Ecology and community dynamics of Kubo people in the tropical lowlands of Papua New Guinea

Dwyer, Peter D.; Minnegal, Monica

doi:10.1007/bf00889695

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Most families, or in some cases two closely related families, maintained at least one substantial house an hour or more by foot or canoe from the village. Such houses were used as a base for processing sago or hunting, or simply as a retreat from the tensions that may arise in small communities (Dwyer & Minnegal 1992a; see also Beek 1987:15-16;Knauft 1985a;Sorum 1982:43). '*^ Figure 10 shows the distribution of all local bush houses used in the 14 months from September 1986.…”

Section: Thebush^mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Individuals could, and not infrequently did, choose to abandon their investment in gardens, to shift affiliation to another community (Dwyer & Minnegal 1992a). When, then, should residency be considered to have ended?…”

Section: Individualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While none was actually self-sufficient in terms of food consumed (Dwyer & Minnegal 1992a) each could, and often did, act independently in producing food -gardening, sago processing, and even hunting. Certainly the decision to initiate or participate in any subsistence activity was a matter for the individual household.…”

Section: Householdsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This distribution, it seemed, occurred irrespective of individual needs. Each afternoon, with considerable flurry and excitement, people handed out whatever they had obtained that day -and were likely to receive equivalent goods from others (Dwyer & Minnegal 1992a). The sharing of raw foods, particularly plant foods, is rarely reported in the literature.…”

Section: The Villagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…One house (dotted outline) was begun in late October. Minnegal 1991aMinnegal , 1992a, the residents of Gwaimasi spent less time at dispersed bush houses than they would have in the past. Apparently, however, they disliked the loss of privacy that longhouse living entailed (cf.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fishing at Gwaimasi: the interaction of social and ecological factors in influencing subsistence behaviour

Minnegal¹

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Fishing at Gwaimasi: the interaction of social and ecological factors in influencing subsistence behaviourThis treatise describes fishing behaviour of people living at the village of Gwaimasi in the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. The concern is not with fishing as such but wdth the way in which social and ecological factors interact to influence behaviour. Iargue that an adequate explanation for behaviour must incorporate both dimensions, and suggest a conceptual basis for achieving this. The study then illustrates how at least one aspect of social organization, the size of resource-sharing groups, could be incorporated within a frame of analysis -evolutionary ecology -that has typically focussed on the explanatory significance of ecological factors.The primary thesis asserts that the probability of a particular pattern of behaviour being reproduced depends on both social and ecological factors. Variation in either domain can be expected to affect the kinds of behaviour observed, but the two domains do not affect behaviour in the same way. Ecological factors constrain production, the material outcome of action; social factors constrain consumption, the use that can be made of that outcome. The two domains are complementary, not contradictory, in their influence; in as much as production and consumption themselves are two facets of any action, ecology and society should be seen as mutually constitutive systems mediated by the actor.Evolutionary ecologists have tended to analyse constraints on production, particularly extrinsic constraints on production, in explaining behavioural variability.While constraints on consumption are not ignored, they are usually discussed only in terms of the intrinsic requirements of the actor. I argue that consumption, like production, is subject to extrinsic constraints; the use that an individual can make of a particular outcome of action may depend on the actions of others. In particular, where a resource has declining marginal value, the amount that is likely to be received from others will limit the amount that an individual can usefully procure; as a corollary, the iii expectation of having to distribute produce among others will increase the amount that can be usefully procured. In each case, the effect will depend on the size of the resourcesharijig group.These arguments are illustrated by analyses of the fishing behaviour of people atGwaimasi over a period of 57 weeks, Eariy chapters set the scene for those analyses, introduce the actors and position fishing within their broader subsistence arrangements.The community was small and isolated, the people hunter-horticulturalists using about 50km^ for subsistence. Skulls of neariy all fish caught within that area during the survey were purchased, and details recorded of fisher, technique, location and context of capture.In addition, records were kept of where individuals were based within the local area each day. Analyses of these data indicate that whether people chose to fish, as well as where and how they fish...

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Section: Thebush^mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Individualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Householdsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Villagementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fishing at Gwaimasi: the interaction of social and ecological factors in influencing subsistence behaviour

Minnegal¹

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Hunting with dogs: a synthesis of ethnohistorical data and discussion of their implications for prehistoric subsistence in New Guinea

Koungoulos,

Brumm

2023

Archaeology in Oceania

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The advent of the dog is widely recognised as a major development in the economic organisation of ancient and contemporary hunter‐gatherer and agricultural societies. Although the utility of dogs in assisting recent historical and contemporary New Guinean hunters is commonly emphasised in anthropological discourse, to date there has been no critical evaluation of their actual contributions to hunting yields and nutrition. As a result, it remains unclear what significance the advent of hunting dogs is likely to have had for prehistoric economies in New Guinea. Here we present a comprehensive synthesis and review of the evidence for the use of dogs in hunting within New Guinea, focusing on the ways in which they assist; what kinds of game they help to capture; the degree to which they improve hunting yields and efficiency; and how this affects the taxonomic makeup and average body‐size of game in human diets. We then apply the findings to a consideration of how dogs likely affected the prehistoric economies of New Guinea after their introduction in the Late Holocene. As reliance on hunting dogs tends to produce over‐representation of a few mammal species within hunting yields, we identify potential zooarchaeological signatures for the use of dogs, and discuss excavated sites at which these may be visible. Dogs have a transformative effect on the outcomes of hunting in New Guinea's environments, and their novel use likely marked a significant development in the island's economies which has previously been underestimated.

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Women, Pigs, God and Evolution: Social and Economic Change Among Kubo People of Papua New Guinea

Minnegal

Dwyer

1997

Oceania

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This paper depicts connections and interactions between several apparently disparate themes of change observed in recent years at a village in the interior lowlands of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. Changes in patterns of association between men and women can be traced, in the first instance, to altered management practices necessitated by intensified pig production. That intensification, in turn, reflects the growing importance of money in the local economy, a shift which, through its predication on recognising the commensurability of differences, has ramifications far beyond the economics of pig production. An earlier emphasis on equivalence in exchanges has been replaced by a recognition of substitutability, with a consequent reification of categories at the expense of individuality. This trend has been reinforced by the influence of a new Christian cult that, in emphasising the distinction between men and women, has reified gender categories as a basis for structuring social action. The declining association between men and women which emerged as an adaptive response to changing economic realities has thus become incorporated as a structural transformation in Kubo social life.

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Ecology and community dynamics of Kubo people in the tropical lowlands of Papua New Guinea

Cited by 28 publications

References 32 publications

Fishing at Gwaimasi: the interaction of social and ecological factors in influencing subsistence behaviour

Fishing at Gwaimasi: the interaction of social and ecological factors in influencing subsistence behaviour

Hunting with dogs: a synthesis of ethnohistorical data and discussion of their implications for prehistoric subsistence in New Guinea

Women, Pigs, God and Evolution: Social and Economic Change Among Kubo People of Papua New Guinea

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