their elders to achieve adult male status and to properly mature and grow strong.

The Simbari people are a mountain-dwelling, hunting and horticultural tribal people who inhabit the fringes of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, and are extensively described by the American anthropologist Gilbert Herdt. The Simbari – a pseudonym created by Herdt himself – are known by cultural anthropologists for their acts of "ritualised homosexuality" and semen ingestion practices with pubescent boys. In his studies of the Simbari, Herdt describes the people in light of their sexual culture and how their practices shape the masculinity of adolescent Simbari boys.

The Duna are an indigenous people of Papua New Guinea who live in the north-western area of the Southern Highlands Province. They number approximately 11,000 (1991) or 25,000 (2002)

Sir Thomas Kavali was a politician from Jimi District of Jiwaka Province, Papua New Guinea. He held various ministries portfolio and served under Sir Michael Somare.