Society-KAPAUKU The Kapauku are a Papuan ethnic group located in the west-central part of the Central Highlands of Western New Guinea (now West Irian) between long. 135 degrees 25 min.-137 degrees E by lat. 3 degrees 25 min.-4 degrees 10 min. S. Linguistically, Kapauku is classified within the Wissel Lakes-Kemandoga branch of the West New Guinea Highlands language group of the Central New Guinea macrophylum. The total Kapauku population of around 45,000 is dispersed into small villages averaging about 120 people each (Pospisil 1958:13; 1963:15; 1964:1; Voegelin 1977:260). According to Leopold Pospisil, the major authority on the Kapauku, there are "profound local and regional cultural differences" among them. His description focuses on the Kapauku of the Kamu Valley where he did his fieldwork, particularly in the village of Botukebo and six neighboring communities, all of which belong to a political confederacy called Ijaaj-Pigome. High mountains and deep valleys characterize the Kapauku country. However, since most of the inhabited areas, especially the Kamu Valley, lie below 2,000 meters, the people live in a tropical rain forest zone. There is very little seasonal change in climate, and the average daily temperature is about 17.5 degrees C. In the Kamu Valley, the annual rainfall approximates 2,500 millimeters. The basic food staple is the sweet potato, with approximately 90 percent of the crop area devoted to this plant. The pig is the principal domestic animal and the main source of protein in the diet. Supplementary crops include especially sugar cane and taro. Fishing and gathering are of some importance, and there is also a little hunting of small animals. The material culture of the Kapauku is very simple. There is no pottery, weaving, use of metal, sculpture, or painting. Braided rattan armlets are the only form of basketry, but stringmaking and netting are important. The main products include fishing nets, net bags, and string skirts. Polished stone axes and knives together with flint flakes and bone needles are the only manufactured tools. Bows and arrows are used as weapons. The people live in rectangular plank houses with roofs made of thatch or bark. Kapauku social organization is based upon a system of cross-cutting kinship and residential-territorial groups. Pospisil claims that the most important traditional kin group is the sib (tuma), an ideally exogamous, named, totemic, patrilineal group whose members believe they are descended from a common ancestor. But certainly in modern times, at least, the functions of the sib seem to be relatively minor, and the members of any one sib may be widely scattered. Two and sometimes more sibs are grouped into loose, nonexogamous unions that may be called phratries. These constitute the largest kin-based groups, but again they do not seem to have much significance in the modern social organization. Sibs may also have distinct subdivisions. Pospisil found that almost half of the sibs whose members live in the Kamu Valley are divided into two subsibs. For example, the Ijaaj sib consists of the Dege-Ijaaj and Buna-Ijaaj subsibs. Although the members of two subsibs that belong to the same sib regard themselves as traditionally related, they always belong to different political confederacies and, as a rule, wage intermittent wars against each other: {Pospisil 1964: 38). It is at the next level of subdivision that we find the key corporate kin groups, the patrilineal lineages and sublineages. These are localized groups whose members occupy contiguous territories. The lineage is the largest kin group that is politically and legally unified. Law and order within the lineage are maintained by the headman (tonowi) whose leadership encompasses jural, political, and economic functions. The larger lineages are often divided into sublineages, each with its own headman and its own territory, which forms a segment of the geographical area occupied by the whole lineage. A Kapauku village is usually composed of members of a single patrilineal lineage or sublineage, plus their in-marrying spouses. But there are also some sublineages whose members live in several villages. Village members are distributed into patrilocal households consisting of 2 or 3 monogamous or polygynous families, the male heads of which are usually closely related. A cluster of about 15 houses forms a village which is ideally exogamous. Finally, two or more localized lineages that may belong to different sibs unite themselves for defense as well as offense into political confederacies ranging in size from 400 to well over 1000 persons. Their membership resides in a number of villages, which in the Kamu Valley almost never exceeds nine. For instance, as previously noted, Botukebo is one of seven villages that united for political reasons into the Ijaaj-Pigome Confederacy. The inhabitants of these seven villages belong to three different sibs. A confederacy is the most inclusive politically organized group in Kapauku society. Within such a unit, law and order are administered by a hierarchy of headmen; beyond this group no political organization exists. Interconfederacy relations are characterized by what one may call diplomatic negotiations and, if these fail, by wars. The Kapauku magico-religious system is characterized by a relative simplicity of ritual and ceremony, combined with a marked stress on secularity and sobriety. In contrast with many other New Guinea peoples, their ceremonial performances are not accompanied by elaborate art forms, such as wood carving, painting, or complex, well-patterned dances. In fact, the most important ceremonies are connected with their economy, rather than being concerned primarily with religion and the supernatural. Among the few ritual specialists are shamans and sorcerers. The shaman is associated with Kamu, the white magic, which can be divided into many categories such as curative magic, preventive magic, countersorcery, war magic, and so forth. Any Kapauku individual can perform these magical rites, but some people become specialists through their technical skills and the acquisition of supernatural helpers by means of dreams or visions. The practice of sorcery (kego) is always done by a specialist. The sorcerer is believed to possess his own supernatural power independent of any spirit helper. The status of a known sorcerer is low, and he is feared and hated by most people. He may be ostracized and even killed by the kin of his presumed victims. Kapauku culture is of special interest since it contradicts many Western stereotypes of "primitive" peoples. A general introduction to this society may be found in the works of Leopold Pospisil (1958, 1963, 1964). Culture summary by Robert O. Lagace Pospisil, Leopold J. Kapauku Papuans and their law. New Haven, Published for the Department of Anthropology, Yale University, by the Yale University Press, 1958. 296 p. illus., maps, tables. Pospisil, Leopold J. Kapauku Papuan economy. New Haven, Yale University, Department of Anthropology, 1963. 502 p. illus., geneal. chart, tables. Pospisil, Leopold. The Kapauku Papuans of West New Guinea. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Voegelin, C. F. and F. M. Classification and index of the world's languages. New York, Elsevier, 1977. 7851