Enga is unique among the provinces in Papua New Guinea in that it has only one major linguistic and ethnic group: Enga speakers. Although dialects of the Enga language vary greatly from Laiagam in the west to Wapenamanda in the east,
Engans' shared ethnic identity overshadows the existence of other ethnic groups in the province, such as Ipili speakers
(around Porgera) and Nete speakers.
Porgera, the giant gold and copper mine in the far west, has brought about rapid change for some, but most people still grow cash crops -- coffee, pyrethrum and cool-weather
European vegetables -- in their steep mountain gardens.
Porgera is all but spent, but other nearby mineral finds mean that the mining town will be there a long while yet.
As late as 1960s, Enga was still largely independent of government control and tribal warfare still occurs today.
Engans are well respected for their diplomacy and skill in the art of negotiation, but the provincial government also has the dubious distinction of having had its power suspended three times by the national government due to concerns over corruption and accountability (PNG).
Here are some more excellent concluding (or pre-conclusory) quotations:
The roughest yet most robust, all the while the tallest, of all the Papua New Guinea provinces is the Enga. Wabag is the capital city. The geographical coordinates of Wabag, Enga, are
5° 29' 0" South, 143° 42' 0" east and its original name (with diacritics) is Wabag (maplandia, 2005).
The word Enga refers to the province (the Enga Province,
Papua New Guinea), the inhabitants (Enga People, or Engans),
and the language (Enga...
The National Statistic
Office has "established within the National Statistical Office the DHS [Demographic and Health Survey] Management Team
which is headed by one of the Deputy National Statisticians,
Mr. Bernard Kiele, as the 2006 DHS Director" (National
Statistical Office of Papua New Guinea).
*These two quotations might be extremely useful to work-in when you organize and construct your assignment.
Conclusion
Enga society is driven by a need for control, which is achieved through generating socially-engineered taboos and a highly elaborate system of exchange of commodities. Since Enga maintains merely one major linguistic and ethnic group, Enga stands alone. Herein, even the rustic capital of Wabag appears as more of an outlying town to Mt Hagen than a civilized gathering point. Wapenamanda and Laiagam, two more of the better known Egan regions, fit this rustic imagery completely.
References
Feil, D.K. (1978, May). Women and men in the Enga te. American Ethnologist, 5: 2: 263-279.
Meggitt, M.J. (1974). "Pigs are our hearts!" The te exchange cycle among the Mae Enga of New Guinea. Oceania, 44.3.
Waddell, Eric. (1975). How the Enga cope with frost: Responses to climatic perturbations in the central highlands of New Guinea. Human Ecology. 3.4:249-273
Baki, Gari. Speech by Mr. Gari Baki, OBE, O.St.J, DPS, Commisioner of Police. First Constable Martha Taian. PNG National Woman's Day. Hideaway Hotel, National Capital District. 23 March 2007.
Meggitt, Mervyn. "Mae Enga" - Religion and Expressive Culture. Countries and Their Cultures. Encyclopedia of World Cultures (1996). Copyright © 2011 Advameg, Inc.
