ABSTRACT
Produced very differently Ongka's spoken in Melpa over three days on ten C-60 cassettes, Ru's written laboriously in Tok Pisin over a period of two months each narrative took a very long time to emerge into a consideration of contemporary changes and an evaluation of these. Summarizing, the authors can say that Ongka highlights his individuality against a background of implicit collectivity in life; Ru foregrounds collectivity against a background of increasing individualism in his social milieu. Finally, Ongka explains that he addressed the crowd: 'This is my show, I am making it here at my place Mbukl, on my own ground. Ongka and Ru are like Gregorio in not giving a developmental/personality-oriented slant to their narratives, but they are still portraying themselves in embodied, local, historical contexts and their style in doing so curiously anticipates and matches the contemporary interest within anthropology in the concept of embodiment itself.
