Etoro

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The Etoro or Edolo are a small ethnic group in Papua New Guinea in the northeast of the Strickland - Bosavi area. Their population is only a few hundred, their language is also called Etoro or Edolo and in 2000 had around 1700 speakers.

The family system of the Etoro is organized according to the patrilineal line ( patrilinearity ). Newlywed husbands must do bridal service and work in the garden of their bride's family for a number of years to legitimize the marriage and any resulting children .

Like other peoples in the area, the Etoro believe that sperm is the source of all male strength and power. It is a scarce resource that cannot be produced but only passed on from men to adolescent boys. Therefore, men are reluctant to give their sperm to women except for the purpose of reproduction , and only on about 100 ritual days per year. With the Etoro, the ritual transition from boy to man ( initiation ) requires that pubescent boys perform oral sex ( blowjobs ) on older men and swallow their sperm. In this way, the boys should be given the ability to pass on the sperm they received to younger boys and women. Men and women mostly live separately from each other, both tend to be negative, and the Etoro birth rate is correspondingly low . They are assumed to be stealing the children of their neighbors and raising them as their own. Since they believe that homosexual intercourse strengthens boys and increases the fertility of plants, sex between men is not restricted. Such ideas can also be found among other peoples in New Guinea (cf. Marind-anim ).

The Etoro does not focus on domestic pigs for their social reputation and their own needs economy , as is the case with many other peoples of Papua New Guinea. Men can gain prestige primarily by giving sperm to boys and by sharing meat or other goods. It is also up to them, as spiritual media, to ward off possible witchcraft . Women are seen as inferior because they cannot provide these things. The diet consists primarily not of pork and sweet potatoes , but of palm sago (plant starch ). In addition, there is the (joint) gardening of vegetables, fishing and hunting . Few Etoro today have access to processed foods. While they used to live in communal longhouses , the men at one end and the women and children at the other, the Etoro now mostly live in nuclear families .

The fear of witchcraft is so important that people whose families are affected by the deaths of healthy wives or children, or who disobey their elders, can be killed as witches by their own family members. The ethnologist Raymond Kelly, who has been studying Etoro since the 1960s, told of a woman who, after a prolonged period of misfortune and failure to follow the instructions of her female elders, had her closest male relative's throat cut one night.

literature

  • Peter D. Dwyer: The pigs that ate the garden: A Human Ecology from Papua New Guinea. University Press, Ann Arbor 1990, ISBN 0-472-10157-9 (English).
  • Raymond Case Kelly: Constructing Inequality: The Fabrication of a Hierarchy of Virtue among the Etoro. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1994, ISBN 0-472-06528-9 (English; excerpt from Google book search).
  • Raymond Case Kelly: Etoro Suidology: A Reassessement of the Pig's Role in the Prehistory and Comparative Ethnology of New Guinea. In: James F. Weiner (Ed.): Mountain Papuans: Historical and Comparative Perspectives from New Guinea Fringe Highlands Societies. University Press, Ann Arbor 1988, ISBN 0-472-09377-0 , pp. 111-186 (English; page previews in Google Book Search).
  • Raymond Case Kelly: Etoro Social Structure: A Study in Structural Contradiction. University Press, Ann Arbor 1974, ISBN 0-472-08502-6 (English).
  • Barbara A. West: Etoro (Edolo, Etolo). In: Same: Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-8160-7109-8 , p. 202 (English; page preview in Google Book Search).
  • Hans-Reinhart Wittram: Conceptions of kinship: The example of the Etoro and Daribi (Paua New Guinea). Master's thesis University of Göttingen 1993.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Barbara A. West: Etoro (Edolo, Etolo). In: Same: Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-8160-7109-8 , p. 202 (English; page preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ^ Ethnologue entry: Edolo - A language of Papua New Guinea. In: Ethnologue: Languages ​​of the World . 17th Edition, SIL International, Texas, 2013, accessed March 12, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Dennis O'Neil: Sex and Marriage: Homosexuality. Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, San Marcos California, 2007, accessed on March 12, 2020 (in English, see the Etoro at the bottom of the page; part of an extensive study tutorial).