Growing Up Sexually

World Reference Atlas (Oct., 2002)

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Janssen, D. F. (Oct., 2002). Growing Up Sexually. Volume I: World Reference Atlas.

Interim report. Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Papua New Guinea

Ethnographic Index

Arapesh, Ari, Barano, Baruya, Binim-Kukusmin, Busama, Dani, Darabi, Dobu Isl., Eipo, Etoro, Gebusi, Huli, Jaquai, Kaluli, Keraki, Kewa, Kiwai, Koko, Kwoma, Lesu, Manus, Marind Anim, New Britain, New Ireland, Normanby Islanders, Paiela, “Sambia”, Trobrianders, Vanatinai, Wogeo

Contents of Section [up] [Ethnographic Index]

Introduction [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

New Guinea provides a rich collection of sexual subcultures, even when looking at childhood only. A (traditional vs contemporary) overview of the premarital situation is offered by Otto (1985:p326-47). Childhood in New Guinea was covered by Margaret Mead, and although specifically focussing on “sexual” themes, her observations on childhood sexual behaviour seem modest.

A note is in place with the interpretation of “puberty” categories. The Bundi were said to have their menarche at age 18.8 years (Malcolm, 1968, cited by Herdt, 1987; Malcolm, 1970). This late age was also noted for the Bimin-Kukusmin.

[Additional refs.: Oliver-Miller, Sh. (2001) Papua New Guinea, in Francoeur, R. T. (Ed. in chief) The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality. Vol. 4. New York: Continuum. Online ed.]

Papua Semen Transactions, With a Specific Attention to Age of the Initiate (�'Kiwai) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

ECPAT lists that among a variety of contemporary laws, boys under age 14 are not to be dealt with “indecently” or “unnaturally”. There are no statements on the contemporary occurrence of initiations which in the past indeed included such “unnatural” acts. Surveys are offered by Herdt (1984a), Creed (1984), Greenberg (1988:p27-9) and Murray (1992:p9-15). Since 1977, Gilbert Herdt has covered the phenomenon of “Sambia” prepubertal insemination in many works (cf. Valsiner, 2000:p289-91), augmenting on a range of previous documentations (Wirz, 1922; Williams, 1936 [1939:p158-9]; Van Baal, 1966). The custom is described to be performed before puberty for the Marind-anim culture (Van Baal, 1984), the Kimam-Papuans (Serpenti, 1984), and others. Among the Papuas, insemination is actualised per os (Bedamini, Etoro, Anga, Gebusi, “Sambia”, former Baruya), per anum (Kaluli, Jaquai, Kiwai?), or transdermal (Onabasulu) (Sørum, 1984:p324; Schiefenhövel, 1990). Some tribes rub semen in dermal cuts (Gray, 1986:p61) during blood-letting rituals. Among certain tribes, boys are to eat food prepared with semen (Jensen, 1933:p86; Bühler-Oppenheim, 1947:p2194). Among the Elema district Papuans, initiates are to drink the urine of a semese chief, to become semese warriors (Holmes, 1902:p424).

Herdt (1984:p60) states: “An important and ignored aspect of initiation in [ritualised homosexuality] groups is that it frequently occurs before puberty, often as early as middle to late childhood (e.g., Marind-anim, Sambia, Keraki, etc.)”.

The “Sambia” themselves have no ready word for puberty (Guardians of the Flutes, p173n21). Many tribes believe in the andropoetic quality of semen, and the onset of puberty (semen) is certainly an outstanding item in this spectrum; likewise, early heterosexual fellatio “ostensibly precipitates menarche in girls” (Guardians, p178-85): “Men perceive premenarche females as children, a category of asexual or not exciting erotic objects”, in contrast to boys. However, premenarchic coitus is considered dangerous because it would prevent the body from expelling lethal fluids at (naturally timed) menarche. Apart from this, the “Sambia” value male-virgin contacts (1984:p177), while “sexual partners are perceived as having more “heat” and being more exciting the younger they are. A second factor is reciprocity: the more asymmetrical the sexual partners (youth/boy), the more erotic play seems to culturally define their contact” [sic]. Against the background of an utterly phallocentric ideology on the androtrophic properties of semen, “Sambia” prepubertal boys (7-12, on average 8.5) fellate post-pubertal adolescents to ejaculation in order to grow and turn seminarchic themselves, so that they may reverse roles. The boys do not have orgasms, and might have “vicarious erotic pleasure as indicated by erections” only “near puberty” (Herdt and Stoller, 1990:p70-1). Herdt (1981, 1982) had argued that this age is “psychologically necessary for the radical resocialization into, and eventual sex-role dramatization expected of, adult men”. Another theoretical significance of the timing of this custom was discussed by Herdt (2000) and Herdt and McClintock (2000:p593-7). They draw attention to the universally pregonadarchic onset of male sexual transition in precolonial New Guinea, as reported by many ethnologists, including Schieffelin (1976:p152). The latter author stated on the Papuan Plateau Kaluli: “Homosexual intercourse for boys [...] took place in everyday life [...] whenever a boy reached the age of about ten or eleven”. Kelly (1976:p52) on the Plateau Etoro stated that boys are inseminated by oral intercourse by a single inseminator from about the age of ten until he is fully mature and has a manly beard. Williams (1936:p158-9) simply stated that homosexual practices occurred when the Keraki boy could “be trusted to keep the secret from his mother”, or at about age 13 (see also Bleibtrue-Ehrenberg, 1980:p98-102). Anal intercourse among the Marind-anim tribes of Irian Jara (formerly Dutch New Guinea) may have been begun between the ages of seven and fourteen years (Van Baal, 1966:p143-4, 147) or before puberty (Van Baal, 1984), although Van Baal generally speaks of pubertal onset (1966:p118; see Marind-anim); the author does not state a passive-to-active transition age. In general, the average age of onset would be 10 (Bleibtrue-Ehrenberg, 1980:p118), thus when the boy was called patur. In North-Eastern Irian Jara, Moszkowski (1911:p339) observed that boys are initiated into the cult house at age ten. A number of Onabasulu males told Ernst (1991:p4) that “to have male children who were never inseminated would be like planting a garden and not cultivating it”. Apparently, the homosexual friendship, which is not wholly exclusive, was observed to develop between boys aged 12-14 and married males aged 21-23. “The young man [that is, the boy] began to act coy and sometimes flirtatious around his potential partner. The older man acted indulgently and occasionally flirtatiously in return, indicating his interest. Actually in this case, as probably in most, it was difficult to decide who was the initiator. [...] By the time [the boy] enters such a relationship, a youth has probably already had some homosexual experience”.

The subject of acceptation, at least the anthropologist's communication on the matter, was issued, in apparent horror, by DeMause. Although their

“first response to doing fellatio was fear that is how most boys respond”, they nevertheless conclude that the boys “do not just accept fellatio: they want it”. Like most pederasty defenders, they depict the boys as “enthusiastically anticipating” their rape, and as “eager to suck” men's penises and “enjoying” the rape with “fine erotic enthusiasm”. Oral and anal rapes are said to be “grounded in personal affection rather than obligation” and “have a positive effect on the boy's development” ”.

Thus: “Of the several hundred anthropologists whose work I have researched, I found none who said pederasty was detrimental, agreeing instead with the New Guinea natives that it was both desired by and beneficial to the victims”. (Heterosexual) “indecent” dealing with minors could be classified under the heading “Trivial Acts”: “In the case of a girl it is taken seriously only as part of attempted intercourse. In the case of a boy, a minority of societies seem to regard the seduction of boys by older women a nuisance, but little more (But in one society where this is thought to impede the boy's growth it gives rise to complaints)” (Strathern, 1979:p17-8, 21-2).

The explanations forwarded for the New Guinea case are sexual segregation (“ein art Nothomosexualität”) and homosocial control of heterosexual opportunity (Schiefenhövel).

Penis Gourd: Transitional Meaning [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Penis gourds are commonly used in ritualised transitions (Ucko, 1969:p55-7; Gell, 1971). Ucko (cf. Gell, 1971:p71) notes that in Sepik the peda represents a “visible sign of sexual restriction”. Although at age 16 marking a “stage in sexual maturation, [it] does not sanction any sexual activity on the part of the neophyte”, but instead is intended to promote his success in hunting.

Betrothal / Marriage; Prepubertal Coitus [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Betrothal before puberty used to be customary. Goudswaard (1863:p65-6) speaks of incidental infant betrothal among the Geelvinksbaai Papua. Gell (1975:p104) speaks of generation-stratified betrothal in childhood among the Umeda. Manus girls were betrothed at age 8 or 10 (Mead, 1956:p31). Kewa girls can be married at menarche, but are sometimes chosen before puberty (Franklin, 1965:p417). Kapauku marriageability is measured by “physical appearance” (thelarche), rather than menarche (Steinberg, 1959). Child marriage was noted by Van Eechoud ([1959]:63] among the “Kaowerawédja”, and by Huizinga among the “Waropen” Papua (1937:p436), but this was not noted a decade later (Held, 1947:p99). Gogodara girls usually married when they reach the age of puberty (Lyons, 1926). As for the Muruans (Murua, east of the Trobriands), “[...] it is their practice to celebrate a marriage soon after the parties thereto have reached the age of puberty” (Lyons, 1925:p131). Lyons (1924:p58), however, states that girls are “immediately handed over to the care of her [apparently age-asymmetric] prospective husband”, unless an infant, who is taking into the care of some female relative of her affianced “until she attains puberty”.

On Kolopom, ceremonial sexual intercourse occurred between married men and prepubescent girls who had been betrothed to adolescent male novices (Serpenti, 1965/1977; 1984). Reporting on an Abelam village, Whiteman (1965:p117) stated that if a father beat his prepubertal but betrothed daughter for having sexual relations, it was not about morals but about a possible bride price reduction. Langness (1967:p167) stated that prepubertal girls occasionally attend formal courting parties “to learn the songs and watch” as the older girls have sexual intercourse. The darkness, however, would prevent much of the learning. Knauft (1993:p101) on the South Coast tribes, describes that the young girl is “subjected at about age eight to ten to serial sexual intercourse by adult men [...] to procure sexual fluids for rubbing on the girl's groom-to-be, to help him grow”. The custom was said to be “willingly submitted to [...] in the belief that it was necessary to enhance their personal fertility as well as that of the Marind cosmos” (p96). “Sambia” girls practice fellatio on their adolescent spouses until menarche, and coitus thereafter (Herdt, 1977:p206). Boys and girls of the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River were “often betrothed at a very early age, by their parents”; however, the unbetrothed may have had secret get-togethers in the night (Guise, 1899:p208).

“Genital Parenting” [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

By the Biami, Daribi and Hagenberg tribes an old mother would greet their adult sons with the caressing of penis and scrotum. Boy's but not girl's genitalia are commonly caressed among the Middle Sepik Iatmul (Hauser-Schäublin, 1997:p106). Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1973:p190) hypothesises that this is a rudiment of the practice of genital soothing applied on the males when infants.

This is backed up by other observations. Mead (1948) noted this custom in the Arapesh (“playful tics on his genitalia”). Berndt (1962:p91): “As babies and small children their genitalia are fondled”. Mothers caress “the fleshy parts of [the infant's] body [...] and implanting breathy kisses over and over again in the region of its genital organs” (Hogbin, 1943:p298). Genital touching by older people was also noted by among the Marind-anim (Van Baal, 1966; cf. Money and Ehrhardt, 1973 [1996:p132]). Gillison (1993:p176) describes the process of masturbating infants among the Gimi:

“The mother insists upon continued contact, interrupting her toddler's play repeatedly to offer the breast. Masturbation [...] with a baby girl [occurs when] the mother or amau holds her hand over the vulva and shakes it vigorously. She may kiss the vagina [sic], working her way up the middle of the body to the lips and then inserting her nipple (often when the child has given no sign of discontent). With a boy, she kisses the penis, pulls at it with her fingers and takes it into her mouth to induce an erection. Several women may pass a baby boy back and forth, each one holding him over her head as she takes a turn sucking or holding the penis in her mouth. When the child then pulls at his own organ, the women, greatly amused, offer squeezes and pulls of their own”.

Poole (1982, 1983,1984, 1985a,b, 1987, 1990), another observer of the practice, interviewed both mothers and children. Mothers, Poole states, systematically “masturbate” the penes of their baby boys:

“She is expected to masturbate him periodically to ensure the growth of his genitalia, but she must carefully avoid the excessive development of erotic “infant lust” which may injure his finiik [spirit][...]. When mothers rub the penes of their infant sons, the little boys wriggle on their mothers' laps and have erections. These tiny erections bring laughter. It is play. It will make their penes big when they are older. But “infantile lust” can become too strong and can damage the growing “spirit or life-force” (finiik) of little boys. You will see mothers and sons together in this way everywhere” (Poole, 1990:p127, 106).

As cited by DeMause (1999): “Much of the ribald joking among mothers is for the purpose of denying that the erotic use of the child is in fact incest-it is blamed on the infant's “lust” only-for only “bad” mothers “are believed to stimulate their sons beyond the bounds of “infantile lust”[] in order to satisfy their own sexual desires [...]”. Those mothers who completely give in to their own “lust” are called “witches” who are said to be “driven [...] to destroy all aspects of masculinity through jealousy and rage” a condition all women can fall into, particularly when they are young, inexperienced mothers or are treated harshly by their husband's family. In order to prove that she isn't being too lustful, mothers deliberately cover their breasts with bark cloth when they are stimulating the penis in a ritually prescribed manner. Indeed, this often highly ostentatious act of covering the breasts is a display to an ever-watchful public that the mother is acting properly in tending her son. On occasion, I have witnessed older women admonish a young mother for failing to cover her breasts when rubbing her son's genitals (1983:p11)”. More privacy is afforded at night, however, when mothers can rub against their children's entire bodies because they sleep naked with their them, “together in each other's arms” and when they also can “regularly rub” the boy's penis to erection (P., 1987:p115).

Poole interviewed one young boy, Buuktiin, who described how when his mother was depressed or angry she often “pulled, pinched, rubbed, or flicked a fingernail against his penis” (1987:p118) until he cried, afraid it might break off. “When he struggled to escape, she held him tightly and rubbed his penis even harder” (1990:p159). “Kiipsaak [his mother] had masturbated him earlier as mothers often do [...]. [But] now she increased the tempo and roughness of the episodes [...] and he often jerked at her touch and struggled to get away, hitting her and complaining of throbbing pain in his penis. “It hurts inside. It goes “koong, koong, koong” inside. I think it bleeds in there. I don't like to touch it anymore. It hurts when I pee” (1990:p137).

Schiefenhövel (1990:p407) concludes that “it is not uncommon that New Guinean mothers fondle the genitals of their infants, possibly causing an erection, and make humorous remarks about children's genitals [...]”.

Sexual Life in Childhood [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Ethnographers not only decentralised the timing of androtrophy, but also neglected the concurrent sexual pursuits before puberty, if any. For instance, little if anything is known about Kapauku childhood sexual development. The 1994 National Study of Sexual and Reproductive Knowledge and Behaviour in Papua New Guinea has little concern for childhood. Male and female coitarchal age was calculated at 17, with lower extremes of 8 (M) and 11 (F). “A few women in different areas (Papuan Coast, Anga, North Coast) had intercourse before menarche. Fears that the first menstruation would be construed as proof that they had already experienced sexual intercourse were expressed repeatedly by young women in the Massim area” (p30). Schidlof (1908:p11) cites Pfeil in the observation that boys aged 14 to 15 married girls aged 9 or 10. “Bedenkt man, daß außerdem noch vor der Ehe Geschlechtsverkehr besteht, so muß man zugestehen, daß die frühzeitige Kenntnis der Geschlechtsvorgänge für die kleinen Wilden nicht von Vorteil ist”.

Studying the Melanesian people of southeast New Guinea, anthropologist Ruth Benedict (1938) concluded that adults paid little attention when young children engaged in sexual experimentation with one another. Parents in Melanesia shrugged off such activity because, before puberty, sex cannot lead to reproduction. New Guinean childhood sex play may follow from the “sociosensual exploratory attunement with age-mates”, as is seen in the Fore (Sorenson, 1978:p22). Denis (1966 [1967:p27]) was told: “As the children grew up they naturally took sex and its various attributes for granted. They witnessed the lovemaking of parents and other adults within the family huts. They played together freely, and sexual experiments between young boys and girls went of quite unchecked in the village. Unmarried adolescents were quite free to make love”. In an urban Papua community, Belshaw (1957:p176) found that sexual experience began with the onset of puberty. Schellong (1889:p16) found that “little” boys aged 13 to 15 seek secret get-togethers; perceiving this, their father would judge his “precocious” son to be growing up soon [menses was estimated to commence at age 13]. Pre-Trobriands Malinowski (1922 [1987:p53]) stated: “At an incredible early age they become initiated into sexual life, and many of the innocent looking plays of children are not as innocuous as they appear”. “There is no rite or magic at puberty, but then, with this people, puberty does not represent any very definite crisis in the life of the individual, as their sexual life starts long before puberty arrives, and gradually shapes and develops as the organism matures” (1922:p394). Watson and Watson (1972:p) noted for the Batanabura: “The boys poke sticks into each others' anuses [...]. If parents see boys having sex with little girls they joke about it and laugh. “Good. You can do it. Your mothers and fathers did this” [...]”. Chowning (1973:p76) states that the children “are typically initiated into intercourse by older and more experienced children”. Dubuy for the Ononghe tribe: “In the matter of chastity, they do not practice unnatural vices, but what is “natural” they do. Boys and girls cease to play together from the age of six or seven years. They marry from the age of sixteen or eighteen”.

Van Baal (1966) states that the Marind Anim of New Guinea freely accept sex play of children. On the premarital freedom of the Swart Valley New Guineans, Wirz (1924:p74) states: “Jedes Mädchen wird bereits im Kindsalter defloriert”. This observation could not be corroborated by Le Roux (1950:p688-96), who says very little on childhood. Van Eechoud (II, [1959:p61]; 1962:p45) in Central New Guinea states that there are few observations on children's sexual expressions, and parents denied (imitated) coitus before nuptial age. “Sexual humour” was not forbidden, this including penis snatching and phallic imitation by means of objects. Berndt and Berndt (1971:p116-7) argue that “little boys” form the most avid and untiring spectators of mock-adultery scenes during festive gatherings.

Initiation is seen as a legitimisation for sexual intercourse in the Papua Koko (Chinnery and Beaver, 1915:p77). Flint (1919:p39): “A Bamu River native considers it essential in paedotrophy that the children should learn how they come into existence, so whilst witnessing the copulation natives explain to the children who are sitting near them how their mothers become enceinte; advice relating to matrimonial matters is also tendered at a muguru”. It was said that in New Guinea sexual maturity was thought to be facilitated by coitus (Berndt, 1962:p87).

Wedgwood (1927:p379): “Rivers [] mentions that in Eddystone Island and in parts of New Guinea, for instance, infantile sexual relations between brother and sister are not considered reprehensible, though, after puberty, such conduct would be severely punished, and would be regarded as injurious to the community as a whole [...]”. Lyons (1924:p58) noted on western Papua that “[s]exual congress not infrequently occurs before puberty, especially in the case of betrothed children, who will “play” the married state in imitation of their elders”. Du Toit (1974:p219-20) states that masturbation was discouraged. “At about ten years of age children of both sexes are informed, by both parents, that heterosexual play and intercourse which might follow, can cause trouble”. In tune with the separation of the sexes in later childhood, boys may actualise anal introduction, and girls may practice ventroventral approximation, all under the concept iyeranenu, play.

Reporting on the Elema People of Orokolo Bay in the Papua Gulf, Williams (1969:p77) stated some “little girls [are] beyond suspicion of sexual activity”. “On moonlight evenings the beach here and there may be alive with boys and girls, some of them youths and maidens, for this is a golden opportunity to mix love-making with horse-play [...] they are playing one or other of a variety of games which it is impossible for the onlooker to see or appreciate” (p17) [sic]. Among the Mandobo, Boelaars (1970:p135) found that “dirty” games were not allowed, and older children are segregated. Boelaars (1981:p87) on Irian Jara, states that, apart from a specific penis touching game, sexual interests start at age 14 (boys), and at menarche. In Sela Valley childhood, “[s]exuality, too, is part of everyday life” (Godschalk, 1993:p60).

Schiefenhövel (1982:p149) noted that among the Eipo, boy's genital play was met with amusement, in contrast to the little girl's. The author (1982; 1990:p403-7) sketches a picture of sexual tolerance. Childhood autogenital play is common in males, but not seen in females. However, “[I]n many interviews with informants in which sexual topics were touched upon, the information provided led the interviewers to believe that homosexual acts, playful or “serious”, among male children [...] do not occur. On the other hand, this author did hear of male and female children “having had intercourse” in the grassland beside the village. Everyone laughed with good humour about this behavior; the children involved were neither reprimanded nor punished in any way”. Schiefenhövel (1990:p407) agrees with Malinowski (1929:p50-1) that adult-child intercourse in rare on New Guinea.

Krieger (1899:p297-9, as cited by Ronhaar) observed that among the Bartle Bay people “immorality” not seldom commences in childhood, “when they are corrupted by the other children in the village. The girl is betrothed as a child or after reaching puberty”.

Among the Bena Bena, young boys are said to be given sticks and encouraged to chase and beat girls, the adults urging them to “stick it up her vagina” or “go and hit her hard” (Langness, 1981:p16). Boys are sometimes threatened with castration (Langness, 1972).

Held (1951:p99-100) marks a strict sexual segregation between sibs (cf. 104-5). “Uitingen van sexualiteit vindt men hier even natuurlijk als gewone biologische processen en het jonge meisje is daarom al veel eerder in de vrouwenwereld betrokken dan de jongen in de mannenwereld. Meisjes beginnen ook eerder kleren te dragen”. Premarital sexual relations are frequent enough, though not approved; premarital pregnancy is strongly opposed (p106-7) . A discourse of sex as “secret” is not apparent, given housing facilities (p106-7, 108).

In New Guinea sexual instruction to boys is facilitated by anatomically overly correct dolls. Further, a technique of self-arousal by means of intra-urethral insertion is communicated (Jensen, 1933:p85).

SCCS Ratings [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Four New Guinean tribes have been rated: Kwoma, as described by Whiting (3+3-,4,3+,3+,4-;4,2;A), Trobrianders, as described by Malinowksi (2,2,2,2,2-,2-;8,8;E; eHRAF), Manus, as described by Mead (3,3,4,4,3,3;8,8;A) and Lesu, as described by Powdermaker (2,2,2+,2+,2,2;8,8;E). These childhood digits would suggest two patterns of sexual socialisation strictness.

Selected Subcultures: Ethnographic Particularities [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Marind-anim (New Guinea) (Papua Semen Transactions) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Anal intercourse among the Marind-anim tribes of Irian Jara (formerly Dutch New Guinea) is begun between the ages of seven and fourteen years (Wirz, I, 1922:p45-6:p; cf. 1928:p141; Van Baal, 1934; 1966:p143-4, 147), although Van Baal also speaks of pubertal onset (1966:p118; 1934:p49-50); the author does not state a passive-to-active transition age. In general, the average age of onset would be 10 (Bleibtrue-Ehrenberg, 1980:p118), thus when the boy was called patur [in fact, aroi-patoer, 13-15] (see also Van Baal, 1984; Hage, 1981:p271; Herdt, 1984:p60; Money and Ehrhardt, 1973/1996:p132-5), and during the time he is wokravĭd, and afterward éwati (some 4 to 5 years post aroi-patur; cf. 1934:p54) and until he becomes miakim (id., p50, 54, 155; cf. Van Baal, 1947:p142; Berkhout, 1919:p442, 443, 444-5, 446-7). The wokravĭd is mockingly named “a girl” (Viegen, communicated to Van Baal, 1934:p49n177; cf. p53, 54). Van Baal (1966; Money and Ehrhardt, 1973/1996:p132) observed that the Marind Anim freely accept sex play of children. Van Baal, however, also quotes Wirz as observing that patur [<13] are “mit peinlicher Prüderie von allem Obszönen ferngehalten”. Sexual segregation starts at 4-5 to 7-8 years, and is strict by the time of pubertal onset. Boys go to the gotad (boy's house), where masturbation and homosexual interaction with age-mates and a male mentor (binahor-evai) may occur. Homosexual practices are rumoured to take place at ceremonies and known to take place at special occasions as well. Girls are likewise assigned to a mentor, but no homosexuality was reported.

Heterosexual intercourse is forbidden to the novices (Van Baal, 1934:p132) until it occurs ceremonially (p55, 154-5) when miakim during the Majo part of the initiation. According to Berkhout and Wirz (I, p47), however, every éwati has his affairs with wahukus [roughly, ages 13-16, pubescent] or kivasom iwages [16-18].

Sambia (pseud.) (New Guinea) (Herdt) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Gilbert Herdt who gives the most extensive data on the Sambia, states that “all sex play is forbidden”, and that sexes are separated from age 5. If sex play should occur, “they would have no thought of being warriors or making gardens, according to the males. Thus, “boys would be polluted and their growth blocked by sexual play with girls [...]” (Herdt, 1993:p199). This script is said to be successfully enforced. An informant told Herdt that boys are feared for sexual intercourse with women by men (Intimate Communications, p108-9). Thus, the boys, who are married to premenarchal girls after the signs of puberty (ages 14-16), are fellated by the wives until these are menarchal; then, coitus takes place.

Bánaro (New Guinea) (Haddon) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

The initiation ceremony for girls included defloration by a man who plays the part of a spirit (Thurnwald, 1916:p19). Among the Barano (Middle Keram), boy's initiation into sexual life is experienced at the conclusion of his initiatory rites, with “an elderly woman, ordinarily the wife of the mother's goblin initiator” (cf. Haddon, 1920:p255). Thurnwald (1921) relates that wedding customs and puberty rituals were intimately connected 16-7, 19, 32). Specifically, boys were allowed sexual intercourse only after the rites (p32).

Grand Valley and Western Dani (New Guinea) (Heider) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Heider (1972:p182; 1976:p183) states that the Dani say that “a couple do [sic] not begin to have sexual intercourse until a specific ceremony is held, two years after the major wedding exchange ceremony and thus two years after the couple has established a common residence”. Heider (1976:p194) performed systematic observations, including audio- and videotaping, on mother-infant dyads in two Dani regions. “Although we have not yet analysed the data, it became obvious to us during the observations that although we were seeing on the Western Dani an expectable amount of mothers erotically manipulating their infants, there was virtually none of this among the Grand Valley Dani”. The penis gourd is worn from the age of six. Boy's initiation rites are void of sexual reference, but teenage songs, drawings and string figures forms “one of the few areas of Dani life where there is any significant level of sexuality” (1976:p194-5; 1970:181-4, 205, 305-9).

Jaqai, Jaquai (Boelaars) (New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Boelaars (1958:p61-2; nd:p134; cf. 1981) speaks of a homosexual exchange custom:

“Een vader kan zijn jonge zoon gelasten voor een nacht bij een bepaalde man te gaan slapen, die dan met de knaap paederastie mag plegen. De vader ontvangt daarvoor een vergoeding. Wanneer dit in het verleden geregeld gebeurde, ontstond tussen de man en de jongen een vaste verhouding, gelijk aan die tussen vader en zoon (anusvader, mo-ée en anuszoon, mo-maq genoemd). De jongen kon er dan van op aan dat hij de dochter van die man als zijn "zuster” mocht beschouwen en dat ze hem als ruilzuster voor zijn toekomstig huwelijk zou worden toegewezen. De jongens beginnen op deze leeftijd [“grote kinderen”] in navolging van de volwassen mannen ook een vezelstaart te dragen. De anusstreek wordt door de mannen namelijk als hun schaamdeel beschouwd. Enerzijds kan deze opvatting een gevolg zijn van de homosexuele praktijken, anderzijds wordt zij verklaarbaar uit de vrees van de mannen dat ze door de vrouwen voor “groot-aars” uitgescholden zullen worden”.

Boelaars mentions the growth principle, which is officially kept secret from the female kind:

“De mannen geven als reden op dat door homosexualiteit tussen een oudere man en een jongen de groei van de mo-maq, de schandknaap bevorderd wordt. [...] Men beschouwt homosexualiteit als iets wat ten dienste van het leven gebeurt” (p144-5).

Boelaars argues that de practitioners themselves consider it “immoral” (onterend) because accusations led to inter-village quarrels (p145). Also, de boys would have begun to refuse their participation (p165). To end the practise, Dutch policies recommended the promotion of “family life” and desegregation of the sexes (p171).

In his original manuscript, Boelaars notes that sexual awareness begins at around age 10 (p131). Girls are marriageable from the time breasts start to drop, which would be prevented by intermammilary scarification (p137). On childhood:

“Het kan gebeuren, dat jongetjes tegenover elkaar zitten en bij wijze van steekspel proberen elkaars geslachtsdeel aan te raken. Men hoort nog al eens, ook bij kinderen, het woord paradi, penis, als een krachtterm; vriendjes kunnen onder elkaar lachend het gezegde joqajo-maq bezigen: wat zoveel betekent als hoerenkind. Volgens Toani van Képi krijgt het kleine meisje van jongsafaan bijgebracht, dat ze “netjes” moet gaan zitten en alleen maar mag spelen met “broers” en “zusjes”. Het spel begint evenwel pas echt, als de jongens een jaar of veertien zijn en de meisjes hun eerste menstruatie hebben gehad. De Jaqaj kennen het bestaan van het maagdenvlies, èmber, en ze menen dat dit bij de eerste menstruatie stukgaat. Omgang daaraan voorafgaande wordt streng afgekeurd, en als er op dit punt tegen iemand beschuldigingen worden geuit, zal men de zaak terdege onderzoeken; en indien degene die hier in overtreding is, geen beste huwelijkskandidaat is, kan hij rekenen op een hardhandige afstraffing [...] (p139-40; cf. p152).

Adolescent amorous practices consist of subtle exchanges of looking or gestural signs. Ad hoc songs address indecent and illegal sexual practices, such as the improper positionings of little girls, and the seduction of an adult female with a little boy (p147). Marital advise is provided after marriage.

Kewa (New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Kewa girls can be married at menarche, but are sometimes chosen before puberty (Franklin, 1965:p417).

Arapesh (New Guinea) (Mead) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Mead (1948, 1937:p26) observed the Arapesh girl is betrothed at age 6 to 8 to a boy about 6 years her senior. Living with her husband's family, the relationship “repeats the parent-child pattern” (p39). During the betrothal, there may be “overt sex expression” but not intercourse. About sexual activity in childhood, Mead appears inconclusive. The Arapesh seem not to fear sex play, but do believe that (pubertal) growth and sexual activity are mutually exclusive. Particularly, the breasts would remain “small, stiff and inhospitable”, opposing the female ideal of pendulent mammae. Masturbation is said to be infrequent in benefit of a specific oral hedonism, and due to a taboo on even casual genital touching. Oral (labial) pleasure must not be mixed with genital life, and, despite its childish character, carries over into adult sexuality. Labial (oral) play is discouraged after initiation (boys) or after labour (girls).

Plateau Etoro (New Guinea) (Kelly) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Kelly (1976:p52) on the Plateau Etoro stated that boys are inseminated by oral intercourse by a single inseminator from about the age of ten until he is fully mature and has a manly beard.

Keraki (New Guinea) (Williams) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Williams (1936:p158-9) stated that homosexual practices occurred when the Keraki boy could “be trusted to keep the secret from his mother”, or at about age 13 (see also Bleibtrue-Ehrenberg, 1980:p98-102; Van Baal, 1966:p493). A legend is used to explain the origin of the custom (Williams, 1936:p308; Hage, 1981:p271).

Kimam (New Guinea) (-,-,2+,2+,4-,3;5,5;G3) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

The custom of semen transfer is covered by Serpenti (1984) and Gray (1986).

Koko (New Guinea) (Papua) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Boys and (probably) girls receive instruction in moral and sexual codes of behaviour in special houses during the initiation rites at puberty (Chinnery and Beaver, 1915:p76). Initiation is required for sexual intercourse.

Huli (New Guinea) (Glasse) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Among the Huli young males leave the maternal house after initiation at age 7 or 8 to join their fathers, to avoid (sexual) contact with women (Stone, 2000:p176). Men of 25 are married to 15-year-olds, whose virgin vagina has to be oiled in order to prevent damage to his penis. Glasse (p51-2): “Young men begin to think of marrying when signs of their physical maturity appear; these include the quality and “firmness “ of the skin, abundant body hair and growth of a heavy beard. When these signs are evident, the men resign from the bachelor societies, don the crescent-shaped wig and evince an interest in attractive girls. They do not attend courting parties; these are the prerogative of married men”. The men are hesitant, for they are warned about the dangers of (menstruating women. “before marriage, the lovers are unlikely to have sexual intercourse. A single man fears coitus without the magical preparation that is available only to married men”.

Kwoma (New Guinea) (Whiting) (3+,3-,4,3+,3+,4-;4,2;A) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

The Kwoma represents the only culture rated less restrictive for early female childhood, and one of the very few (4) in which this is the case for late childhood; apparently, there is also a reversal of the double standard after late childhood.

Whiting and Reed (1938:p198) sketch the sexual atmosphere of the Kwoma:

“Sexual taboos, imposed early in the child's life, underlie the later restrictions on marriage and philandering. A boy must not have an erection in public, particularly in the presence of his sisters, who will beat his penis with a stick if they observe it. A child of either sex caught fingering his genitals is told to stop, since the member belongs to its future spouse. The most important sexual restriction imposed at this time [childhood] is against looking at the genitals of the opposite sex. This is considered a sexual advance [...]”.

When alone in the bush Kwoma boys scrape the penis with nettles.

Later, Whiting (1941) would write on Kwoma sexual development in somewhat more detail. Infants finger their genitalia (p26-7), though masturbation is not observed.

“Kwoma boys frequently play a game with sexual connotations: one boy chases another, throws him down, and simulates copulation with him. Other boys in the group then take advantage of the aggressor and pretend to copulate with him until four or five boys line up in this way all laughing and yelling with enjoyment. Then, when the bottom boy has broken free and the chain disintegrates, there follows a hubbub in which each boy calls another his wife and claims to have impregnated “her”. Adolescents often join the game, and, when they do, the children have great difficulty defending their “honor”. When this game was the fad, one or another group of boys played it almost every day for a period of over a month” (p50).

The girl is reared more strictly, although “Kwoma culture defines [looking at opposite sex genitals] as immoral only on the part of the boy”, and both are punished for masturbation. Effectively so, the boys do not even seem to touch the genitalia in urination, and all denied the practice “with considerable embarrassment”. This pattern may be a prelude on adolescent restrictions.

“A girl's menarche in itself removes her from the status of child and puts her into a class of “sexy” persons, children of either sex being considered both uninterested in sex and uninteresting sexually” (Williamson, 1983:p18). The Kwoma traditionally married at pubescence (Bowden, 1983:p754). Boys practice periodical penile blood-letting in order to ensure growth (Whiting, 1941:63-4). This is done collectively in boy's initiation, Handapia Sugwia.

Plateau Kaluli (New Guinea) (Schieffelin) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Schieffelin (1976:p152): “Homosexual intercourse for boys [...] took place in everyday life [...] whenever a boy reached the age of about ten or eleven”.

Ari (New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

“Girls are quite free sexually before marriage, and promiscuous intercourse between young people is the rule. The girls do the asking, and they will ask a boy to sleep with them, and he will come to their parents' or brothers' house to have connection. If a boy goes to a girl who has not asked him, he may have his way or may not, but in either case the girl will shun that boy afterwards and will also tell her friends he is no good”.

“Marriages are arranged by the parents, when the children are very young. After the two families have settled this, the children, even if still in arms, are what is called in Motuan Mahenta, and locally as Bobeia, which means, roughly, engaged, and they are spoken of, even as infants, as husband and wife. [...] When the marriage is to be ratified [not invariably so], the boy takes the girl to his father's house and sleeps with her, without touching her. [...] No sexual intercourse is permitted the bride and groom till they have planted two gardens, and fattened up a pig and sold it (that is to say, for one year after marriage. [...] when a feast is given the girl has connection with a man not her husband and is then free to the husband”. Paradoxically, “[t]he woman has invariably been deflowered before marriage, and in fact they prefer such a woman to be a virgin”.

“Before children come to puberty no clothes are worn at all. When a boy is getting near puberty families meet and arrange�"another family have a girl coming on, and they are approached and arrangement made for a combined feast. The maternal uncles decorate the children and they are given dance ornaments, and a dance is arranged. The boy is told during the dance to take the girl and have connection with her; the dance lasts all night, and whilst the people dance outside the boy “has” the girl in his parents' house. [...] this connection has no effect on future marriage, and has nothing to do with it�"it is merely initiation. The dance may last several days, and advantage is taken of it to initiate all children who can be. However long the dance lasts the two children only copulate once. This is called Iarata, and all boys initiated are called Iarata. Circumcision is not practiced” (p470-1).

Menstruation being explained by copulating moons, “[...] small girls are held up to the moon, and told that the moon will have them first and afterwards their husbands” (ibid.).

Vanatinai (insular New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

According to Lepowsky (1990 :p190-1), “[s]exual activity on Vanatinai is regarded as a pleasurable activity appropriate for men and women from adolescence to old age. [...] Young people vary in the age at which they become sexually active, but it is usually in the mid-teens. Parents may tell they daughters that they are “too young” to have sex, as did the mother of one fifteen-year-old when she began to be courted by a young man whom the mother disapproved [...]. On the other hand, some parents feel concerned if their daughters are not receiving lovers by the time they are in their late teens”. No institutionalised homosexuality (p192).

Busama (New Guinea) (Hogbin) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Hogbin (1963:p94-102) discusses the “Awakening of the Sexual Impulse” with a chapter beginning with “puberty” (14/15 for girls. He relates that 5-year-olds play house (no sexological associations made), but soon the sexes separate in play groups, the “main impulse” allegedly coming from boys. Maternal concerns about her girl's reputation start at menarche. An older woman is appointed to instruct the girl. The girl is chaperoned.

Wogeo (New Guinea) (Hogbin) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Menarche on Wogeo occurs late, at around or after age 17 (Hogbin, 1935:320-1). Equally, Hogbin (p320) states that “[t]he sexual life of the islanders does not begin until about the age of 16 or 17 or later [...]”. Hogbin (1946a), as the title of his later article might suggest, answers negatively on the question of paradoxia on Wogeo. Masturbation is regarded as preparatory (H., p188). Although knowledge of sexual intercourse is gained by age eight or nine (before, they are told that babies grow on trees, where they are to be picked), “[...] the youngsters do not carry out experiments for themselves”. The “awakening of the sexual impulse” (a rather eurocentric concept) is placed at pubescence, “at least for boys”. In his article on childhood (1946b) he gives a further (modest) clue to his argument: “[...] play marriages, common elsewhere in Melanesia, do not take place”. (Hogbin, 1943) on Wogeo infants does not report sexual observations. Hogbin (1945, as cited by Marinkelle, 1976:p47) argues that homosexual relations are expected in adolescence, until heterosexual relations are permitted after initiation after about age 19. This would contrast girlhood situation, heterosexual relations being encouraged (and rewarded) from sexual maturity onward.

So the possible absence of Paradoxia seems strange in this “permissive” society (Ford and Beach (1951:p190), where “sexual matters are freely discussed by adults in the presence of children [although] parents take some precautions against their own children observing them in intercourse”.

Kiwai (New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

As detailed by Knauft (1990), the use of semen transactions, or age stratified same-sex sexual behaviour, was suggested by apparently unambiguous statements by Beardmore and by Chalmers, as interpreted by Herdt [referring to the Bugilai] and initially corroborated by Langmore, who, citing unpublished letters of Chalmers, later scrutinised this; it was also explicitly denied by Landtman. There is also an ambiguous statement by Riley (Headhunters, p216), and a statement on the personal ignorance of it by Williams.

Gebusi (New Guinea) (Knauft) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Gebusi's initiatory homosexuality included boy insemination per os at pubescence (Knauft, 1985:264ff, 298ff; 1986:p267; 1987a,b). The practice was no longer in vogue in 1998. In contrast to the “Sambia”, Gebusi did not say or imply that men had to be inseminated to reach adulthood; “this was simply an erotic act that could help them in this regard”.

Bimin-Kukusmin (New Guinea) (Poole) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Genital parenting has been mentioned. Girls are initiated at menarche at the late age of 17 to 18 (Poole, 1981 [1986:p142]). Male and female siblings are to chaperon the neothelarchic girl, since she is now regarded attractive. Premarital virginity is highly valued. There is no custom of courting per se, and betrothal often occurs before menarche; the girl's consent is held essential.

Eipo (New Guinea) (Schiefenhövel) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Schiefenhövel (1982:p149; 1990) noted that among the Eipo, boy's genital play was met with amusement, in contrast to the little girl's:

“Kleinkindern, insbesondere Buben, erlaubt man die Beschäftigung mit dem Genitale mit amüsierter Nachsicht. Für die kleinen Mädchen trifft das in weniger starkem Ausmaß zu, da es als für sie schiklich gilt, daß sie etwa ab 4 Jahren verkleinerte Ausgaben der Schamschürzchen der Frauen tragen und ihre Genitale so bedecken. Auch wenn ein Kinderpärchen in mehr oder weniger spielerischer Weise den Geschlechtsverkehr der Erwachsenen nachahmt, wird das belustigt zur Kenntniss genommen”.

Until age 14, the boys display “phallic presenting” (ill.) in imitation of the men. [Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1976:p167): “Bei Kampfspielen sah ich oft, daß junge [Eipo] Burschen einander bedrohten, indem sie das Becken vorsteckten und Kopulationsbewegungen machten. Dabei hüpften sie auch mit vorstrecktem Becken auf der Stelle und oft auf einem Felsen oder anderem erhöhten Punkt, sich so auffällig zur Schau stellend”.] Premarital sex is allowed unless the affair is arranged. Sexual communications are free before children, who acquire a large part of the (theoretical) knowledge of adults (p150).

Schiefenhövel sketches a picture of sexual tolerance. Childhood autogenital play is common in males, but not seen in females. However, “[I]n many interviews with informants in which sexual topics were touched upon, the information provided led the interviewers to believe that homosexual acts, playful or “serious”, among male children [...] do not occur. On the other hand, this author did hear of male and female children “having had intercourse” in the grassland beside the village. Everyone laughed with good humour about this behavior; the children involved were neither reprimanded nor punished in any way”.

Baruya (New Guinea) (Godelier) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

According to Godelier (1982:p90-6; cf. Godelier, 1991:p281-2; Jorgensen, 1991:p267; Glowczewski, 1995:p137) sperm had to be ingested by the initiate at the last phase of the rite. “Ce secret le plus sacré, c'est que les jeunes initiés, dès qu'ils pénètrent dans la maison des hommes, sont nourris de sperme de leurs aînés, et que cette ingestion est répétée pendant de nombreuses années dans le but de les faire croître plus grands et plus fortes que les femmes, supérieurs à elles, aptes à les dominer à les diriger”. The practice is extinct: “Cette coutume n'est plus pratiquée aujourd'hui: elle a disparu presque aussitôt après l'arrivée des Européens en 1960”.

New Britain (Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Boys receive preparation for marriage in a secret society (Dukduk), but no such preparation is known to exist for girls (Danks, 1889:p283). Though not typical, mothers would purchase girls aged 5 or 6 to marry them to their sons, the date of which remains uncertain (“[..] he will undoubtedly wait until the girl has reached eleven or twelve years of age”). Betrothals would be arranged before birth. Also, “I have seen a fine healthy girl of not more than eleven or twelve years of age married to a man of twenty-five or thirty. The result of such an early union for the girl has been dreadful. To judge of her sufferings by her altered appearance they must have been dreadful” (also cited by Sumner, 1906:p382).

Contrary to the myth about Tikitolo / Aragas (Counts and Counts, 1983:p46; Counts, 1994:p118, 119) informants did not state that there was a relation of sexual intercourse with menarche. This could well have been the case since prepubertal marriage was prevalent only two generations back (p49). The girl would live with her husband's parents until after menarche “married life” began. Ronhaar reviews that sexual intercourse occurs on a normative basis between boys and women. Kleintitschen (1906:p213, as cited by Ronhaar, p338) observed that “[c]hildren witness all the shameless actions performed by their elders. At the age of 5 they also commence with all these things. The parents laugh at it, and do not even shrink from seducing their own children” [?].

New Ireland (Papua New Guinea) (Darabi) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

In New Ireland, girls of eight and nine were placed in narrow cages until the age of marriageability, somewhere after age 15 (Danks, 1889:p284-6).

Kingston (1998) notes that from an early age [note: “The age seems to be debatable and increasingly of lessening severity, but certainly by puberty”] brothers and sisters must avoid each other, and may not mention each others names. Normally a boy would go and sleep in the men's house from around 12 (depending on the accommodation available), and if a girl was reaching puberty the father would sleep in the men's house (or alternatively the daughter would sleep with other female relatives)”. Genitals are within the realm of shame; thus, “[...] a child [who] saw their father or mother naked during washing, is [a fact] regarded as pial, a lowgrade betrayal of secrets”. “My impression was that girls became sexually active from around the age of 14 or 15 and boys from a little older. By all accounts, a fair amount of pre-marital sex goes on, and a moderate amount of discrete extra-marital liaisons”.

“Menstruation, variously known as rei kaben (seeing the moon), or samsilik (sick blood), is [...] seen as caused by intercourse, the blood being discarded (or inadequately congealed?) semen. First menses are in fact meant to take place during the girls seclusion in the dal ritual (see Ch.6), during which spirits and suitors are attracted to her before she is married off. The moon (in whom Siar people, like us, see a man) is also seen as 'cutting' the girl, or being causative in some rather vague way. [...] Singing of being made to bleed by being bitten or eaten by a sea snake, in a rite where girls are transformed into sexually active women and menstruation is 'produced', is very thinly disguised reference to a, presumably spirit, phallus deflowering the girl and, given the correlation the Lak make between the two, initiating menstruation. [...] The most direct statements we have of the cause of the menstruation are the references to phallic sea snakes. They cause bleeding by eating the dal and uninitiated girls are encouraged to pull them to them. Earlier we saw how other 'sea-snakes', paloloworm, were similarly attracted to pregnant women. But other entities are also attracted to the dal in an analogous manner. There are various birds who come to her, and, amongst other actions, 'shake the goh'. We also have a succession of spirits, pidiks and men coming to her: from the inchoate and thoroughly inhuman sounds and otherworldly visions of the night pidiks, to the still pidik and ancestral, but visibly human and male malerra, to, presumably and eventually, an all too human suitor or husband. All these, the snakes, the birds and the various pidiks clearly belong to the same family of representations, most easily classifiable as spiritual, ancestral and male. Two things are clear about the selection of these images. Firstly, the most phallic form is most directly connected with menstruation, clearly linking it with physical as well as spiritual penetration. Secondly, the least human and least bound to form presentations were during the night and during the dals seclusion; the half-human malerra were presented in daylight when the girl herself was no longer in enclosed obscurity, but was still in the role of dal; and fully human men are subsequently taken as lovers when she herself is fully restored to the world of women”.

Dal, which, “[...] as a word, refers both to the girl or woman and the ritual they undergo. It also means a young, sexually attractive woman and is the name given to several such characters in various stories in which Suilik (the main culture-hero) or a wallaby (an animal associated with male display and decoration) attempt to take her as a sexual partner. Sexual attraction is a major theme of the dal ritual and the production of a gendered and sexual woman from a non-sexual and androgynous child attracts male spirits in a way similar to that predicted by Strathern's `Melanesian aesthetic' (1988). [...] The dal is an idealized cultural image: all young women have breasts and menstruate, but not all are dal, some are kurmakmak and some, having only completed the exchange part of the rite, only nominal dal. The dal is an icon of a sexually attractive, fecund, `fat' young woman who has developed breasts and started menstruating”.

Darabi (New Ireland, Papua New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Among the New Ireland Darabi, betrothal took place in infancy “or at an early age” (Wagner, 1983:p77). Shame surrounds all sex knowledge and sex education is anticipated as seduction, so that fables are told instead of facts (p78).

Dobu Islanders (New Guinea) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

“Among the Dobuans where the sex life of girls begins long before puberty, there is no initiation into tribal life and there is no cultural fear of menstruation. Among these people adolescence goes unremarked” (Mead, 1947:p7). Fortune (1932:p45) refers to the verbal obscenities of young boys.

Trobrianders (New Guinea) (Malinowksi) (2,2,2,2,2-,2-;8,8;E) (eHRAF) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Celebrated Malinowski provides a uniquely detailed account of premarital sexual behaviour trajectories (1927:p33-73ff; 1929:p51-75). The classic description of Trobriand copulatory “playing house”, as quoted from Malinowski (1927:p55-6), reads:

“At an early age children are initiated by each other, or sometimes by a slightly older companion, into the practices of sex. Naturally at this stage they are unable to carry out the act properly, but they content themselves with all sorts of games in which they are left quite at liberty by their elders, and thus they can satisfy their curiosity and their sensuality directly and without disguise. There can be no doubt that the dominating interest of such games is what Freud would call “genital”, that they are largely determined by the desire to imitate the acts and interests of elder children and elders, and that this period is one which is almost completely absent from the life of better-class children in Europe and which exists only to a small degree among peasants and proletarians. When speaking of these amusements of the children, the natives will frequently allude to them as “copulation amusement” (mwaygini kwayta). Or else it is said that they are playing at marriage. It must not be imagined that all games are sexual. Many do not lend themselves at all to it. But there are some particular pastimes of small children in which sex plays the predominant part. Melanesian children are fond of “playing husband and wife”. A boy and girl build a little shelter and call it their home; there they pretend to assume the functions of husband and wife, and amongst those of course the most important one of sexual intercourse. At other times, a group of children will go for a picnic where the entertainment consists of eating, fighting, and making love. Or they will carry out a mimic ceremonial trade exchange, ending up with sexual activities. Crude sensual pleasure alone does not seem to satisfy them; in such more elaborate games it must be blended with some imaginative and romantic interest”.

Thus, “[w]e cannot consider puberty as a conditio sine qua non of sexual interest or even of sexual activities, since non-nubile girls can copulate and immature boys are known to have erections and to practise immissio penis” (ibid., p59). Malinowski (1929:p57-8):

“The little ones sometimes play [...] at house-building, and at family life. A small hut of sticks and boughs is constructed in a secluded part of the jungle, and a couple or more repair thither and play at husband and wife, prepare food and carry out or imitate as best they can the act of sex. Or else a band of them, in imitation of the amorous expeditions of their elders, carry food to some favourite spot on the sea-shore or in the coral ridge, cook and eat vegetables there, and “when they are full of food, the boys sometimes fight with each other, or sometimes kayta (copulate) with the girls”. When the fruit ripens on certain wild trees in the jungle they go in parties to pick it, to exchange presents, make kula (ceremonial exchange) of the fruit, and engage in erotic pastimes”.

The attitude of the grown-ups and even of the parents towards such infantile indulgence is

“either that of complete indifference or that of complacency--they find it natural, and do not see why they should scold or interfere. Usually they show a kind of tolerant and amused interest, and discuss the love affairs of their children with easy jocularity. I often heard some such benevolent gossip as this: “So-and-so (a little girl) has already had intercourse with So-and-so (a little boy)”. And if such were the case, it would be added that it was her first experience. An exchange of lovers, or some small love drama in the little world would be half-seriously, halfjokingly discussed. The infantile sexual act, or its substitute, is regarded as an innocent amusement. “It is their play to kayta (to have intercourse). They give each other a coconut, a small piece of betel-nut, a few beads or some fruits from the bush, and then they go and hide, and kayta”. But it is not considered proper for the children to carry on their affairs in the house. It has always to be done in the bush” (p56).

Malinowski is sure to document the transition to “adolescence”:

“As the boy or girl enters upon adolescence the nature of his or her sexual activity becomes more serious. It ceases to be mere child's play and assumes a prominent place among life's interests. What was before an unstable relation culminating in an exchange of erotic manipulation or an immature sexual act becomes now an absorbing passion, and a matter for serious endeavour”.

Kurtz (1991:p79-83) assumes that the Trobriand mythical “erotic paradise” Tuma is a “conscious depiction of the adult Trobriander's unconscious childhood memories” of erotic (coital) initiation in early childhood. This was contested by Spiro, but may not contrast with later reports. By 1988, Weiner pretty much steps over Trobriand childhood sexuality, although writing at length about “youth”. There is one sentence, though: “By the time children are seven or eight years old, they begin playing erotic games with each other and imitating adult seductive attitudes. Four or five years later, they begin to pursue sexual partners in earnest” (p67).

Austen had not disagreed with Malinowski that “intercourse between the sexes begins at such an early age”. Schiefenhövel, on the basis of personal research, likewise “essentially confirmed” Malinowski's picture (1990:p406), but did not agree to the ages attributed to children and adolescents, given the slower pace of growth as compared to European cohorts (Bell-Kranhals and Schiefenhövel, 1986; cf. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989:p247).

Spiro (1982; 1992) further discusses the psychodynamic significance of Trobriand Island boys' early sexual experiences.

There are no initiations (1927:p59). Infants could be betrothed.

Duau: Normanby Island (New Guinea) (Róheim) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Róheim (1941) detailed Normanby doll play of children, which is polymorphously coital. In a later article (1943) the author states that, in the context of a marriage game, “[t]hey also play at coitus, doing it anyhow till they are told the proper way. If they hear that their father or mother has gone with another man or woman, they will imitate them”. When playing at chopping trees, they sharpen their hands (the axe) on each other's anuses.

Manus (New Guinea) (Mead) (3,3,4-,4,3,3;8,8;A) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Mead (1930), 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]. Manus girls were betrothed at age 8 or 10 (Mead, 1956:p31). “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) arrangements ideally made for children of two male cross-cousins (Mead, 1934:p228). The taboos associated with this fact continuously disturbed the normal constellations in children's play groups (Mead, 1937:p221). 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]). 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).

Lesu (New Guinea) (Powdermaker) (2,2,2+,2+,2,2;8,8;E) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Powdermaker (1933:p85): “[...] the children of both sexes may be found on the sandy beach playing at ritual dancing, or imitating adult life in their sexual play, which consists in the boy and girl standing very close together, [their] sexual organs [...] touching [...] but not penetrating. It is usually done quite openly in public and the adults smile [...] and regard it as the natural order of things. This kind of play occurs from the age of about four. Occasionally a boy and a girl will steal away in the bush [...] which is merely imitating the adult in more detail”. The women practise heel masturbation, a position learned and indulged in from about age six (p276-7).

Paiela (New Guinea) (Biersack) [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

Adolescents by definition neither copulate nor sexually reproduce. They are considered chaste and sterile, in fact not really male or female, until they are married and become parents (Biersack, 1982:p242). The boy's puberty rite include periodical seclusion with an imaginary “ginger woman” to have her grow him into marriage, using “her”, it seems, as a rehearsal wife (p252); sexual intercourse is tabooed during the ritual period. Genitals are considered so obscene, that one does not look at or touch one self's (p244); sexual intercourse is equated with seeing the genitalia.

Further References [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

-- Hekma, G. & Schefold, R. (1985) Initiatie van jongens bij de Melanesiërs, Sociol Gids [Dutch] 32,5/6:431-6

-- Herdt, G. (in press?) Childhood Sexuality, Local Culture, and Social Oppression: Rethinking Biopsychosocial Perspectives on Sexuality Research.

-- Leavitt, S. C. (1991) Sexual ideology and experience in a Papua New Guinea society, Soc Sci Med 33,8:897-907

-- Lidz, T. & Lidz, R. W. (1986) Turning women things into men: masculinization in Papua New Guinea, Psychoanal Rev 73,4:521-39

-- Stoller, R. J. & Herdt, G. H. (1985) Theories of origins of male homosexuality. A cross-cultural look, Arch Gen Psychia 42,4:399-404

Initiations:

-- Aufenanger, H. (1960) Jugendweihe und Weltbild am mittleren Sepik, Anthropos 55:135-44

-- Höltker, G. (1975) Die Knaben-Jugendweihe bei den Bosmun am unteren Ramu (Nordist-Neuguinea), Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde. Abhandlungen & Berichte [Berlin] 34:555-79

-- Nilles, J. (1940) Eine Knaben-Jugendweihe bei den östlichen Waugla im Bismarckgebirge Neuguineas, Int Arch f Ethnographie [Leiden] 38:93-8

-- Vormann, F. (1915-6) Die Initiationsfeiern der Jünglinge und Mädchen bei den Monumbo-Papua, Deutsch-Neuguinea, Anthropos 10/1:159-79

Index to Section: New Guinea [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

“Sambia”, 11

Anga, 2

Arapesh, 6; 12

Bánaro, 11

Baruya, 17

Batanabura, 8

Bedamini, 2

Bena Bena, 10

Betrothal

prenatal, 17

Biami, 6

Bimin-Kukusmin, 1

Bundi, 1

Busama (New Guinea), 15

Dani, 12

Darabi (New Ireland), 18

Daribi, 6

Dobu Islanders, 18

Duau, 20

Eipo, 16

Elema, 2; 9

Etoro, 2; 3; 12

Fore, 8

Gebusi, 2; 16

Gimi, 6

Gogodara, 5

Hagenberg, 6

Huli, 13

Iatmul, 6

Jaquai, 2

Kaluli, 2; 3; 14

Kaowerawédja, 5

Kapauku, 5

Keraki, 3; 13

Kewa, 5; 12

Kiman, 2

Koko, 9; 13

Kwoma, 10; 13

Lesu, 10; 21

Mandobo, 9

Manus, 5; 10; 20

Marind-anim, 2; 3; 10

Muruans, 5

New Britain, 17

New Guinea, 1

“genital parenting”, 6

betrothal / marriage; prepubertal coitus, 5

semen transactions, 1

sexual life in childhood, 7

New Ireland, 18

Normanby Island, 20

Onabasulu, 2; 3

Paiela, 21

penis gourd

New Guinea, 4

Sambia, 1; 2; 5

semen transactions, 1

Trobrianders, 10; 18

Wogeo, 15

Notes [up] [Contents] [Ethnographic Index]

[last updated]

Otto, A. (1985) Die Frau in der Gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft von Papua Neuguinea: Eine Untersuchung zum Kulturwandel. Dissertation, Georg-August-Uiniversität, Göttingen

For an illustrated study of New Guinean childhood, see Sorenson, E. R. (1976) The Edge of the Forest: Land, Childhood and Change in a New Guinean Protoagricultural Society. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. The book does not cover sexual behaviour (p145-220)

Malcolm, L. A. (1970) Growth and Development in New Guinea. Madang: Institute of Human Biology

ECPAT International, Online Database [http://www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/online_database/index.asp], Nov. 1, 2002

Citing from the database: Criminal Code - Chapter 262, Section 210 (1) unnatural offences; Section 211 -indecent treatment of boys under 14 years; section 213 defilement of girls under 12 years (carnal knowledge); Section 215(1) attempts to abuse a girl under 10 years; Section 216(1) defilement of girls under 16 (carnal knowledge); Section 217 indecent treatment of girls under 16; Section 220 - abduction of girl under 18 with intent top carnal knowledge; Section 223- incest by man; Section 224-incest by adult female; Section 227(1)-indecent Acts; Section 337-indecent assault on a male.

Creed, G. W. (1984) Sexual subordination: institutionalized homosexuality and control in Melanesia, Ethnology 23,3:157-76. Cf Ariss, R. (1992) Foucault in the Highlands: The Production of Men in Papua New Guinea Societies, Austral J Anthropol 3,4:142-9; Bosse, H. (1992) Das Fremde am Mann oder die Sexualität, die “von außen kommt”, Zeitschr f Sexualforsch 5,2:144-62

Greenberg, D. F. (1988) The Construction of Homosexuality. Chicago & London: Chicago University Press

Murray, S. O. (1992) Age-Stratified homosexuality: Introduction, in Murray, S. O. (Ed., 1992) Oceanic Homosexualities. New York & London: Garland, p3-23

Herdt, G. (1977) The Individual in Sambia Male Initiation. PhD Dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra; Herdt, G. H. (1980) Semen Depletion and the Sense of Maleness, Ethnopsychia 3: 79-116. Reprinted in Murray, S. O. (Ed.) Oceanic Homosexualities. New York: Garland, p33-68; Herdt, G. H. (Ed., 1981) Rituals of Manhood. Berkeley: University of California Press; Herdt, G. H. (1981) Guardians of the Flutes. New York: McGraw-Hill; Stoller, R. J. & Herdt, G. H. (1982) The Development of Masculinity: A Cross-Cultural Contribution, J Am Psychoanal Assoc 30:29-59; Herdt, G. H. (1984a) Ritualized Homosexuality in the Male Cults of Melanesia, 1862-1982: An Introduction, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p1-81; Herdt, G. H. (1984b) Semen Transactions in Sambia Culture, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p167-210. Reprinted in Suggs, D. N. & Miracle, A. W. (Eds.) Culture and Human Sexuality: A Reader. Pacific Grove, CA, US: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., p298-327; Herdt, G. H. (1987a) The Accountability of Sambia Initiates, in Langness, L. L. & Hays, T. E. (Eds.) Anthropology in the High Valleys: Essays in Honor of K. E. Read, Novato, Chandler and Sharp, p82; Herdt, G. H. & Stoller, R. J. (1990) Intimate Communications. New York (etc.): Colombia University Press; Herdt, G. H. (1987b) The Sambia. New York: Holt, Rienhart & Winston; Herdt, G. (1994) Notes and queries on sexual excitement in Sambia culture, Etnofoor 7,2:25-41; Herdt, G. H. (1997) Male birth-giving in the cultural imagination of the Sambia, Psychoanal Rev 84,2:217-26; Herdt, G. H. (1999) Sambia Sexual Culture. Chicago: Chicago University Press; Baldwin, J. D. & Baldwin, J. I. (1989) The socialization of homosexuality and heterosexuality in a non-Western society, Arch Sex Behav 18,1:13-29. Comment by Herdt and Stoller at p31-4. For a review of ritualised homosexual practices, see also Knauft, B. M. (1993) South Coast New Guinea Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ch. 3

Valsiner, J. (2000) Culture and Human Development: An Introduction. London [etc.]: Sage

Wirz, P. (1922-5) Die Marind-Anim von Holländisch-Shd-Neu-Guinea. Hamburg: Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde Bd. 10 und 16; Williams, F.E. (1936) Papuans of the Trans-Fly. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Baal, J. van (1966) Dema. Description and Analysis of Marind-Anim Culture (South New Guinea). With the collaboration of Father J. Verschueren. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff

Van Baal, J. (1984) The dialectics of sex in Marind-anim culture, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p128-66

Serpenti, L. (1984) The ritual meaning of homosexuality and pedophilia among the Kimam-Papuans of South Irian Jara, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p292-317

See also Werner (1986), as cited by Frayser (1994:p206)

Duberman, M. B. (1988) Reclaiming the Gay Past, Rev Am Hist 16,4:515-25

Boelaars, J. H. (1981) Head Hunters about Themselves. Verh Konink Instit Taal-, Land- & Volkenk 92. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Cited by Schiefenhövel (1990:p414)

Sørum, A. (1984) Growth and decay: Bedamini notions of sexuality, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p318-36; Schiefenhövel, W. (1990) Ritualized adult-male / adolescent-male sexual behavior in Melanesia: an anthropological and ethological approach, in Feierman, J. R. (Ed.) Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions. New York [etc.]: Springer, p394-412

Gray, J. P. (1986) Growing Yams and Men: An Interpretation of Kimam Male Ritualized Homosexual Behavior, in Blackwood, E. (Ed.) Anthropology and Homosexual Behavior. New York: Hayworth Press / J Homosex 11,3/4:55-68

Bühler-Oppenheim, K. (1947) L'initiation, Revue Ciba 61:21-78-2218

Holmes, J. (1902) Initiation Ceremonies of Natives of the Papuan Gulf, J Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 32:418-25

Herdt (1981), op.cit; Herdt, G. (1982) Sambia nose-bleeding rites and male proximity to women, Ethos 10:189-231

Herdt, G. H. (2000) Why the Sambia Initiate Boys Before Age 10, in Bancroft, J. (Ed.) The Role of Theory in Sex Research. The Kinsey Institute Series, Vol. 6. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p82-109

Herdt, G. & McClintock, M. (2000) The magical age of 10, Arch Sex Behav 29,6:587-606

Schieffelin, E. L. (1976) The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of Dancers. New York: St. Martin's

On the other hand: “When a boy is eleven or twelve years old he is engaged for several months in homosexual intercourse with a healthy older man chosen by his father [...]” (p124).

Kelly, R. C. (1976) Witchcraft and sexual relations: an exploration in the social and semantic implications of the structure of belief, in Brown, P. & Buchbinder, G. (Eds.) Man and Woman in the New Guinea Highlands. Special Publication of the American Anthropological Association, p36-53

Op.cit.

Creed (1984:p160), citing Williams, stated that Transfly Keraki boys are introduced to homosexual practices “at about the age of 13”, at the bull-roarer ceremony. Landtman (1927:p237) did not give a reliable statement on age organisations.

Bleibtrue-Ehrenberg, G. (1980) Mannbarkeitsriten: Zur Institutionellen Päderastie bei Papuas und Melanesiern.♦

Op.cit.

Van Baal, J. (1984) The dialectics of sex in Marind-anim culture, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p128-66

Moszokowski, M. (1911) Die Völkerstämme am Mamberamo in Höllandisch-Neuguinea und auf den vorgelagerten Insekn, Zeitschr Ethnol 43,2:315-43

Ernst, Th. M. (1991) Onabasulu male homosexuality, Oceania 62,1:1-11

DeMause, L. (1999) Childhood and Cultural Evolution, J Psychohist 26,3:643-723 / The Emotional Life of Nations. Karnac Books, Limited, UK. Online ed., ch. 7. Cf. DeMause, L. (1998) The History of Child Abuse, J Psychohist 25,3:216-36

Stoller (1985:p116, 132). [It needs to be said that Stoller relates a case of exceptional initial enjoyment, by the author related to his later gender problems.] See Stoller, R. J. (1985) Observing the Erotic Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press

Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg (1990:p18) ♦

Stoller, op.cit.

Knauft (1987:p173)

Davenport (1992:p78)

How DeMause distorts age perspectives might be illustrated by the following. Adolescents throughout the Melanesian and Polynesian areas take great pride in “deflowering virgins”, both individually and in gangs, and often “count coup” as to how many they have deflowered (Ortner, 1981:p39). DeMause cites this passage as it being done by “boys” doing it to “little girls”. See Ortner, Sh. B. (1981 [1986]) Gender and sexuality in hierargical societies, in Ortner, Sh. B. & Whitehead, H. (Eds.) Sexual Meanings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p359-409; xx

Strathern, M. (1979) Sexual offences and criminal codes, Cambridge Anthropol 5,3:4-31

Schiefenhövel, W. (2001) Sexualverhalten in Melanesien. Ethnologische und humanethologische Aspekte, in Sütterlin, Ch. & Salter, F. K. (Eds.) Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt: Zu Person und Werk. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, p274-88, at p285-6

Ucko, P. J. (1969) Penis sheats: a comparative study, Proc Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britian & Ireland , issue 1969:24A-67; Gell, A. F. (1971) Penis sheating and ritual status in a West Sepik Village, Man, NS, 6,2:165-81

Westermarck, E. ([1901]) The History of Human Marriage. London: MacMillan. Third ed., p214. Westermarck refers to Finsch (p102, 116) and Guillemard (p389). Cf. Koloniaal Instituut te Amsterdam (1921) Pandecten van het Adatrecht. Mededeeling no. IV. Amsterdam: De Bussy, p479-80

Goudswaard, A. (1863) De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai. Schiedam, The Netherlands: H. A. M. Roelandts

Gell, A. (1975) Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries. [University of] London: The Athlone Press

Mead, M. (1956) New Lives for Old. London: Gollancz

Franklin, K. J. (1965) Kewa Social organization, Ethnology 4:408-20

Pospisil, L. (1958) Kapauku Papuans and their Law. New Haven: Yale University Press

Huizinga, L. J. (1937), Adarechtbundel 49, cited by Held (1947:p110-1), cit.infra

Held, G. J. (1947) Papoea's van Waropen. Leiden [Holland]: Brill. [Translated as The Papuas of Waropen, 1957, The Hague: Nijhoff]

Lyons, A. P. (1926) Notes on the Gogodara Tribe of Western Papua, J Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 56:329-359

Lyons, A. P. (1925) The Significance of the Parental State Amongst Muruans, Man 25:131-2

Serpenti, L. M. (1965 [1977]) Cultivators of the Swamps. Assen [Holland]: Van Gorcum

Whiteman, J. (1965) Change and tradition in an Abelam village, Oceania 36,2:102-20

Langness, L. L. (1967) Sexual antagonism in the New Guinea Highlands: a Bena Bena example, Oceania 37,3:161-77

Op.cit.

Op.cit.

Guise, R. E. (1899) On the Tribes Inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela River, New Guinea, J Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 28,3/4:205-19

Hauser-Schäublin, B. (1977) Frauen in Karakau. Basel: Ethnologisches Seminar der Universität und Museum für Völkerkunde; Duerr, H. P. (1988) Nacktheit und Scham. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Vol. 1 of Der Mythos vom Zivilizationprocess. 2nd ed., p418n45

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1973) Der Vorprogrammierte Mensch. Vienna: Molden, p190, also cited by Duerr (1988, I:p418n25), op.cit.

Mead, M. (1948) Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York: W. Morrow Co. Inc.

Berndt, R. M. (1962) Excess and Restraint: Social Control among a New Guinea Mountain People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Hogbin, H. I. (1943) A New Guinea Infancy: From Conception to Weaning in Wogeo, Oceania 13:285-309

Gillison, G. (1993) Between Culture and Fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands Mythology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

Guthrie (1976) compares this to baboon genital “lip-smacking”. “The mother [baboon] also lip-smacks the genital area of the young. After she lip-smacks the penis for several seconds it immediately becomes erect. As the infant grows older it embraces rather than trying to nurse. If the female is in estrous she frequently presents her rump to him and lip-smacks over her shoulder. The infant mounts (an infant's grasping reflex), thrusts, and sometimes achieves intromission”. See Guthrie, R. D. (1976) Body Hot Spots: The Anatomy of Human Social Organs and Behavior. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company

Poole, F. J. P. (1982a) Personal Experience and Cultural Representation in Children's “Personal Symbols” Among Bimin-Kuskusmin, Ethos 15:104-32; Poole, F. J. P. (1982b) The Ritual Forging of Identity: Aspects of Person and Self in Bimin-Kuskusmin Male Initiation, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea. Berkeley: University of California Press, p99-154; Poole, F. J. P. (1983) Folk Models of Eroticism in Mothers and Sons: Aspects of Sexuality Among Bimin-Kuskusmin. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association; Poole, F. J. P. (1984) Cultural Images of Women as Mothers: Motherhood Among the Bimin-Kuskusmin of Papua New Guinea, Social Anal 15:73-93; Poole, F. J. P. (1985) Coming Into Social Being: Cultural Images of Infants in Bimin-Kuskusmin Folk Psychology, in White, G. M. & Kirkpatrick, J. (Eds.) Person, Self, and Experience: Exploring Pacific Ethnopsychologies. Berkeley: University of California Press, p183-242; Poole, F. J. P. (1990) Images of an Unborn Sibling: The Psychocultural Shaping of a Child's Fantasy Among the Bimin-Kuskusmin of Papua New Guinea, in Boyer, L. B. & Grolnick, S. A. (Eds.) The Psychoanalytic Study of Society. Vol. 15. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, p105-75

The Emotional Life of Nations, ch. 6

Aur auk-saar (Poole, 1984:p88), op.cit.

Poole (1983:p2-3), op.cit.

Ibid., p6

Also cited by Poole (1982a:p116-7), op.cit.

National Sex and Reproduction Research Team & Jenkins, C. (1994) National Study of Sexual and Reproductive Knowledge and Behaviour in Papua New Guinea. Goroka: Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research

Schidlof, B. (1908) Das Sexualleben der Australier und Ozeanier. Leipzig: Leipziger Verlag

Benedict, R. (1938) Continuities and discontinuities in cultural conditioning, Psychiatry 1:161-7

Sorenson, E. R. (1978) Cooperation and freedom among the Fore of New Guinea, in Montagu, A. (Ed.) Learning Non-Aggression. Oxford [etc.]: Oxford University Press, p12-30

Denis, A. (1967) Taboo. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Belshaw, C. S. (1957) The Great Village. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Schellong, O. (1889) Über Familienleben und Gebräuche der Papuas der Umgebung von Finschhafen (Kaiser Wilhemlsland), Zeitschr Ethnol 21:10-25

Malinowski, B. (1922) Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: G. Routledge

Watson, J. B. & Watson, V. (1972) Batanabura of New Guinea. New Haven: HRAF

Chowning, A. (1973) Child Rearing and Socialization, in Hogbin, I. (1973) Anthropology in Papua New Guinea: Readings From The Encyclopaedia of Papua and New Guinea. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press

Dubuy, P. (1931) The relations between religion and morality among the: Ononghe tribes of British New Guinea, Anthropol Quart 4,1/4:29-31

See also Money and Ehrhardt (1973/1996:p132-5)

Wirz, P. (1924) Anthropologische und Ethnologische Ergebnisse der Central Neu-Guinea Expedition 1921-1922. Nova-Guinea 16,1. Leiden [Holland]

Roux, C. C. le (1950) De Berg-Papoea's van Nieuw Guinea en Hun Woongebied. Leiden [Holland]: Brill

Eechoud, J. P. K. van (1941/[1959]) Verslag van de Exploratietocht naar Centraal Nieuw Guinea [etc.]. The Hague [Holland]: Directie Nederlands-Nieuw-Guinea. 3 vols.; Eechoud, J. P. K. van (1962) Etnografie van de Kaowerawédj (Centraal Nieuw Guinea). The Hague [Holland]: M. Nijhoff

Berndt, C. H. & Berndt, R. M. (1971) The Barbarians. London: C. A. Watts & Co.

Chinnery, E. W. P. & Beaver, W. N. (1915) Notes on the Initiation Ceremonies of the Koko, Papua, J Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 45:69-78

Flint, L. A. (1919) Muguru at Torobina, Bamu River, Man 19, Mar.:38-9

Op.cit.

Wedgwood, C. H. (1927) Death and Social Status in Melanesia, J Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 57:377-97

Rivers (1925:p73); cf. Rattray (1927:p59-61). See Rivers, W. H. R. (1925) Psychology and Ethnology. New York : Harcourt Brace; Rattray, R. (1927) Religion and Art in Ashanti. Kumasi: Basel Mission Book Depot

Lyons, A. P. (1924) Paternity Beliefs and Customs in Western Papua, Man 24:58-9

Du Toit, B. M. (1974) Akuna: A New Guinea Village Community. Rotterdam [Holland]: Balkema

Williams, F. E. (1969) Drama of Orokolo: The Social and Ceremonial Life of the Enema. Oxford: Clarendon Press

Boelaars, J. H. (1970) Mandobo's tussen de Digoel en de Kao. Assen [Holland]: Van Gorcum

Boelaars, J. H. (1981) Head-Hunters About Themselves, An Ethnographic Report from Irian Jaya, Indonesia. The Hague [Holland]: M. Nijhoff

Godschalk, J. A. (1993) Sela Valley. Docoral Dissertation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Schiefenhövel, W. (1982) Kindliche Sexualität, Tabu und Schamgefühl bei “primitiven” Völkern, in Hellbrügge, Th. (Ed.) Die Entwicklung der Kindlichen Sexualität. München: Urban & Schwarzenberg, p145-63. Cited by Duerr (1988:p416n25), op.cit.

Op.cit.

Vide infra

Krieger, M. (1899) Neu Guinea. Berlin: Schall. Cited by Ronhaar, J. H. (1931) Woman in Primitive Motherright Societies. Groningen [Holland]: Wolters/ London: D. Nutt, p329

Langness, L. L. (1981) Child abuse and cultural values: The case of New Guinea, in Korbin, J. (Ed.) Child Abuse and Neglect: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, p13-34

Langness, L. L. (1972) Violence in the New Guinean Highlands, in Short, J. F. & Wolfgang, M. E. (Eds.) Collective Violence. Chicago: Aldine, p571-85

Held, G. J. (1951) De Papoea: Cultuurimpovisator. The Hague / Bandung: W. van Hoeve

“Expressions of sexuality are regarded as natural as regular biological processes [sic] and the young girl is therefore involved in the women's world at a much earlier date the boy is in the man's world. Girls commence to wear clothes at a younger age as well” [transl., DJ].

Cf. Held, Waropen, p88; Mutsaers, A. F. M. (ca1964) Opvoedings- en Onderwijsproblemen bij de Papoea's in het Voormalig Nederlands Nieuw Guinea. [Nijmegen]: Katholieke Leergangen, p62-3

Jensen, A. E. (1933) Beschneidung und Reifezeremonien bei Naturvölkern. Frankfurt am Main: Strecker & Schröder

Wirz, P. (1928) Dämonen und Wilde in Neuguinea. Stuttgart: Strecker & Schröder

Van Baal, J. (1934) Godsdienst en Samenleving in Nederlandsch-Zuid-Nieuw-Guinea. Dissertation. Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij. See index “homosexueel”

Op.cit.

Van Baal, J. (1984) The dialectics of sex in Marind-anim culture, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p128-66

Van Baal, J. (1947) Over Wegen en Drijfveren der Religie: Een Godsdienstpsychologische Studie. Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij

Berkhout, L. (1919) Bijdrage tot de kennis van de Majo-inwijdingsfeesten bij de Marindeezen, Bijdragen Taal-, Land- & Volkenkunde Nederlandsch-Indië [Dutch] 75:438-47

Herdt, G. (1993) Sexual reproduction, social control, and gender hierargy in Sambia culture, in Miller, B. D. (Ed.) Sex and Gender Hierargy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p193-211

Thurnwald, R. (1916) Banaro Society: Social Organization and Kinship System of a Tribe in the Interior of New Guinea. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, 8

Haddon, A. C. (1920) Migrations of Cultures in British New Guinea, J Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 50:237-80

Thurnwald, R. (1921) Die Gemeinde der Bánaro. Stuttgart: F. Enke

Heider, K. G. (1972) The Grand Valley Dani pig feast: a ritual of passage and intensification, Oceania 42:169-87; Heider, K. G. (1976) Dani sexuality: a low energy system, Man, New Series 11,2:188-201

Heider, K. G. (1970) The Dugum Dani. Chicago: Aldine

Boelaars, J. (1958) Papoea's aan de Mappi. Utrecht / Antwerpen: De Fontein

Boelaars, J. (nd/ca1975) Vechten of Sterven: Analyse van een Koppensnellers-Cultuur in Zuid-West Irian Jara. Per modum manuscripti, eigendom van de auteur

Boelaars, J. H. (1981) Head Hunters about Themselves. Verh Konink Instit Taal-, Land- & Volkenk 92. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Cited by Schiefenhövel (1990:p414)

Original note to P. Drabbe, whom Boelaars corrects in his listing of abur-é and abur-maq, schandvader and schandknaap, resp.

“A father can summon his young son to go and sleep over with a particularly man for a night, who is than allowed to commit pederasty with the lad. For this, the father receives compensation. When this occurred on a regular basis in the past, an established relationship was effected between the man and the boy, equivalent to that between father and son (as indicated by the terms anus father, mo-ée and anus son, mo-maq). The boy then could regard the daughter of that man as his “sister” and rely on her being appointed to him as a trade sister for his future marriage. The boys at this age begin to wear a fibrous tail in succession of the adult men. In fact, the anal region is considered by the men as their pars pudenda. This concept may be explained by the homosexual practices on the one hand, and by the men's fear of being called “big-arse” by the women” [transl., DJ].

“The men apologise the homosexuality between older male and boy by claiming that it enhances the growth of the mo-maq, the catamite. [...] They consider homosexuality as occurring to the benefit of life” [transl., DJ].

♦

Franklin, K. J. (1965) Kewa Social organization, Ethnology 4:408-20

Mead, M. (1948) Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York: W. Morrow Co. Mead, M. (1937) The Arapesh of New Guinea, in Mead, M. (Ed.) Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples. New York & London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., p20-50 See also Fox, J. R. (1962) Sibling incest, J Sociol 13:128-50, p143-4

Cf. Banks, C. (1993) Women in Transition: Social Control in Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, p82

Kelly, R. C. (1976) Witchcraft and sexual relations: an exploration in the social and semantic implications of the structure of belief, in Brown, P. & Buchbinder, G. (Eds.) Man and Woman in the New Guinea Highlands. Special Publication of the American Anthropological Association, p36-53

Op.cit.

Creed (1984:p160), citing Williams, stated that Transfly Keraki boys are introduced to homosexual practices “at about the age of 13”, at the bull-roarer ceremony. Landtman (1927:p237) did not give a reliable statement on age organisations.

Hage, P. (1981) On Male Initiation and Dual Organisation in New Guinea, Man, New Series 16,2:268-75

Serpenti, L. (1984) The ritual meaning of homosexuality and pedophilia among the Kimam-Papuans of South Irian Jara, in Herdt, G. H. (Ed.) Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, p292-317

Gray, J. P. (1986) Growing Yams and Men: An Interpretation of Kimam Male Ritualized Homosexual Behavior, in Blackwood, E. (Ed.) Anthropology and Homosexual Behavior. New York: Hayworth Press

Op.cit.

Stone, L. (2000) Kinship and Gender. Oxford: Westview Press. 2nd ed.

Glasse, R. M. (1968) Huli of Papua. The Hague: Mouton & Co.

Whiting, J. W. M. & Reed, S. W. (1938) Kwoma culture, Oceania 9:170-216; Ford, C. S. & Beach, F. A. (1951) Patterns of Sexual Behavior. New York: Harper & Row, p180

Also quoted by Peet, M. (1960) Opvoeding bij Primitieve Volken. Tilburg [Holland]: Zwijsen, p72

Whiting, J. W. M. (1941) Becoming a Kwoma: Teaching and Learning in a New Guinea Tribe. New Haven: Yale University Press

Williamson, M. H. (1983) Sex relations and gender relations: understanding Kwoma conception, Mankind 14,1:13-23

Bowden, R. (1983) Kwoma Terminology and Marriage Alliance: The `Omaha' Problem Revisited, Man, New Series 18,4:745-65

Schieffelin, E. L. (1976) The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of Dancers. New York: St. Martin's

On the other hand: “When a boy is eleven or twelve years old he is engaged for several months in homosexual intercourse with a healthy older man chosen by his father [...]” (p124).

Frazer, J. G. / Liston-Blyth, A. (compil.)(1953) Notes on Native Customs in the Baniara District (N.E.D.), Papua, J Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 53:467-71, at p468

Lepowsky, M. (1990) Gender in an egalitarian society: a case study from the Coral Sea, in Sanday, P. R. & Goodenough, R. G. (Eds.) Beyond the Second Sex. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1992 paperback, p171-223

Hogbin, H. I. (1963) Kinship and Marriage in a New Guinea Village. [University of] London: The Athlone Press

Hogbin, H. I. (1935) Native culture of Wogeo, Oceania 5:308-37. Critial passage quoted by Ashley-Montagu, M. F. (1937) Infertility of the married in primitive societies, Oceania 8:15-26

Hogbin, H. I. (1946a) Puberty to marriage: a study of the sexual life of the natives of Wogeo, New Guinea, Oceania 39,3:185-209

Cf. Peet, M. (1960) Opvoeding bij Primitieve Volken. Tilburg [Holland]: Zwijsen, p72

Hogbin, H. I. (1946b) A New Guinean childhood: from weaing till the eight year in Wogeo, Oceania 16,4:275-96. Reprinted in Middleton, J. (Ed., 1970) From Child to Adult. New York: Natural History Press, p134-62

Op.cit.

Hogbin, H. I. (1945) Marriage in Wogeo, New Guinea, Oceania 15:324-52; Marinkelle, A. B. (1976) Leertheoretische gezichtspunten, in De Ruyter, H. & Van der Zijl, L. (Eds.) De Seksuele Ontwikkeling van Kind tot Volwassene. Vol. I. Leiden [Holland]: Stafleu, p42-60

Knauft, B. (1990) The Question of Ritualized Homosexuality among the Kiwai of South New Guinea, J Pacific Hist 25: 188-210

“Sodomy is regularly indulged in [...] the boys suffer very much for a long time, and never recover”. Beardmore, E. (1890) The Natives of Mowat, Daudai, New Guinea, J Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 19:459-66, at p464; Knauft, The question, p205

“The lads are prostituted by the men for quite a long time and soon become so diseased that they never recover”; Knauft, The question, p205-6. See Chalmers, J. (1903) Notes on the Bugilai, British New Guinea, J Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 33:108-10, at p109. Also referred to by Webster, H. (1911) Totem Clans and Secret Associations in Australia and Melanesia, J Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 41:482-508, at p495

“A boy is not subjected to any actual practice in sexual matters during the moguru”. Kiwai Papuans, p354; Knauft, The question, p205

In mouguru ritual, “[...] [p]art of the ritual has not been related; it is simply unprintable”. Headhunters, p216; Herdt, Ritualized homosexual behavior, p19; Knauft, The question, p206

Williams, Orokolo, p429n2; Knauft, The question, p207

Knauft, B. M. (1985) Good Company and Violence: Sorcery and Social Action in a Lowland New Guinea Society. Berkeley: University of California Press; Knauft, B. M. (1986) Text and Social Practice: Narrative “Longing” and Bisexuality among the Gebusi of New Guinea, Ethos 14:252-281; Knauft, B. M. (1987a) Homosexuality in Melanesia, J Psychoanal Anthropol 10:155-91; Cf. Knauft, B. M. (1987b) Reconsidering Violence in Simple Human Societies: Homicide among the Gebusi of New Guinea, Curr Anthropol 28,4:457-500, at p460

Knauft, B. M. [2001] What Ever Happened to Ritual Homosexuality? The Incitement of Modern Sexual Subjects in Melanesia and Elsewhere. Paper prepared for presentation at the 3^rd IASSCS, 1-3 Oct. 2001. Cited with the permission of the author.

Poole, F. (1981 [1986]) Transforming “natural women”: female ritual leaders and gender ideology among Bimin-Kukusmin, in Ortner, Sh. B. & Whitehead, H. (Eds.) Sexual Meanings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p116-65

Schiefenhövel, W. (1982) Kindliche Sexualität, Tabu und Schamgefühl bei “primitiven” Völkern, in Hellbrügge, Th. (Ed.) Die Entwicklung der Kindlichen Sexualität. München: Urban & Schwarzenberg, p145-63; Schiefenhövel, W. (1990) Ritualized adult-male / adolescent-male sexual behavior in Melanesia: an anthropological and ethological approach, in Feierman, J. R. (Ed.) Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions. New York [etc.]: Springer, p394-412

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1976) Menschenforschung auf Neuen Wegen. Wien [etc.]: F. Molden

Godelier, M. (1981) La Production des Grands Hommes. Paris: Fayard. 1986 transl., The Making of Great Men. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge University Press [1988:p52]; Glowczewski, B. (1995) Adolescence et Sexualité. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Cf. Jorgensen, D. (1991) Big men, great men and women: alternative logics of gender difference, in Godelier, M. & Strathern, M. (Eds.) Big Men and Great Men: Personifications of Power in Melanesia. New York [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, p256-71; Godelier, M. (1991) An unfinished attempt [etc], in Godelier, M. & Strathern, M. (Eds.) Big Men and Great Men: Personifications of Power in Melanesia. New York [etc.]: Cambridge University Press, p275-304

Danks, B. (1889) Marriage Customs of the New Britain Group, J Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 18:281-94

Sumner, W. G. (1906) Folkways. Boston [etc.]: Ginn & Co.

Counts, D. A. & Counts, D. R. (1983) Father's water equals mother's milk: the conception of parentage in Kaliai, West New Britain, Mankind 14,1:46-56

Counts, D. A. (1994) Snakes, adulterers, and the loss of paradise in Kaliai, Pacific Studies 17:109-51

Ronhaar, J. H. (1931) Woman in Primitive Motherright Societies. Groningen [Holland]: Wolters/ London: D. Nutt, p327

Kleintitschen, P. A. (1906) Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel [...]. Hiltrup bei München: Herz-Jesu-Missionshaus

Kingston, S. (1998) Focal Images, Transformed Memories: The Poetics of Life and Death in Siar, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Online PhD thesis, University College London, at http://www.seanking.clara.net/newireland.htm

This “aesthetic” entails that an androgynous child who is the product of cross-sex relations between her parents' groups must be rendered single sex to become an agent who can attract and combine with an opposite single-sex subject in order to produce a further androgynous product. [orig. footnote]

Wagner, R. (1983) The ends of innocence: conception and seducation among the Darabi of of Karimui and the Barok of New Ireland, Mankind 14,1:75-83

Mead, M. (1952) Adolescence in primitive and in modern society, in Swanson, G. E., Newcomb, T. M. & Hartley, E. L. (Eds.) Readings in Social Psychology. Rev.ed. New York: H. Holt, p531-8. Originally (1947), p6-14

Fortune, R. F. (1932) Sorcerers of Dobu: The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

For an illustrated account of Malinowski's child ethnography, see Young, M. W. (1998) Malinowski's Kiriwina. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p189-210. Malinowski's Diary (1967:p280-1) reveals that he was “excited” by the naked bodies of playing children.

Malinowski , B. (1927) Sex and Repression in Savage Society. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Inc. See also Jokisch, K. (1971) Das Erziehungswesen der Trobriander. Doctoral Dissertation. Bonn: Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhemls Universität, p140-4; Ford and Beach (1951:p191); Fox, J. R. (1962) Sibling incest, J Sociol 13:128-50, p140-2; Nimkoff, M. F. (1947) Marriage and the Family. Boston [etc.]: Houghton Mifflin, p11

Malinowski (1916:407,n2): “The sexual freedom of unmarried girls is complete. They begin intercourse with the other sex very early, at the age of six to eight years”. See Malinowski, B. (1916) Baloma; The Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands, J Royal Anthropol Instit Great Britain & Ireland 46:353-430

Malinowski , B. (1929) The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia. New York: Horace Liveright. Critical passage reprinted in Suggs, D. N. & Miracle, A. W. (Eds., 1993) Culture and Human Sexuality: A Reader. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/ Cole, p80-90. For a discussion of the work, see Sprenger, G. (1997) Erotik und Kultur in Melanesien. Hamburg: Lit Verlag

Kurtz, S. N. (1991) Polysexualization: a new approach to Oedipus in the Trobriands, Ethos 19:68-101

Weiner, A. B. (1988) The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Austen, L. (1934/5) Procreation among the Trobriand Islanders, Oceania 5:102-13, at p103

Bell-Kranhals, I. N. & Schiefenhövel, W. (1986) Repu et de bonne reputation, Bull Ecol & Ethol Hum 1/2:128-40

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1989) Human Ethology. New York: De Gruyter

Spiro, M. (1982) Oepipus in the Trobriands. Chicago: Chicago University Press; Spiro, M. (1992) Oepipus Redux, Ethos 20,3:358-76

Róheim, G. (1941) Play Analysis with Normanby Island Children, Am J Orthopsychia 11:524-9. Reprinted in Muensterberger, W. (Ed., 1969) Man and His Culture: Psychoanalytic Anthropology After “Totem and Taboo”. London: Rapp & Whiting, p177-85. See also Schwartzman, H. B. (1978) Transformations: The Anthropology of Children's Play. New York & London: Plenum, p154-5

Róheim, G. (1943) Children's games and rhymes in Duau (Normaby Island), Am Anthropol 45:99-119

Mead, M. (1930) Growing Up in New Guinea. New York: William Morrow. Mentor ed., 1953. See also Whiting, J. & Child, I. (1953) Child Training and Personality: A Cross-Cultural Study. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, p79

Ford and Beach (1951:p181), op.cit.

Mead, M. (1956) New Lives for Old. London: Gollancz

Mead, M. (1952) Adolescence in primitive and in modern society, in Swanson, G. E., Newcomb, T. M. & Hartley, E. L. (Eds.) Readings in Social Psychology. Rev.ed. New York: H. Holt, p531-8. Originally (1947), p6-14

Mead, M. (1934) Kinship in the Admiralty Islands, Anthropol Pap Am Mus Nat Hist 34,Pt.II:183-358

Mead, M. (1937) The Manus of the Admirality Islands, in Mead, M. (Ed.) Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples. New York & London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., p210-39

Fortune, R. F. (1965) Manus Religion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1965 pr.

Powdermaker, H. (1933) Life in Lesu: The Study of a Melanasian Society in New Ireland. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Quoted by Róheim, G. (1952) The anthropological evidence and the Oedipus complex, Psychoanal Quart 21:537-42, p539-40; Ford and Beach (1951:p192), op.cit.

Biersack, A. (1982) Ginger Gardens for the Ginger Woman: Rites and Passages in a Melanesian Society, Man, New Series 17,2:239-58

23 New Guinea