Enga Cultural Research

Enga Cultural Research

This paper will be delving into Culture of the Enga, directly speaking about the kinship, social organization and economic organization of the horticultural society. I will be discussing their impacts on the culture as well as the comparison to our society and how organizations affect the behaviors our own lives. This will encompass information dating from the ancient to modern versions of the Enga society. The Enga date back to 1806 on the lands for which they live, though their roots are believed to date even further back than that. The studies are primarily based off of the elder members of the Enga society.

The first of the Enga tribes were located north and east of the southern highlands of Panguna, New Guinea. These thousands of communities in New Guinea have lived and stayed in these areas for centuries. "Enga has a population of roughly 300,000 making it the largest body of speakers of any native language in Papua New Guinea" (Rasmussen, 2009). New Guinea, a providence similar in size to the state of California has over 800 different languages. Of these over 800 languages and one of the official languages of the country English.

According to the genealogy of the Enga, the kinship organization of the tribes is believed to be patrilineal decent. The men of the Enga tribes are believed to be the dominant gender as they are the landowners and determine kinship lineage. Women's roles in the society are simply to bare children and manage crop picking. "Enga collaborating bigmen in Highland New Guinea used systems ceremonial warfare and ceremonial gift exchange to bring many thousands of Enga across a considerable distance into a rather complex economic system" (Davis, 1989). The Enga bigmen do this as a display of strength within the united community which deters the outside tribes for which they may view as threats from challenging them. Land ownership is inherited and all records of this are held by the bigmen of the tribe. Men in these tribes begin to have offspring around the age of 25 and do not stop until well into their 50's. Women on the other hand start around the age of 18, continue until well into their 40's and typically had a child approximately every four years.

When women get married, sometime on or after their 18th birthday, the bride's family is gifted 18 pigs along with other various items however this may be determined by the wealth of the husband's family. These items will be distributed throughout the bride's lineage and the reason for this is to create a bond throughout the entire family. Also, this has a dramatic impact on the number of divorces within these tribes, which is almost not existent. In the event of a divorce the bride's family would be forced to return all items procured in the bridewealth giving. This would be nearly impossible to accomplish as the gifts