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MANUS (Papua New Guinea) (eHRAF)
Index→ Papua New
Guinea → Manus
More:
Arapesh, Ari, Barano, Baruya, Bimin-Kukusmin, Busama, Darabi, Dobu Isl., Eipo, Etoro, Foi, Gebusi, Jaquai, Keraki, Kewa, Kimam, Kiwai, Koko, Kwoma, Lesu, Marind
Anim, New Britain, New
Ireland, Normanby Islanders, Paiela, “Sambia”, Trobrianders, Vanatinai, Wogeo
Bibliography
Mead (1930)[1], on the Manus, says
little on child sexual behaviour. Perhaps the “[h]abits of rough and tumble
sex play, established in youth” persist as adult foreplay. However, the
children masturbate in hard-to-find solitude and surrounded by shame [1953:p101,
102][2]. Manus girls were
betrothed at age 8 or 10 (Mead, 1956:p31)[3]. “Engaged girls should
not run about too much with younger children, should not play with boys,
should stay at home and make bead work for their dowries” (Mead, 1947:p9)[4] arrangements ideally made for
children of two male cross-cousins (Mead, 1934:p228)[5]. The taboos associated with
this fact continuously disturbed the normal constellations in children’s play
groups (Mead, 1937:p221)[6]. An adolescent must not
see his betrothal before marriage, “and then only for a brief instant”; men,
without exception would be ignorant of menstruation (Fortune, 1965 [1969:p89,
82, 149][7]). Thus, “[f]irst
menstruation is believed to be due to the hymen breaking. […] As it is
understood, first menstruation is believed to come as a matter of course,
naturally. The men think that a girl’s first sexual intercourse produces the
next menstruation. They conclude that sexual intercourse causes menstruation.
[…] When one urges upon them that Manus girls menstruate […] they take the
statement as an insult upon the chastity of their girls” (p82-3). Whereas
children’s play formerly was found to be “empty of any content which imitated
adult social relations”, including betrothals and marriage, they were later
found to “play house, they build very tiny houses and also houses big enough
to get inside, and play at housekeeping”. Nothing, however, was said about
sexual imitations (p364, 366). Boys of four or five, however, begin to
imitate displays of phallic “athletics” as is integrated in ceremonial dances
(p51, 130).
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin:
Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology
Last
revised: May 2005
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