Abstract
The ways that people experience, respond to and pattern recovery from major climatic aberrations must be understood within the context of existing socioeconomic arrangements and the ethos that informs these. This paper describes immediate and longer term impacts of a major drought on two populations—Bedamuni and Kubo-Konai—in the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. Though they occupy similar environments, are culturally related and reliant on similar technology and resources, these two populations differ in density, intensity of land use, and social complexity. The drought of 1997 affected one of the populations much more severely than the other. A comparison of effects on subsistence regimes, mobility and social life in the two areas suggests that these were mediated by understandings people held of relationships with both the environment and other people. Bedamuni pattern their lives around an expectation of favorable returns on effort, emphasising security of tenure to protect those returns. Kubo-Konai, in contrast, pattern their lives around an expectation that availability of resources will be often in flux, and emphasise means of ensuring security of supply. These understandings are reflected, respectively, in risk-prone and risk-averse strategies of subsistence and sociality which directly influence vulnerability and responses to disruptive events.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Allen, B. J. (1997). An assessment of the impact of drought and frost in Papua New Guinea in 1997. PLEC News and Views 9: 21–28.
Allen, B. J. (1998). El Niño and the drought in Papua New Guinea. The Asia-Pacific Magazine 9/10: 39–42.
Allen, B. J., and Bourke, R. M. (1997). Report of an assessment of the impacts of frost and drought in Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby: Australian Agency for International Development. [Available at http//www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/general/other/ pngdroughtrep1.pdf]
Allen, B. J., Bourke, R. M., with Burton, J., Flew, S., Gaupu, B., Heia, S., Igua, P., Ivahupa, S., Kanau, M., Kokoa, P., Lillicrap, S., Ling, G., Lowe, M., Lutulele, R., Nongkas, A., Poienou, M., Risimer, J., Sheldon, R., Sowei, J., Ukegawa, K., Willson, N., Wissink, D., and Woruba, M. (1998). Report of an assessment of the impacts of frost and drought in Papua New Guinea-Phase 2. Port Moresby: Papua New Guinea Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs with Australian Agency for International Development. [Available at http//www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/general/other/pngdroughtrep 2.pdf]
Allen, B. J., Hide, R. L., Bourke, R. M., Akus, D., Fritsch, R., Grau, R., Ling, G., and Lowes, E. (1993). Western Province: text summaries, maps, code lists and village identification. Canberra: Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University.
Anon. (1996). Porgera Joint Venture: Review of Riverine Impacts, CSIRO Environmental Projects Office, Dickson, ACT, Australia
Beek, A. G. van (1987). The way of all flesh: Hunting and ideology of the Bedamuni of the Great Papuan Plateau (Papua New Guinea). Ph.D. Thesis, University of Leiden.
Bellamy, J. A. (1986). Papua New Guinea inventory of natural resources, population distribution and land use: handbook. Natural Resources Series No. 6. Canberra: CSIRO Division of Water and Land Resources.
Bickford, D. (1998). Frog populations affected by El Niño Southern Oscillation event in Papua New Guinea. Abstracts of the Society for Conservation Biology, Macquarie University, Sydney, July 13-16, 1998.
Bourke, R. M. (2000). Impact of the 1997 drought and frosts in Papua New Guinea. In R. H. Grove, and J. Chappell (eds.), El Niño: History and Crisis. White Horse Press, Cambridge, pp. 149–170.
Corbett, J. (1988). Famine and household coping strategies. World Development 16: 1099–1122.
de Garine, I., and Harrison, G. A. (eds.) (1988). Coping with Uncertainty in Food Supply. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Dwyer, P. D. (1990). The Pigs that Ate the Garden: A Human Ecology from Papua New Guinea, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Dwyer, P. D. (1993). The production and disposal of pigs by Kubo people of Papua New Guinea. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 33: 123–142.
Dwyer, P. D., and Minnegal, M. (1991). Hunting in lowland tropical rainforest: Towards a model of non-agricultural subsistence. Human Ecology 19: 187–212.
Dwyer, P. D., and Minnegal, M. (1992). Ecology and community dynamics of Kubo people in the tropical lowlands of Papua New Guinea. Human Ecology 20: 21–55.
Dwyer, P. D., and Minnegal, M. (1993). Banana production by Kubo people of the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries 36: 1–21.
Dwyer, P. D., and Minnegal, M. (1994). Sago palms and variable garden yields: A case study from Papua New Guinea. Man and Culture in Oceania 10: 81–102.
Dwyer, P. D., and Minnegal, M. (1998). Waiting for company: Ethos and environment among Kubo of Papua New Guinea. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (N.S.): 23–42.
Dwyer, P. D., and Minnegal, M. (1999). The transformation of use rights: A comparison of two Papua New Guinean societies. Journal of Anthropological Research 55: 361–383.
Dwyer, P. D., and Minnegal, M. (in press) El Niño, Y2K and the short fat lady: Drought and agency in a lowland Papua New Guinean community. Journal of the Polynesian Society.
Dwyer, P. D., Minnegal, M., and Woodyard, V. (1993). Konai, Febi and Kubo: The northwest corner of the Bosavi language family. Canberra Anthropology 16: 1–14.
Ernst, T. M. (1984). Onabasulu local organization. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan.
Hewitt, K. (1983). The idea of calamity in a technocratic age. In K. Hewitt (ed.), Interpretations of Calamity: From the Viewpoint of Human Ecology, Allen and Unwin, Boston, pp. 3–32.
Hewitt, K. (1997). Regions of Risk: A Geographical Introduction to Disasters, Longman, Essex.
Holmes, B. (1999). Heads in the clouds. New Scientist 162(2185): 32–36.
Horowitz, M. M. (1990). Donors and deserts: The political ecology of destructive development in the Sahel. In R. Huss-Ashmore, and S. H. Katz (eds.), African Food Systems in Crisis: Part Two: Contending with Change, Gordon and Breach, London, pp. 3–28.
Huss-Ashmore, R., and Katz, S. H. (eds). (1990). African Food Systems in Crisis: Part Two: Contending with Change, Gordon and Breach, London.
Jipp, P. H., Nepstad, D. C., Cassell, D. K., and de Carvalho, C. Reis. (1998). Deep soil moisture storage and transpiration in forests and pastures of seasonally-dry Amazonia. Climatic Change 39: 395–412.
Kelly, R. C. (1977). Etoro Social Structure: A Study in Structural Contradiction, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Kelly, R. C. (1993). Constructing Ineqauality: The Fabrication of a Hierarchy of Virtue among the Etoro, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Knauft, B. M. (1985a). Ritual form and permutation in New Guinea: Implications of symbolic process for socio-political evolution. American Ethnologist 12: 321–340.
Knauft, B. M. (1985b). Good Company and Violence: Sorcery and Social Action in a Lowland New Guinea Society, University of California Press, Berkeley.
McAlpine, J. R., Keig, G., and Short, K. (1975). Climatic tables for Papua New Guinea. CSIRO Division of Land Use Research Technical Paper 37: 1–177.
Minnegal, M. (1994). Fishing at Gwaimasi: The interaction of social and ecological factors in influencing subsistence behaviour. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Queensland.
Minnegal, M. (1997). Consumption and production: Sharing and the social construction of use-value. Current Anthropology 38: 25–48.
Minnegal, M., and Dwyer, P. D. (1995). Production of fish at Gwaimasi village, Western Province, Papua New Guinea. Science in New Guinea 21: 27–40.
Minnegal, M., and Dwyer, P. D. (1996). Changes in fish and fishing in the Strickland River at Gwaimasi Village, Western Province, Papua New Guinea. (Unpublished manuscript.).
Minnegal, M., and Dwyer, P. D. (1997). Women, pigs, God and evolution: Social and economic change among Kubo people of Papua New Guinea. Oceania 68: 47–60.
Minnegal, M., and Dwyer, P. D. (1998). Intensification and social complexity in the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea: A comparison of Bedamuni and Kubo. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17: 375–400.
Minnegal, M., and Dwyer, P. D. (1999). Re-reading relationships: Changing constructions of identity among Kubo of Papua New Guinea. Ethnology 38: 59–80.
Minnegal, M., and Dwyer, P. D. (in press). A sense of community: Sedentary nomads of the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. People and Culture in Oceania.
Monsef, E., with Gunua, T., Alois, G., Ragin, A., Keko, M., Jacklas, E., Cosmos, Vero, J., Simon, J., Minie, A., Ope, E., Paikara, D., Lasone, M., Stanley, T., Aaron, L., Wagwa, S., Lari, J., Viru, M., Haine, J., Giru, V., Kundal, J., and Lapai, B. (1998). Nutrition and food security assessment of 9 ''Category 5'' districts during 1997-98 drought/frost in Papua New Guinea: [Overseas Project Commission of Victoria.] Australian Agency for International Development.
Pounds, J. A., Fogden, M. P. L., and Campbell, J. H. (1999). Biological responses to climate change on a tropical mountain. Nature 398: 611–615.
Salafsky, N. (1994). Drought in the rain forest: Effects of the 1991 El Niño-southern oscillation event on a rural economy in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Climatic Change 27: 373–396.
Schultz, D. (1997). Feeding frenzy. The Bulletin (November 18, 1997): 32–34.
Shaw, R. D. (1986). The Bosavi language family. Pacific Linguistics Series A, 70: 45–76.
Shaw, R. D. (1990). Kandila: Samo Ceremonialism and Interpersonal Relationships, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Sillitoe, P. (1999). Where to next? Garden site selection in the Papua New Guinea highlands. Oceania 69: 184–208.
Sørum, A. (1980). In search of the lost soul: Bedamini spirit seances and curing rites. Oceania 50: 273–296.
Sørum, A. (1982). The seeds of power: Patterns in Bedamini male initiation. Social Analysis 10: 42–62.
Sørum, A. (1984). Growth and decay: Bedamini notions of sexuality. In Herdt, G. H. (ed.), Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia, University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 318–336.
Sørum, A. (n.d.). The forked branch: A study of meaning in Bedamini ceremonial. (Unpublished manuscript.)
Stewart, P. J., and Strathern, A. (1998). Witchcraft, murder, and ecological stress: A Duna (Papua New Guinea) case study. Centre for Pacific Studies Discussion Paper Series, No. 4, 1998. Townsville, James Cook University of North Queensland: 1–32.
Still, C. J., Foster, P. N., and Schneider, S. H. (1999). Simulating the effects of climate change on tropical montane cloud forests. Nature 398: 608–610.
Waddell, E. (1983). Coping with frosts, governments and disaster experts: Some reflections based on a New Guinea experience and a persual of the relevant literature. In K. Hewitt (ed.), Interpretations of Calamity: From the Viewpoint of Human Ecology, Allen and Unwin Inc., Boston, pp. 33–43.
Watts, M. (1983). On the poverty of theory: Natural hazards research in context. In Hewitt, K. (ed.), Interpretations of Calamity: From the Viewpoint of Human Ecology, Allen and Unwin Inc., Boston, pp. 231–262.
Watts, M. (1988). Coping with the market: Uncertainty and food security among Hausa peasants. In de Garine, I., and Harrison, G. A. (eds.), Coping with Uncertainty in Food Supply, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 260–289.
Watts, M. J., and Bohle, H. G. (1993). The space of vulnerability: The causal structure of hunger and famine. Progress in Human Geography 17: 43–67.
Winterhalder, B. (1990). Open field, common pot: Harvest variability and risk avoidance in agricultural and foraging societies. In E. A. Cashdan (ed.), Risk and Uncertainty in Tribal and Peasant Economies, Westview Press, Boulder, pp. 67–87.
Wissink, D. (1997). Summary report to National drought and frost assessment committee: middle and upper Western Province and Telefomin District, Sandaun Province (unpublished manuscript).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Minnegal, M., Dwyer, P.D. Responses to a Drought in the Interior Lowlands of Papua New Guinea: A Comparison of Bedamuni and Kubo-Konai. Human Ecology 28, 493–526 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026483630039
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026483630039