ABSTRACT

There are possibilities for variation in both the contents of ritual and in their time and place of occurrence. All of these possibilities are nicely illustrated by certain rituals performed by the Maring, a group of slash-and-burn horticulturalists living in the Simbai and Jimi Valleys of New Guinea’s Central Highlands. The planting of the yu min rumbim terminates hostilities and a truce ensues. When the group has what it considers to be sufficient pigs to discharge to ancestors and allies the debts incurred in the last round of warfare, the rumbim is uprooted and a year-long festival, or kaiko, is staged. During the kaiko debts to allies and ancestors are repaid in pork, and when it is finished the group may again initiate warfare. The self-referential messages indexically transmitted at kaiko entertainments have not been exhausted. There are others of a much simpler and more straightforward sort.