MEMOIR No. 48

MAN AND A HALFESSAYS IN PACIFIC ANTHROPOLOGY

AND ETHNOBIOLOGY

IN HONOUR OF RALPH BULMER

edited by

ANDREW PAWLEY

THE POLYNESIAN SOCIETYAuckland

1 9 9 1

The Polynesian Society (Inc. )Anthropology Department University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand

Printed by the Australian National University Printing Service, Canberra, A. C. T. Bound by F & M Perfect Bookbinding, Queanbeyan, N. S. W.Cover design by A. N. U. Graphic Design

© The Polynesian Society (Inc. ) 1991

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

First published 1991

ISBN 0-908940-01-7

CONTENTS

Editorial note page vii

PART I: MEMOIRS

Andrew PAWLEY Notes on a Large Small Game Hunter 3-20

Ellaine MABBUTT Hans Breitmann Gife a Barty.. . 21-23

Helga M. GRIFFIN ‘Big-man’, Neighbour, Teacher, Friend: a PersonalMemoir of Ralph Bulmer at Waigani, 1968-72 23-29

Ian Saem MAJNEP What Is this Man Up To? A Kalam View of Ralph Bulmer 29-36

George E. MARCUS Notes and Quotes Concerning the Further Collaboration of IanSaem Majnep and Ralph Bulmer: Saem Becomes a Writer 37-45

Alice BULMER Ralph Bulmer - a Bibliography 45-54

PART II: ETHNOBIOLOGY, SEMANTICS AND TAXONOMY

Brent BERLIN The Chicken and the Egg-head Revisited: Further Evidence forthe Intellectualist Bases of Ethnobiological Classification 57-66

Bruce BIGGS A Linguist Revisits the New Zealand Bush 67-72

Cecil H. BROWN On the Botanical Life-form ‘Tree” 72-78

Ross CLARK Fingota/Fangota: Shellfish and Fishing in Polynesia 78-83

Jared M. DIAMOND Interview Techniques in Ethnobiology 83-86

Peter DWYER and Hunting and Harvesting: the Pursuit of Animals by KuboMonica MENNEGAL of Papua New Guinea 86-95

Roy ELLEN Grass, Grerb or Weed? A Bulmerian Meditation on theCategory monote in Nuaulu Plant Classification 95-101

Claudine FRIEDBERG Operative Aspects of Folk Classification 102-109

Terence E. HAYS Interest, Use, and Interest in Uses in Folk Biology 109-114

K.J. HOLLYMAN What’s in a Nomial? Folk Classification in New Caledonia 114-118

Robin HOOPER Denizens of the Deep: the Semantic History ofProto-Polynesian *palu 119-127

iii

Eugene S. HUNN Sahaptin Bird Classification 137-147

Julie PARK Why Is Wine Not Booze? 147-151

Paul SILLITOE Worms that Bite and Other Aspects of Wola Soil Lore 152-163

Michael J. TYLER Biological Nomenclature, Classification and theEthnozoological Specieme 164-167

Alanieta WAQANIU Ethno-ichthyology in the Upper Wainimala Valley,and Garth ROGERS Viti Levu 167-174

PART III: SOCIAL AND SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS

Georgeda BUCHBINDER When All Else Fails: Suicide among Maring Women 177-181

Ann CHO WNING Pigs, Dogs and Children in Molima 182-187

Peter CROWE There’s More than One Way to Be a 187-193

Mary DOUGLAS Ralph Bulmer among the Master Detectives: the ProximityPrinciple 193-198

Thomas M. ERNST Empirical Attitudes among the Onabasulu 199-207

Steven FELD Cockatoo, Hombill, Kingfisher 207-213

Robin FOX A Darwinist Manifesto 213-218

Michael GODDARD The Birdman of Kiripia: Posthumous Revenge in aPapua New Guinea Highland Community 218 -222

Murray GROVES Fishermen of Manumanu: in Defence of ‘Empiricist’Ethnography 222-233

Chris HEALEY Why Is the Cassowary Sacrificed? 234-241

Christine HELLIWELL Many Voices: Rhetoric and Ethnographic Understanding in aBorneo Dayak Community 241-248

Antony HOOPER and Aspects of Skipjack Fishing: Some Tokelau 4 Words of the Sea’Judith HUNTSMAN 249-256

David HYNDMAN The Kam Basin Homeland of the Wopkaimin: a Sense of Place 256-265

Graham JACKSON Is Taboo Alive? The Uses and Parameters of Kopon Taboo 265-276

Roger M. KEESING The Uses of Knowledge in Kwaio Society 277-286

Tomas LUDVIGSON Transactions and Ownership in Central Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu 286-292

Kenneth MADDOCK Atrocities and Culture: Revisiting the Vietnam War 293-298

iv Contents

Alan HOWARD Animals as Metaphors in Rotuman SayingsandJanRENSEL 127-137

Contents v

George E.B. MORREN, Jr The Ancestresses of the Miyanmin and Telefolmin: Sacred andMundane Definitions of the Fringe in the Upper Sepik 298-305

Jan POUWER The Willed and the Wild: the Kalam Cassowary Revisited 305-316

Inge RIEBE Do We Believe in Witchcraft? 317-326

Eleanor RIMOLDI Buka Marriage Ritual and the Power of TsunonoandMaxRIMOLDI 326-335

Paula G. RUBEL and From Ceremonial Exchange to Capitalist Exchange: How the NewAbraham ROSMAN Irelanders Coped with the Establishment of Trading Stations 336-343

Anne SALMOND Tipuna - Ancestors: Aspects of Maori Cognatic Descent 343-356

Eric SCHWIMMER The Ceremonial Self 356-363

Marilyn STRATHERN Naming People 364-369

John D. WAIKO Literary Art Forms among the Binandere 369-375

James B. WATSON Group and Ethnic Stereotypy: Topical Premises on a UniversalGround 375-379

Michael W. YOUNG The Sea Eagle and Other Heroic Birds of Nidula Mythology 380-389

PART IV: LINGUISTIC AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Bernard COMRIE On Haruai Vowels 393-397

Herbert John DAVIES Marked Pronouns and Verbs for Marked Social Relationshipsin a Chadic and a Papuan Language 397-405

Raymond FIRTH Tikopia Songs of the Seaand Rosemary FIRTH 405-412

John KIAS We Threw away our Bows and Axesand Lyle SCHOLZ 412-420

John LYNCH Pigs and Dogs in Island Melanesia 421-432

Andrew PAWLEY Saying Things in Kalam: Reflections on Language andTranslation 432-444

Wendy POND Austronesian Classification and the Choice of Endeavour 444-450

B ambi B. SCHIEFFELIN Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Kaluli Relationship Termsand Steven FELD 451-454

PART V: PREHISTORY AND ORAL HISTORY

Jim ALLEN Hunting for Wallabies: the Importance of Macropus agilis as aTraditional Food Resource in the Port Moresby Hinterland 457-461

Wal AMBROSE Manus, Mortars and the Kava Concoction 461-469

Janet DAVIDSON Bird-man Amulets and Tridacna Shell Discs from Taumako,and Foss LEACH Solomon Islands 478-483

JackGOLSON Bulmer Phase II: Early Agriculture in the New GuineaHighlands 484-491

R.C. GREEN Near and Remote Oceania - Disestablishing “Melanesia” inCulture History 491-502

Geoffrey IRWIN Themes in the Prehistory of Coastal Papua and the Massim 503-510

Mary-Jane MOUNTAIN Bulmer Phase I: Environmental Change and Human Activitythrough the Late Pleistocene into the Holocene in theHighlands of New Guinea: a Scenario 510-520

Nigel ORAM Edai Siabo: an Ethnographic Study of a Papuan Myth 520-535

Marie REAY Oral Prehistory and the Sequence of Events 535-540

Douglas G. SUTTON The Archaeology of Belief: Structuralism in StratigraphicalContext 540-550

Pamela SWADLING Garden Boundaries as Indicators of Past Land-use Strategies:Two Case Studies from Coastal Melanesia 550-557

D.E. YEN Domestication: the Lessons from New Guinea 558-569

PART VI: ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE MODERN WORLD

I.H. KAWHARU Sovereignty vs Rangatiratanga: the Treaty of Waitangi 1840 andthe New Zealand Maori Council’s Kaupapa 1983 573-581

Roderic LACEY ‘History Is a Way of Musing upon Ourselves’ 581-585

H.B. LEVINE Participation in the Modem Sector and the Width of UrbanInterethnic Interaction: a Causal Model of Data fromPapua New Guinea 585-589

Cluny MACPHERSON and Some Samoan Observations on Science and Scientists La’avasa MACPHERSON 589-593

Mervyn MEGGITT The Ambiguities of Advocacy: Fieldwork in the New GuineaHighlands 593-599

Maev O’COLLINS Applied Anthropology: the Basis for Social Policy and Planningin Papua New Guinea 599-606

Anton PLOEG Citizenship in Papua New Guinea 606-612

Andrew STRATHERN “Company” in Kopiago 612-615

Ranginui J. WALKER The Genesis and Transformation of the Waitangi Tribunal 615-624

vi Contents

Susan BULMER Variation and Change in Stone Tools in the Highlands ofPapua New Guinea: the Witness of Wafielek 470-478

EDITORIAL NOTE

In June 1988, when Ralph Bulmer was already mortally ill, invitations were sent to over 100 friends and colleagues of his, inviting them to contribute to an extraordinary Festschrift. It was extraordinary because, knowing that Ralph probably did not have long to live, I asked each person to submit a paper within six weeks and to donate $100 towards publication costs, with the aim of presenting a modest book to Ralph before the end of the year. Because of this stringent deadline I did not expect to receive more than a handful of papers.

The response was astonishing. Almost 90 people immediately sent in titles (a few jointly) and within five weeks drafts of more than 20 papers had arrived. Ralph had read the provisional table of contents before he died on July 18, 1988. After his death it became necessary to rethink editing and publication plans. Because of the large number of papers a length limit was imposed, authors who had not already submitted their papers were sent a style guide and all essays were sent to appropriate readers for critical assessment. The final product consists of 81 papers by 90 authors. In the end, publication was in the hands of the Polynesian Society, in Auckland, production being undertaken in Canberra.

Ralph would have been delighted with the quality and range of the papers in the volume. Part I consists of several memoirs. The remaining Parts, II-VI, represent the considerable range of disciplines which he contributed to - chiefly, social anthropology, ethnobotany and ethnozoology, archaeology, oral history and linguistics - as well as issues of social change and modernisation in Pacific societies with which Ralph was much concerned.

Thanks are due to the many people who contributed to the project. To the editorial committee of Bruce Biggs, Nancy Bowers, Roger Green, Chris Healey, Judith Huntsman and Richard Moyle, who gave initial encouragement and advice. To Lena Bulmer, who supplied addresses and contacted several potential contributors. To the authors for providing a fine collection of papers. To all those scholars who acted as anonymous readers and critics. The title, Man and a Half \ was suggested by Bruce Biggs who averred that Ralph was sometimes called by this name when they were together in New Guinea. Marlous Terwiel drew the frontispiece, ‘Ralph Bulmer in Birdwatching Mode’ , and Chris Healey kindly allowed us to use his cassowary drawing on the cover and dividing pages. During 1989 the papers were entered on word processor by Dorothy Brown and Inger Miller at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. After my shift to the Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU, in February 1990, technical problems required a good many of the manuscripts to be retyped by Lorraine O’Brien, Anne Rees and Jeanette Coombes. Anne Rees recreated some tricky diagrams and tables on word processor, the cartography unit at the Research School prepared or touched up several of the illustrations and Aletta Biersack gave editorial assistance. Other debts of gratitude for information about Ralph's life are recorded, more appropriately, in footnote 1, on page 19.

Above all, I am indebted to Lois Carrington, who not only did most of the sub-editing and checked and revised all the bibliographies but used her skills in book design to transform the roughly formatted papers into handsome camera-ready copy. Tengkyu tru, Lois.

Finally, thanks are due to all those friends of Ralph whose contributions to the Bulmer Fund provided a financial base for publication.

Sadly, I must record that two of our authors died while this volume was being prepared. We lost Garth Rogers in March 1989 and Georgeda Buchbinder in February 1991.

Andrew Pawley 18 October 1991

PART I

MEMOIRS