Leadership and social structure among the Kyaka people of the Western Highlands District of New Guinea

Abstract

This thesis discusses leadership among the Kyaka, a New Guinea Highland people who have been under European Administration since about 1947. It does this by examining the role of the numi, or Big Man, in the main fields of social activity and in relation to the formally recognised social groups and relationships, which are conceived mainly in terms of kinship and descent. In particular, it attempts to relate the patterm of achieved leadership to the loose or irregular nature of the segmentary patrilineal descent groups which diverge from the standard lineage model in the incompleteness of their genealogical frames.