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Chapter 4: History of Investigations

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 Chapter 4: History of Investigations
Author(s): John Edward Terrell
Source: Fieldiana Anthropology, Number 42:29-34. 2011.
Published By: Field Museum of Natural History
DOI: 10.3158/0071-4739-42.1.29
URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.3158/0071-4739-42.1.29

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Chapter 4: History of Investigations
John Edward Terrell
Regenstein Curator of Pacific Anthropology
Department of Anthropology
Field Museum of Natural History
Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496 USA

Abstract
The northern half of New Guinea was the scene of major scientific field investigations prior to World War I. However,
foreign interest in the Sepik region faded once the war in Europe had begun. Between the wars, Margaret Mead, Gregory
Bateson, and others did notable work in the area, but coastal villages were largely ignored by anthropologists and others
until the late 1980s. Even today, far too little has been documented about daily life and customs in villages on the Sepik
coast. On the other hand, the collections-based research begun at the Field Museum of Natural History in the late 1980s
together with several seasons of fieldwork at Aitape and elsewhere during the 1990s, as reported in this monograph, have
helped clarify some of the parameters of human settlement and prehistory on this coastline.

Introduction set deep in the mountainous interior of the island. With peace,
journalists and anthropologists alike were eager to discover
The Sepik River in northern Papua New Guinea flows more about these ‘‘last survivors of the Stone Age’’ who were
roughly west to east for about 1,130 km before it reaches the then in the throes of abandoning their old ways in favor of
Bismarck Sea. Artifacts from the Sepik began to reach foreign presumably more healthful and efficient modern tools, goods,
collectors and museums in some numbers by the 1870s. and services as the seemingly inevitable consequence of their
Germany gained political control of this part of New Guinea growing contact with the modern world.
in 1884 (Firth, 1982). During the 30 years of their rule before By the 1960s and 1970s, however, anthropologists finally
World War I, German scientific expeditions collected exten- began to trickle back to the Sepik, although by then it was
sively on the river and along the northern coastline of the hard for anyone who was not ‘‘working in the Highlands’’ to
island. During this same era, the Field Museum of Natural claim that they were witnessing ways and means untarnished
History sent one its first curators, Albert Buell Lewis (1867– by the modern outside world. One of the reasons scholars
1940), to the Pacific. Between 1909 and 1913, he visited New found themselves enticed back to the river was undoubtedly its
Guinea and neighboring islands with notebook and camera in enduring mystique among urban sophisticates in Europe and
hand while he was collecting examples of local art and craft for America as the source of quite desirable and collectible
his fledgling museum back home in Chicago (Lewis, 1932; ‘‘primitive art.’’
Welsch, 1998). Yet even now, unfortunately, far too little has been
Although this island was the scene of major scientific work documented about daily life and customs in villages on the
before World War I, foreign interest in the Sepik region faded Sepik coast. The river and the coast may go by the same name,
once the war in Europe had begun. But then after the war but they are separated from one another by mountains. True,
during the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power and World as Mead was one of the first to report, there are traditional
War II, none other than the famed anthropologist Margaret routes across the mountains between communities on both
Mead turned her attention from Samoa—where she had sides of this divide (Dobrin & Bashkow, 2006). But it was the
studied the lives of adolescent girls—to the Admiralty Islands art and customs of villagers in the river basin that attracted
and later northern New Guinea and the peoples of the Sepik scholars after the war. Coastal villages were largely ignored by
River. However, the world was soon at war again, and, as the foreign scholars for decades.
fates had it, northern New Guinea became a major battle zone
during the ensuing struggles. War correspondents reporting on
encounters there between Allied and Japanese forces made this
island for a short while a household name throughout the Investigations
world. But only for a short while.
When peace returned, anthropologists eventually came back The Field Museum holds the largest ethnographic collection
to New Guinea, but the peoples and cultures of the Sepik from Melanesia in the United States. About one-third of the
River were no longer in the spotlight. Before the war, ‘‘lost Field Museum’s holdings of approximately 38,000 objects
tribes’’ had been discovered living in the lofty highland valleys from this region of the Pacific were obtained during the Joseph

FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY N.S., NO. 42, MAY 20, 2011, PP. 29–34 29
N. Field South Pacific Expedition from 1909 to 1913 by Albert of Pamela Swadling began archaeological research along these
Lewis, who was at the time assistant curator of Melanesian rivers in the 1980s (Swadling et al., 1989, 1991; Swadling &
ethnology. He had been trained by Franz Boas and had Hope, 1992; Swadling, 1997). Their working premise was that
received his PhD in anthropology from Columbia University the ‘‘current cultural diversity of the Sepik suggests a complex
in 1906. Additionally, while in the field, Lewis took nearly past’’ (Swadling, 1990, p. 71). They took it for granted, in
2,000 photographs of village life (Welsch, 1998). Nearly 1,600 other words, that ‘‘language groups at present provide the best
of his original glass-plate negatives are still held in the means of examining the cultural diversity of the Sepik’’
Photographic Archive at the Museum. (Swadling, 1990, p. 79).
In the late 1980s, Robert L. Welsch, a social anthropologist, Today this river basin is filled with swamps and broad
and I initiated a research program at the Museum designed to floodplains. Prior to 6,000 BP, however, the earth’s sea levels
document and explore the social, economic, and ritual were well below their present highstand. In collaboration with
diversity of communities on the Sepik coast of New Guinea John Chappell from the Department of Biogeography and
Island using the Museum’s ethnographic collections as a Geomorphology at Australian National University, Swadling
primary source of information. Before describing this research and her colleagues have shown that around 6,000 years ago,
program, however, it is appropriate to review first what others much of the Sepik-Ramu basin became flooded by the last marine
had already accomplished in this same part of New Guinea transgression. Much of what had been a river basin became for
before we ourselves made our first trip to Aitape in 1990. millennia an inland sea (Swadling, 1997; Swadling et al., 2008).
Drilling logs kept during geological prospecting in the Sepik-
Ramu basin reveal a complex geomorphologic history of the
changing shorelines of this former sea. Swadling’s working
The ‘‘Aitape Skull’’ hypothesis was that ‘‘sediment studies around the edge of the
Sepik-Ramu basin should reveal, as they did at the Aitape skull-
In 1929 a human cranium was found west of Aitape along fragments site, the former presence of intertidal mudflats,
the Paniri Creek 12 km inland from Sissano Lagoon at the characterized by blue, sandy muds, carbonized wood, and
base of the Barida Hills (Fenner, 1941; Hossfeld, 1949). For marine and intertidal shellfish’’ (Swadling, 1990, p. 71).
years thereafter, this cranium (most of the frontal bone and Following this logic, Swadling and her colleague Nick Araho
portions of both parietals), popularly known as the ‘‘Aitape from the National Museum discovered a shell midden in 1986
skull,’’ was thought to be Pleistocene in age. Because of the resting directly on recrystallized Pleistocene reef limestone
individual’s apparent ruggedness, it was suspected that this under 3 m of river alluvium at Dongan, 17 km from the coast in
find might be proof that Homo erectus had successfully the lower Ramu basin (Swadling et al., 1989, 1991). The midden
crossed the Wallace Line east of Java. After World War II, was composed primarily of marine shells from mangrove and
however, this famous discovery was dated using radiocarbon mudflat habitats, as well as fish bone from a number of marine
to only ,5,000–6,000 years ago (Hossfeld, 1964, 1965). species, and plant remains of what are currently important New
Restudy of the remains confirmed that this individual was Guinea tree crops (including Canarium indicum [canarium
modern in character, not H. erectus. almonds] and Cocos sp. [coconut]).
These cranial remains were discovered in association with They also found remarkably well-preserved marine shells in
well-preserved mollusca, foraminifera, organic matter, and the bank of the Djom River, a tributary of the Ramu, 110 km
sediments, attesting to a former intertidal environment—a inland. The Djom shells may date to the interglacial high sea
scour deposit in a tidal mangrove swamp infilled with organic levels of 120,000 years ago; the Dongan midden dates to
matter and sediments from both land and sea. This former around 5,800 radiocarbon years ago (Swadling, 1997, pp. 2, 6).
swamp had been uplifted over the past 5,000–6,000 years to an When the world’s sea levels had risen again to within a
altitude of 52 m above sea level: an averaged tectonic uplift for meter or two of their present stand ,6,000–7,000 years ago,
this area of the Sepik coast of around ,10 m per 1,000 years the inland Sepik sea was brackish and shallow (,3 m in
(Swadling & Hide, 2005). depth). Its entrance at the coast was partially blocked by an
In view of evidence for considerable uplift confirming that island, now an area of low hills surrounded by swamp and
this is a tectonically highly active region and the co-occurrence coastal sediments. Where the great volume of freshwater
of a mixed fauna of marine and estuarine shells and plant discharged by the Sepik and Ramu rivers did not discourage
remains with human bone—associations similar to those in the their growth, there were mangrove stands and their associated
sediments formed in Sissano Lagoon by the 1998 tsunami— fauna, including edible shellfish. With the gradual sediment
the once famous ‘‘Aitape skull’’ may actually be from the infilling of the Sepik sea over time, the extent of these
earliest known tsunami victim found anywhere in the world. mangrove stands grew. By ,3,500 years ago, however, the sea
was no longer brackish, and the coastline was prograding
rapidly (Swadling, 1997, p. 5). Five midden sites located by
Swadling and her colleagues on the eastern side of the lower
Archaeological Investigations in the Sepik-Ramu Ramu River near Awar Lagoon have shown that people were
River Basin fishing and gathering shellfish throughout much of this time.
Obsidian flakes recovered from several of these middens attest
While the ‘‘Aitape skull’’ has disappeared from textbooks also to long-distance trade with the Bismarck Archipelago east
on human evolution, village communities in the drainage basin of New Guinea (Swadling & Hope, 1992, pp. 33–36).
of the Sepik and Ramu rivers in northern New Guinea are still During the existence of the Sepik sea and the smaller—but
famous for being some of the most linguistically diverse people still sizable—freshwater lake that temporarily replaced it
on earth. Staff from the Papua New Guinea (PNG) National (vestiges of which still exist, e.g., the Chambri Lakes),
Museum and Art Gallery in Port Moresby under the direction communities in the basin would have had more direct access

30 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY
to people (and their products) in what are now the remote and Art Gallery, and the Australian Commonwealth Scientific
Highlands of New Guinea (Swadling & Hope, 1992, p. 37). and Industrial Research Organization carried out further
Even when the inland sea was at its fullest extent around excavations at Lachitu cave, and they also excavated at a new
6,500–7,500 years ago, however, people living around its rock shelter site called Wathinglo west of Musu village. The
shores would have been cut off from easy contact with people work done at Wathinglo uncovered 3 m of shell midden
on the Sepik coast by the intervening northern mountain deposits that may stretch back into the late Pleistocene. These
ranges, just as modern communities in the Sepik-Ramu basin investigations are as yet unreported.
are today.
Nonetheless, in light of its vast size and the richness of its
flora and fauna (as attested by the middens excavated by
Swadling and her colleagues), it is likely that the Sepik sea Museum-Based Research
(and the large freshwater lagoons that temporarily replaced it)
must have played a major role in determining the character of We were not the first to use museum collections from New
prehistoric interactions within and beyond northern New Guinea Island to explore the patterning of cultural diversity
Guinea for much of the past 6,000 years, as Swadling (1997) on the Sepik coast.
has inferred. The infilling of the Sepik-Ramu basin, as she also
argues, must have caused dramatic changes in how people Coastal Prehistory According to Frank Tiesler
lived their lives and may partially account for the complex
patterns of migration and resettlement mentioned in local oral A number of years ago, the German museum ethnologist
traditions (e.g., Tuzin, 1976; Roscoe, 1989). Frank Tiesler (1969, 1970a, 1970b, 1975, 1984) suggested that
trade and diffusion across cultural boundaries had long ago
blended the disparate ethnic practices of resident Austronesian
and non-Austronesian communities on the northern shores of
Archaeological Investigations Near Vanimo, West New Guinea into a fairly uniform way of life no longer
Sepik Coast reflecting their formerly separate and divergent cultural pasts.
In coming to this conclusion, Tiesler accepted the view then
In 1988 and 1989, Paul Gorecki surveyed archaeological standard that this island has seen ‘‘specific waves of
sites on the Sepik coast between Leitre, Vanimo, and the settlement,’’ the earliest peopled by Papuan (non-Austrone-
Indonesian border. In June and July the following year, he sian) speakers, the most recent (before modern times) by
conducted small excavations at three of the rock shelters Austronesian speakers.
(Itamesori, Taora, and Lachitu) he had located in the Musu- Tiesler further surmised that the non-Austronesian coloniz-
Fichin locality 18 km west of Vanimo (Gorecki et al., 1991; ers of this coast probably all originally shared basically the
Gorecki, 1992). same cultural ways and inventory of things. Over time,
These excavations suggested that there was a human however, this initial uniformity of culture must have given way
presence on the coast ,35,000 years ago (Gosden, 1995, to diversity because (he assumed) they had only simple dug-
p. 810; Gorecki, pers. comm.) and established that the Lachitu out canoes, and their villages (he again assumed) were few and
shelter was being used at least by 17,350–16,150 years ago far between. Because of their inherent isolation from one
(13,940 6 160 BP [ANU-7603, shell, corrected]), while the another, in other words, Papuan-speaking villagers on this
Taora shelter was first used sometime around 7,500– coast prior to the arrival of Austronesian speakers eventually
6,500 years ago (5,860 6 90 BP [ANU-7606, charcoal] and developed into distinctly different local ‘‘cultural types.’’ As he
6,120 6 190 BP [ANU-7605, shell, corrected]). metaphorically expressed his understanding of what must have
Most of the Taora deposit excavated was shell midden happened, each of these local Papuan cultures became ‘‘a
containing over 20 species that had been gathered from reef, separate stone’’ in the broad cultural ‘‘mosaic of the Sepik
rocky and sandy shore, beach, mangrove, and freshwater region’’ (Tiesler, 1969, p. 121).
locations. That at Lachitu was a black organic-rich soil with But eventually Austronesian speakers arrived in the Pacific.
some shell from a similar range of resource zones. Gorecki They came (Tiesler surmised) with a technological innovation
(Gorecki et al., 1991, pp. 121) suspects that there was a long that radically altered the texture of life on the Sepik coast.
hiatus between the Pleistocene use of Lachitu and its reuse They were skilled at making and sailing outrigger voyaging
starting around 6,400 years ago (5,610 6 90 BP [ANU-7609, canoes. Their canoes made trade and travel along the coast
shell, corrected]). Faunal remains in both shelters were easier, and, as a consequence, cultural diversity there declined.
fragmented, but giant crabs, cuscus, lizards, snakes, fish, In its stead, a more uniform way of life came into being: a
bandicoots, rats, wallabies, and tree kangaroos are attested. ‘‘mixed culture’’ testifying to a single and fairly cohesive
While Gorecki was able to collect numerous surface finds of ‘‘northern coastal cultural region.’’ Wir können mit Recht
obsidian flakes during his 1988 and 1989 surveys, all sagen, daß die Kultur jeder einzelnen Gruppe dieses Beziehungs-
considered to be from sources in the Bismarck Archipelago gebietes zugleich Ausdruck der Leistung aller darin wohnenden
(Lou Island), he found little obsidian in stratigraphic contexts Gruppen ist (freely translated: ‘‘We can legitimately say that
during his 1990 excavations (Gorecki et al., 1991, p. 119; the culture of each group in this interconnected network of
Gorecki, pers. comm.). Most of the several thousand stone relationships reflects the achievements of all the groups living
artifacts recovered were made from fine-grained chert thought within the region’’; Tiesler, 1969, p. 114).
to have been obtained from local limestone exposures In summary, Frank Tiesler more or less took it for granted
(Gorecki et al., 1991, pp. 120, 121). that culture (and its manifestation as ‘‘material culture’’) had
In 2004 and 2005, Sue O’Connor and colleagues from once been as diverse on the Sepik coast as language there still
Australian National University, the PNG National Museum is today.

TERRELL: HISTORY OF INVESTIGATIONS 31

New Guinea Collections at the Field Museum All the coastal region from Sissano to the neighborhood of
Dallmannhafen [modern Wewak] must be regarded as of one
The Lewis Collection at the Museum is the largest (over general material culture with many minor variations from
14,000 objects) and best-documented ethnographic collection district to district, and even from village to village. In fact, the
ever assembled in the southwestern Pacific by a single field differences frequently seem to be greater than the resem-
researcher. It also has better archival and photographic blances. The islanders are the chief traders and travelers, so
documentation than most museum collections made in the islands show the most generalized culture. Many of the
Oceania before World War I (Welsch, 1998). Other important coast villages are very ‘‘local.’’ (Welsch, 1998, p. 98)
ethnographic collections from New Guinea now at the
museum were assembled by Curator George A. Dorsey in Prior to our first field trip to this coast in 1990, we were
1908, by the plantation manager and field ethnologist Richard already building a new integrated database on the collections
Parkinson between 1900 and 1908, and by Captain H. Voogdt, at the museum from the Sepik coast (National Science
an employee of the Neu-Guinea Companie, in 1906–1908. In Foundation Research grant BNS-8819618, ‘‘Trade Networks,
addition to these collections, the Museum also purchased a Areal Integration, and Diversity along the North Coast of
New Guinea collection in 1912 from J. F. G. Umlauff, a curio New Guinea: A Regional Analysis of the A. B. Lewis
dealer in Hamburg, a large part of which had been collected by Collection at Field Museum of Natural History’’). We were
Captain Voogdt between 1906 and 1911 (Welsch, 2000). (1) assembling all available catalog, archival, and other
documentary information on each object under study; (2)
checking Lewis’s original catalog records for accuracy and, if
A. B. Lewis Collection needed (and when possible), updating the information given
using unpublished and published documents; (3) taking
Albert Lewis spent more time on the north coast of New standardized photographs of each object in the collection;
Guinea than in any other part of Melanesia. He visited and (4) verifying and, if need be, refining object descriptions.
Humboldt Bay twice (1909 and 1912), spent nearly four
months on the Aitape coast in 1909, visited the area between Results of This Initial Museum-Based Work
Wewak and Madang for nearly five months in the following
year, and returned to Madang (then Friedrich Wilhelmshafen) We found a lot of useful information on exchange between
in 1911 to ship much of his collection back to Chicago. places on the Sepik coast in Lewis’s field notes and diaries.
Existing records on the Lewis Collection held at the Field Our new inventory of his collection also made it clear that
Museum give basic information on materials used in an many of the items he had obtained there had already been
object’s manufacture, its dimensions, place of manufacture, exchanged locally either as raw materials or as finished
and place collected as well as Lewis’s own general comments products before he purchased them. In short, a substantial
on form, style, and ornamentation. part of his collection consists of objects made in one place on
The Lewis Collection was put together at a time when it was the coast but collected by Lewis elsewhere there. Because of
still routine for anthropologists to catalog similarities and the size of his collection, we were able to compile fairly
differences in material culture methodically to define cultural detailed inventories of the sorts of objects used in and
relationships between local groups, tribes, and ‘‘primitive exchanged between separate (and often linguistically distinct)
peoples.’’ Taken together with other early information (e.g., Sepik communities (Welsch & Terrell, 1998).
Erdweg, 1902; Schlaginhaufen, 1910; Neuhauss, 1911; Frie- Thus, even before we went to this coast for the first time in
derici, 1912; Parkinson, 1979), this collection and its 1990, we knew that communities there—despite their linguistic
documentation (Welsch, 1998) serve as a cultural inventory fragmentation—share much in common (Welsch & Terrell,
benchmarking the diversity of local communities on the Sepik 1991, 1998; Welsch et al., 1992; Terrell & Welsch, 1997). Some
coast at the turn of the 20th century. have questioned the significance of this observation (Chapter
A. B. Lewis was impressed while he was living on the coast 2), but it is indisputable that museum collections at the
in 1909 and again in 1910 by the variety, amount, and Museum and in Europe confirm what Richard Parkinson
geographic range of the exchange of foodstuffs (notably, sago (1979), A. B. Lewis, and others in the late 19th and early 20th
and fish), raw materials, and handicrafts taking place among centuries had reported. People on this coast (1) have a broadly
coastal, island, and interior communities speaking the many similar material culture tool kit, (2) share other cultural
different Austronesian and Papuan languages on this coast. practices and institutions, and (3) have unifying economic and
Prior to Lewis’s journey to New Guinea, the famed sociopolitical arrangements while also having a few local
ethnologist Richard Parkinson—building on preliminary specializations, too—notably in the production of certain
observations by Otto Finsch—had already defined the handicrafts and other economically important items. As
‘‘Berlinhafen Section’’ (i.e., the Aitape region) of the Sepik reported in Chapter 2, it is now clearer than it was at the
coast as a locality where communities all share fundamentally beginning of our investigations that variation in what Lewis
similar material culture traits as well as many similar customs, and others collected at different places along this coast is to
ritual practices, and the like (Parkinson, 1979), a theme that some extent correlated with geography—specifically with the
others have also voiced more recently (Tiesler, 1969, 1970a; patterning of interactions among communities regardless of
Woichom, 1979; Barlow, 1985; Lipset, 1985; Lutkehaus, 1985; their linguistic differences.
Barlow et al., 1986). Lewis was able to confirm Parkinson’s
assessment, and he found that this commonality of material 1990 Reconnaissance
and social culture—this community of culture—was achieved
by complex exchange relationships between villagers on the Our investigations on prehistory and human diversity of the
coast. As he wrote back to his colleagues in Chicago: Sepik coast have combined museum-based work with new

32 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY
field research. Robert Welsch and I first visited Aitape in DBS-9120301, ‘‘Exchange Networks on the North Coast of
April–May 1990 with funding from Walgreen Foundation to New Guinea’’), Welsch and I carried out archaeological
learn whether fieldwork there would be both possible and surveys in the area between the Serra (Serai) Hills west of
worthwhile. Richard Parkinson (1979, p. 18) had reported Aitape and the town of Wewak east of Aitape (see Chapter 5)
with considerable pessimism that traditional crafts were while also documenting the enduring social and economic
rapidly disappearing even in the 1890s. Similar pessimism networks of people in different communities on the coast.
about the persistence of older customs and practices on this
coast had been raised by some of our own colleagues prior to 1996 Archaeological Excavations
our departure.
Once there, however, we soon found that many of the In 1996, with funding from the National Science Founda-
details of village life recorded by Lewis and others before tion (grant SBR-9506142, ‘‘The Archaeology of Exchange
World War I held true today (Welsch & Terrell, 1991). The Networks’’), we returned to carry out limited test excavations
social and economic ties joining people near and far together at Aitape and on Tumleo Island just off the Aitape coast
into a shared community of culture had survived two world (Chapter 6). At this time, preliminary subsurface coring at
wars, missionization, the introduction of money, modern Aitape located a blue-gray clay stratum (probable lagoonal
roads, a cash economy, and, more recently, national swamp clay; Chapter 3) at depths of about 3 m both at Aitape
independence. Moreover, traditional craft production contin- and at the base of the foothills inland. Woody material
ued to be an active part of life in every community. extracted from this layer has been dated by AMS assay to
Surprisingly, aluminum pots and pans—as a case in point— ,6,000–5,750 years ago (Beta-105207, 5,190 6 40 BP).
had not eliminated the local demand for clay pots, although
modern cookware did seem to have reduced the call for locally
made pots and had made some types of pots less necessary for
cooking vegetables and frying sago. Even so, earthenware pots Conclusion
for storing and turning sago starch into pudding were still in
high demand, and such pots could be found in every hamlet. The chapters in this monograph report in detail on our
This does not mean that nothing at all had happened archaeological investigations on the Sepik coast and our
between the start of the 20th century and our arrival in 1990. laboratory analyses of the evidence recovered through survey
Craft production and exchange relationships had changed work and excavation there. Additionally, Chapters 2, 8, and 9
since Parkinson’s and Lewis’s time (Welsch & Terrell, 1991, describe our complementary research on the Museum’s
1998). Shell rings, ornaments, string bags, and soft Murik ethnographic collections of material culture from historic
baskets, for example, no longer played a notable role in and modern communities on this coastline.
exchanges between people in different communities. But the
direct exchange of sago, smoked fish, tobacco, betel nuts, clay
pots, and other items remained an important component of
the local economic networks mediating social relationships Literature Cited
between these linguistically diverse communities. Moreover,
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local knowledge in every village and hamlet we visited (Welsch ogy, 7: 95–122.
& Terrell, 1991). We also learned everywhere that these BARLOW, K., L. BOLTON, AND D. LIPSET. 1986. Trade and Society in
relationships with other communities continued to be vital to Transition along the Sepik Coast. Report on Anthropological
an individual’s sense of identity and understandings of the Research in the East Sepik and Sundaun Province, P.N.G. July–
past. August 1986, Sepik Documentation Project. Australian Museum,
Sydney.
In summary, we learned in 1990 that the local economy in
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the Aitape area is a complex set of relationships having Fortune’s empathetic ethnography of the Arapesh roads, pp. 123–
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