Legacies of an unknown past

Abstract

This paper deals with contrasts between on the one hand Dani cultures in the Central Highlands of West Irian, and on the other hand cultures in what are now the Eastern and Western Highlands Provinces of Papua New Guinea.In two earlier papers I compared Grand Valley with Bokondini Dani, a Western Dani group (Ploeg 1966 and Ploeg in press).Fortunately, Feil's recent analysis of the evolution of Highland cultures (1987) now allows me to elaborate on these papers.The present paper consists of the following parts.First, I shall recapitulate the main points of the second comparison paper (Ploeg in press).Then I shall discuss Feil's conclusions with regard to the different development of eastern and western highland cultures, which I shall apply, in the third part, to the Dani.The fourth, and final, part contains my conclusions.1.The Dani The term 'Dani' refers both to a language family and to the speakers of the languages of that family.Linguistically there are two major subdivisions: Central Dani, and Ngalik-Nduga (Bromley 1980; see figure 1 in the same publication).Ngalik-Nduga speakers live to the east and south of the Grand Valley of the Balim.In this paper I am concerned with Central Dani speakers.This subfamily includes two groups of dialects: Grand Valley Dani and Western Dani.Hayward (1980:11) and Heider (1979:29) put the number of people speaking Grand Valley Dani dialects at 50,000.With regard to the number of Western Dani speakers there is disagreement between Hayward and Larson (1986:12).Hay ward's estimate is 135,000, Larson's 120,000.Central Dani is spoken in the Grand Valley and its side valleys, Western Dani in a much larger and geographically less coherent area, including the headwaters of the Hablifoeri, of the Balim, of the Swart, and of the Yamo alnd Ila rivers.This area is expanding.Larson (1986) describes how in the

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