Introduction

Reciprocity has long been recognised as an important theme of Melanesian social life, and especially of traditional Melanesian politics (Forge 1972a; Gregory 1982; Rubel and Rosman 1978; Schwimmer 1973). It is by making gifts to one another that groups, and ambitious men, form alliances and compete for reputation and power. These prestations often include ritual services (Rubel and Rosman 1978), but the main medium of the exchanges in most Melanesian societies is material wealth: pigs and shell valuables in many of the New Guinea Highland societies (Feil 1987; Lederman 1986; Sillitoe 1979; A.J. Strathern 1971), and yams or other prestige foodstuffs among many of the Lowland peoples (Malinowski 1935; Serpenti 1965; Tuzin 1976; Young 1971). In this chapter I discuss Avatip cosmology as a system of ritual reciprocities between groups, and suggest some parallels between it and the material reciprocities characteristic of Melanesian Big Man polities. My argument is that Avatip ritual and cosmology function as a gift economy, transposed from the sphere of material production into the idiom of magic and ritual.

Just as in other Melanesian societies, it is important in everyday life at Avatip for men and women to be productive, particularly so as to fulfil their obligations to their uterine kin and affines. They are respected for this in their ordinary domestic lives, and it is the means by which men and women create and reproduce their personal kinship and affinal relationships.