The Economic Structure

In an earlier section 1 I have discussed the position of the Arapesh in the complicated network of the diffusion of material and non-material traits which characterizes this area and have also given some account of the simpler techniques which they know and practise. They are already identified as an importing people living in a very meager environment, with poor garden land, a slender supply of game, a scant stock of sago, and poor, thin domestic pigs— a people who depend upon trade with neighboring groups for their tools and utensils. It is necessary also to realize that the Mountain Arapesh have only a single possession which is of the slightest interest to anyone, that is, they inhabit the trade route from the Beach to the interior. Their land is so poor and precipitous that the inhabitants of the richer level land of Beach and Plains would not live there, if they could; their yams and taros are notoriously small, their sago poor. They are not in the slightest danger from outside attack from aggressors who wish to take their lands away from them, or sack their houses for their handful of tridacna shell rings and a few strings of shell money; there arc no head-hunting peoples near them, people to whom a head is a head, and to whom therefore the mild and unaggressive Mountain Arapesh would offer excellent prey. But the Plainsmen do value highly the right to walk easily from the Plains to the sea, to obtain Beach trade. Conversely, the Beach values the trade with the interior upon which they depend especially for net bags, some feathers, and tobacco. And this the Arapesh control, not for the seemingly obvious reason that they inhabit all the land between Beach and Plains, but because their territory is the only inhabited area between Beach and Plains, with a great uninhabited tract of bush to the south of them, because people of this area do not know how to travel through uninhabited country. This is explained partly by the nature of the bush, which is most inhospitable and unlikely to offer a full meal to the wanderer, and partly because of their lack of portable nourishing food. The Plains people have very little sago, the only portable food in this area; when they travel, they have to carry yams and taro as food. With the low standard of load size, the frequent impracticability of taking the habituated women with them, and the desire to carry tobacco for trade, a heavy load of food is regarded as a great handicap, and a line of hamlets where food can be found is felt to be absolutely essential.