Hahalis and the Labour of Love: A Social Movement on Buka Island [1 ed.] 0854967044, 9780854967049

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Hahalis and the Labour of Love

Explorations in Anthropology A University College London Series Series Editors: Barbara Bender, John Gledhill and Bruce Kapferer

Hahalis and the Labour of Love A social movement on Buka Island

Max and Eleanor Rimoldi

I~ ~~o~!~~n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 1992 by Berg Publishers Published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© Max and Eleanor Rimoldi 1992 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Rimoldi, Max. Rimoldi, Eleanor Hahalis and the labour of love: A social movement on Buka Island. - (Explorations in anthropology) I. Title II. Series 305.89 ISBN 13: 978-0-8549-6704-9 (hbk)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rimoldi, Max. Hahalis and the labour of love: a social movement on Buka Island Max and Eleanor Rimoldi. p. cm. - (Explorations in anthropology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-85496--704-4 : $30.00 1. Ethnology-Papua New Guinea-Buka Island. 2. Social movements-Papua New Guinea-Buka Island. 3. Buka Island (Papua New Guinea)--Social conditions. 4. Buka Island (Papua New Guinea)--Politics and government. 5. Buka Island (Papua New Guinea)--History. I. Rimoldi, Eleanor. II. Title. m. Series. DU740.42.R561992 995.3--dc20 91-16301 CIP

We dedicate this book to the memory of John Teosin, who died in 1990 before the isolation of Bougainville was ended; and to all those who entrusted him with their power

Contents

Preface Map of Duka Island Introduction 1. Social movements 2. The political focus of communities of production

3. Baton for baton: retribution and new stances 4. Power and the person: the negotiation of nitsunono 5. Custom and Law: a quick blow 6. Corning outside and politics within

7. Judgement for judgement: baru

ix xvi

1 24 58 105 156 198 219 265

Epilogue

296

Bibliography

298

Index

305

vii

Preface

Our narrative concerns a period of history on Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, which can be seen as the incorporation of a peripheral system into tighter association with a national polity and a world economy. Our focus is on a period of colonial and post-colonial history which still has contemporary significance. The ethnographic present is essentially the 1970s and changes since then are not pursued even though they have been rapid. It might be said that the issues raised are those of class and culture; but it would be better to say that we address the way that some Buka - in particular the widely-known movement, the Hahalis Welfare Society (the Welfare) anticipated class and culture. Our concern with historical agency in their villages, as their relationships to global systems change, does indeed present both their relentless resistance to incorporation and a reflexivity in reconstructing culture which displaces any idea that tradition is a coherent resource brought into play to match the instrumental demands of incorporation. The anticipations of increasing inequality and the pressing contradictions of tradition are represented by the Welfare in variously structured appeals to brotherhood and for openness to the outside world. At the same time its programmes rested on the reinforcement of responsibilities that went with the social distinctions preserved within local society and the autonomy of local power with which to relate to the wider world. The reflexivity, we would argue, is commensurate with the assumption of power with which to enact a demonstration of new meanings demanded by the colonial situation. But we have also to give attention to the ever-present problem that the Buka in the divisions amongst themselves. We think that it is possible to argue that the struggles to overcome the contradictions in the lived culture of colonial society, the conflicts which occur and reappear in transformed historical circumstances, are the ix

X

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medium of cultural expression. It is these relationships that constitute cultural meanings in historical change and the ability to recognise that this is the case requires the courage of a realist view, as distinct from a conservative view, of what tradition and culture constitute. The dilemma for us in reconstructing the Buka islanders' history has been to decide on the problem presented to us. Should we try to explain why these people appear so special? Should we try to establish the general conditions of the cultural creativity apparent here - and elsewhere in Melanesia? Or is the end to develop a theory of culture commensurate with the phenomena? The last of these it is not; we do need to raise some theoretical issues which structure our history, but for the main part the point of a historical account, we feel, needs to be to relate the particulars of the material historical conditions, especially power, which people have to address in such creative measure: in other words, to show the necessity of new cultural propositions. Because Buka commentators so often insist that contradictions at large within local systems, whether or not they are reinforced from without, are immediate issues, we have had to address in our narrative some questions of social movement and cultural change, both mediated by the exercise of power. For example, what some people promote as the essence of tradition, others attack as cargo cult and the distortion of tradition. But more than that, we have to explain why the changes and stances adopted by Hahalis people are seen to differ from the dynamics of culture elsewhere on Buka. We do not assume that the people of Hahalis are the only Buka to show inventiveness in their view of culture and we accept that different people on Buka place different values on aspects of culture. For example, there is the analysis by Alexis Sarei (1974) of traditional marriage and social change among his own people of Buka, the Solos. What we have done is to join the chorus of evaluation, and we are wary of the power that we assume in doing so. Our intent is not to represent culture which is theirs, or even to imitate their creative expressions of it: but we have been able to witness the drama of the circumstances of recent history and we have been able to share, however marginally, in the new power given to meanings to which we have been witness. Turner commends the idea of focusing on the terms in which dependent non-capitalist groups or strata articulate their own

Preface

xi

relations with the local capitalist sectors, given the difficulty and confusion that have attended so many attempts to articulate 'articulation' on economic grounds alone, and says that anthropology 'will have arrived at a level of insight commensurate with its subject at the point where it moves beyond its primitive notions of representation and classification and begins to learn theory from the indigenous theories which it seeks to interpret' (1986: 105). The Gordian knot nevertheless still entangles attempts to claim the authority of anthropological subjects for this appropriation of meaning in dialogue (see Kahn 1989). But we do feel the need to include a presentation of the cultural object addressed by historical subjects of whom we feel entitled to claim realistic knowledge. Our intentions also share some of the sentiments of Kahn, who says of his work in Malaysia: 'I find myself of necessity using a "folk" conception of culture - not to attempt to interpret the consciousness of poor Malay peasants, who are perfectly capable of articulating their own views, but perhaps to attempt among other things to produce an understanding of those hegemonic processes which prevent those same Malay peasants from putting their own views into practice' (Kahn 1989: 23). We would differ only in that the Buka do put their views into practice; but their persistence in cultural practices has to be understood in the context of hegemonic power. We assert that the pivotal cultural practice is the enactment of the power of tsunono- a term which will remain untranslated as we attempt an account of some of the Buka attempts to explain it by practising it. The sustained assertion of autonomy by the Welfare depended in part on the exercise of power apparently shared with other Buka and the local authority, which concerned itself with the legitimate and direct control over sexuality, biological and social reproduction, and death. The explanation of how one group became singled out in both the degree of assertiveness of these powers and the heaviness of uncomprehending retribution depends in part on the processes of domination by state and church. We feel that we can assert the reality of the historical conditions for the Welfare's expression of power because our account stands as a conclusion to a process of disclosure in which we shared with John Teosin and his family. As we became closer to the Buka and a little more experienced we became more worthy recipients of shared meanings and at the same time shared

xii

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participation in the unfolding of conflicts rooted in the past, conflicts which invested the past with added meanings. We realise that writing ethnography is always a political process, and although the events we discuss were public knowledge at the time, we hope that the intervening years provide a buffer against any ill effects of our drawing attention to them now. Of course, there are independent processes which will intervene in the interpretation of our text of which we are unable to take account. We also have come to realise that the release of information we have garnered has not been entirely in our own hands. Our own account has gone through historical changes due, in part, to the constructive recommendations of some leaders on Buka and Bougainville, who had read an early version; they felt that the heavy emphasis in that work on the effects of colonial domination might be suitably complemented by an addition to bring the narrative up to date with recent events which, we agreed, showed the success of the Welfare's long struggle, seen in the light of a wider claim to cultural and political self-determination. Quite apart from that, the extension of the project into the collaboration of the two of us as authors has also provided an analysis, more adequate than it would otherwise have been, of the connections between power in personal relationships and political responses to forces impinging on the welfare from without. Further, again, to this redirection of the construction of the text, we have shared a continuing guiding interest in the way people get a handle on culture, bringing it into being in different situations; theoretical sources for this interest have been diverse. Our privileged presence on Buka, individually or together, amounting to more than a few years, spanned a dozen years before the ethnographic present and included residence at Welfare headquarters and in Hahalis settlements, as well as a year first at Hagus village outside the Welfare. These years of interaction both with Welfare and with its friends and opponents involved not only dialogue but confrontation. We were expected to demonstrate and justify our understandings and came to new understandings through struggles which were pale reflections of what the Welfare themselves went through. We are aware of the fact that while our presence there may have sometimes appeared to mollify the Welfare's opponents, at other times that presence may well have attracted even more animosity to it. The

Preface

xiii

reality of continuing animus, whether we were there or not, also resulted in unpredictable access to Bougainville for us. While many anthropologists may have had longer and more continued access to the area of research, nevertheless we have been able to share in the progressive adjustments of an enduring social movement as it reflected on its own history and the meaning of its own struggles. Quite apart from the scholarly or temporal parameters of our work on Buka, it is important to us to stress the personal bond which is perhaps characterised by our families' nursing one another through the crises of critical illnesses that struck, in a nearly identical manner at the same time, both John Teosin and Max Rimoldi in 1978. Sharing food, work and laughter and all the casual encounters of everyday life, as well as the heavy burdens, has meant that for ourselves at least, neither time nor distance can ever loosen the bond of respect and affection we feel for many people on Buka. As a community of people their vitality and spirit made it worthwhile to be social anthropologists trying to gain insight into the creative and dynamic nature of human society. There were many people over the years who gave their time and resources, some of whom have died. But special mention must be made of John Teosin, Elizabeth, Tehoei, Teresa, Pomis, Hetsi, Garei, Bill, Roku, Manohana, Rapuna, Helung, Goena, Kiali, Sawa and Tsigala; Kela and Rapese and the people of Monkoto; Rikaha; and Mogo, Tokein and Latu and the people of Hahalesela. Several people helped us at a crucial time of critical illness in the field and we are indebted to Dr Gordon Smith and Dr Greham. Leo Hannet and Moses and Marilyn Havini were of very great personal help at that time, as well as providing us with much insight into Bougainville politics and Buka culture. Moses Havini gave very helpful comments after a careful reading of the manuscript but we take full responsibility for the final version. Hugh Laracy, Jerry Allen and Marilyn Strathem gave helpful support and information over the years. At the University of Auckland anthropology department, Professor Bulmer, Nancy Bowers, Steve and Lois Webster and Garth Rogers gave us essential encouragement and practical support. We are indebted to our families, who have understood the value of our project and who have, without complaint, consistently and actively helped us through periods of fieldwork and

xiv

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writing. We would especially like to thank Mrs Gladys Rimoldi, The Thomsett family, Miss Margaret Miller, and our children Brian, Simone, Dylan and Alexander. The New Zealand University Grants Committee, the Auckland University Research Committee and the Australian National University have provided the funds necessary for the fieldwork. Jan Duncan and Maureen Lander helped to prepare the map. Special thanks are due to John Gledhill, Gillian Bromley and Berg Publishers for their support and advice.

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