Abelam land and sustenance : swidden horticulture in an area of high population density, Maprik, New Guinea

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is threefold: to make a regional study of the area occupied by the Abelam people; to enquire into the reaction to stresses derived from land shortage and external influences among a population of swidden cultivators; to seek to bring some measurement and exactitude into the study of production and consumption of food in a primitive society. The first and larger part of the thesis is a discussion and analysis of the various systems involved in the production and collection of food. Chapter 2 describes the physical setting; Chapter 3 gives some historical background and discusses some aspects of culture contacts, health and demography; Chapter 4 describes aspects of the social and territorial organization of the people that are relevant to the topic while an extra chapter (Chapter 5) is given to land tenure because of its importance to this thesis. Chapter 6 is the longest chapter in the thesis and describes the way in which land is used, the techniques employed and the ways in which man organizes himself to perform productive tasks. Chapter 7 discusses diet and the distribution and consumption of food and it is an attempt to integrate and provide a raison d'etre for the previous chapters. The second part of the thesis which is only one chapter (Chapter 8) attempts to synthesise the material of the first section, and, by comparative methods investigate the problems of the Wosera region where stresses are most marked. The general theme throughout the thesis is that production and land use, the usual interests of a geographer, cannot be studied in isolation from the way that society is organized and the way that the food produced is ultimately distributed and consumed. Further much use has been made of quantitative data which were collected in the field. Although much of the material is of a doubtful order of accuracy, it is felt that it was very useful in the comparative work and that it gave solid support to subjective judgements.