Social complexity in the making: a case study among the Arapesh of New Guinea.

Social complexity in the making: a case study among the Arapesh of New Guinea. DONALD TUZIN Donald F. Tuzin (June 14, 1945 – April 15, 2007) was a social anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work on the Ilahita Arapesh, a horticultural people living in northeast lowland New Guinea, and for comparative studies of gender and sexuality within Melanesia. . Social complexity in the making: a case study amongthe Arapesh of New Guinea New Guinea(gĭn`ē), island, c.342,000 sq mi (885,780 sq km), SW Pacific, N of Australia; the world's second largest island after Greenland. . xii+159 pages, 9 figures, 7 tables, 33plates. 2001. London: Routledge; 0-415-22898-0 hardback 45 [poundssterling], 0-415-22899-9 paperback 13.99 [pounds sterling]. An older (but still breathing) school will find new inspiration inProf. TUZIN's short ethnography and history of social change in theArapesh-speaking village of Ilahita, New Guinea. Ilahita grew from 300people or less, in the mid 19th century, to 1500 by the mid 20th.Seeking to explain how it managed this, Prof. TUZIN highlights threefactors: territorial encroachment by Abelam people, encouraging securityin numbers; dual social and ceremonial organization which proved capableof ramification ramification/ram��i��fi��ca��tion/ (ram?i-fi-ka��shun)1. distribution in branches.2. a branching.ram��i��fi��ca��tionn.A branching shape or arrangement. ; and adoption of the enemy's cult of war andsacrifice (only finally -- and dramatically -- abandoned in 1984). Thecult depended on a hierarchy who supervised construction of immensetemples and, in effect, ensured coherence through a transformation ofthe village's social organization. Prof. TUZIN remarks on howethnographers `could not disagree' with V.G. Childe and L.A. White`so much as shrug in recognition of the unhelpful, tautological tau��tol��o��gy?n. pl. tau��tol��o��gies1. a. Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.b. An instance of such repetition.2. truth ofthe[ir] generalization' (p. 5); but he claims now that `Ilahita ...shows ... how scale and population dynamics might interact at an earlystage of ... complexity; how temples might sponsor settlement growth andpolitical integration' (p. 125). Archaeological analogies springstrongly to mind although more thought is needed about how the Ilahitaeffect worked at larger social scales. Replete with reference toneo-evolutionist and sociological theory and the likes of Jared Diamond,this book is a MUST.