‘We Are Fire Clan’: Groups, Names and Identity in Papua New Guinea

Dwyer, Peter D.; Minnegal, Monica

doi:10.1002/ocea.5183

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Stories and genealogies are also of great importance in the negotiation of social group identity and land ownership in Papua New Guinea today (see Bell 2009;Dwyer and Minnegal 2018).…”

Section: The Oral Traditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining Oral Traditions and Bayesian Chronological Modeling to Understand Village Development in the Gulf of Papua (Papua New Guinea)

2021

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When European colonists arrived in the late 19th century, large villages dotted the coastline of the Gulf of Papua (southern Papua New Guinea). These central places sustained long-distance exchange and decade-spanning ceremonial cycles. Besides ethnohistoric records, little is known of the villages’ antiquity, spatiality, or development. Here we combine oral traditional and 14C chronological evidence to investigate the spatial history of two ancestral village sites in Orokolo Bay: Popo and Mirimua Mapoe. A Bayesian model composed of 35 14C assays from seven excavations, alongside the oral traditional accounts, demonstrates that people lived at Popo from 765–575 cal BP until 220–40 cal BP, at which time they moved southwards to Mirimua Mapoe. The village of Popo spanned ca. 34 ha and was composed of various estates, each occupied by a different tribe. Through time, the inhabitants of Popo transformed (e.g., expanded, contracted, and shifted) the village to manage social and ceremonial priorities, long-distance exchange opportunities and changing marine environments. Ours is a crucial case study of how oral traditional ways of understanding the past interrelate with the information generated by Bayesian 14C analyses. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations, strengths, and uncertainties inherent to these forms of chronological knowledge.

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“…Stories and genealogies are also of great importance in the negotiation of social group identity and land ownership in Papua New Guinea today (see Bell 2009;Dwyer and Minnegal 2018).…”

Section: The Oral Traditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining Oral Traditions and Bayesian Chronological Modeling to Understand Village Development in the Gulf of Papua (Papua New Guinea)

2021

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“…In this context, stories about the cosmological past are becoming increasingly important for clans seeking to negotiate ownership of places and resources. Various studies have explored how social groups and cosmological stories are being reworked and given new meanings by communities in PNG in response to changing social and economic landscapes (see Bell, 2009; Dwyer and Minnegal, 2018; Filer, 2007; Minnegal et al., 2015). I imagine that the story of Popo’s formation and the origins of local iron-rich sand will become particularly important over the next few years as negotiations with Mayur Resources commence.…”

Section: Finding Cosmology In Stratigraphymentioning

confidence: 99%

Excavating and interpreting ancestral action: Stories from the subsurface of Orokolo Bay, Papua New Guinea

Urwin

2019

Journal of Social Archaeology

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The Gulf of Papua, Papua New Guinea, is a rapidly changing geomorphic and cultural landscape in which the ancestral past is constantly being (re)interpreted and negotiated. This paper examines the importance of subsurface archaeological and geomorphological features for the various communities of Orokolo Bay in the Gulf of Papua as they maintain and re-construct cosmological and migration narratives. The everyday practices of digging and clearing for agriculture and house construction at antecedent village locations bring Orokolo Bay locals into regular engagement with buried pottery sherds (deposited during the ancestral hiri trade) and thin strata of ‘black sand’ (iron sand). Local interpretations and imaginings of the subsurface enable spatio-temporal interpretations of the ancestors' actions and the structure of ancestral settlements. These interpretations point to the profound entanglement of orality and material culture and suggest new directions in the comparative study of alternative archaeologies.

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“…On the one hand, they use the 'appeal and resonance derived from indigenous custom' to battle against giant corporations but, on the other hand, they have a 'thoroughly modern desire for … money, goods and services' and 'seek deliverance from the … web of social obligations' which made them landowners in the first place (Filer, 1997: 157-158). Other writers have described the ways custom has been distorted through 'entification' (Ernst, 1999) as local people try to render their complex customary arrangements legible to institutions of governance (see also Jorgensen, 1997;Filer, 2007;Golub, 2007;Wesch, 2008;Stead, 2017;Dwyer & Minnegal, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mining and the value of place in New Caledonia: Negotiation, evaluation, recognition

Meur

Levacher

Bouard

et al. 2021

The Extractive Industries and Society

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‘We Are Fire Clan’: Groups, Names and Identity in Papua New Guinea

Cited by 4 publications

References 20 publications

Combining Oral Traditions and Bayesian Chronological Modeling to Understand Village Development in the Gulf of Papua (Papua New Guinea)

Combining Oral Traditions and Bayesian Chronological Modeling to Understand Village Development in the Gulf of Papua (Papua New Guinea)

Excavating and interpreting ancestral action: Stories from the subsurface of Orokolo Bay, Papua New Guinea

Mining and the value of place in New Caledonia: Negotiation, evaluation, recognition

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