Table Of ContentCASE STUDIES IN
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
GENERAL EDITORS
George and Louise Spindler
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
THE TROBRIANDERS OF
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
THE TROBRIANDERS
OF
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
ANNETTE B. WEINER
New York University
IN CULTURAL
>
I1I/1I Z-c
Q :z:
:s
~
~
1/1 ~
III g
1/1
0<
\J <
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers
Fort Worth Philadelphia San Diego
New York Orlando Austin San Antonio
Toronto Montreal London Sydney Tokyo
Cover photo: About to leave the house for the first time after giving birth, a
young Trobriand woman wears a long cape and covers her head.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weiner, Annette B., 1933-
The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea I Annette B. Weiner.
p. cm.-(Case studies in cultural anthropology)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-03-011919-7
1. Ethnology-Papua New Guinea-Trobriand Islands. 2. Trobriand
Islands (Papua New Guinea)-Sociallife and customs. I. Title.
II. Series.
GN671.N5W43 1987
306' .0995'3-dc19
87-18614
CIP
ISBN 0-03-011919-7
Copyright © 1988 Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
All rights reserved. No p~rt of this pU?licat.ion m~y be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electromc or mechamcal, mcludmg photocopy, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to:
Permissions
Ilarcoun Brace Jovanuvich, Publishers
Orlando. Florida 32887
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
6 7 8 9 016 11
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
The Dryden Press
Saunders College Publishing
L
To the chiefs of Olnarakana and the villagers of
Kwaibwaga, who, troln the beginning, took the
work of this naive "dimdim" seriously. To all
of thein, agutoki kweverka besa. gumugwe
guyau.
)
Foreword
ABOUT THE SERIES
These case studies in cultural anthropology are designed to bring to stu
dents, in beginning and intermediate courses in the social sciences, insights
into the richness and complexity of human life as it is lived in different places.
They are written by men and women who have lived in the societies they
write about and who are professionally trained as observers and interpreters
of human behavior. The authors are also teachers, and in writing their books
they have kept the students who wiH read them foremost in their minds. We
believe that when an understanding of ways of life very different from one's
own is gained, abstractions and generalizations about social structure, cultural
values, subsistence techniques, and the other universal categories of human
social behavior become meaningful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Annette B. Weiner, the eldest child and the only daughter of four children,
was born on Valentine's Day, 1933, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grad
uated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls and became an X-ray
technician. Married in 1951, she then studied art and wrote and published a
series of childrens' foreign language learning books. In 1964, when she was
31, she entered the College for Women, University of Pennsylvania, as a
freshman. She continued her art studies, but during her sophomore year she
read Stranger and Friend, Hortense Powdermaker's autobiographical account
of her anthropological fieldwork experiences. It was this book that redirected
Weiner's interests to anthropology.
Upon graduation in 1968, she began graduate work in anthropology at Bryn
Mawr College, where she studied with Frederica DeLaguna, Jane Goodale,
and A. J. Hallowell. In 1971 and 1972 she undertook her predoctoral field
work in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea. She received her Ph.D.
in 1974. She taught at Franklin and Marshall College, the University of Texas
at Austin, and, since 1981, has been chair of the Department of Anthropology
at New York University, where she holds the David B. Kriser Professorship
in Anthropology.
vii
viii . FOREWORD
She made a total of five field trips to the Trobriand Islands. In 1979 she
was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship a~d in 1980 was a Men:tber
of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She IS the author of Women
of Value, Men of Renown, New Perspectives in Trobriand Exchan~e and many
articles on Trobriand kinship, politics, and gender. In 1980, ~he did. fi~ldwork
in Western Samoa and recently has been writing on Polynesmn socl~tles. She
is the coauthor (with Jane Schneider) of Cloth and Human Experzence and
has written various articles on comparative aspects of exchange, gender, and
political hierarchy in Melanesia and Polynesia. She has two children-Jona
than Weiner, a lawyer, and Linda Matisse, an artist-and two grandchildren,
Alexander and Nicholas Matisse.
ABOUT THIS CASE STUDY
There are a few cultures around the world that have served the anthro
pological community as classic cases to which one refers to illustrate, and
sometimes to document, points or generalizations. These cases became classic
because the way of life was interesting, because it was either the prototype
of a significant phenotype or unique in the array of the world's cultures, and
because the anthropologist-author made it interesting. Without these classic
cases we would find our lectures and writings poor in living substance. The
unity that anthropology had in its past and what little unity it has in the
fragmented present is due more to the ethnographic examples we use than
to our theories, which tend to factionalize rather than unify us.
Trobriand culture is one of the most classic of cases, and Trobriand society
is one of the "holy places" in the anthropological cosmography. Bronislaw
Malinowski put it on the anthropological map with a series of brilliant writings.
He did his fieldwork a lifetime ago. Annette Weiner did hers only yesterday.
There are two attributes, among others, that particularly distinguish Pro
fessor Weiner's case study. One is that she found so much as Malinowski
described it to be. The other is that she discovered some things that Mali
nowski did not and was able to correct some things that Malinowski misun
derstood or overlooked. And, of course, she pays attention to those changes
that have occurred over the sixty years between the time of her fieldwork
and his.
The Trobrianders is not intended as a criticism of Malinowski's fieldwork
or a rebuttal of his interpretive arguments. This case study stands on its own.
Nevertheless, t~e :xp~nsion and emendati~~ of.~ alinowski's findings give
the study a speCial slgmficance and add to the claSSIC case" status of Trobriand
culture.
Professor Weiner provides us with a view of Trobriand behavior and cultural
knowledge that is notable for both its depth and clarity, One is able to see
further than even Maljnows~i can lak,e us into what yam exchanges. matriliny.
the famous kula ring, sexuo:lhty- parllcularly adole~cent sexuality- and chiefly
power mean to the Trohnandcrs and what mcanmgs these matters have for
FOREWORD ix
us as interpretive ethnographers, theorists, students, and armchair tourists.
Annette \Veiner takes us into the heart of one matter that Malinowski does
not-the importance of women's work, influence, and wealth in determining
male behavior and the nature of Trobriand society. We read very little about
women's wealth or influence in Malinowski's works. It is difficult to see such
relationships across sex-role boundaries. As a woman, Annette Weiner was
led into, but also actively sought, knowledge of women's roles. We see the
structure of a more balanced social system, and one where the mother's
brother, on whose role Malinowski hung a challenge to orthodox Freudian
interpretation of the Oedipal struggle, is not quite the person we thought he
was.
The author balances her written expression, providing ancedotes and de
scription of events to put the reader into the analytic context. The complexities
of the exchange patterns and their relationship to the social organization
become clear.
These are some of the attributes that make The Trobrianders an important
case study and one that should prove useful in both introductory and more
advanced courses. It is a contribution both to anthropology as a discipline
and to instruction in anthropology.
GEORGE AND LOUISE SPINDLER
Series Editors
Calistoga, California
Acknow ledgmen ts
This book represents over fifteen years of study on a wide range of topics
about Trobriand society and culture. I first went to the Trobriand Islands in
1971, and I returned in 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1981 for a total of twenty-two
months of field work. In addition I did archival research in museums and
libraries abroad and in the United States. My research, however, could not
have been carried out without the cooperation and support of many people.
I am especially indebted to Bryn Mawr College, the National Institute for
Mental Health, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Texas at Austin, the John
Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for An
thropological Research.
Without the support of the Papua New Guinea government and the Milne
Bay provincial government I would not have been able to continue my re
search after national independence. I also thank the Department of Anthro
pology and Sociology, University of Papua New Guinea, and the Institute of
Papua New Guinea Studies for their cooperative assistance. The final draft
of the manuscript was completed through the support of the National En
dowment for the Humanities and New York University. Various versions of
the manuscript were read by Fred Myers and T. O. Beidelman, whose com
ments, as always, were astute and penetrating .
. Two people deserve special thanks. My daughter, Linda Weiner Matisse,
stayed with me in the Trobriands in 1972 when she was fifteen years old. Her
presence and the diary she kept provided me with stimulation and insights.
William E. Mitchell was not only a sharply discerning and untiring reader of
multiple revisions of this manuscript but also an unfailing source of encour
agement and wisdom.
My greatest debt, however, will always be to those Trobrianders who gave
so generously in an effort to make me understand a way of life that was for
me confusing, exhilarating, depressing, maddening, and wonderful. The beauty
of a moment could be totally reversed by someone's unexpected angry words,
my own mistakes, or a villager's attempt to undermine what I needed to
know. Fieldwork was never easy, but it was the most profound experience
of my life. I treasure not only what Trobrianders taught me about their own
lives, loves, fears, and desires but even more what I was forced to face about
my own strengths and weaknesses.
xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
XlI
One night at a large village meeting, Chief Waibadi spontaneously an
nounced that the book I would write would be important long after everyone
assembled had died. "Your children and your children's children," he said,
"will read Anna's story and learn about the customs they may have lost.
Nothing will be forgotten."
