#Trobriand Islands

[tenth-sentence]

Consequently, by 1918 he understood Trobriand culture from the inside out.

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[ashotasfireandasdeepastheocean1]

The small but stretched eyes of this noble-bearing young girl, her slightly protruding nose, her fleshy lips without being thick satisfy the standards of beauty current in the Trobriands. From "The lords of the South Seas: the ancestral and paradisiacal life of the inhabitants of the Trobriand islands" by Jacques and Paule Villeminot, 1967.

.

Les yeux petits mais étirés de cette jeune fille au noble maintien, son nez peu saillant, ses lèvres charnues sans être épaisses satisfont les critères de beauté ayant cours aux Trobriand.

From “Les seigneurs des mers du Sud: la vie ancestrale et paradisiaque des habitants des îles Trobriand” by Jacques et Paule Villeminot, 1967. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpvc8NHtAd_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[remembertheplunge]

No words for "when" "want" or "worry"

June 10, 2007.  5:22pm Sunday

The TV news show “60 minutes” had a segment on the language of the people of the Trobriand Islands. The Trobiand Islanders have no word in their language for “when”“want” or “worry”.

 If asked "How old are you?" They don’t know.

There is no word for “Hello”

No word for “good bye”.

They do have words for give and take. But, no word for “want”.

They have no need for things. They are nomadic.

Just before the Trobriand Islander story, there was a story about a really rich guy who was mean to his employees. He yelled at them. Every word was “want”, “when”, “worry”. Age on his forehead. Full of hellos and good byes.

My partner Jim got a check for $98,000 plus as his share of his parent’s estate. . Jim is angry. Feels nothing. 

One of Jim’s two brothers got $50,000 more than Jim. Jim now has no reason to contact his brothers. I agree. They were horrible through this division of the estate process. A lot of money went to lawyers. Odd. Outside of memory and emotion, there is no connection between them anymore. No hello. No good bye. No want. No worry. No when.

End of this part of the entry

Jim was my partner of 12 years. He and his brothers got into a legal battle over their parent’s estate after their mother died in 2005.

Later, a similar situation happened in my family. My sister Zoe and I were disinherited by our mother in 2011. We learned about it after her death in 2012. Our younger brother and his wife and her son and his wife inherited everything. My brother and I have never spoken again. We never  will speak. No good bye. No hello. 

Jim and his family were good teachers. They showed me this can happen. This is sometimes part of the family experience. 

“This is what white people do to each other”. This is a line from the 2019 movie “The Last Black Man in San Fransisco”. A young black man desperately wants to own a victorian house in San Fransisco's Filmore district. An elderly couple lives there now, but, are forced to leave because of an inheritance battle.The young black man says to his friend “This is what white people do to each other”.That one line, more than any other, has helped my through the desolate landscape of being disinherited.

[whereishermes]

Women's Power in Art and Rituals: A Closer Look at Pacific Cultures

[haggishlyhagging]

“There are reports that, even when the facts about conception and birth were made known to primitive peoples, they refused to accept them as true. Some were inclined to view the information as a defect in the intelligence of the white man. Malinowski relates how the Trobrianders went to great pains to explain to him that sexual intercourse had nothing to do with the birth of a child.

Their attitude to their own children also bears witness to their ignorance of any causal relation between congress and the ensuing pregnancy. A man whose wife has conceived during his absence will cheerfully accept the fact and the child, and he will see no reason at all for suspecting her of adultery. One of my informants told me that after over a year's absence he returned to find a newly born child at home. He volunteered this statement as an illustration and final proof of the truth that sexual intercourse has nothing to do with conception. . . .

My friend Layseta, a great sailor and magician of Sinaketa, spent a long time in his later youth in the Amphlett Islands. On his return he found two children, borne by his wife during his absence. He is very fond of them and of his wife; and when I discussed the matter with others, suggesting that one at least of these children could not be his, my interlocutors did not understand what I meant. (Sexual Life of Savages, pp. 193-94)

Frazer points out that the biological facts of life we take for granted could not have been known to primitive peoples. While the part played by the mother in the birth process is obvious, he wrote, how could people in the prescientific era "perceive that the child which comes forth from the womb is the fruit of the seed which was sowed there nine months before?" (Totemism and Exogamy, vol. IV, pp. 61-62).

Margaret Mead makes the even more important point that to the primitive mind children were not the fruit of a momentary act of sexual congress but of years of patient nurture and care:

The Arapesh have no idea that after the initial act which establishes physiological paternity, the father can go away and return nine months later to find his wife safely delivered of a child. Such a form of parenthood they would consider impossible, and furthermore, repellent. For the child is not the product of a moment's passion, but is made by both father and mother, carefully, over time. (Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, p. 31)

Mead here puts a finger on the most essential characteristic that made the husband the father of a woman's child, namely, that he now had the right to assist his wife in the care and protection of her child. From this standpoint, a new "male mother" makes his appearance in history—the "husband-mother"—as against the former male mother, the mother's brother. Thus fatherhood as a social institution did not begin on the basis of sexual intercourse between a man and woman but as a set of maternal functions performed by the man for his wife's child.”

-Evelyn Reed, Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family

[fitsofgloom]

"I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for 'why' or 'because.' Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men, unmanning them in the way that King Kong was reduced to mere simian whimper by beauteous Fay Wray whom I resemble left three-quarter profile if the key light is no more than five feet high during the close shot."

[transgenderer]

The norito or ritual prayers in this Oharae ceremony refer to the land of the dead as Ne no Kuni, a land beyond the sea. The ancient Japanese image of the land of the dead, however, combined two concepts of separate origin. The concept of Ne no Kuni was probably derived from south Asian beliefs that the netherland lay across the sea. The name, which means "root country," suggests that Ne no Kuni was also seen as the original overseas homeland of the Japanese people. Ne no Kuni eventually came to be identified with Yomi no Kuni, the land of the dead beneath the earth in beliefs of north Asian lineage

! land of the dead as across the sea rather than underground or in the sky! not sure what south asian tradition he's referencing, this is from "Early Kami Worship" by Matsumae. seems like this was a thing in ireland and scotland, although not universal

There are a few tales associated with Donn and how he came to be known as the god of the dead to the Irish, ruling over Tech Duinn (‘The House of Donn’), which is said to be situated off the Beara peninsula on the south-west coast.9 It is commonly identified with Bull Rock, an island in the area that has a distinctive dolmen-like shape, with the gap allowing the sea to pass under the rock as if through a gateway.10

the people of the trobiands have a similar belief

A remarkable thing happens to the spirit immediately after its exodus from the body. Broadly speaking, it may be described as a kind of splitting up. In fact, there are two beliefs, which, being obviously incompatible, yet exist side by side. One of them is, that the Baloma (which is the main form of the dead man’s spirit) goes “to Tuma, a small island lying some ten miles to the northwest of the Trobriands.” This island is inhabited by living man as well, who dwell in one large village, also called Tuma; and it is often visited by natives from the main island. The other belief affirms that the spirit leads a short and precarious existence after death near the village, and about the usual haunts of the dead man, such as his garden, or the sea beach, or the waterhole. In this form, the spirit is called kohsi (sometimes pronounced kohsa).

[dailyanarchistposts]

B.1.5 How is the mass-psychological basis for authoritarian civilisation created?

We noted in section A.3.6 that hierarchical, authoritarian institutions tend to be self-perpetuating, because growing up under their influence creates submissive/authoritarian personalities — people who both “respect” authority (based on fear of punishment) and desire to exercise it themselves on subordinates. Individuals with such a character structure do not really want to dismantle hierarchies, because they are afraid of the responsibility entailed by genuine freedom. It seems “natural” and “right” to them that society’s institutions, from the authoritarian factory to the patriarchal family, should be pyramidal, with an elite at the top giving orders while those below them merely obey. Thus we have the spectacle of so-called “Libertarians” and “anarcho” capitalists bleating about “liberty” while at the same time advocating factory fascism and privatised states. In short, authoritarian civilisation reproduces itself with each generation because, through an intricate system of conditioning that permeates every aspect of society, it creates masses of people who support the status quo.

Wilhelm Reich has given one of the most thorough analyses of the psychological processes involved in the reproduction of authoritarian civilisation. Reich based his analysis on four of Freud’s most solidly grounded discoveries, namely, (1) that there exists an unconscious part of the mind which has a powerful though irrational influence on behaviour; (2) that even the small child develops a lively “genital” sexuality, i.e. a desire for sexual pleasure which has nothing to do with procreation; (3) that childhood sexuality along with the Oedipal conflicts that arise in parent-child relations under monogamy and patriarchy are usually repressed through fear of punishment or disapproval for sexual acts and thoughts; (4) that this blocking of the child’s natural sexual activity and extinguishing it from memory does not weaken its force in the unconscious, but actually intensifies it and enables it to manifest itself in various pathological disturbances and anti-social drives; and (5) that, far from being of divine origin, human moral codes are derived from the educational measures used by the parents and parental surrogates in earliest childhood, the most effective of these being the ones opposed to childhood sexuality.

By studying Bronislaw Malinowsli’s research on the Trobriand Islanders, a woman-centred (matricentric) society in which children’s sexual behaviour was not repressed and in which neuroses and perversions as well as authoritarian institutions and values were almost non-existent, Reich came to the conclusion that patriarchy and authoritarianism originally developed when tribal chieftains began to get economic advantages from a certain type of marriage (“cross-cousin marriages”) entered into by their sons. In such marriages, the brothers of the son’s wife were obliged to pay a dowry to her in the form of continuous tribute, thus enriching her husband’s clan (i.e. the chief’s). By arranging many such marriages for his sons (which were usually numerous due to the chief’s privilege of polygamy), the chief’s clan could accumulate wealth. Thus society began to be stratified into ruling and subordinate clans based on wealth.

To secure the permanence of these “good” marriages, strict monogamy was required. However, it was found that monogamy was impossible to maintain without the repression of childhood sexuality, since, as statistics show, children who are allowed free expression of sexuality often do not adapt successfully to life-long monogamy. Therefore, along with class stratification and private property, authoritarian child-rearing methods were developed to inculcate the repressive sexual morality on which the new patriarchal system depended for its reproduction. Thus there is a historical correlation between, on the one hand, pre-patriarchal society, primitive libertarian communism (or “work democracy,” to use Reich’s expression), economic equality, and sexual freedom, and on the other, patriarchal society, a private-property economy, economic class stratification, and sexual repression. As Reich puts it:

“Every tribe that developed from a [matricentric] to a patriarchal organisation had to change the sexual structure of its members to produce a sexuality in keeping with its new form of life. This was a necessary change because the shifting of power and of wealth from the democratic gens [maternal clans] to the authoritarian family of the chief was mainly implemented with the help of the suppression of the sexual strivings of the people. It was in this way that sexual suppression became an essential factor in the division of society into classes. “Marriage, and the lawful dowry it entailed, became the axis of the transformation of the one organisation into the other. In view of the fact that the marriage tribute of the wife’s gens to the man’s family strengthened the male’s, especially the chief’s, position of power, the male members of the higher ranking gens and families developed a keen interest in making the nuptial ties permanent. At this stage, in other words, only the man had an interest in marriage. In this way natural work-democracy’s simple alliance, which could be easily dissolved at any time, was transformed into the permanent and monogamous marital relationship of patriarchy. The permanent monogamous marriage became the basic institution of patriarchal society — which it still is today. To safeguard these marriages, however, it was necessary to impose greater and greater restrictions upon and to depreciate natural genital strivings.” [The Mass Psychology of Fascism, p. 90]

The suppression of natural sexuality involved in this transformation from matricentric to patriarchal society created various anti-social drives (sadism, destructive impulses, rape fantasies, etc.), which then also had to be suppressed through the imposition of a compulsive morality, which took the place the natural self-regulation that one finds in pre-patriarchal societies. In this way, sex began to be regarded as “dirty,” “diabolical,” “wicked,” etc. — which it had indeed become through the creation of secondary drives. Thus:

“The patriarchal-authoritarian sexual order that resulted from the revolutionary processes of latter-day [matricentrism] (economic independence of the chief’s family from the maternal gens, a growing exchange of goods between the tribes, development of the means of production, etc.) becomes the primary basis of authoritarian ideology by depriving the women, children, and adolescents of their sexual freedom, making a commodity of sex and placing sexual interests in the service of economic subjugation. From now on, sexuality is indeed distorted; it becomes diabolical and demonic and has to be curbed.” [Reich, Op. Cit., p. 88]

Once the beginnings of patriarchy are in place, the creation of a fully authoritarian society based on the psychological crippling of its members through sexual suppression follows:

“The moral inhibition of the child’s natural sexuality, the last stage of which is the severe impairment of the child’s genital sexuality, makes the child afraid, shy, fearful of authority, obedient, ‘good,’ and ‘docile’ in the authoritarian sense of the words. It has a crippling effect on man’s rebellious forces because every vital life-impulse is now burdened with severe fear; and since sex is a forbidden subject, thought in general and man’s critical faculty also become inhibited. In short, morality’s aim is to produce acquiescent subjects who, despite distress and humiliation, are adjusted to the authoritarian order. Thus, the family is the authoritarian state in miniature, to which the child must learn to adapt himself as a preparation for the general social adjustment required of him later. Man’s authoritarian structure — this must be clearly established — is basically produced by the embedding of sexual inhibitions and fear.” [Reich, Op. Cit., p. 30]

In this way, by damaging the individual’s power to rebel and think for him/herself, the inhibition of childhood sexuality — and indeed other forms of free, natural expression of bioenergy (e.g. shouting, crying, running, jumping, etc.) — becomes the most important weapon in creating reactionary personalities. This is why every reactionary politician puts such an emphasis on “strengthening the family” and promoting “family values” (i.e. patriarchy, compulsive monogamy, premarital chastity, corporal punishment, etc.). In the words of Reich:

“Since authoritarian society reproduces itself in the individual structures of the masses with the help of the authoritarian family, it follows that political reaction has to regard and defend the authoritarian family as the basis of the ‘state, culture, and civilisation… .’ [It is] political reaction’s germ cell, the most important centre for the production of reactionary men and women. Originating and developing from definite social processes, it becomes the most essential institution for the preservation of the authoritarian system that shapes it.” [Op. Cit., pp. 104–105]

The family is the most essential institution for this purpose because children are most vulnerable to psychological maiming in their first few years, from the time of birth to about six years of age, during which time they are mostly in the charge of their parents. The schools and churches then continue the process of conditioning once the children are old enough to be away from their parents, but they are generally unsuccessful if the proper foundation has not been laid very early in life by the parents. Thus A.S. Neill observes that “the nursery training is very like the kennel training. The whipped child, like the whipped puppy, grows into an obedient, inferior adult. And as we train our dogs to suit our own purposes, so we train our children. In that kennel, the nursery, the human dogs must be clean; they must feed when we think it convenient for them to feed. I saw a hundred thousand obedient, fawning dogs wag their tails in the Templehof, Berlin, when in 1935, the great trainer Hitler whistled his commands.” [Summerhill: a Radical Approach to Child Rearing, p. 100]

The family is also the main agency of repression during adolescence, when sexual energy reaches its peak. This is because the vast majority of parents provide no private space for adolescents to pursue undisturbed sexual relationships with their partners, but in fact actively discourage such behaviour, often (as in fundamentalist Christian families) demanding complete abstinence — at the very time when abstinence is most impossible! Moreover, since teenagers are economically dependent on their parents under capitalism, with no societal provision of housing or dormitories allowing for sexual freedom, young people have no alternative but to submit to irrational parental demands for abstention from premarital sex. This in turn forces them to engage in furtive sex in the back seats of cars or other out-of-the-way places where they cannot relax or obtain full sexual satisfaction. As Reich found, when sexuality is repressed and laden with anxiety, the result is always some degree of what he terms “orgastic impotence”: the inability to fully surrender to the flow of energy discharged during orgasm. Hence there is an incomplete release of sexual tension, which results in a state of chronic bioenergetic stasis. Such a condition, Reich found, is the breeding ground for neuroses and reactionary attitudes. (For further details see the section J.6).

In this connection it is interesting to note that “primitive” societies, such as the Trobriand Islanders, prior to their developing patriarchal-authoritarian institutions, provided special community houses where teenagers could go with their partners to enjoy undisturbed sexual relationships — and this with society’s full approval. Such an institution would be taken for granted in an anarchist society, as it is implied by the concept of freedom. (For more on adolescent sexual liberation, see section J.6.8.)

Nationalistic feelings can also be traced to the authoritarian family. A child’s attachment to its mother is, of course, natural and is the basis of all family ties. Subjectively, the emotional core of the concepts of homeland and nation are mother and family, since the mother is the homeland of the child, just as the family is the “nation in miniature.” According to Reich, who carefully studied the mass appeal of Hitler’s “National Socialism,” nationalistic sentiments are a direct continuation of the family tie and are rooted in a fixated tie to the mother. As Reich points out, although infantile attachment to the mother is natural, fixated attachment is not, but is a social product. In puberty, the tie to the mother would make room for other attachments, i.e., natural sexual relations, if the unnatural sexual restrictions imposed on adolescents did not cause it to be eternalised. It is in the form of this socially conditioned externalisation that fixation on the mother becomes the basis of nationalist feelings in the adult; and it is only at this stage that it becomes a reactionary social force.

Later writers who have followed Reich in analysing the process of creating reactionary character structures have broadened the scope of his analysis to include other important inhibitions, besides sexual ones, that are imposed on children and adolescents. Rianne Eisler, for example, in her book Sacred Pleasure, stresses that it is not just a sex-negative attitude but a pleasure-negative attitude that creates the kinds of personalities in question. Denial of the value of pleasurable sensations permeates our unconscious, as reflected, for example, in the common idea that to enjoy the pleasures of the body is the “animalistic” (and hence “bad”) side of human nature, as contrasted with the “higher” pleasures of the mind and “spirit.” By such dualism, which denies a spiritual aspect to the body, people are made to feel guilty about enjoying any pleasurable sensations — a conditioning that does, however, prepare them for lives based on the sacrifice of pleasure (or indeed, even of life itself) under capitalism and statism, with their requirements of mass submission to alienated labour, exploitation, military service to protect ruling-class interests, and so on. And at the same time, authoritarian ideology emphasises the value of suffering, as for example through the glorification of the tough, insensitive warrior hero, who suffers (and inflicts “necessary” suffering on others ) for the sake of some pitiless ideal.

Eisler also points out that there is “ample evidence that people who grow up in families where rigid hierarchies and painful punishments are the norm learn to suppress anger toward their parents. There is also ample evidence that this anger is then often deflected against traditionally disempowered groups (such as minorities, children, and women).” [Sacred Pleasure, p. 187] This repressed anger then becomes fertile ground for reactionary politicians, whose mass appeal usually rests in part on scapegoating minorities for society’s problems.

As the psychologist Else Frenkel-Brunswick documents in The Authoritarian Personality, people who have been conditioned through childhood abuse to surrender their will to the requirements of feared authoritarian parents, also tend to be very susceptible as adults to surrender their will and minds to authoritarian leaders. “In other words,” Frenkel-Brunswick summarises, “at the same time that they learn to deflect their repressed rage against those they perceive as weak, they also learn to submit to autocratic or ‘strong-man’ rule. Moreover, having been severely punished for any hint of rebellion (even ‘talking back’ about being treated unfairly), they gradually also learn to deny to themselves that there was anything wrong with what was done to them as children — and to do it in turn to their own children.” [The Authoritarian Personality, p. 187]

These are just some of the mechanisms that perpetuate the status quo by creating the kinds of personalities who worship authority and fear freedom. Consequently, anarchists are generally opposed to traditional child-rearing practices, the patriarchal-authoritarian family (and its “values”), the suppression of adolescent sexuality, and the pleasure-denying, pain-affirming attitudes taught by the Church and in most schools. In place of these, anarchists favour non-authoritarian, non-repressive child-rearing practices and educational methods (see sections J.6 and secJ.5.13, respectively) whose purpose is to prevent, or at least minimise, the psychological crippling of individuals, allowing them instead to develop natural self-regulation and self-motivated learning. This, we believe, is the only way to for people to grow up into happy, creative, and truly freedom-loving individuals who will provide the psychological ground where anarchist economic and political institutions can flourish.

[murderballadeer]

Whats the problem with malinowski, just out of curiosity? He and levi-strauss are both on my tbr for some other research but i'm not well read in anthropological theory at all

essentially malinowski conducted his fieldwork in direct partnership with british colonial offices in the trobriand islands (which to be clear was extremely common for anthropologists at the time, witchcraft oracles and magic among the azande was written while evans pritchard was employed by the british government and even margaret mead was only able to research coming of age in samoa bc she had a positive relationship with american governmental bodies in the area). since a lot of what he's considered to have contributed to anthropology is along the lines of ethnographic methods (take basically any introductory anthro class and you will be reading "the subject scope and method of this inquiry" from argonauts of the western pacific) reading him in the modern era can be pretty weird bc you're told he set the gold standard for ethnography but when you know the context it gets kinda :/ since he was very much an agent of colonialism. which isn't to say we shouldn't be studying him at all but it is kind of unpleasant to slog through when he's like presenting himself as a lone intrepid researcher when you know he was being propped up by the local authorities. it's really just that malinowski was an early 20th century british anthropologist and it really really shows which makes the whole deal kind of unpleasant mainly irt how he presents his research. anyway idk if that made sense but yeah tldr i'm mostly being kind of tongue in cheek about disliking him but the main point is that his work is a pain to read bc of the weird combination of colonial overtones and insistence on propping himself up as a lone intrepid ethnographer with no political motivations

[pinturas-sgm-aviacion]

1943 10 Spitfire MkVc 79 Sqn Australian Air Force - Stan Hajek - Special Hobby

‘Down With Everything' 79 Sqn. A58-137/UP-T (F/L David H. Hopton) Kiriwina, Trobriand Islands

[kelawar-ungu]

Bat Week 2020: A Celebration of Bats in Asia-Pacific Cultures Art by Reimena Yee.

(Bigger image from here for more readable text. The background colouring is a little too bright though)

Text on the map under the cut.

You may have heard the soft flutter of bat wings at dusk, noticed them flitting around at night, or even seen them sleeping under roof eaves, in trees and caves during the day. But apart from these brief encounters, have you ever wondered how bats may have traditionally held deeper symbolic meaning in various cultures?

This visual map guide celebrates the many positive bat symbols and folklore found across the Asia-Pacific region. Our ancestors recognised the importance and wonder of bats!

Look out for our full write-up and get updates by following rimba.ngo!

Project Pteropus, a project under RIMBA.

India

In India, Hindu devotees of the goddess Kali worship and protect flying foxes which roost in sacred groves. Bats also feature as symbols of love in Tamil Sangam poetry, dating back more than 2000 years!

China / Taiwan / Chinese culture

A tale from ancient China: The gods took pity on Zhong Kui when he committed suicide. They named him King of Ghosts and tasked him to discipline demons, with bats acting as his helpers who scout out demons for him to vanquish.

In Chinese opera, the Zhong Kui character wears a bat motif on his mask.

The Five Blessings (五福 wŭfú) in Chinese culture are health, wealth, longevity, love of virtue and peaceful death. They are represented symbolically by five bats (五蝠 wŭfú).

In traditional Chinese culture, bats are lucky symbols because the word for bat (蝠 fú) sounds like the word for blessing (福 fú).

Lucky bat motifs can be found on traditional ceramics, jewellery and textiles in Chinese, Peranakan and other Chinese-influenced communities across East and Southeast Asia.

Vietnam

Locals believe that flying foxes roosting in the Wat Mahatup temple grounds in Vietnam are calling forth blessings from Buddha when they circle the temple during their fly-out every evening.

Malaysia / Indonesia

The indigenous Mah Meri in Peninsular Malaysia perform a traditional dance called 'kuang kuwait', mimicking the graceful movements of flying foxes.

The 'siku keluang' a choreography step in the traditional Malay Zapin dance represents humility and restraint - inspired by the flying fox wrapping up its mighty wings' strength when not in flight.

The 'siku keluang', meaning flying fox elbow in the Malay language, is a zigzag, chevron or herringbone motif used in Malay and Javanese traditional textiles and pottery.

According to a traditional Iban belief from Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, bats act as shamanic messengers to the upper-world during the Gawai harvest festival.

The indigenous Iban in Sarawak traditionally featured the flying fox, locally known as 'semawa', as a tattoo motif.

Papua New Guinea / Western New Guinea

In Bowi folklore of Papua New Guinea, Kinjinmbunduo was a mythical giant flying fox female spirit who left thunderstorms and strong winds in her wake, striking terror and awe but also replenishing the river basin with fruit trees by dispersing seeds during her nocturnal visits.

In New Guinea and Papua New Guinea, the indigenous Asmat and Trobriand carved out flying fox motifs on their war shields to represent triumphant head-hunters.

Samoa

Flying foxes are perceived as protectors and saviours in Samoan folklore. According to legend, Samoan Princess Leutogi befriended and warned flying foxes about the king's hunting plans. In return, the bats rescued her from being burned alive and also brought her food when she was stranded on an inhospitable island. She later bestowed the name "Tonumaipe'a" on her son, meaning "rescued by flying foxes".

For Samoan men, the pe'a—the local name for flying fox is a coming-of-age tattoo that extends From the waist to the knee, symbolising protection over a warrior.

The Samoan war god Sepo took the form of a flying fox to guide his people in battle. If they saw a flying fox ahead, it meant victory would be theirs; if it flew back towards them it was a warning to retreat.

Australia

Flying foxes were important animals to the Aboriginal people of Cape York, Australia, and a common feature in their prehistoric rock art.

Folklore of the Aboriginal Wik in Australia tells of two brothers who broke taboo by spearing and cooking flying foxes. The bats escaped and carried the boys up into the sky as punishment, leaving them there to serve as a grim reminder now immortalised in the Gemini constellation!

Link to open access article of the research:

[maryrouille]

A savage woman 🍊

Ethnographer Bronisław Malinowski, in his monograph The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, published in 1929, which initiated the social anthropology known today, describes the erotic fun the natives of the Trobriand Islands.

It is called kamali and involves the girl inflicting bodily pain on her partner. For a boy, it is an expression of passion, temperament and love, which can be compared to the role played by a kiss in Western cultures. A girl in love can hurt her beloved by scratching, beating, biting or using a sharp instrument, and he happily accepts these attacks and is proud of his wounds.

Erotic pain infliction does not only occur early in the pairing of young Trobrianders. When the love caresses become more passionate, the couple freely begins to use their teeth to bite each other's lips, bite the cheek, or pinch the nose and chin. Drinking blood from mutilated lips, even pulling out hair and nibbling at eyelashes (also catching each other's lice and eating them!) is part of intimate, unwitnessed lovemaking and a mutual expression of passion.

What is worth noting is that the woman, based on Malinowski's observations of wounds on men's bodies, is more active when exchanging painful caresses. 

(The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, B. Malinowski, New York 1929, pp. 252, 256-257, 333)

While studying this passage, I began to wonder if all women bite more often and are more bloodthirsty? The 1953 Kinsey Report found that men and women were almost equally sexually aroused by being bitten (55% of women and 50% of men had an erotic reaction after being bitten by their partner). I also came across information that Marilyn Monroe was known to draw blood by biting the lips of her partners. Again, I can't confirm this, so what do you think?

[accuratepicuresofanthropologists]

Sergio Jarillo has a new open access book on folktales and mythical stories from the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea! The book takes a series of stories collected by Jerry Leach and hosted in the archives at the Smithsonian and reconnects it to the local community. You may know the Trobes as the home of Kula as described by Malinowski, but there is a whole lot more to the place than that, as this detailed and profusely illustrated text shows. Get ready, though -- this is some hardcore text-collection work, not a lightly-written popular account of the Trobes.

“Part of the translation team posing in front of the Faculty of Arts and Law at UPNG. From left: Veronica Lepani, Lawrence Mwayubu, Martin Monumwetola, Raymond Kariyawagatetu, Jerry Leach, and Henry Lupovalu.” in 1973

[an-apocalypse-of-magpies]

I did Anthropology for my International Baccalaureate, and let me tell y'all a thing

Everything is a culture, and everything has an ethnography.

Anthropology is the study of social and cultural norms - who practises these norms, why, and how do they differ from their neighbours both within and outside that social and/or cultural group. Of course, many early anthropologists were weird colonialists looking to make a name for themselves by studying the 'savages of darkest Africa' and similar, in much the same way that early geographers mostly did it to 'discover' places and put their name on them. But anthropology is more than that - it's about how cultures grow, develop, spread, change and die.

The first module we did in my years was the Trobriand islanders of Papua New Guinea. The second was the Yanomamo people of the Amazon Basin rainforest. The third ... was the Geordies of the Tyneside area of England. 'Culture' isn't just something that only belongs to the distant time-honoured traditions, or the strange and unknowable habits of people a million miles away. Sometimes it's what happens when a group with a specific identity suddenly undergo an upheaval, in this instance a region of primarily miners and factory workers a generation after those jobs dried up.

The point is, it doesn't have to be huge or foreign or even old to be a culture. It just needs a group of people all saying 'this is what we do'.

'White Americans don't have any culture, they're just [normal/boring/generic/empty]. 'Culture' is when you're quaint and exotic and have interesting ethnic foods and holidays." is such a grating bit of nonsense to have somehow become progressive commonsense in a lot of places.

[petrichorvoices]

“stop sending my lover memes about the Trobriand Islands”

“no”

[yearningforunity]

Trobriand Island girl

Papua New Guinea