Marcel van der Linden | Reading Ethnography as Labour History : the Example of the Iatmul, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea | Labour History, 89

Reading Ethnography as Labour History : the Example of the Iatmul, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

Marcel van der Linden^*

The present essay explores how ethnography can contribute to the development of a truly global labour historiography. Since the 1910s, ethnographers have been carrying out fieldwork among the Iatmul, a small ethnos in Papua New Guinea. Up to about 40 years ago the indigenous people lived from fishing and agriculture, but then began to move into the cities, where they became wholly or partly proletarianised. The reports of British, American and Swiss ethnologists who have visited the Iatmul time and again in their original villages, and later in the urban squatter settlements, can be read diachronically as a kind of long-term study of gendered proletarianisation processes.

The spread of wage labour, an ongoing and worldwide process, occurs to this day in the centres of capitalism and remains widespread along the periphery as well. The 'globalization' of wage labour during the second half of the twentieth century necessitates re-evaluating certain 'classical' views. Old interpretations tended to reflect the European historical experience and regarded developments in other parts of the world as derivatives of such experience. Either European history repeated itself in a non-European context (ie 'true' proletarianisation), or this history did not repeat itself, in which case the process was found to be deficient or 'deviant'.¹ Considering twentieth-century changes in Asia, Latin America and Africa in their own right will mean abandoning this Eurocentric approach.

In this contribution, I will argue that in 'decentring their approach' labour historians may benefit from the studies by scholars of ethnology. It is not uncommon for different ethnologists to visit and study a certain ethnic group or region over the course of several decades. And while the resulting publications vary in quality and cover a range of different aspects of the same local society, the combination of the works may shed light on longer-term developments — especially when the ethnological material is complemented by oral history, the memoirs of concerned officials and research in the archives of colonial states, missionary organisations and the like.

I will illustrate this thesis with ethnological research about the Iatmul, a people in the Middle Sepik region (East Sepik Province) of Papua New Guinea that experienced progressively greater encounters with wage labour. The Iatmul lived near the Sepik River and were thus fairly easy to reach by boat. In addition, they produced artistic woodcarvings. For both these reasons the Iatmul had become fairly well known by the first half of the twentieth century; over the years they were visited both by art dealers and museum professionals and by missionaries, government officials and especially ethnologists from Germany, Britain, the United States and Switzerland. The reports drafted by these visitors over the course of nearly a century describe not only the lives of the Iatmul in the Sepik region but also — at a later stage — the lives of Iatmul migrants in Rabaul and other cities. Ethnographers have also studied peoples living nearby the Iatmul, especially the Sawos and the Chambri, and have provided additional context-related information.² Most of the literature resulting from this research is in English and German.

Papua New Guinea showing the East Sepik region and the area inhabited by the Iatmul people

The Iatmul before Incorporation³

At the start of the twentieth century, shortly after they had been 'discovered' by German settlers, the Iatmul lived in 20 to 30 villages with 100 to 300 inhabitants each along the banks of the Sepik, the largest river of Papua New Guinea. Each village comprised 15 to 20 clans. The right to certain economic resources (eg fishing water) pertained to clans rather than to individuals. The society was exogamous: men and women from the same clan were not allowed to marry each other. Thus each marriage affirmed a relational, economic, political and ceremonial bond between two clans. This tradition connected every clan in a village with all other clans in that village. In addition, each village had generation groups with their own name, as well as one or several large men's houses.⁴

The Iatmul had a subsistence economy, dominated by the women, as the suppliers of approximately 80 per cent of the food products. In addition to catching fish daily, they produced fish traps, nets, bags and baskets, cared for the younger children and prepared meals. The men were primarily artisans. They built houses, carved canoes and paddles, and made weapons and some of the work tools. Their woodcarvings were very artistic. Men and women gardened together. Margaret Mead later summarised the distribution of labour between women and men as follows:

Here the women work fairly steadily but cheerfully, in groups, without any sense of being inordinately driven. They are responsible for the daily catch of fish, for the fish that is taken to the market, for gathering firewood and carrying water, for cooking, and for plaiting the great cylindrical mosquito-basquets that are miniature rooms to protect human beings against the ravenous mosquitoes. For most of their waking hours they are occupied, and they display very little fatigue, or irritation against the continuous exactions of housekeeping and fishing. Men's work however, is almost entirely episodic — house-building, canoe-building, communal hunts for crocodile in the dry season or for small rodents by burning down the grass-land, or devising the elaborate theatrical settings for ceremonial.... When tasks are performed, they are performed with a great display of energy and effort, the whole body is involved, and Iatmul males complain vigorously of being tired after such efforts.⁵

The Iatmul worked autonomously:

Whether a task is to be done or not, where it is to be done, how long it may take, how large the group is to be, and whether particular persons are to take part are matters to be decided by the individuals concerned in accordance with the situation at the moment. No one is entitled to dictate the tempo at which a job is done, or when the work must be finished; every working individual determines this himself. Communal decisions of short-term validity are reached in loose cooperation with other members of the group and in direct relation to technical necessities or personal needs. Work may be interrupted by intervals of relaxation, joking, or ritual, as desired.⁶

In a sense, the Iatmul formed a cohesive system with the Sawos and Chambri neighbouring peoples. The Chambri supplied mosquito bags and stone tools, while the Sawos provided sago in exchange for fish.⁷ The Iatmul also exchanged stone tools acquired from the Chambri for valuable shells (ritual money), which the Sawos had obtained indirectly from coastal residents, and used them for the bride price.⁸ The Iatmul were central cogs within this mini-system: they were supremely powerful in violent conflicts, as they were more numerous than the Chambri and Sawos and had larger villages. They demonstrated their supremacy through occasional headhunting campaigns, especially against the Sawos.⁹ As Gregory Bateson has written, the Iatmul viewed headhunting as 'the main source of pride of the village, while associated with the pride is prosperity, fertility and the male sexual act'. Men who brought home the head of an opponent received a hero's welcome amid major festivities.

Every victory was celebrated by great dances and ceremonial which involved the whole village. The killer was the hero of these and he was at the same time the host at the feasts which accompany them.¹⁰

The earliest reports about the Iatmul are from the German colonial era.¹¹ Two expeditions were important: the one from 1908–10 and the one from 1912–13. The first expedition primarily provided insight into the material culture. The second, which included Richard Thurnwald (who later became a renowned ethnologist), yielded considerable social, geographic, and biological knowledge; the reports comprise information about trading practices, war customs, transport along waterways and over land, and production of sago and canoes. The information contained in the reports about the everyday cultures of the Sepik residents is substantially less useful, as the descriptions are very 'external' and superficial.¹²

The reports reveal that these scholars served the colonialist cause. Expedition participant Walter Behrmann related:

To prepare the recruitment for European coastal plantations, we decided to bring a few people from Malu along on the boat trip to the coast [the main camp of the expedition was at Malu to the West of the Iatmul] to help them get used to being under European supervision for brief or extended periods. We convinced ten people from Malu to join us. We travelled with our fully loaded steamboat and several barges almost to the mouth [of the Sepik], where the native village of Karajundo is located.¹³

The Iatmul and the neighbouring peoples remained entirely outside the scope of the German administration and in this respect were an 'external arena' (Thomas Hall).¹⁴

The Beginnings of Incorporation

This situation started to change in the 1920s. At least three major transitions occurred. First, the Pax Australiana was established. As is known, German New Guinea officially became an Australian mandate (New Guinea Territory) in 1921. In the years that followed, the inland areas gradually came to be managed by patrols, with sweeping consequences. Headhunting was prohibited. Each village was assigned a 'board,' comprising a luluai (chief) and a tultul (sub-chief) to serve as liaisons with the colonial powers.¹⁵ Second, ethnic relations that had previously been fluid became fixed.

[The] Middle Sepik Iatmul, Chambri, Sawos, and Hills peoples were defined as belonging to particular cultural groups, living within particular and limited territories, and in specific and permanently bounded villages. No longer could Nyaurengai become Korogo, or Korogo cease to exist, because these peoples and places had been fixed on maps and recorded in census books.¹⁶

Third, temporary labour migration began, once the labour reservoir from the coastal areas started to be depleted.¹⁷ Recruiters tried to lure men with western steel tools, since the League of Nations had decreed that they were not allowed to force anybody to work for them.¹⁸ Introduction of the head tax (effective in the 1930s) also served the purposes of the recruiters.

Patrol Officers were empowered to collect a Head Tax of 10 shillings a year from every able bodied man living in every pacified village. Certain categories of men were, however, exempt from the tax, and among these categories were men serving under indenture. The Head Tax, therefore, induced many men to sell their labor who may not have otherwise done so.¹⁹

Most of the migrant labourers were the younger men from the villages. The number of migrant labourers absent from the Sepik climbed from 152 in 1924–25 to 2,763 in 1937–38.²⁰

At first fewer Iatmul are believed to have joined this labour migration than for example the Chambri. Gewertz provides an interesting explanation for this difference. She argues that the traditional socio-economic system of the Iatmul was externally oriented. The Iatmul lived along the banks of the river and were ahead of their neighbours in military and economic respects.

Their position on the Sepik River allowed them to continue in this entrepreneurial role after the European intrusion, as missionaries, patrol officers, and explorers willingly provided them with goods in return for safe passage. The Chambri, on the other hand, had always been one of the more vulnerable ethnic groups and had learned to adapt to those more powerful than they were. They had, however, become skilled at surviving through adapting to the needs of their superiors, an ability they readily transferred to European administrators and entrepreneurs. In other words, the Chambri accommodated to the destruction of their monopoly on the production of specialized commodities by adopting a pattern of circular migration. They thereby acquired from Europeans what they had heretofore acquired from the Iatmul — the valuables necessary to pay for prestige and, now, also necessary to pay taxes.²¹

While Gewertz's hypothesis suggests that accidents of geography and ecology play a key role in determining the fate of groups, one could perhaps also conclude that the ability of members of classless societies to adapt to an externally imposed labour discipline varies, depending on whether those concerned are from a hegemonic or a subaltern ethnic group!

Third, missionaries of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) settled in the area. This highly enterprising German-Dutch Catholic order intended for missionary posts to become financially self-sufficient by running plantations, sawmills, and the like. With this objective in mind, SVD fathers emphasised abstract labour discipline in their interactions with the local population.

The combination of these changes thoroughly transformed the region. The effective prohibition of headhunting from 1927 onward, for example, altered the balance of power between the Iatmul, the Chambri, and the Sawo. After all, the Chambri and the Sawo no longer had reason to fear violence on the part of the Iatmul. Moreover, the availability of steel axes and the like meant that the Iatmul no longer depended on stone tools produced by the Chambri, thereby depriving the Chambri of an important source of income. Village activities became commodified. Artefacts increasingly started to be sold to outsiders, and certain rituals (such as the initiation of men) became accessible to tourists for a fee.

During the early years of this transitional period, the anthropologist and social- psychologist Gregory Bateson (1904–80) stayed with the Iatmul several times. After a few visits to the region starting in the late 1920s, he published his first major article about the group and invented their name in the process (they had no designation of their own for their combined ethnic group).²² After a subsequent 15-month stay in the early 1930s, he wrote his major work Naven about a ritual among the Iatmul in which women dressed as men and men as women.²³ In 1938, Bateson visited the Iatmul for the last time, this time accompanied by his wife Margaret Mead, whom he had met on his first trip, when she was staying with the neighbouring people the Chambri. The results of this study, however, remained largely unpublished, due to the outbreak of World War II.²⁴

Bateson based his approach on Durkheimian and especially cultural principles. He was particularly interested in the Naven ritual and its interpretation in the context of gender roles and fictitious or real kinship. He aimed to abstract from Iatmul culture an ethos, that is, 'a culturally standardised system of organisation of the instincts and emotions of the individuals'.²⁵ Bateson's descriptions provide virtually no information about politics, economics or labour. He mentions very briefly that headhunting had 'disappeared so recently' that it was still 'part of the natural setting of the ceremonies',²⁶ and that the Iatmul recognise 'no differentiation of rank or class', although they consider gender differences to be immensely important.²⁷ Buried in a chapter about personality types, we learn something about the consequences of indentured labour. On this subject, Bateson explains:

At the present time, the villages of the Iatmul contain considerable numbers of young men who have recently returned to their homes after spending from three to five years as indentured labourers on European plantations and gold mines. They grew up as boys in the Iatmul ethos probably admiring it and probably believing that the ethos was `natural' for men. Then they went away and lived for some years in the more disciplined and co-operative ethos of a labour line. Now they are returning to the ethos in which they grew up.²⁸

While some readjusted quickly, others had encountered serious difficulties:

As boys, they probably adopted the prevailing ethos because it was fashionable and was the only pattern offered to them. But now, when they have seen and lived in a different ethos, these men look askance at their native culture. They are impatient of the buffooning of the older men and they treat the most important rituals with contempt. They are openly careless about the secrets of initiation.²⁹

The incipient disintegration of the established culture observed by Bateson continued during the years that followed. In late 1955 and early 1956, when the Swiss museum professional Alfred Bühler visited the Iatmul with the photographer René Gardi, he observed, for example, that most of the 'masks that had adorned the gables of houses, paintings and other cultic ornamentations of homes' had disappeared. He associated this change with a changing religious awareness.³⁰ Earning money had at first served primarily to pay the head tax (which has since been abolished) but at that point also enabled people to acquire modern import products. The massive temporary migration of young men to the plantations along the coast was the main reason:

The labour recruitment system that prevails to this day may have been the most significant factor in the hybridization, as well as the destruction of cultures. At their places of work, for example, the recruited natives mingle with all possible elements of the entire territory and at the same time interact more closely with white civilization than they possibly could anywhere else.³¹

Upon returning to their native villages, very few of the young men were willing to reintegrate in their old surroundings.

The increased rebelliousness instigated by the cultural change may be still more significant in our context. Bühler determined that 'the Sepik people, who in the past had been in great demand throughout the territory because of their physical strength and especially their reliability' had become non grata among many planters 'for fear of their passion for inciting unrest'.³² In his view, most of the Sepik people believed that interactions with white people had been largely to their disadvantage. The attitude of protest arising from this discontent was manifested primarily through everyday cargo cults: 'in several private homes and ceremonial houses we found tables decorated with flowers, in constant readiness to welcome the ancestors with their goods'.³³ In 1959 Bühler's second expedition confirmed the progressive transformation of the old culture.³⁴

After Incorporation

Other Swiss ethnographers had travelled to the region before Bühler.³⁵ And Bühler's visits paved the way for long-lasting Swiss fascination with the Iatmul. The driving force behind this interest was Meinhard Schuster (b. 1930), who, following two expeditions for museum research in the Middle Sepik region during the 1960s,³⁶ conducted an ambitious research project there in the early 1970s. Schuster's intention was to restudy Bateson's research. Since the 1960s, the Middle Sepik area had not been studied in depth in his view. He believed that Bateson's work needed to be continued and the areas he had dealt with insufficiently to be covered in greater depth.³⁷

Between August 1972 and April 1974 six of Schuster's doctoral students settled in villages along the Sepik for periods of six to 18 months. The result comprised both dissertations and follow-up studies. The works by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin (b. 1945), Milan Stanek (b. 1943) and Florence Weiss (b. 1945) are particularly noteworthy. Stanek and Weiss visited the Iatmul not only in 1972–74 but also in 1979–80, 1984–85 and 1988–89. They wrote their PhD theses about the Iatmul village of Palimbei and later investigated the fates of residents of that village who immigrated to the city of Rabaul.³⁸

The different studies reveal two major developments to labour historians. Firstly, after the initial stage of contact (in which the head tax was introduced and head hunting prohibited), capitalism spread in the villages mainly through circulation of commodities; and secondly, the Iatmul proletarianised primarily through labour migration to the cities and plantations. Regarding the spread of capitalism, all the available evidence indicates that the village economies gradually became monetarised after World War II. This substantial growth in the influence of money was obviously attributable in part to the opportunity to purchase coveted consumer goods. But this explanation is unsatisfactory. Hauser-Schäublin has calculated that the frequent fish-selling expeditions by Iatmul men in the early 1970s to the nearby town of Wewak were unprofitable. Net profit, however, received virtually no consideration. 'Business meant any opportunity to sell something for money, no matter how great the financial expenditure (not to mention the time investment).'³⁹ This rising money-fetish among the Iatmul transformed gender relationships. On the one hand, the men became more powerful, because they sold both their own labour products (woodcarvings) and those of the women (fish, necklaces, handbags) in the city. On the other hand, polygamy was less prevalent than during Bateson's day, because the bride price was due in cash, and many men not living in the city could not afford more than one wife as a result.⁴⁰

Labour migration also proved to be a more complex process than initially believed. The trek to the cities, which gradually got under way after 1918 and surged after 1945,⁴¹ did not result from immiseration in the villages.⁴² All the same, disproportionately high numbers of Iatmul moved to the cities. The works of Stanek and Weiss reveal the extent of the changes since the 1960s. While in the 1950s migration was only temporary, more or less permanent migration increased dramatically after that period. In November 1972 a census by Stanek in Palimbei revealed that 323 of the 765 villagers lived in the village itself or in a neighbouring Iatmul village and 423 in the cities, especially in Rabaul (223), Madang (88) and Wewak (44). Stanek was unable to determine the place of residence for 19 persons. Over half the people had thus moved to the city, presumably somewhat more men than women.⁴³ This rate is extremely high, considering that only about five per cent of the total population of Papua New Guinea lived in the cities at the time.

What were the reasons for this massive migration? Weiss attributes the first stage from the 1920s to the 1940s or 50s to the prohibition of headhunting, which seriously compromised the authority of the older men.

From being well-known warriors and head hunters, the Iatmul became the conquered. Stripped of their pride and their identity, the elderly became irritated and unpredictable toward the youth, whom they could no longer serve as role models.⁴⁴

The tensions that ensued between young and old compounded the ongoing, customary friction between elderly and adolescents. Adolescents were therefore the first ones interested in working on the plantations.

Adolescents welcomed the invitation from the white people to go to a plantation far away from their dissatisfied and insecure elders. Many also expected to find a new identity by entrusting their fate to white people, who after all had proven to be the strongest.⁴⁵

Over time, however, this sense of desperation subsided, as the elderly died. All the same, migration continued to rise. Several factors are believed to have driven this increase. The first was the growth and liberalisation of the labour market. Until the 1960s, only those with an employment contract (usually lasting three to five years) were allowed to settle in the cities. With the expanding economy and the establishment of the state facilities, however, which increased the demand for labour, the regulations changed. Henceforth, everybody was allowed to move to the cities, with or without a permanent employment contract. While the labour migrants had at first consisted mainly of young men, women and children started to arrive as well. Second, the autonomous sources of income in the villages were minimal, as regular floods made growing coffee or cacao impossible. Third, the Iatmul were traditionally mobile, due to their longstanding practice of resolving conflicts by moving temporarily:

Even small children who argue with their parents or siblings gather their things and move in with relatives. After the tensions subside they return home, sometimes several weeks later. Women in trouble with their husbands return to their Clan. Men disappear to a nearby village, especially if one suspects that a woman is trying to force him to marry her.... Establishing new villages was the most extreme solution of the Iatmul society to arising tensions.⁴⁶

Settlements in the Cities

More recent ethnographic research extends beyond descriptions of the villages where the out-migration originated. In 1988–89 Florence Weiss and Milan Stanek conducted extensive field research at a settlement of labour migrants from the Palimbei village in Rabaul (New Britain), a city about a thousand kilometres from the Sepik area. Weiss describes how the Iatmul from Palimbei had established the Kori settlement in Rabaul since 1960. In 1988, 305 persons lived in Kori: 167 adults and 138 children and young adults, including 149 females and 156 males. Outside Kori (but in Rabaul), lived another 45 persons. Over 90 per cent of the adults had come from Palimbei, although most of the children and young adults were born in Rabaul.⁴⁷ The spatial structure of Kori largely replicates that of Palimbei. 'The original village Clan organisation of the village even rules the arrangement of the houses'.⁴⁸ During the research period Kori had 15 clans, which like in Palimbei determined the social structure.

All adult men worked for a living. Most were wage earners, although some were self-employed as woodcarvers. Those performing wage labour rarely stayed with the same boss for long. After all, wage labour meant adhering to a schedule set by others, obeying the supervisor, working among strangers and doing work unrelated to their own needs. These working conditions were diametrically opposed to the ones in the villages. A woodcarver related:

I was a porter at the harbour ... we loaded the bags of copra, which were brought to Rabaul from the coconut plantations, onto large ships. The work was very hard. We unloaded the bags from the trucks and carried them onto the ship along a narrow gangplank. Each bag weighed 80 kilos [about 180lbs]. We toiled under the hot sun, in the rain, in all weather conditions. The white supervisor was a stuck-up prig. He yelled all the time and played tricks on us. He did not let us rest for a moment. One day I got fed up and told him to his face that he could not treat us that way. I was fired. I have been a woodcarver ever since. Now I determine how much and when I work.⁴⁹

In addition to regularly resisting the pressure to adapt, after a few weeks or months, when the situation had become unbearable, the men would get into 'a huge argument with their employer, speak ill of him, even come to blows with him and run off. After a while they would find a new job'.⁵⁰ In the 1960s and 70s the men tried to soothe their frustrations brought on by the alienated labour by getting drunk after payday. During these drinking bouts, they would talk about life in their village.

The men would sit in the same order as in the ceremonial house in their village. They would address each other by the names of their age groups, as they reminisced about their mythical ancestors and recited their names. Communal drinking sprees compensated for the missing community in the world of labour and the lack of self-confidence.⁵¹

Redistributive pressure was strong: if somebody had made an exceptional amount of money through some kind of activity, he was expected to share with the others.⁵² This was the main reason why some people chose not to live in Kori. One successful Iatmul noted: '[Living] in a group like Kori means sharing everything you have; you can never set anything aside; the peer pressure is overwhelming'.⁵³

Among the first generation of migrant families in Kori, who arrived in the 1960s, the gendered division of labour differed markedly from the way it had been in Palimbei.

The roles switched: the men in the village, artisans and dependent on their women for food, became the providers; the women in the town lost their autonomous position to the men. The men became dependent upon their employers, the women upon their men.⁵⁴

Weiss offers several related explanations for this role reversal. First, the men had a historic lead over the women in proletarianisation. After all, the men had worked on the plantations since the 1920s, where they mastered the lingua franca (Pidgin) and in many cases had learned a trade as well, such as carpentry or police work. The women had been unable to leave their villages until the 1960s, spoke nothing but Iatmul, and were unprepared for life in the cities. Second, the women had trouble arranging childcare in the cities.

Where could they leave their small children when they were at work? They never encountered this problem in the village. When they went fishing or to the market, they never took their small children with them. In the village the older children watched the younger ones while the women were away. In the cities, though, the older children attended school.⁵⁵

Third, the informal sector was virtually non-existent in Papua New Guinea before the independence, due to the regulations imposed by the Australian authorities.

Establishing a sales outlet that complied with all the rules required substantial start-up capital, and selling food and beverages was tightly regulated. Only white people and Chinese were able to meet [all the regulations]. Particularly in this sector of the economy, however, Iatmul women might have been able to keep their small children with them.⁵⁶

As a result of their 'housewifization', some women became agoraphobic, a problem they had never experienced in the village.⁵⁷ Paradoxically, the men often had far greater problems adapting.

[Men] had to meet all new requirements at the workplace, including obedience, submission, time budgeting, adaptation. They have trouble accepting that a job is a permanent arrangement and are inclined to change jobs continuously out of sheer frustration. The women experienced the new relations more indirectly, through their husband's working hours and their children's school hours.⁵⁸

These new gender relations changed again in some respects with the second and subsequent generations. Many young women had attended school and obtained paid employment.

By the 1980s the first generation of women raised in Rabaul was about twenty years old.... All these young women have become wage earners. The ones who attended occupational training after leaving school work as nurses, secretaries, saleswomen, and seamstresses. Motherhood is no longer an obstacle to paid employment. The women have established a network of relatives within the community that enables them to entrust their children to other women while they are at work. In the early 1960s, this would have been virtually impossible, because there were too few women migrants. All young women without occupational training are unskilled workers or sell homemade net bags and jewellery to tourists.⁵⁹

Although the migrants in Rabaul and elsewhere often felt they had accomplished more than the Iatmul who stayed behind in the Sepik area,⁶⁰ they retained strong ties with their villages of origin. Florence Weiss relates a clear example from the 1960s, when

the men from the Payambit men's house community decided to build a new men's house, even though this part of the village had been the most deeply affected by out-migration: 236 of the 340 persons had left, including 65 adult males. They each contributed a flat rate of about A$10 toward constructing the new men's house, thereby preserving their rights of use in case they returned to the village.⁶¹

People in the villages of origin remained in close contact with the cities where out-migrants settled, in part through visits.

Visits from one city to the other reinforce cohesion among all those who came from the same village. The network appears to extend throughout the country. There is a village, and in several cities there is an Iatmul settlement, and all communities stay in touch with each other.⁶²

Most marriages are between members of the same ethnic group. 'Only 15 marriages involved partners from different ethnic groups.'⁶³

Ties between urban settlements and villages were not only emotional: economic and financial considerations came into play as well.

As long as only civil servants receive a retirement pension, most elderly people will have no choice but to return to the village.... Long-term employment and social benefits are virtually non-existent. Concern on the part of relatives from the village, reciprocal visits, gifts and money channelled from the city to the village — all transactions are pre-payments in case people are forced to return to the village: especially care for elderly parents and siblings. Somebody who has never given any thought to his relatives in the village will be treated accordingly.⁶⁴

News travels very quickly between Iatmul settlements. When somebody fell ill in Palimbei, the people in Kori knew within a day, even though the distance was 'five days by boat'. One inhabitant travelled

by canoe from the village to Pagwi, where a driver was waiting to take him to Wewak. He went to the bank where his nephew worked and telephoned somebody at work in Rabaul.⁶⁵

Conclusion

The above reveals that the ethnographic studies offer a detailed impression of the gradual capitalist incorporation of the Iatmul and the concurrent spread of wage labour in the period 1908–88. The following two caveats are in order. The Iatmul have been covered more extensively by ethnographers than some other groups in Papua New Guinea. After all, as stated, they were relatively easy to reach and were of artistic interest. Moreover, research on proletarianisation in Papua New Guinea or elsewhere should obviously not be limited to reviewing ethnographic material. Fortunately, we have at least four other sources of information. First, we have reports from civil servants (reports and memoirs from patrol officers), such as the memoirs of `Kassa' Townsend, who did much to subjugate and develop the Sepik region during the 1920s and 30s.⁶⁶ These sources tend to be rather instrumental and superficial, although they may reflect concrete experiences and policy practices. Second are the reports from missionaries, which appear in the archives and publications of various missionary societies, such as the aforementioned Societas Verbi Divini (Steyler Mission) of Father Franz Kirschbaum, who arrived in the Sepik region in 1913.⁶⁷ Later, during the 'second missionary wave' after 1945,⁶⁸ and in the settlements in Rabaul and other towns, additional, smaller denominations were established, such as the Evangelical, Apostolic, and Pentecostal churches. Obviously, accounts from these sources emphasise other aspects than the ones on which labour historians would focus. Third, we should interview Sepik residents⁶⁹ and patrol officers, missionaries and ... ethnographers. Fourth, contemporary studies are available about labour migration and circulation.⁷⁰ Comparing ethnographic material with other sources wherever possible is therefore desirable, as we always aim to do with one specific type of source.

The ethnographic material merits discussion as well. I have of course presented only small excerpts from the vast body of ethnographic research material on the Iatmul.⁷¹ A far more elaborate review of this same research is certainly feasible. Nor is the ethnographic material available limited to published texts. It may certainly be complemented by field notes sometimes stored in archives and a wealth of visual materials (eg photographs, motion pictures).⁷²

In the course of the twentieth century, a clear trend has emerged within ethnography. Early studies from this discipline aimed to comprehend the 'original' culture from before the colonial invasion, which led as much as possible of what had disrupted this culture to be abstracted. Accordingly, older publications contain only peripheral references to Western influences, as 'pollutions' of a pure past. This shortcoming is less prevalent in more recent ethnographic studies, especially ones from the late 1960s and afterwards; these works tend to reflect greater consideration for economic and political changes in general and for the sweeping influence of colonisation and decolonisation in particular;⁷³ they are more compatible with our own research questions and approaches.

At any rate, ethnographers have much to offer labour historians, including over 21,000 brief and extended studies on Papua New Guinea alone.⁷⁴ 'Global labour history' may have more information at its disposal than we think.

Endnotes

^* I would like to thank Bruce Scates for his invaluable help and Lex Heerma van Voss, Jan Lucassen, Anton Ploeg, Florence Weiss and also the two anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts.

^1. On this subject, see also Dipesh Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for "Indian" Pasts?', Representations, vol. 37, Winter 1992, pp. 1–26.

^2. The German ethnologist Markus Schindlbeck studied the Sawo. His magnum opus is: Sago bei den Sawos (Mittelsepik, Papua New Guinea): Untersuchungen über die Bedeutung von Sago in Wirtschaft, Sozialordnung und Religion, Wepf, Basle, 1980. Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington, two ethnologists from the United States, studied the Chambri and published several articles and various books on the subject: Gewertz, Sepik River Societies: A Historical Ethnography of the Chambri and their Neighbors, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983; Errington and Gewertz, Cultural Alternatives and a Feminist Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987; Gewertz and Errington, Twisted Histories, Altered Contexts: Representing the Chambri in a World System, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991; Gewertz and Errington, Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea: The Telling of Difference, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999.

^3. I am using the 'incorporation' concept in the manner of Thomas D. Hall, 'Incorporation in the World-System: Toward a Critique', American Sociological Review, vol. 51, 1986, pp. 390–402. Hall has devised a typology of the stages that non-state societies experience along their path toward capitalist integration.

^4. Milan Stanek, 'Neuguinea: Mythologie und Machtverhältnisse in der primitiven Gesellschaft', in Eberhard Berg, Jutta Lauth and Andres Wimmer (eds), Ethnologie im Widerstreit: Kontroversen über Macht, Geschäft, Geschlecht in fremden Kulturen: Festschrift für Lorenz G. Löffler, Trickster, Munich, 1991, pp. 247–262; Florence Weiss, 'Zur Kulturspezifik der Geschlechterdifferenz und des Geschlechterverhältnisses: Die Iatmul in Papua-Neuguinea', in Regina Becker-Schmidt and Gudrun-Axeli Knapp (eds), Das Geschlechterverhältnis als Gegenstand der Sozialwissenschaften, Campus, Frankfurt a.M. and New York, 1995, pp. 47–84; Jörg Wassmann, Der Gesang an den Fliegenden Hund: Untersuchungen zu den totemistischen Gesängen und geheimen Namen des Dorfes Kandengei am Mittelsepik (Papua New Guinea) anhand der kerugu-Knotenschnüre, Wepf, Basle, 1982, pp. 15–51. Because the Iatmul and neighbouring peoples did not use script, their history from the nineteenth century and before has to be reconstructed from oral accounts, with all the resulting methodological problems. See Paul B. Roscoe, 'Who are the Ndu? Ecology, Migration, and Linguistic and Cultural Change in the Sepik Basin', in Andrew J. Strathern and Gabriele Stürzenhofecker (eds), Migration and Transformations: Regional Perspectives on New Guinea, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh and London, 1994, pp. 49–84, and Douglas Newton, 'Materials for a Iatmul Chronicle, Middle Sepik River (East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea)', in Markus Schindlbeck (ed.), Gestern und heute — Traditionen in der Südsee: Festschrift zum 75: Geburtstag von Gerd Koch, Dietrich Reimer, Berlin, 1997, pp. 367–85.

^5. Margaret Mead, Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World, Victor Gollancz, London, 1950, pp. 170–71.

^6. Milan Stanek, 'Social Structure of the Iatmul', in Nancy Lutkehaus et al (eds), Sepik Heritage: Tradition and Change in Papua New Guinea, Crawford House Press, Bathurst, 1990, pp. 266–273, at 266.

^7. Whether the exchanges between the Sawos and the Iatmul were equal is a subject of debate. Measured in labour time, the exchange appears equal (Schindlbeck, Sago bei den Sawos, p. 552), although the labour intensity indicates an unequal exchange, as producing sago is harder work than catching fish (Gewertz, Sepik River Societies, pp. 21–22).

^8. 'The shells travelled from the coast, through trading arrangements between Arapesh, Abelam, and Sawos men, until they finally arrived in Iatmul territory'. Gewertz, Sepik River Societies, p. 104.

^9. Gewertz offers a detailed and astute analysis of this system in Sepik River Societies, chapters 1 and 2. 'In return for supplying the stone tools and mosquito bags which the Iatmul traded for these valuables [of the Sawos], the Chambri were allowed to remain unmolested'. Gewertz, Sepik River Societies, p. 80. The question as to whether this system of exchange arose primarily from 'political' or 'economic' motives is a subject of debate. See Ross Bowden, 'Historical Ethnography or Conjectural History?', Oceania, vol. 61, 1990–91, pp. 218–35.

^10. Bateson, Naven, p. 141.

^11. Hans Fischer, Die Hamburger Südsee-Expedition: Über Ethnographie und Kolonialismus, Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main, 1981; Markus Schindlbeck, 'The Art of the Headhunters: Collecting Activity and Recruitment in New Guinea at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century', in Hermann J. Hiery and John M. MacKenzie (eds), European Impact and Pacific Influenc: British and German Colonial Policy in the Pacific Islands and the Indigenous Response, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 1997, pp. 31–43; Markus Schindlbeck, 'Deutsche wissenschaftliche Expeditionen und Forschungen in der Südsee bis 1914', in Hermann Joseph Hiery (ed.), Die deutsche Südsee, 1884–1914: Ein Handbuch Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 2000, pp. 132–55; Rainer Buschmann, 'Colonizing Anthropology: Albert Hahl and the Ethnographic Frontier in German New Guinea', in H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl (eds.), Worldly Provincialism. German Anthropology in the Age of Empire, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2003, pp. 230–55.

^12. Otto Reche reported about the first expedition in Der Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss, L. Friederichsen & Co., Hamburg, 1913. Reche explained: 'We had to restrict the essence of our study to superficial aspects of the material culture'. All operations were affected by one essential problem: 'we had no interpreter familiar with the indigenous languages along the central part of the river; this complicated communicating with the natives enormously' (p. 1). Walter Behrmann, Im Stromgebiet des Sepik: Eine deutsche Forschungsreise in Neuguinea, Scherl, Berlin, 1922, offers a report of the second expedition. Participants in the expedition produced a wealth of publications. See eg: Walter Behrmann, 'Verkehrs- und Handelsgeographie eines Naturvolkes, dargestellt am Beispiel der Sepik-Bevölkerung im westlichen Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land, Neuguinea', in Abhandlungen zur Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, vol. II [= Festschrift zur Feier des 25 jährigen Bestehens der Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte], Bechhold Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1925, pp. 45–66.

^13. Behrmann, Im Stromgebiet des Sepik, p. 274.

^14. 'The [German] government's writ ran out 15 kilometres inland in most parts of the colony'. James Griffin, Hank Nelson and Stewart Firth, Papua New Guinea: A Political History, Heinemann Educational Australia, Richmond, Victoria, 1979, p. 43.

^15. After World War II, the luluai and tultul were replaced by a 'Local Government Council'.

^16. Gewertz, Sepik River Societies, pp. 123–24.

^17. Scaglion believes that recruitment policy proceeded through various stages: 'In the Sepik area, recruitment was rather sporadic and limited in extent until around the turn of the century. After the German imperial government assumed administrative control from the Neu Guinea Kompagnie, attention turned toward copra plantations, trade, and the use of local labor. After coastal regions had been seriously depleted of labor potential, inland areas, which previously had been virtually ignored, were penetrated and organized for labor'. Richard Scaglion, 'Reconstructing First Contact: Some Local Effects of Labor Recruitment in the Sepik', in Lutkehaus, Sepik Heritage, pp. 50–57, here 51.

^18. Each labourer had to 'signify [... his] willingness to be recruited'. Report to the League of Nations on the Administration of the Territory of New Guinea, League of Nations, Geneva,1926–27, p. 20. Nonetheless, coercion and violence occurred. See eg: Scaglion, 'Reconstructing First Contact'.

^19. S.W. Reed, The Making of Modern New Guinea, American Philosophical Library, Philadelphia, 1943, p. 179.

^20. Gewertz, Sepik River Societies, p. 112, based on 1924–38 Reports to the League of Nations on the administration of the Territory of New Guinea.

^21. Gewertz, Sepik River Societies, p. 115.

^22. Gregory Bateson, 'Social Structure of the Iatmül People of the Sepik River', Oceania, vol. 2, 1932, pp. 245–291, 401–453.

^23. Gregory Bateson, Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1936. The book elicited several reactions. See especially: Ralph Kessel, Logic and Social Structure: A Critical Revaluation of Bateson's Naven: The Iatmul Tribe of New Guinea, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, 1971; Michael Houseman and Carlo Severi, Naven or the Other Self: A Relational Approach to Ritual Action. Trans. Michael Fineberg, Brill, Leiden, 1998.

^24. 'Iatmul' is also spelled 'Iatmül' or 'Yatmül'. Regarding the field research from 1938, see Margaret Mead, Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years, William Morrow & Co., New York, 1972, especially pp. 276–77, and Margaret Mead, Letters from the Field, 1925–1975, Harper & Row, New York, 1977, pp. 212–38. See also David Lipset, 'An Efficient Sample of One: Margaret Mead Leaves the Sepik (1938)', History of Anthropology Newsletter, vol. 12, no. 1, June 1985, pp. 6–13, and James A. Boon, Affinities and Extremes: Crisscrossing the Bittersweet Ethnology of East Indies History, Hindu-Balinese Culture, and Indo-European Allure, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1990, pp. 172-97.

^25. Bateson, Naven, p. 118.

^26. Ibid., p. 3.

^27. Ibid., p. 123.

^28. Ibid., p. 167.

^29. Ibid., p. 168.

^30. Alfred Bühler, 'Kulturkontakt und Kulturzerfall: Eindrücke einer Neuguineareise', Acta Tropica, vol. 14, no. 1, 1957, pp. 1–35, at 7. Regarding Bühler and Garni's journey, see also: René Gardi, Sepik, Land der sterbenden Geister: Bilddokumente aus Neuguinea. Einführender Text und Bildlegenden von Alfred Bühler, Scherz, Bern, 1958.

^31. Bühler, 'Kulturkontakt und Kulturzerfall', p. 20.

^32. Ibid., p. 13.

^33. Ibid., p. 12.

^34. Alfred Bühler, 'Die Sepik-Expedition 1959 des Museums für Völkerkunde zu Basel', Regio Basiliensis, vol. 2, 1961, pp. 77–97. On Bühler, see Karl Meuli, 'Alfred Bühler', in Carl A. Schmitz and Robert Wildhaber (eds), Festschrift Alfred Bühler, Pharos Verlag Hansrudolf Schwabe, Basle, 1965, pp. 17–26.

^35. Meinhard Schuster, 'Ethnologische Feldforschung in Papua New Guinea', Geographica Helvetica, vol. 34, no. 4, 1979, pp. 171–80, at 173. Felix Speiser, 'Eine Initiationszeremonie in Kambrambo am Sepik, Neuguinea', Ethnologischer Anzeiger, vol. 4, 1937, pp. 153–57.

^36. These expeditions took place in 1961 with Eike Haberland and in 1965–67 with Christian Kaufmann and Gisela Schuster. See Eike Haberland and Meinhard Schuster, Sepik: Kunst aus Neuguinea, Museum für Völkerkunde, Frankfurt, 1964; Meinhard Schuster, 'Vorläufiger Bericht über die Sepik-Expedition 1965–1967 des Museums für Völkerkunde zu Basel', Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Basel, vol. 78, 1967, pp. 268–81.

^37. Schuster, 'Ethnologische Feldforschung', p. 174. The responses to Naven, Bateson's chief study about the Iatmul are reviewed in Houseman and Severi, Naven or the Other Self, pp. 3–46.

^38. The most important publications in our context are: Hauser-Schäublin, Frauen in Kararau: Zur Rolle der Frau bei den Iatmul am Mittelsepik, Papua New Guinea, Wepf, Basle, 1977; Florence Weiss, Kinder schildern ihren Alltag: Die Stellung des Kindes im ökonomischen System einer Dorfgemeinschaft in Papua New Guinea (Palimbei, Iatmul, Mittelsepik), Wepf, Basle, 1981; Milan Stanek, Sozialordnung und Mythik in Palimbe:. Bausteine zur ganzheitlichen Beschreibung einer Dorfgemeinschaft der Iatmul, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, Wepf, Basle, 1983; Florence Weiss, Die dreisten Frauen. Eine Begegnung in Papua-Neuguinea, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a.M.,1996; Florence Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch: Eine ethnologische Erzählung, Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt a.M., 1999, reprinted with modified subtitle 2001. In English, see also Stanek, 'Social Structure of the Iatmul', and Florence Weiss, 'The Child's Role in the Economy of Palimbei', both in Lutkehaus, Sepik Heritage, pp. 266–73 and pp. 337–42, respectively. The other participating doctoral students were: Markus Schindlbeck, Jürg Schmid, and Jürg Wassmann. Their theses have been published as: Schindlbeck, Sago bei den Sawos; Wassmann, Der Gesang an den Fliegenden Hund; Jürg Schmid and Christin Kocher Schmid, Söhne des Krokodils: Männerhausrituale und Initiation in Yensan, Zentral-Iatmul, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, Wepf, Basle, 1992.

^39. Hauser-Schäublin, Frauen in Kararau, pp. 37–38.

^40. Hauser-Schäublin, Frauen in Kararau, pp. 28, 37–38, 131. See also Bateson, 'Social Structure of the Iatmül People', p. 286.

^41. 'Virtually all adult men now living in Palimbei have spent brief or extended periods at urban settlements or missionary posts. Some have worked there, while others merely visited or hoped to find a job there'. Weiss, Kinder schildern ihren Alltag, p. 44.

^42. Weiss, Kinder schildern ihren Alltag, p. 45; Florence Weiss, 'Abwanderung in die Städte: der widersprüchliche Umgang mit kolonialen Ausbeutungsstrategien: Die Iatmul in Papua Neuguinea', in: Micheline Centlivres-Demont (ed.), Un nouveau regard sur la ville, Contributions à l'ethnologie urbaine, Schweizerische Ethnologische Gesellschaft, Berne, 1982, pp. 149–66 at 165.

^43. Stanek, Sozialordnung und Mythik in Palimbei, p. 24.

^44. Weiss, 'Abwanderung in die Städte', 149–66, at 160.

^45. Ibid., 161.

^46. Ibid., 159.

^47. Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, p. 87.

^48. Weiss, 'Abwanderung in die Städte', p. 162.

^49. Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, p. 66.

^50. Florence Weiss, 'Frauen in der urbanethnologischen Forschung', in Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin (ed.), Ethnologische Frauenforschung: Ansätze, Methoden, Resultate, Reimer, Berlin, 1991, pp. 250–281, at 269.

^51. Ibid..

^52. Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington make the same observation about the Chambri in Wewak: 'As one Chambri told us: "It is custom here in town that whenever anyone is up, everyone comes around and asks him for credit; that is how everyone is made equal"'. Gewertz and Errington, Twisted Histories, Altered Contexts, p. 105.

^53. Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, pp. 100–01.

^54. Milan Stanek and Florence Weiss, '"Big Man" and "Big Woman" in the Village — Elite in the Town: The Iatmul, Papua New Guinea', in Verena Keck (ed.), Common Worlds and Single Lives: Constituting Knowledge in Pacific Societies, Berg, Oxford, 1998, pp. 309–27, at 321.

^55. Weiss, 'Frauen in der urbanethnologischen Forschung', p. 265. School attendance appears to have been an ongoing problem. 'Most Iatmul children offer resistance and refuse regular school attendance. The demands of school stand in direct contrast to the autonomy and individual initiative that is so important to the Iatmul. In traditional Iatmul society children get fully reprimanded but are hardly ever forced to do something. One waits until they begin something out of their own initiative.' Stanek and Weiss, '"Big Man" and "Big Woman"', p. 322.

^56. Weiss, 'Frauen in der urbanethnologischen Forschung', p. 266.

^57. Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, p. 364. I derive the term 'housewifization' from Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour, Zed Books, London, 1986.

^58. Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, pp. 321–22. The missionaries figure in the adaptation process; they teach the men, for example, to assume their responsibility as male breadwinners and to manage money in the cities. 'Money must be retained and spent appropriately, so that it is not squandered right away'. (Ibid., p. 296.) Parenting practices changed as a result. In the village, children were never beaten. 'The Iatmul believe that children should not be beaten, as such treatment will make them passive and submissive.' (Ibid., p. 305.) In the cities, however, the children were beaten.

^59. Weiss, 'Frauen in der urbanethnologischen Forschung', p. 267.

^60. Milan Stanek: 'Every Iatmul knows that living in the city is a step up. The ones who stay behind in the village are poor. They may have food and a large house but have not joined the new trend. The Iatmul who have migrated to the cities have, even if they live here in Kori, achieved upward social mobility. Nobody seriously wants to return to the village. The ones who do so anyway have failed here.' Quoted in Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, p. 117.

^61. Weiss, Kinder schildern ihren Alltag, pp. 45–46.

^62. Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, pp. 86, also p. 234.

^63. Ibid., p. 87.

^64. Weiss, 'Abwanderung in die Städte', p. 163.

^65. Weiss, Vor dem Vulkanausbruch, p. 139.

^66. G.W.L. Townsend, District Officer: From Untamed New Guinea to Lake Success, 1921–46, Pacific Publications, Sydney, 1968.

^67. On the early mission, see Paul Steffen, Missionsbeginn in Neuguinea: Die Anfänge der Rheinischen, Neuendettelsauer und Steyler Missionsarbeit in Neuguinea, Steyler Verlag, Nettetal, 1992, pp. 173265. Also: Divine Word Missionaries in Papua New Guinea, 1896–1996, [published anonymously], Steyler Verlag, Nettetal, 1996 = Verbum SVD, vol. 37, no. 1–2, 1996. Franz Kirschbaum (1882–1939) left a wealth of ethnographic material, most of which was lost during World War II (Steffen, Missionsbeginn, pp. 292–93). His diaries are at the Steyler Missionswissenschaftliches Institut, St. Augustin, Germany.

^68. I derive this term from Holger Jebens, 'Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists and the Impact of Tradition in Pairundu (Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea)', in Ton Otto and Ad Borsboom (eds), Cultural Dynamics of Religious Change in Oceania, KITLV Press, Leiden, 1997, pp. 33–43.

^69. Richard Curtain, 'Labour Migration from the Sepik', Oral History [Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies], vol. VI, no. 9, 1978, pp. 1–114.

^70. See eg: Richard Curtain, Dual Dependence and Sepik Labour Migration, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1980; George Curry and Gina Koczberski, 'The Risks and Uncertainties of Migration: An Exploration of Recent Trends amongst the Wosera Abelam of Papua New Guinea', Oceania, vol. 70, 1999, pp. 130–145.

^71. Florence Weiss published the ethno-psychoanalytic study Gespräche am sterbenden Fluss: Ethnopsychoanalyse bei den Iatmul in Papua-Neuguinea, Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 1984 together with Fritz and Marco Morgenthaler; also issued in French as Conversations au bord du fleuve mourant. Ethnopsychoanalyse chez les Iatmouls de Papouasie/Nouvelle-Guinée, Editions Zoé, Geneva, 1987. I do not consider myself competent to discuss this book. For a critique, see: Patrick F. Gesch, 'There Can Be Neither Black nor White. Relations between Missionaries and Sepik Villagers', Verbum SVD, vol. 37, no. 1–2, 1996, pp. 93–118. There are other ethnographers whose works I have not discussed here, as they are not sufficiently related to my argument. One is Margaret Mead's collaborator Rhoda Métraux, who spent 21 months in the Iatmul village of Tambunam between 1967 and 1973, and another is Eric Kline Silverman, who visited this village in 1988–90 and in 1994. See the special issue of the Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 1, 1978 edited by Rhoda Métraux; and see also Eric Kline Silverman, Masculinity, Motherhood, and Mockery: Psychoanalyzing Culture and the Iatmul Naven Rite in New Guinea, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2001.

^72. The field notes of Margaret Mead are at sites such as the Library of Congress, as are about 10,000 still photographs and 11,300 feet of motion picture film recorded by Gregory Bateson in 1938.

^73. '[We] study the colonial situation and its heritage, urbanization, the international political and economic links, and arrive inevitably at the world system as an object of study in its own right'. Stanek and Weiss, '"Big Man" and "Big Woman"', p. 313. Also see Donald Denoon's inspiring essay 'An Agenda for the Social History of Papua New Guinea', Canberra Anthropology, vol. 10, no. 2, 1987, pp. 51–64, for an attempt to interpret Papua New Guinea's general development.

^74. See <www.papuaweb.org/bib> (site updated 5 September 2005).

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Reading Ethnography as Labour History : the Example of the Iatmul, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea