MEMOIR No. 48 MAN AND A HALF ESSAYS IN PACIFIC ...

MEMOIR No. 48
MAN AND A HALF
ESSAYS IN PACIFIC ANTHROPOLOGY
AND ETHNOBIOLOGY
IN HONOUR OF RALPH BULMER
edited by
ANDREW PAWLEY
THE POLYNESIAN SOCIETY
Auckland
1 9 9 1

First published 1991
The Polynesian Society (Inc. )
Anthropology Department
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
New Zealand
Printed by the Australian National University Printing Service, Canberra, A. C. T.
Bound by F & M Perfect Bookbinding, Queanbeyan, N. S. W.
Cover design by A. N. U. Graphic Design
© The Polynesian Society (Inc. ) 1991
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publishers.
ISBN 0-908940-01-7

CONTENTS
Editorial note page vii
PART I: MEMOIRS
Andrew PAWLEY Notes on a Large Small Game Hunter 3-20
Ellaine MABBUTT Hans Breitmann Gife a Barty... 21-23
Helga M. GRIFFIN ‘Big-man’, Neighbour, Teacher, Friend: a Personal
Memoir of Ralph Bulmer at Waigani, 1968-72 23-29
Ian Saem MAJNEP What Is this Man Up To? A Kalam View of Ralph Bulmer 29-36
George E. MARCUS Notes and Quotes Concerning the Further Collaboration of Ian
Saem Majnep and Ralph Bulmer: Saem Becomes a Writer 37-45
Alice BULMER Ralph Bulmer - a Bibliography 45-54
PART II: ETHNOBIOLOGY, SEMANTICS AND TAXONOMY
Brent BERLIN The Chicken and the Egg-head Revisited: Further Evidence for
the Intellectualist Bases of Ethnobiological Classification 57-66
Bruce BIGGS A Linguist Revisits the New Zealand Bush 67-72
Cecil H. BROWN On the Botanical Life-form ‘Tree” 72-78
Ross CLARK Fingota/Fangota: Shellfish and Fishing in Polynesia 78-83
Jared M. DIAMOND Interview Techniques in Ethnobiology 83-86
Peter DWYER and Hunting and Harvesting: the Pursuit of Animals by Kubo
Monica MENNEGAL of Papua New Guinea 86-95
Roy ELLEN Grass, Grerb or Weed? A Bulmerian Meditation on the
Category monote in Nuaulu Plant Classification 95-101
Claudine FRIEDBERG Operative Aspects of Folk Classification 102-109
Terence E. HAYS Interest, Use, and Interest in Uses in Folk Biology 109-114
K.J. HOLLYMAN What’s in a Nomial? Folk Classification in New Caledonia 114-118
Robin HOOPER Denizens of the Deep: the Semantic History of
Proto-Polynesian *palu 119-127
iii

iv Contents
Alan HOWARD Animals as Metaphors in Rotuman Sayings
andJanRENSEL 127-137
Eugene S. HUNN Sahaptin Bird Classification 137-147
Julie PARK Why Is Wine Not Booze? 147-151
Paul SILLITOE Worms that Bite and Other Aspects of Wola Soil Lore 152-163
Michael J. TYLER Biological Nomenclature, Classification and the
Ethnozoological Specieme 164-167
Alanieta WAQANIU Ethno-ichthyology in the Upper Wainimala Valley,
and Garth ROGERS Viti Levu 167-174
PART III: SOCIAL AND SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS
Georgeda BUCHBINDER When All Else Fails: Suicide among Maring Women 177-181
Ann CHO WNING Pigs, Dogs and Children in Molima 182-187
Peter CROWE There’s More than One Way to Be a 187-193
Mary DOUGLAS Ralph Bulmer among the Master Detectives: the Proximity
Principle 193-198
Thomas M. ERNST Empirical Attitudes among the Onabasulu 199-207
Steven FELD Cockatoo, Hombill, Kingfisher 207-213
Robin FOX A Darwinist Manifesto 213-218
Michael GODDARD The Birdman of Kiripia: Posthumous Revenge in a
Papua New Guinea Highland Community 218 -222
Murray GROVES Fishermen of Manumanu: in Defence of ‘Empiricist’
Ethnography 222-233
Chris HEALEY Why Is the Cassowary Sacrificed? 234-241
Christine HELLIWELL Many Voices: Rhetoric and Ethnographic Understanding in a
Borneo Dayak Community 241-248
Antony HOOPER and Aspects of Skipjack Fishing: Some Tokelau 4 Words of the Sea’
Judith HUNTSMAN 249-256
David HYNDMAN The Kam Basin Homeland of the Wopkaimin: a Sense of Place 256-265
Graham JACKSON Is Taboo Alive? The Uses and Parameters of Kopon Taboo 265-276
Roger M. KEESING The Uses of Knowledge in Kwaio Society 277-286
Tomas LUDVIGSON Transactions and Ownership in Central Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu 286-292
Kenneth MADDOCK Atrocities and Culture: Revisiting the Vietnam War 293-298

Contents v
George E.B. MORREN, Jr The Ancestresses of the Miyanmin and Telefolmin: Sacred and
Mundane Definitions of the Fringe in the Upper Sepik 298-305
Jan POUWER The Willed and the Wild: the Kalam Cassowary Revisited 305-316
Inge RIEBE Do We Believe in Witchcraft? 317-326
Eleanor RIMOLDI Buka Marriage Ritual and the Power of Tsunono
andMaxRIMOLDI 326-335
Paula G. RUBEL and From Ceremonial Exchange to Capitalist Exchange: How the New
Abraham ROSMAN Irelanders Coped with the Establishment of Trading Stations 336-343
Anne SALMOND Tipuna - Ancestors: Aspects of Maori Cognatic Descent 343-356
Eric SCHWIMMER The Ceremonial Self 356-363
Marilyn STRATHERN Naming People 364-369
John D. WAIKO Literary Art Forms among the Binandere 369-375
James B. WATSON Group and Ethnic Stereotypy: Topical Premises on a Universal
Ground 375-379
Michael W. YOUNG The Sea Eagle and Other Heroic Birds of Nidula Mythology 380-389
PART IV: LINGUISTIC AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Bernard COMRIE On Haruai Vowels 393-397
Herbert John DAVIES Marked Pronouns and Verbs for Marked Social Relationships
in a Chadic and a Papuan Language 397-405
Raymond FIRTH Tikopia Songs of the Sea
and Rosemary FIRTH 405-412
John KIAS We Threw away our Bows and Axes
and Lyle SCHOLZ 412-420
John LYNCH Pigs and Dogs in Island Melanesia 421-432
Andrew PAWLEY Saying Things in Kalam: Reflections on Language and
Translation 432-444
Wendy POND Austronesian Classification and the Choice of Endeavour 444-450
B ambi B. SCHIEFFELIN Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Kaluli Relationship Terms
and Steven FELD 451-454
PART V: PREHISTORY AND ORAL HISTORY
Jim ALLEN Hunting for Wallabies: the Importance of Macropus agilis as a
Traditional Food Resource in the Port Moresby Hinterland 457-461
Wal AMBROSE Manus, Mortars and the Kava Concoction 461-469

vi Contents
Susan BULMER Variation and Change in Stone Tools in the Highlands of
Papua New Guinea: the Witness of Wafielek 470-478
Janet DAVIDSON Bird-man Amulets and Tridacna Shell Discs from Taumako,
and Foss LEACH Solomon Islands 478-483
JackGOLSON Bulmer Phase II: Early Agriculture in the New Guinea
Highlands 484-491
R.C. GREEN Near and Remote Oceania - Disestablishing “Melanesia” in
Culture History 491-502
Geoffrey IRWIN Themes in the Prehistory of Coastal Papua and the Massim 503-510
Mary-Jane MOUNTAIN Bulmer Phase I: Environmental Change and Human Activity
through the Late Pleistocene into the Holocene in the
Highlands of New Guinea: a Scenario 510-520
Nigel ORAM Edai Siabo: an Ethnographic Study of a Papuan Myth 520-535
Marie REAY Oral Prehistory and the Sequence of Events 535-540
Douglas G. SUTTON The Archaeology of Belief: Structuralism in Stratigraphical
Context 540-550
Pamela SWADLING Garden Boundaries as Indicators of Past Land-use Strategies:
Two Case Studies from Coastal Melanesia 550-557
D.E. YEN Domestication: the Lessons from New Guinea 558-569
PART VI: ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE MODERN WORLD
I.H. KAWHARU Sovereignty vs Rangatiratanga: the Treaty of Waitangi 1840 and
the New Zealand Maori Council’s Kaupapa 1983 573-581
Roderic LACEY ‘History Is a Way of Musing upon Ourselves’ 581-585
H.B. LEVINE Participation in the Modem Sector and the Width of Urban
Interethnic Interaction: a Causal Model of Data from
Papua New Guinea 585-589
Cluny MACPHERSON and Some Samoan Observations on Science and Scientists
La’avasa MACPHERSON 589-593
Mervyn MEGGITT The Ambiguities of Advocacy: Fieldwork in the New Guinea
Highlands 593-599
Maev O’COLLINS Applied Anthropology: the Basis for Social Policy and Planning
in Papua New Guinea 599-606
Anton PLOEG Citizenship in Papua New Guinea 606-612
Andrew STRATHERN “Company” in Kopiago 612-615
Ranginui J. WALKER The Genesis and Transformation of the Waitangi Tribunal 615-624

EDITORIAL NOTE
In June 1988, when Ralph Bulmer was already mortally ill, invitations were sent to over 100
friends and colleagues of his, inviting them to contribute to an extraordinary Festschrift. It was
extraordinary because, knowing that Ralph probably did not have long to live, I asked each
person to submit a paper within six weeks and to donate $100 towards publication costs, with the
aim of presenting a modest book to Ralph before the end of the year. Because of this stringent
deadline I did not expect to receive more than a handful of papers.
The response was astonishing. Almost 90 people immediately sent in titles (a few jointly) and
within five weeks drafts of more than 20 papers had arrived. Ralph had read the provisional table
of contents before he died on July 18, 1988. After his death it became necessary to rethink editing
and publication plans. Because of the large number of papers a length limit was imposed, authors
who had not already submitted their papers were sent a style guide and all essays were sent to
appropriate readers for critical assessment. The final product consists of 81 papers by 90 authors.
In the end, publication was in the hands of the Polynesian Society, in Auckland, production being
undertaken in Canberra.
Ralph would have been delighted with the quality and range of the papers in the volume. Part I
consists of several memoirs. The remaining Parts, II-VI, represent the considerable range of
disciplines which he contributed to - chiefly, social anthropology, ethnobotany and ethnozoology,
archaeology, oral history and linguistics - as well as issues of social change and modernisation in
Pacific societies with which Ralph was much concerned.
Thanks are due to the many people who contributed to the project. To the editorial committee of
Bruce Biggs, Nancy Bowers, Roger Green, Chris Healey, Judith Huntsman and Richard Moyle,
who gave initial encouragement and advice. To Lena Bulmer, who supplied addresses and
contacted several potential contributors. To the authors for providing a fine collection of papers.
To all those scholars who acted as anonymous readers and critics. The title, Man and a Half \ was
suggested by Bruce Biggs who averred that Ralph was sometimes called by this name when they
were together in New Guinea. Marlous Terwiel drew the frontispiece, ‘Ralph Bulmer in
Birdwatching Mode’ , and Chris Healey kindly allowed us to use his cassowary drawing on the
cover and dividing pages. During 1989 the papers were entered on word processor by Dorothy
Brown and Inger Miller at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. After
my shift to the Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU, in February 1990, technical problems
required a good many of the manuscripts to be retyped by Lorraine O’Brien, Anne Rees and
Jeanette Coombes. Anne Rees recreated some tricky diagrams and tables on word processor, the
cartography unit at the Research School prepared or touched up several of the illustrations and
Aletta Biersack gave editorial assistance. Other debts of gratitude for information about Ralph's
life are recorded, more appropriately, in footnote 1, on page 19.
Above all, I am indebted to Lois Carrington, who not only did most of the sub-editing and
checked and revised all the bibliographies but used her skills in book design to transform the
roughly formatted papers into handsome camera-ready copy. Tengkyu tru, Lois.
Finally, thanks are due to all those friends of Ralph whose contributions to the Bulmer Fund
provided a financial base for publication.
Sadly, I must record that two of our authors died while this volume was being prepared. We
lost Garth Rogers in March 1989 and Georgeda Buchbinder in February 1991.
Andrew Pawley
18 October 1991

PART I
MEMOIRS