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The Western Highlands of West Papua extend from the Grand Valley of the Baliem to the western tip of the Central Highlands (see map). The area coincides with the "Western Sphere" of the Highlands as identified by Hyndman and Morren (1990). They define a sphere as "a potentially expansive, segmentary, reticulated mosaic of local groups that, notwithstanding observable ethnolinguistic diversity, share a common tradition and are strongly influenced by one or more core populations at the historic-geographic centre of their region" (Hyndman and Morren 1990:10). Hyndman and Morren (1990:13) distinguish three such spheres in the Central Highlands: Eastern, Central, and Western. The Eastern Sphere centers on "a chain of eight valleys from Arona-Aiyura to Tari-Koroba"; the Central on "the Sepik Source Basin and the Sibil valley"; and the Western centers "on the Baliem valley and the Paniai Lakes."
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A number of ethnic groups, well represented in ethnographic studies, reside in the Western Highlands of West Papua. Best known are the Grand Valley Dani, the Western Dani, and the Me. The Grand Valley is located in the lower reaches of the Baliem River where it flows southeast through a wide valley with a relatively flat floor before it leaves the Highlands via the Baliem Gorge (see map). The habitat of the Grand Valley Dani is formed by the floor, the slopes of the valley, and its tributary valleys. The habitat of the Western Dani centers on the valleys of the North Baliem, the Boko, north of the Grand Valley, the Toli, the Yamo, and the Ila rivers. They occupy the entire middle section of the Western Highlands north and west of the Grand Valley. In the recent past they pushed further west. As a result, the valleys of the Ila, the upper Kema, the Nogolo, and the Dora have an ethnically mixed population of Western Dani, Damal, Moni, and some smaller groups. The habitat of the Me runs from the middle reaches of the Kema to the westernmost tip of the Highlands. Most Me live around the Paniai, Tigi, and Tage lakes, and in the valley of the Edege River and its tributaries. The Grand Valley Dani, the Western Dani, and the Me are by far the largest Highlands groups, and are the focus of this article.
THE ETHNOGRAPHIC RECORD
The establishment of colonial rule in the West Papua Highlands started in the late 1930s in the Paniai Lakes area. The extension of colonial control was interrupted by World War II. Missionaries and administrative officers settled in the Dani areas in the 1950s, in 1954 in the Grand Valley, and in 1956 among the Western Dani (Hayward 1980:124), and missionaries of various denominations have remained active. In 1963, the Indonesian government took over the administration of the area, and when highlanders appeared to resist it, they were dealt, to all appearances, extremely harsh measures (Defert 1996:ch. 12; Meiselas 2003:142-44). Ethnographic coverage of this incorporation is understandably slight. The Me have been studied by Pospisil (1958, 1963, 1978, 1989), who referred to the people as the Kapauku, more recently by Hylkema, a Franciscan missionary and self-taught ethnographer, and by Giay (1995), himself a Me. Giay is one of the proponents of the name Me rather than Kapauku or Ekagi (Ekari), names still in use. At his death in 1998, Hylkema left behind many monographs and writings in draft, based on his association with the Me that lasted from 1969 to 1994. I am editing and introducing two incomplete manuscripts that he worked on shortly before his death (Hylkema n.d.a and n.d.b). In addition, there is ethnographic material about the Me by the administrative officers de Bruijn and Dubbeldam, the botanist Eyma, and the medical officers van der Hoeven and Boelen.
Publications on the Western Dani have been made by the missionaries Larson, on Ilaga Dani, and Hayward, who worked in the Mulia area; by Wirz and O'Brien, who worked in the Toli Valley, and by myself on the Wanggulam, in Bokondini. Based on the extensive notes on the North Baliem Western Dani written by the missionary-linguists Norman and Sheila Draper, Szalay (1999) has written a comparative thesis on West Papua Highlands ethnography. Finally, Pierre and Anne-Marie Petrequin have researched production, use, and significance of stone artifacts in the Highlands. Their work includes discussion of stone wealth items. Long-term field research among the Grand Valley Dani has been carried out by Heider, Broekhuyse, the missionary/anthropologist Peters, and recently, by Butt and Hampton. Heider (1970:300-01) worked in the northeast of the valley, Broekhuyse in the same area and in the southeast, while Peters (1967:18-20) collected most of his data in an eastern side valley of the Baliem. Hampton's (1999:xviii-xxii) report refers to the area where Heider worked. Butt (1998:51-52) worked west of the Baliem. To what extent these ethnographies represent the way of life of all, or most, Grand Valley Dani over the last 40 years is not clear.
Most of the research by anthropologists was carried out in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the Dutch administered West Papua. An exception is Wirz, who worked in the Toli Valley in 1921. Consequently, most of this work refers to an era shortly before or shortly after the imposition of colonial control; it reflects theoretical concerns that have since become less urgent and was often done with imperfect knowledge of the vernacular languages. The shortage of recent research prevents understanding about present-day usage and how the use of wealth items changed between colonial and postcolonial times. In several instances, people have stopped using the artifacts discussed here.
Ethnographic information about the Papua New Guinea Highlands is many times greater than that for the Highlands of West Papua. Moreover, it is theoretically far more sophisticated. However, this discrepancy allows me to use theoretical models and concepts generated to analyze Papua New Guinea Highlands ways of life for the subject of the present essay: comparing how the Me, the Western Dani, and the Grand Valley Dani used their wealth items. Specifically, this essay uses Godelier's (1982, 1991) model of the transformation of Great Man to Big Man societies as a general guide. Godelier's transformation model, elaborated by Lemonnier (1990), posits differential processes of sociocultural change leading toward the late precolonial Great Man and Big Man "social logics." The discussion of this model by, among others, Lederman (1991) and Wiessner and Tumu (1998) has pointed to a greater variety of pathways of change than Godelier at first envisioned. The data from the Western Highlands of West Papua presented in this article add to this variety. But the data that enable constructing models of sociocultural change in the Papua New Guinea Highlands are largely absent for West Papua.
The term "wealth items" refers to movable objects, accorded great value and used as means of payment, as gifts, as ritual objects, and as markers of identity. I turn first to the Me, then the Western Dani, and third to the Grand Valley Dani, using this order because the Grand Valley Dani are the most distinctive in their use of wealth items, compared to other Highlands groups, both in West Papua and in Papua New Guinea.
ME
The Me had a persistent mistrust of and opposition to foreigners (ogai), whether Dutch or Indonesian, government people or missionaries. While Me interacted with them, they maintained their own world. During Dutch rule, there were three uprisings; in the last, in 1956, the colonial administration deployed its marines (van Baal 1989:532-34; Giay 1995:47-51). Proselytizing met with little success until local trainees started to spread the gospel (Giay 1995:31). A Me catechist set up an alternative church, based on reinterpreted Christian doctrine, that attracted a large following (Giay 1995).
Pospisil worked among the Me in the Kamu area, the valleys of the upper Edege and its tributaries, west of the three Paniai lakes, first in 1954-55, before a patrol post had been established there (Pospisil 1958:4, 65). Hylkema (2002) claims that the Me should be divided into three cultural groups: the people around the Paniai and Tage lakes, those near Lake Tigi and in the Kamu area, and those living further west and northwest at the fringes of the Highlands. Hylkema calls these people the Mapia Me, and believes that in the late precolonial era they were gradually becoming ethnically different from the Me further east. Hence, Pospisil's data pertain to the Kamu-Tigi Me, less to the Paniai-Tage Me, and probably much less to the Mapia Me. Hylkema's data on wealth items deal primarily with the Paniai-Tage and the Kamu-Tigi Me.
Wealth Items
The primary wealth items among Paniai-Tage and Kamu-Tigi Me were cowrie and nassa shells and pigs (Pospisil 1963:301, 1978:18; Hylkema n.d.a). Shells had to be included in bridewealth (Pospisil 1963:204, 212; Hylkema n.d.b: ch 2), but the two authors differ about the inclusion of pigs. Pospisil (1963:212) says that "at least" one pig must be included; but Hylkema has collected only a few cases that included pigs. These cases concerned the Kamu-Tigi area, which for Hylkema are culturally separate, so the discrepancy is likely the result of cultural divergence. Cowries drew the greatest attention. They came by trade from the coast, which limited their availability. While Pospisil (1963:308) located their origin on the south coast, according to Hylkema (n.d.a), they reached the Me from the north. (2) Moreover, following Dubbeldam (1964:299), Hylkema (n.d.a) opines that the cowry supply increased sharply in the recent past due to the intensification of bird-of-paradise hunting in the area north of the Me habitat. While he offers regrettably little evidence for this view, it seems plausible, given the settlement of Dutch in the Cenderawasih Bay area since 1856 and the resulting increase in trade (Rutherford 2003:183-88; see also Ellen 2003:134-47).
Hughes (1977), who conducted field research in the central parts of what became Papua New Guinea, investigating the indigenous trade that had...
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