Recent acculturation between tribes in Papua‐New Guinea

Abstract

the two groups were on different technological levels, while neglecting the rich opportunities for investigating what he called 'inter-tribal accultura tion'. Following a suggestion of Radin's, he pointed out that the latter process may be accelerated by the imposition of alien rule. As a particularly interesting situation to investigate in Melanesia, he suggested: 'the effect of the recruitment of natives as laborers on the plantations ... a situation which should provide a fruitful field for studying the results that obtain when men of different tribes are thrown together over considerable periods of time'.1 The problem is undoubtedly an interesting one, but it has yet to receive the attention it deserves. Probably every anthropologist working in the area has been made aware of the great increase in contacts between tribes since European settlement, but in publications the effects of these are men tioned only in passing. For example, in Social Change Hogbin notes that: 'now that peace has been established travel is easier, and goods and ideas can be freely exchanged',2 but says no more on that subject. Valentine, in his description of culture change in New Britain, mentions that when workers 'from many different tribal backgrounds' were brought together in Rabaul, 'cross-fertilization of native cultures accompanied acculturation in the direction of alien models',3 but does not expand on the theme. Until 1967, when Michel Panoff undertook a study of inter-tribal relations in the Jacquinot Bay region of New Britain for the New Guinea Research Unit, almost no attention had been paid to the effects of increased inter-tribal contact in Papua-New Guinea under European rule, except as a peripheral part of studies of towns. Even in these, the only aspects mentioned tend to

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