To Sing With the Pigs Is Human: Kaulong Society Explained

Introduction: The Kaulong and the Pursuit of Personhood

Anthropology is the social science that studies the origins and social relationships of human beings. The Kaulong peoples of Papua New Guinea devote their lives to moving from the lowest social status toward the political rank of "big men" and "big women" by displaying their accumulation of knowledge at all-night singing competitions that end in pig sacrifice and feasting. In the course of her fieldwork with the Kaulong, who live on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea, Jane Goodale discovered and catalogued that everything of importance to them — every event, relationship, and transaction — was rooted in their constant quest for recognition as human beings. Goodale takes considerable care both to determine the Kaulong definition of "human" and to catalogue the tribal rituals and relationships that together build that definition.

Her book is the result of over ten years of fieldwork living among the Kaulong. She addresses questions central to Kaulong society: What is it that makes an individual human? How is humanity, or personhood, achieved and maintained? In their consuming concern with their status as human beings, the Kaulong mark progress on a continuum from nonhuman (animal-like) to the most respected level of humanity — the political "big men" and "big women." Knowledge is the key to movement along this continuum, and acquiring, displaying, and defending knowledge are at the heart of social interaction. At all-night singsings, individuals compete through song in their knowledge of people, places, and many other aspects of their forested world. The sacrifice of pigs and the distribution of pork to guests completes the ceremonial display and defense of knowledge and personhood.

In her work, Goodale identifies what the Kaulong hold as important to their identity as human beings. As every culture and society has its own scale by which to measure human worth, the Kaulong are no different. Existing in the jungles of New Britain with little to no contact with modern society, the Kaulong social system evolved into its current structure by meeting environmental challenges and overcoming obstacles to provide for themselves — much as any people group would develop. Goodale begins her study without presumption or comparison to the outside world. She brings no prejudice to her research and draws no comparisons between the Kaulong and modern culture. Her central question is: within this culture, what is the identity these people use to determine their own self-worth and their own position within the tribe? Once Goodale determines what is important to the Kaulong, she is able to catalogue the methods, ceremonies, and traditions that build on these beliefs.

Goodale's goal was to identify, catalogue, and study group life habits without disturbing them with outside influences, so she lived among the Kaulong people for a significant period during her field research. She walked, ate, slept, and became part of the community. Early in her work, Goodale writes that gathering cross-cultural information is a process requiring effort on both sides of the information exchange. The people she studied needed to trust her and to communicate with her as though she belonged to the group. In return for their willingness to take the risk of communication, Goodale had to reach out, learn the tribe's methods, and acquire their language. This proved an early challenge. She writes candidly about the first successful communication and how it brought joy both to herself and to the women with whom she spoke. Throughout the book, Goodale introduces the reader to different words and phrases used by the Kaulong. Common words for houses, plants, family members, and ceremonies are described in her work, and some are included in this paper.

The benefit — and stated goal — of anthropology is twofold. Researchers like Goodale desire to discover and learn about other peoples through their work, and Goodale's book provides a provocative look into the Kaulong world. The second goal of her work is to learn more about ourselves by evaluating the similarities between the study's subjects and our own lifestyles. Between the Kaulong and so-called "civilized" peoples there are many similarities, which are discussed throughout this paper. Without any outside religious influence, the Kaulong arrive at a tripartite nature of the person that is similar both to the Christian perspective that a human being is composed of body, soul, and spirit, and to Freud's concept of id, ego, and superego. The Kaulong struggle with surrendering to elements of nature they cannot control and live within a developed, intricate belief system that tries to give meaning to things larger than themselves and to gain influence over their world.

The West's economic system is built on the transfer of valued materials — money, oil, gold, property — from one person to another. This exchange of labor for valued materials, and in turn of valued materials for desired possessions, is no different in the New Guinea bush. The Kaulong trade gold-lipped pearl shells with one another. These shells are the basis for their economic system and are used as currency in transactions involving food, property, and marriage.

During her field research, Goodale identified a number of distinct facets of Kaulong tribal identity. Each of these categories functions as part of the whole — as subsets of the complex social order among the Kaulong tribes. This paper organizes Goodale's findings into the following areas: knowledge management within the tribe; identity of self; kinship and family; community politics and social order; economics; sorcery and magic; courtship and marriage; sexuality and gender; culturally important ceremonies; and death.

The social order among the Kaulong does not exist in strictly defined categories, but by breaking down the different aspects of Kaulong life into manageable sections, we can discuss each in turn and begin to understand these indigenous people, their culture, and what the Kaulong use as a basis to define self, self-worth, and their place within the tribe.

Over all these individual aspects of Kaulong life, and affecting the rituals that have evolved, is the unrelenting rainforest environment. The Kaulong are unable to build weatherproof dwellings and have no modern appliances with which to overcome natural temperature fluctuations. They are literally at the mercy of weather patterns, so their culture has evolved with beliefs, practices, and traditions that acknowledge this helplessness. As will be seen, they do not worship the weather, nor have they created a belief system including deities who govern different weather patterns, as the American Indians did. Their lives are lived in submission and surrender to the inevitability of weather. Having no expectation of control over their surroundings, the Kaulong belief system and identity of self have evolved from those aspects of personhood over which they do have control: knowledge, knowledge management within the tribe, and their individual level of attained knowledge compared to that of other tribal members. This paper first examines the environment because it dictates much of tribal activity, and then moves to a discussion of the social and anthropological issues.

The Environment

The Kaulong live in an unforgiving jungle terrain. The combination of natural dangers and unrelenting weather patterns has forced the Kaulong into a submissive, symbiotic relationship with both. The island's rainforest has few large animal predators, but the forest is filled with other dangers. The constant moisture and shallowly rooted vegetation create conditions that easily give way to landslides. Trees, also living on shallow roots, can fall unexpectedly, endangering those who live among them.

The trails walked by villagers contain high clay content and are slippery and often dangerous. Beneath these trails lie underground rivers and caverns. Villagers have lost their lives unexpectedly while walking through the forests when the ground collapsed beneath them. The constant jungle growth must be fought back in order to create gardens, homes, or villages. The people's lives, in short, are dominated by the jungle they call home.

The island has three seasons. From June to September is the rainy season, called the taim bilong by the Kaulong. The monsoons are unrelenting, often dropping over 150 inches of rain during the four-month period and more than 280 inches during a calendar year. During this time, people travel little because of the dangers created in the jungle by the increasing rainfall. The risk of falling trees, landslides, and flash floods makes travel almost impossible. This period functions like a hibernation: the tribes sleep beside warm fires, rising only to attend to bodily functions and eat. Most village homes are built on stilts, over six feet off the ground, to place them safely out of reach of the torrents and floods of the rainy season.

The next season, from October to January, is called the taim bilong hungri — the hungry season. During this time the Kaulong rise from their self-imposed hibernation and return to the jungles to plant gardens and begin hunting and fishing. Families also resume traveling and trading. In the jungle, a garden is the most reliable source of food. A healthy garden will support an entire family and ensure that its members do not suffer due to poor hunting or fishing. A garden is planted and tended for nine to fifteen months while crops grow and are harvested. After the harvest, the garden is allowed to return to jungle, and the family moves on to another area to repeat the process.

Claiming a garden from the jungle for fifteen months is a community effort. Trees are cut and cleared by hand, then laid on top of one another to create a barrier fence around the garden. These fences are meant to keep out predators — in particular, roving wild and domestic pigs. A pig can devastate a garden that contains taro, the main plant grown both for food and for cultural ceremonies. The taro, as discussed later, is held as a socially important artifact and a source of magical power as well as a food source. Protecting these gardens is part of the responsibility of the family that plants them and is essential for the family's survival. Once the land is cleared, taro and a few other vegetables are planted. The jungle environment makes tending these gardens a constant task. New plants and weeds must be cleared weekly, or the garden will be overgrown in a short period. By the time two seasons have passed (approximately fifteen months), the logs used as fences are deteriorating, and rather than repair the walls, the family moves on to begin the process in another area.

The final season, the gutpela taim, or season of plenty, runs from February to May. Like the harvest season in the northern hemisphere, taro has grown to full size and is harvested. During this season the rivers begin to recede, and fishing for shrimp and fish becomes a more productive enterprise.

The following table records the seasonal activities of the tribes (adapted from Goodale, p. 68):

June–September (Rainy / Taim Bilong): Hibernation; small harvest; pig hunt; clearing.
October–November (Transition / Taim Bilong Hungri): Major hunting and gathering; new gardens.
December–January (Dry): Travel and trade; feasting; singsings; pig sacrifice; hunting pig, cassowary, fish, and fruits.
February–March (Good Time / Gutpela Taim): Major harvest.
April–May (Transition): Harvest continues.

Tribal hunting is done with sharpened spears in the case of pig hunts, and with long blowguns for smaller animals such as cassowary, fruit bats, and birds. The blowguns are often fifteen to twenty feet long and are used to propel a three-foot-long dart. Once lodged in the hunted animal, the dart often does not kill it outright, but its length makes it impossible for the animal to run, allowing the hunter to catch and kill his prey.

The activities of the tribe revolve around these seasonal rhythms, and ceremonies are scheduled in harmony with the seasons. Other indigenous tribes have been known to hold festivals that worship season-controlling deities — the Egyptian, North American, and South American indigenous peoples all ascribe ceremonial importance to natural phenomena — but not the Kaulong. The culture of these people is built around the knowledge of the individual and the management of that knowledge.

For the Kaulong, the idea of who they are as individuals — and their chosen means of attaining selfhood — envelops their entire social structure. The concept of "self" and the knowledge that is the means for gaining and developing selfhood is held in the person, not in the community or extended family. Knowledge — experiential knowledge — is the basis for the Kaulong's sense of self, and both practical and magical knowledge must be gained in order for a person to have worth within the tribe. For the Kaulong, this state of full personhood is called being potunus, or human. The idea of self derives from a threefold identity of the person:

Knowledge Management and the Identity of the Self

The mind is wholly contained within the person. It includes the emotions and desires within a person and is the locus of control for the individual.

The body is the sum total of the skin, bones, organs, blood, and other physical matter.

The self is the person's identity — the spirit or soul. In Kaulong culture, the self, or enu, can leave the body and travel to other places. The enu can inhabit or control others (discussed further in the section on sorcery). The self is powerful and can travel outside the body in order to gain knowledge and experience that in turn develops the person's identity within the tribe.

For the Kaulong, the mind and the self are independent of the body. The body is merely the container for the mind and self. While the mind is the center of control for a person, it can also be taken over by or influenced by the enu of other persons. Just as a Westerner catches the common cold, the Kaulong identify a state called menge. A person with the menge is under the influence of another self — another spirit — belonging to a person either dead or living. Like having a cold, the afflicted person must rest in order to regain strength in his own self and overcome the menge.

The spirit, or enu, is seen as an entity separable from the body. Much of the Kaulong's knowledge is gained through the enu, which can travel outside the owner's body to seek information or gain control over others. The enu can transfer to other people and control them if they are weaker. However, any person convicted of casting his enu into another in order to control them is called a sorcerer and can be put to death if found guilty.

The extensive beliefs regarding the enu are very similar to the voodoo practices of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Some specific attributes of the enu include the following:

Enus walk through the jungle and can attack individuals who encounter them. They walk alone while the person is sleeping. A sudden awakening can bring a person to consciousness before his enu returns, causing great sickness or dementia. The enu can also be "knocked loose" from a person by a frightening or dangerous experience, such as unexpectedly having a tree fall nearby in the jungle.

Because sickness is seen as a result of dysfunction between the person and his enu, all sickness (unless caused by sorcery) is believed to be preventable. Sickness is the result of a person's actions that upset the balance between himself and his enu.

The high degree of power attributed to the enu is very similar to the pantheistic beliefs of the ancient Greeks and North American Indians, each of whom attributed power to deities or spirits outside their own control. For the Indian, the spirit inhabited the sun, wind, nature, earth, and animals. For the Greeks, spirits did not inhabit individual objects but resided at Mount Olympus and held specific control over different aspects of human life. The Kaulong belief system focuses on the self, and in order to provide a sense of control over the self and the indomitable aspects of nature, the self is ascribed with supernatural powers. Goodale described the Kaulong's lives as a "poker game": each person was dealt a hand of cards — a level of enu power — at birth. The person had the ability through magic, experience, and the course of his life to gain a better hand. But other individuals could possess a stronger hand and thereby affect the life of another, positively or negatively. The Kaulong's desire was therefore to progress from the level of an animal (having no more enu than an animal) at birth to the status of "big man" or "big woman" of the tribe. The "big" men and women were those with significant knowledge, power, and experience, and they were venerated as the leaders of individual collections of homes.

The following traits are ascribed to big men and big women in the Kaulong's ceremonial songs:

Big Men: Collects debts; goes traveling; digs holes; gives talks and spreads messages and knowledge; digs wild yams; kills others; jokes and lies; steals axes (valued artifacts); bathes; recruits for a feud; stands and travels with his shield; calls pigs; is toothless; is a craftsman; has cassowary feathers in his hair.

Big Women: Hears messages; wails; blames others falsely; makes net bags; hides (is deceptive); ties up firewood; dances in ceremonies; whistles in dances; collects vine-ropes; gossips; calls up or summons people and enus; cares for descendants; remains alone.