The Mae Enga Essay -- Culture Cultural Essays

The Mae Enga Over the centuries the Enga people of Papua New Guinea have adapted certain cultural characteristics to cope with varying environmental and social changes. Some aspects of the Enga peopleà ­s lives that have shown the most cultural adaptation to the surrounding ecosystem are their horticultural practices, system of tribal warfare and clan organization. Through these adaptations, the Enga have gained ways to regulate their population, reduce their risk, control, communal resources, and regulate the environment through rituals. In our paper, we will look at each of these aspects of Enga culture and how they allow the Enga people to live within the environment constraints they are faced with. The western highlands of Papua New Guinea are home to a group of people called the Enga. The Enga speaking people make up a population of over 100,000 people. The Enga people are sub-grouped into two large groups, the Central Enga and the Fringe Enga (Meggitt, 1977). The group that we will focus on for the majority of our paper is the Mae Enga. The Mae Enga inhabit the western highland region of the Enga providence (Meggitt, 1977). The Enga people have adapted various aspects of their culture to deal with the changes in the natural surrounding environment and the social climate. The western highlands of Papua New Guinea are mainly composed of rugged mountains, high plateaus, and valleys. Most of the province is 2,000 meters above sea level (PNG ON LINE). This higher land is less populated than the valleys, making the valley lands densely populated with almost no region of unclaimed land. Grasslands cover the majority of these valley regions and also the swamp basins located throughout the Enga t... ... Work Cited Feil, D.K. "Beyond Patriliny in the New Guinea Highlands." Man. March 1984: 50-76. Meggitt, Mervyn. Blood Is Their Argument. Los Angeles: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997. Kennedy, D.M. 1991. "Papua New Guinea." Mining Annual Review. 22:78-82. Kohan, John. 1984. "Mi Lanikim John Pol: Tom-toms and couch shells welcome a missionary." Times., May 12, 1984, 69. The Papua New Guinea Information Site. "Enga Providence Information." February 1997. March 31, 1999. Available<http://www.datec.compg/png/htm Papua New Guinea Online Facts and Statistics. Online. March 25, 1999. Available http://www.niugini.com/pngonline/ Ross, Marc Howard. "The Limits To Social Structure: Social Structure and Psychocultural Explanantions for Political Conflict andViolence." Anthropological Quarterly 59 (1986): 171-76