Death and disease are the lot of all peoples. The knowledge and techniques which every culture evolves to combat them must in some sense be adaptive for the society to survive. This knowledge also provides the means whereby individuals come to interpret the threat that disease represents to them, and guides the measures they use to attempt relief. Besides such knowledge, a number of influences combine to affect the patterns of behaviour in illness which characterise each society. These include the nature of the particular diseases to which people are exposed; environmental influences of benefit or disadvantage to health; and aspects of the social order which may affect the incidence of illness, and which set the manner in which the sick are cared for. The interaction of these diverse influences is such that each society displays a distinctive pattern of response to illness. This study is an investigation of the responses to illness of the Huli people of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. My intention is to trace the various strands that combine to produce the pattern of behaviour in illness that is particular to them. In this introduction, I first make explicit the considerations which led me to select for study certain areas of Huli life.

The scope of the study and the premises underlying it

The universal characteristics of bodily functioning, growth and development represent limits to the extent of cultural variation.