Bimin-Kuskusmin

Telefomin Cuscus District

The Bimin-Kuskusmin are a population group of around 1000 people in Papua New Guinea . Your settlement area is located in the area of the Sepik near the source, in the middle of the rugged mountains of the southeastern Telefomin District of the Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik) in Papua New Guinea. To the west of the tribal area is the border with Western New Guinea , behind which the Ok and Mek live.

The people speak Oksapmin , a Papuan language that is assigned to the Trans New Guinea languages . The Bimin-Kuskusmin maintain a variety of contacts with neighboring tribes, not all in the past with peaceful intentions, such as ritual exchanges or marriage.

history

The first recorded direct contact between whites and the Bimin-Kuskusmin dates back to 1957. In 1961 , the Oksapmin Patrol Post was established in their area, which was administered by Australia as the territory of Papua and New Guinea on the basis of a UN trust mandate from Australia the independence of Papua New Guinea, Fitz John Porter Poole, the first ethnologist , began his field research in the region in 1977. Its hidden location and the mountainous impenetrability allowed the people to have almost no contact with foreign cultures until then. When Poole started his research project, he found a traditional society that was still “intact”.

Economically, the people are busy with horticulture and pig breeding. The division of labor is strictly separated according to gender. The men swing around and build the fence. The women plant the soil and collect the crops, especially the sweet potato , which is considered to be a very feminine source of food. Pandanus and taro are cultivated by the men alone and in the gardens that are not allowed in women, since these are plants associated with masculinity. This distinction is of decisive importance in the ritual, the initiation of boys.

Imagination and body awareness

The Bimin-Kuskusmin attribute procreative powers to several bodily secretions . These are semen , menstrual blood , and female sex secretions. Agnatic blood, a substance that constitutes the lineage and can in principle be passed on by both sexes, is of particular importance, but only exists in a high-quality form in men. Agnistic blood is exhausted in women after three generations. It can only be passed on from there but by the men in order to keep the ancestry group alive. Wild boars are considered to be related to men , because agnatic blood circulates in them too. In this way, men create social, political and spiritual relationships beyond a human lifetime and emerge a dimension of socio-spiritual immortality. The trinity of sperm, agnatic blood and finjik spirits , a kind of father-in-son generating spirit, leads to physical, social and spiritual dominance that stimulates the growth and prosperity of all male beings (including animals and plants). Similar to the Zambia , women only have the role of a container for the transformational conversion of the semen into child strength and necessary mother's milk. The worldview of the Bimin-Kuskusmin is visibly viricentric in terms of the ideological constitution of the gender antagonism with the division into “strong” and “weak”.

literature

Susanne Schröter : Witches, warriors, cannibals , fantasy, domination and gender in New Guinea; Muenster; Hamburg: Lit. 1994 (women's cultures - men's cultures; 3.); ISBN 3-8258-2092-0 .

Web links

Remarks

↑ chap. 4 The androgynous first being Bimin-Kuskusmin cannibalism
Peggy Reeves Sanday: Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System. USA 1986, ISBN 0-521-32226-X (English, The androgynous first being Bimin-Kuskusmin cannibalism in the Google book search).
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d The ethnologist Susanne Schröter, who makes brief explanations of various ethnic groups in the appendix of the book (Bimin-Kuskusmin: pp. 282 f. And pp. 125–28), prefers to refer to the basic studies of the primarily scientifically employed researchers ; in the case of the Bimin-Kuskusmin: Fitz John Porter Poole (1971-73):
Susanne Schröter : Witches, warriors, cannibals, fantasy, domination and gender in New Guinea (women's cultures - men's cultures; 3.) . In: Women's cultures - Men's cultures - Volumes 1-3) . tape 3 , no. 1 . LIT Verlag, Münster, Hamburg, Germany 1994, ISBN 3-8258-2092-0 , p. 372 ( IT Book version in Google Book Search).
^ ^A ^b ^c Fitz John Porter Poole: Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea . Ed .: Gilbert H. Herdt. Transaction Publishers, USA 1997, p. 365 (English, Aspects of Person and Self in Bimin-Kuskusmin Male Initiation in the Google book search).
^ Fitz John Porter Poole: CULTURAL IMAGES OF WOMEN AS MOTHERS: Motherhood among the Bimin-Kuskusmin of Papua New Guinea . No. 15 . Berghahn Books, USA August 1984, p. 73-93 , JSTOR : 23169279 (English, Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice).
↑ Jürgen Kunz: The behavioral ecology of the Couvade: perinatal taboos and restrictions for fathers-to-be at the interface of biology and culture . BoD - Books on Demand, Germany 2003, p. 400 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

[Sanday-1] . 4 The androgynous first being Bimin-Kuskusmin cannibalism
Peggy Reeves Sanday: Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System. USA 1986, ISBN 0-521-32226-X (English, The androgynous first being Bimin-Kuskusmin cannibalism in the Google book search).

[Bimin-2] The ethnologist Susanne Schröter, who makes brief explanations of various ethnic groups in the appendix of the book (Bimin-Kuskusmin: pp. 282 f. And pp. 125–28), prefers to refer to the basic studies of the primarily scientifically employed researchers ; in the case of the Bimin-Kuskusmin: Fitz John Porter Poole (1971-73):
Susanne Schröter : Witches, warriors, cannibals, fantasy, domination and gender in New Guinea (women's cultures - men's cultures; 3.) . In: Women's cultures - Men's cultures - Volumes 1-3) . tape 3 , no. 1 . LIT Verlag, Münster, Hamburg, Germany 1994, ISBN 3-8258-2092-0 , p. 372 ( IT Book version in Google Book Search).

[Poole-3] A ^b ^c Fitz John Porter Poole: Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea . Ed .: Gilbert H. Herdt. Transaction Publishers, USA 1997, p. 365 (English, Aspects of Person and Self in Bimin-Kuskusmin Male Initiation in the Google book search).

[Fitz-4] Fitz John Porter Poole: CULTURAL IMAGES OF WOMEN AS MOTHERS: Motherhood among the Bimin-Kuskusmin of Papua New Guinea . No. 15 . Berghahn Books, USA August 1984, p. 73-93 , JSTOR : 23169279 (English, Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice).

[Kunz-5] Jürgen Kunz: The behavioral ecology of the Couvade: perinatal taboos and restrictions for fathers-to-be at the interface of biology and culture . BoD - Books on Demand, Germany 2003, p. 400 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).