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System and subsystem: The Te exchange cycle among the Mae Enga

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Abstract

One component of a complex system operating so as to maintain the Mae Enga people of the New Guinea highlands in equilibrium with their limited resources is the Te, an elaborate cycle of ceremonial exhanges of valuables. It may be viewed as one in a series of material or substantive systems (including cycles) of varying extent, each affecting the others in an intelligible and predictable fashion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Program in Anthropology, The City University of New York, New York, New York

    Mervyn Meggitt

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  1. Mervyn Meggitt
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This paper is a considerably shortened version of an ethnographically more detailed account of the Te exchange system, which, under the title of “Pigs Are Our Hearts!,” will appear in a symposium on exchange systems of the New Guinea highlands edited by Andrew Strathern.

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Meggitt, M. System and subsystem: The Te exchange cycle among the Mae Enga. Hum Ecol 1, 111–123 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531350

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531350

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