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...established during the German period and consolidated its dominant role in 1920. During the first decade of the twentieth century, a Wesleyan Mission was also set up but gained converts in only three or four of the twenty villages. The missions during this period did not cooperate and brought with them the sectarian views that then characterized Catholic and Protestant relations in Europe and Australia.
Lihirians distinguish clan and lineage affiliation and descent is reckoned matrilineally. The land tenure system is claimed to be matrilineal although the complexity of land inheritance patterns suggests that it may always have had a strong cognatic bias. The 'rule' is that women move to the husband's village on marriage, however many women marry within their own village and some men move to the wife's village. It is very difficult to reconstruct the precolonial system with any certainty as no published anthropological studies preceded the discovery of gold. Certainly, all available evidence suggests that women did not participate in exchanges in their own right. The ritual and political centre of each village was the men's house. Women from the clan were permitted to enter but only to bring food to the assembled men and boys who are there each day. There is no evidence that in the past women had any more control over land or ritual events than they do today. Old women report that women's lives were more circumscribed and male authority less contested than it is now when young women are able to earn money and gain a measure of economic independence.
The discovery of gold in the Lihir Islands in the early 1980s led to proposals for a massive mining development. (1) In 1986 and 1989, Colin Filer and Richard Jackson (1988, 1989) prepared detailed social impact analyses of the projected operations which were commenced in 1996 by Lihir Gold, a multinational company with Rio Tinto as one of the three major shareholders. The Lihir development is now reportedly 'one of the world's premier gold mines' (Lihir Gold Limited 2001). My own work in Lihir began in 1994 when I undertook a study of the social impact and risk assessment of the project for the Export Finance and Investment Corporation, an Australian Government enterprise, having previously worked on a similar, smaller development in Misima Island, Milne Bay Province (Gerritsen and Macintyre 1986, 1991). Since that time, I have worked in Lihir for about three or four months each year, preparing annual social impact studies (e.g., Macintyre n.d.b; Macintyre and Foale n.d.).
In the Lihir Islands, the discovery of gold was viewed by many local people as the fulfilment of prophecies made in the context of a cargo cult which had attracted numerous adherents during the previous decade. The desire for changes and the recognition that they would come as part of economic development had been central to the Nimamar Association, the local variant of the Johnson cult in New Hanover which identified the United States of America as the source of all economic advancement (Filer and Jackson 1988: 107-16; Miskaram 1985). Nimamar established plantations and copra cooperatives as well as engaging in ritual meetings aimed at uniting people in common endeavours that would enable them to develop their resources and generate wealth. Many believed that by demonstrating their capacities to develop the island they would please departed ancestors or attract American politicians who would then return to assist in the modernization of Lihir. Adherents envisaged the transformation of Lihir into a city with roads, electricity, houses similar to those in large towns in Papua New Guinea, running water, and trade stores full of goods. People would have money either from their own productivity or given by bountiful ancestors. While some regarded the ancestral return as crucial to the enterprise others were sceptical, believing that the changes would be brought about by new forms of economic activity and association.
Women were not leaders in this movement although many were committed to its goals and joined in the cooperative projects and rituals. Nimamar was a well-organized, highly disciplined organization and it apparently managed to forge links between groups in ways that were novel. While the Catholic and United Churches opposed it, the majority of members remained practising Christians and the women's groups of both denominations Catholic Mothers and United Church Women's Fellowship--continued as the major women's organizations through the decade when Nimamar flourished. As years went by with no influx of wealth, the activities of the cult became less attractive. By the time gold was discovered, Nimamar was almost dormant and in many respects island politics and economic activity appeared to have reverted to their earlier, more fragmented, village-based forms of organization. The dynamism of Nimamar as a force for constructing new, more unified, cooperative village-based endeavours was evident in the ways that village groups worked on plantations, held meetings, and planned their future. On the basis of oral testimonies, it seems that men held all major positions and that women generally worked on projects that were designed and managed by men.
WOMEN'S WORK AND MEN'S WORK
Women in Lihir do most of the day-to-day gardening work. Like most Papua New Guinean women in rural areas, they work very hard and for long hours (see Avalos 1994:17-20; Macintyre n.d). Villages are constructed around the clan men's house where men and boys eat late every afternoon, served the choicest food that women have prepared in their houses. The separation of daily activities by gender is presented as fixed but, like most 'rules', allows for variation and flexibility. Women of the clan are permitted entry to the men's house and its enclosure (although I have never seen one eat there), many men work in gardens, and both men and women fish and feed pigs. Before the mining project, some men produced copra from plantations on clan land. The low prices for copra meant that this activity had declined significantly in the years preceding the discovery of gold.
The institution of the men's house appears in many respects to have ensured that political debates and decision-making, public speech-making, and formal ritual events excluded women as participants. Although women dance and take part in customary feasts, their roles are relatively muted and they do not take on leadership. In terms of both the traditions of village life and the encounter with modernity provided by the Nimamar cult, Lihirian women had few experiences of inter-clan association, apart from their church organizations, before the mining project began.
WOMEN, POLITICS, AND RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Having previously worked in Milne Bay Province, in Misima and Tubetube, where descent,...
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