The politics of exchange : a study of ceremonial exchange amongst the Chimbu
Date
1967
Authors
Criper, Clive
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The Chimbu were, in 1961, a comparatively well known
New Guinea Highland group. In the "broadest sense of the
words, they fitted in to the Highland pattern of acephalous,
patrilineal, sedentary, sweet-potato cultivating societies.
At that stage Dr. Paula Brown, as an anthropologist,
and Dr. H.C. Brookfield, as a geographer, had carried out
joint fieldwakk in the Chimhu area, concentrating mainly on
the agricultural and political systems. As a result of
their work, the overall pattern of settlement and distribution
of groups throughout the Chimhu-speaking area was known.
Information regarding the language was a good deal less
reliable than the up-to-date information on social
organisation and agriculture provided by Brown and Brookfield.
Various Roman Catholic and Lutheran missionaries had compiled
grammars, dictionaries and word lists of varying degrees of
reliability. None were comprehensive and all suffered from
a lack of a standardized orthography. They were, however,
invaluable as an entry into the language. My interests lying jointly in the fields of anthropology
and linguistics, it seemed sensible to choose an area of
fieldwork on which, there was already a basic information
about both the language and the social organisation. Chimbu
was such an area.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Collections
Source
Type
Thesis (PhD)
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
License Rights
Restricted until
Downloads
File
Description