ABSTRACT
Male leaders of kin groups among the Duna keep elaborate knowledge of genealogies running for up to fourteen generations as a record of the group’s identity, and its historical presence in the landscape. Each large group is thought to have originated from a powerful ancestor, part human part spirit, who is often also said to have migrated into the area from a distant place, such as Oksapmin, across the great Strickland River that marks the northern boundary of Duna settlements. The local agencies of such “kindred spirits” were followed into the larger-scale contexts of the response to signs of decreasing fertility and increasing sickness in the linked people/ground domain. The ecological correlate of this ritual imperative was that people would be stimulated to raise more pigs and plant more crops to feed them so that these could be in turn ritually invested in bringing about more fertility through sacrifice to ancestors.
