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"Pouwer, Jan"
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Gender, ritual and social formation in West Papua : a configurational analysis comparing Kamoro and Asmat
This study, based on a lifelong involvement with New Guinea, compares the culture of the Kamoro (18,000 people) with that of their eastern neighbours, the Asmat (40,000), both living on the south coast of West Papua, Indonesia. The comparison, showing substantial differences as well as striking similarities, contributes to a deeper understanding of both cultures. Part I looks at Kamoro society and culture through the window of its ritual cycle, framed by gender. Part II widens the view, offering in a comparative fashion a more detailed analysis of the socio-political and cosmo-mythological setting of the Kamoro and the Asmat rituals. Next is a systematic comparison of the rituals. The comparison includes a cross-cultural, structural analysis of relevant myths. This publication is of interest to scholars and students in Oceanic studies and those drawn to the comparative study of cultures. Jan Pouwer (1924) started his career as a government anthropologist in West New Guinea in the 1950s and 1960s, with periods of intensive fieldwork, in particular among the Kamoro. A distinguished anthropologist, he held professorships at universities around the world.
Book
The colonisation, decolonisation and recolonisation of West New Guinea
Dutch rule in West New Guinea can be described as an interregnum within a longer history of direct contacts between indigenous Papuans and other Indonesians. The early history of Dutch colonisation of West New Guinea is marked by a general indifference on the part of the authorities and a failure to commit significant resources. This history of early missionisation, exploration and gradual expansion of influence is contrasted with the much greater activity of the post-1945 period, when Dutch attention was more sharply focused on New Guinea. During this period, Dutch perspectives on New Guinea shifted from plans for European settlement to the acknowledgement of an independent future for West Papua. A brief review of Indonesian attitudes towards Papuans helps to account for the nature of Indonesian rule in West New Guinea since 1962, a period which, in terms of its denial of benefits to Papuan people, might most accurately be described as a 'recolonisation'.
Journal Article
Fragments of Transmission of Kamoro Culture (South-West Coast, West Papua), Culled from Fieldnotes, 1952-1954
On 13th January 1954 my wife, baby-daughter and I settle down for several months of intensive research on the spot, in a guesthouse in the village of Ipiri, west of the administrative centre of Kaokonao, after a few hours travelling by canoe loaded to the brim with our barang. Fortunately the treacherous shallow sea behaves properly this time. On our arrival we learn that Paremakani, a middle-aged man, a reputed singer and drummer, huntsman and fisher is gravely ill, for the second time. He is said to have turned down sound advice by selfrighteous wailing relatives and his mother-in law to be transported by his bride taking in-laws - the society's jacks of all trades - to Kaokonao hospital. His illness and his anticipated death is a public event. The hut is crammed with lamenting relatives and friends. His bride taking in-laws are forbidden to partake in wailing lest they want to risk being slapped on the face (which I once noticed). In front of the house wailers come and go, their lamenting time depending on the degree of kinship. Earlier, the sick man has been asked if the ghosts of his late bride taking in-laws have already arrived to take him upstream to the abode of the dead. He then nodded, his staring eyes believed to be flabbergasted by his ghostly companions. Asked again this time there is no answer: he is unconscious. Close relatives and affines move and pinch his head arms and legs in order to implore his wandering soul to return to the body; to no avail. On January 20 in the afternoon some thunderclaps - usual in this period of the season - announce his death. He passes away on 5.30 p.m. His wife, close relatives and affines sitting around the body move his limbs and head in grief. 'The limbs, the head do not stir anymore, life has gone.' Outbursts of wailing last for hours. The widow wallows in the mud and outrageously hacks away at trees and shrubs with a machete. Returning to the body of her husband she throws herself at full length on it, sobbing, wailing and moving his limbs in utter sorrow. So do her children and his sister's children. Amongst them, his son, a schoolboy, who is lifted over the milling crowd and lies on his father, motionless, in grief.
Book Chapter
The Enigma of the Unfinished Male. An Entry to East Bird's Head Mytho-Logics, Irian Jaya
First eight versions of myths in which the motiv of an unfinished male has similar but also different meanings are compared. We then compare this figure with other central figures in myths and representations of various peoples in the Eastern Bird's Head (and beyond) of Irian Jaya. While we pay systematic attention to variations in structure and meanings of the texts, also the historical dimension comes in. The data justify to draw up a diagram in which ten diverse modalities may be arranged along a sliding scale moving from the domain of (supra) nature to the domain of (supra) man. These modalities, derived from different peoples in the area, may be seen to address the universal paradox of people(s) originating from one yet born out of two. The closed cavities of the unfinished male paradoxically open up a wide vista of phenomena of nature including man, of institutions of society and culture, of social process and history of the Bird's Head.
Journal Article
Cargo cult as countervailing ideology
[...]the necessity of the cult: it would reveal the sightings of the whites and lead to insight. [...]the title of his book: initiative and initiation - predominantly male initiation, that is. Ideology in this sense totalizes relations between multitudes of social facts which operate in various, autonomous, dimensions of a social formation, such as the social, economic, political and religious dimensions. Since a symbol is by definition a multivocal, multivalent sign, it serves as a perfect vehicle of ideology, seen as a totalizer. [...]the drastic, radical cataclysm of the so-called cargo cults.
Journal Article
