Be jijimo : a history according to the tradition of the Binandere people of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This thesis is about the Binandere people who speak a dialect of the Binanderean language stock. It concentrates on their oral history before and after contact with Kiawa, the Europeans. The oral sources are supplemented with documentary materials, including linguistic and archeological studies. The introduction provides essential personal and scholarly background. The reader is given sufficient biographical information to be able to answer the question, how does he know? Problems arising from being both a member and a scholar of the Binandere are discussed and the difficulties of working in the European scholarly and at the same time returning something of benefit to the people being studied are raised. The introduction also sets the thesis within the context of the theoretical and particular work so far done in the writing of the history of the people of Papua New Guinea. Chapter One sets the village scene which is the centre of the Binandere world, it introduces the history of one clan; and describes briefly how the villagers perceive their immediate physical environment which is classified into concentric zones. The discussion characterises typical clan histories; it emphasises the importance of the social network based on the nuclear family and extended kin because obligations flow from relationships within that group. It points out that politics and trade are closely linked to somewhat subtle and risky relationship. Chapter Two discusses Binandere origins and the stages of their migrations and settlements over a considerable distance and time. It is argued that Wawanga, the area around the watershed of the Kumusi River, is probably the centre of dispersion. Then the Binandere moved in a southeast direction until they reached the river systems of the Bareji and the Musa. There, they emerged as an entity with their own identity as a people. Leaving the Musa they followed the rivers to the coast and migrated along the seaboard towards the north. They settled on the lower plains of the Kumusi before they occupied their present territory. Warfare emerged as one of the main causes of migration and settlement. The philosophy of payback provided the underlying ideology and the index of power relationships The various types of disputes ranging from village quarrels to clan conflicts and tribal warfare are discussed in Chapter Three. Chapter Four deals with the arrival of the Kiawa from 1894 onwards. During contact the Binandere attempted to retain the payback system through open warfare, but the Kiawa' s rifles and new social order effectively contained them. Pacification determined the traditional war ethic. The foreigners purported to eradicate warfare but in practice they carried out punitive expeditions to get revenge for their men killed by the Binandere, and both sides indulged in their own forms of payback. Chapter Five concentrates on the stresses and strains on the Binandere as Kiawa law and order was imposed on them. It explains the way in which the villagers tried to accommodate the innovations elicited, engendered, or even deliberately planned by the Kiawa. The last three chapters deal with the Binandere thought structures and art forms through which an outsider can get some access to the Binandere past. Chapter Six proposes a paradigm in which oral literature, particularly the legends, is transmitted. The changing of kinship terms as each generation moves in sequence through six stages is discussed. Knowledge of the generations, rather than the peer groups, is essential for the historian trying to unravel events in Binandere oral history. Chapter Seven identifies the types of traditions that are under pressure from the Kiawa order. Chapter Eight concentrates on ji tari, a particular art form, that contains the most reliable oral evidence covering about seven generations. This is because the techniques for registering events, the ways of transmitting them and the means to preserve the information are embedded in the tradition. The conclusion draws together the details of the previous chapters and presents a basic concern of the Binandere as they look back on their own history: the essential cycles of renewal have been broken. The young no longer grow in the image of the old. As the Binandere say, the proper order of events is for the new finger nail to grow strong under the protection of the old before the shield of the old nail drops away. But now the new develop separately and differently, and who knows the direction that people and events will take? By starting with the Binandere, isolating those factors that make them think of themselves as a distinct group of people, and examining some of their particular values and customs, the thesis has a basis for the way it brings a Binandere perspective to their history. In terms of method, the research has revealed that the people have a richness in their own art forms which are open to those with the patience and linguistic skills to use them.