Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Destruction of Aboriginal Society. Outcasts in White Australia. The Remote Aborigines. By C. D. Rowley Chariots of the Gods? By Erich von Daniken Archaeology of the Gallus Site, Koonalda Cave. Edited by R. V. S. Wright Fighting with Food. Leadership, values and social control in a Massim society. By Michael W. Young One Father, One Blood. Descent and Group Structure Among the Melpa People. By Andrew Strathern Crocodile and Cassowary: Religious Art of the Upper Sepik River, New Guinea. By Douglas Newton Papua New Guinea. Prospero's Other Island. Edited by Peter Hastings The Human Aviary. A Pictorial Discovery of New Guinea. By George Holton and Kenneth E. Read A Revised Linguistic Survey of Australia. Edited by W. J. Oates and Lynette F. Oates Notes on the Bandjalang Dialect Spoken at Coraki and Bungawalbin Creek, N.S.W. By Nils M. Holmer Papers on the Languages of Australian Aboriginals. Contributions by B. J. Blake A Partial Vocabulary of the Ngalooma Aboriginal Tribe. By Harold Aubrey Hall Dating Techniques for the Archaeologist. Edited by Henry N. Michael and Elizabeth K. Ralph The Aborigine Today. Edited by B. Leach. Paul Hamlyn     

A multivariate approach to fingerprint variation in Papua New Guinea: Implications for prehistory

Fingerprint data from three Markham Valley populations of Papua New Guinea are presented. Initial comparisons with data from elsewhere in New Guinea by conventional bivariate methods suggest hypotheses regarding prehistory, but these methods are inconclusive. Because of this shortcoming, the application of discriminant analysis to dermatoglyphic data is justified and cautiously demonstrated. Discriminant analysis is a valid approach to the parsimonious study of fingerprint relationships among human populations. Significant discriminating variables are then used with the limited published data to display historical relationships. These marker traits include the separate frequencies of thumb, middle fingers, and little finger patterning, and the complexity of the thenar eminence. With regard to prehistory, it is concluded that fingerprint data support the hypothesis of separate origins and migrations for Papuan- and Melanesian-speaking peoples. Furthermore, it is suggested that these data support the linguistic hypothesis of a second Papuan migration of Trans New Guinea Phylum speakers, up the Markham Valley into the New Guinea Highlands. Finally, gene flow is indicated from Melanesian speakers of the north coast into the interior through the Sepik and Ramu River valleys, affecting both the Trans New Guinea Phylum and other unrelated Papuan groups. Moreover, there are numerous suggestions of recent reciprocal genetic exchange between neighboring Melanesians and Papuans, without obliterating the older, separate origins of these peoples. These results suggest that fingerprints have greater phylogenetic stability than other biological parameters used in the past.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Ethnology: Australian Aboriginal Paintings in Western and Central Arnhem Land: Temporal Sequences and Elements of Style in Cadell River and Deaf Adder Creek Art. E. J. Brandl
Ethnology: Kilenge Art and Life: A Look at a New Guinea People. Philip J. C. Dark     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Reading the Skin: Adomment, Display and Society among the Wahgi Michael O'Hanlon Crisis in the World's Fisheries: Peoples, Problems and Policies James R. McGoodwin Return to Tahiti: Bligh's Second Breadfruit Voyage Douglas Oliver Crested Kimono: Power and Love in the Japanese Business Family Matthews Masayuki Els Tatuatges dels Fang de l'-Africa Occidental Jordi Sabater Pi and J. Oriol Sabater Coca Cartographies: Poststructuralism and the mapping of bodies and spaces Edited by Rosalyn Diprose and Robyn Ferrell Cultural alternatives and a feminist anthropology: An analysis of culturally constructed gender interests in Papua New Guinea Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz Dual Classification Reconsidered: Nyamwezi Sacred Kingship and Other Examples Serge Disease of Society: Cultural and Institutional Responses to AIDS D. Nelkin, D.P. Willis and S.V. Parris (eds) Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss and Didier Eribon (translated by Paula Wissington) Ku Waru: Language and Segmentary Politics in the Western Nebilyer Valley, Papua New Guinea Francesca Merlan and Alan Rumsey The Song of the Flying Fox. The Public and Esoteric Knowledge of the Important Men of Kandingei about Totemic Songs, Names, and Knotted Cords (Middle Sepik, Papua New Guinea) Jürg Wassmann, (trans. Dennis Q. Stephenson) Boroko, Papua New Guinea Art and Identity in Oceania Eds. Allan Hanson and Louise Hanson The Language of Things Eds. Pieter ter Keurs and Dirk Schmidt Rijkmuseum voor Volkenkunde     

Respiratory findings in art students

Art students are exposed to many noxious agents during their training. We studied respiratory findings in a cohort of the 117 art students in order to investigate the potential effects of these toxic agents in the art student's environment. A group of 88 medical students matched for age, sex and smoking, not exposed to known environmental pollutants were studied as controls for respiratory symptoms. Respiratory symptoms acute and chronic were evaluated by modifying the British Medical Research Council questionnaire. Lung function studies were performed with a spirometer (Jaeger, Germany) measuring maximum expiratory flow-volume (MEFV) curves. Significantly higher prevalences of most of the chronic respiratory symptoms were recorded in art compared to medical students (p < 0.05). Art students who were smokers had significantly higher prevalences of many of the chronic respiratory symptoms than nonsmoking art students. High prevalences of acute symptoms related to the study environment were recorded for art students. Odds ratios in male art students were significant for chronic cough, chronic phlegm and chronic bronchitis for the risk factors of exposure and smoking. Significantly decreased lung function was recorded for FVC, FEF50 and FEF25 in male and FVC, and FEF25 in female art students. Smokers and nonsmokers had similar reductions of lung function. Our data indicate that art students may be at risk of developing chronic respiratory symptoms and lung function changes as a result of their exposure and their smoking habits.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Traditional Exchange and Modern Markets. By Cyril S. Belshaw Friendly Mission. The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson 1829–1834. Edited by N. J. B. Plomley Maori and Pakeha: A study of mixed marriages in New Zealand. (A Race Relations Publication). By John Harré. A. H. and A. W. Reed Voyagers of the Vitiaz Strait: A Study of a New Guinea Trade System. By Thomas G. Harding The Social Organization of the Marri Baluch By Robert N. Pehrson. The Stone Age Hunters. By Grahame Clark Early Man. By F. Clark Howell Dawn of Art. Painting and Sculpture of Australian Aborigines. By Karel Kupka. With a foreword by A. P. Elkin On Aggression. By Konrad Lorenz     

Culture and Class in Papua New Guinea

Mangrove Man: Dialogics of Culture in the Sepik Estuary. David Lipset. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 335 pp.
Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea: The Telling of Difference. Deborah B. Gewertz and Frederick K. Errington. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 179 pp.     

The peopling of New Guinea: evidence from class I human leukocyte antigen.

This study utilizes newly developed direct DNA typing methods for human leukocyte antigens (HLA) to provide new information about the peopling of New Guinea. The complete polymorphism of eight Melanesian populations was examined. The groups included were highlanders, northern and southern highlands fringe populations, a Sepik population, northern and southern coastal New Guinea populations, and populations from the Bismarck Archipelago and New Caledonia. The study concluded that, based on HLA and other evidence. Melanesians are likely to have evolved largely from the same ancestral stock as Aboriginal Australians but to have since differentiated. Highlanders are likely to be descendants of earlier migrations who have been isolated for a long period of time. Northern highlands fringe and Sepik populations are likely to share a closer common ancestry but to have differentiated due to long term isolation and the relative proximity to the coast of the Sepik. Southern fringe populations are likely to have a different origin, possibly from the Gulf region, although there may be some admixture with neighboring groups. Coastal populations have a wider range of polymorphisms because of the genetic trail left by later population movement along the coast from Asia that did not reach Australia or remote Oceania. Other polymorphisms found in these populations may have been introduced by the movement of Austronesian-speaking and other more recent groups of people into the Pacific, because they share many polymorphisms with contemporary southeast Asians, Polynesians, and Micronesians that are not found in highlanders or Aboriginal Australians. There is evidence suggestive of later migration to Melanesia from Polynesia and Micronesia.     

What Do Abelam Images Want from Us?: Plato's Cave and Kwatbi's Belly

In this paper I compare two origin myths, one from the Abelam speaking area of the Sepik region, Papua New Guinea, the other, the allegory of Plato's Cave found in The Republic. I explore the effects which each of these different conceptions of iconography and aesthetics has on the other when they intersect. I argue that fieldwork itself can be looked at as a hybrid form in the sense that it brings into juxtaposition different systems of thought and contrasting cultural tropes. At the moment of intersection a new cultural form, a hybrid, is produced in that someone may ask a question which has never been asked before and respondents may think about something they have never consciously thought about before. I attempt to imaginatively reconstruct one such moment when Anthony Forge questioned Abelam painters in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea about their iconographic system. By comparing the two origin myths we can better comprehend why Forge received particular and, from his viewpoint, problematic answers to questions about the meaning of particular painting designs. The comparison reveals that the myths are inversions of one another and imply radically differing conceptions of space and iconography. The paper ends by demonstrating that Abelam painters in their turn have questions about systems of representation different from their own. This can be seen in their interrogation of the author about the labels on perfume bottles and their response to an art gallery in Sydney, Australia, which they visited with the author.     

Coevolutionary aesthetics in human and biotic artworlds

This work proposes a coevolutionary theory of aesthetics that encompasses both biotic and human arts. Anthropocentric perspectives in aesthetics prevent the recognition of the ontological complexity of the aesthetics of nature, and the aesthetic agency of many non-human organisms. The process of evaluative coevolution is shared by all biotic advertisements. I propose that art consists of a form of communication that coevolves with its own evaluation. Art and art history are population phenomena. I expand Arthur Danto’s Artworld concept to any aesthetic population of producers and evaluators. Current concepts of art cannot exclusively circumscribe the human arts from many forms of non-human biotic art. Without assuming an arbitrarily anthropocentric perspective, any concept of art will need to engage with biodiversity, and either recognize many instances of biotic advertisements as art, or exclude some instances of human art. Coevolutionary aesthetic theory provides a heuristic account of aesthetic change in both human and biotic artworlds, including the coevolutionary origin of aesthetic properties and aesthetic value within artworlds. Restructuring aesthetics, art criticism, and art history without human beings at the organizing centers of these disciplines stimulate new progress in our understanding of art, and the unique human contributions to aesthetics and aesthetic diversity.     

Characterization of population structure from the mitochondrial DNA vis‐à‐vis language and geography in Papua New Guinea

Situated along a corridor linking the Asian continent with the outer islands of the Pacific, Papua New Guinea has long played a key role in understanding the initial peopling of Oceania. The vast diversity in languages and unique geographical environments in the region have been central to the debates on human migration and the degree of interaction between the Pleistocene settlers and newer migrants. To better understand the role of Papua New Guinea in shaping the region's prehistory, we sequenced the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region of three populations, a total of 94 individuals, located in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. We analyzed these samples with a large data set of Oceania populations to examine the role of geography and language in shaping population structure within New Guinea and between the region and Island Melanesia. Our results from median‐joining networks, star‐cluster age estimates, and population genetic analyses show that while highland New Guinea populations seem to be the oldest settlers, there has been significant gene flow within New Guinea with little influence from geography or language. The highest genetic division is between Papuan speakers of New Guinea versus East Papuan speakers located outside of mainland New Guinea. Our study supports the weak language barriers to genetic structuring among populations in close contact and highlights the complexity of understanding the genetic histories of Papua New Guinea in association with language and geography. Am J Phys Anthropol 142:613–624, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Beta diversity of frogs in the forests of New Guinea, Amazonia and Europe: contrasting tropical and temperate communities

Aim To test the hypothesis that animal communities within environmentally relatively uniform lowland forests are characterized by low beta diversity, both in tropical and in temperate areas. Location Lowland forests in the basins of the Sepik and Ramu rivers in New Guinea, the Amazon river in Bolivia, and the Elbe and Dyje rivers in the Czech Republic. Methods A network of 5–6 study sites spanning distances from 20–80 to 300–500 km in each study area was systematically surveyed for all frogs, using visual detection and call tracking. The community data were analysed for alpha and beta diversity. Results Local (alpha) diversity of frog communities was similar in the two tropical areas, New Guinea (mean ± SE of 22 ± 1.4 species per site) and Amazonia (24 ± 1.7 species), but was significantly lower in Europe (8 ± 0.8 species). In Amazonia, 36 of the total of 70 species were recorded from single sites. In contrast, widespread species dominated in Europe, whereas New Guinea exhibited an intermediate pattern with both local and widespread species well represented. The rate of species accumulation across different sites was lowest in Europe, intermediate in New Guinea and highest in Amazonia. The regional species diversity, expressed as the combined number of species from five study sites, was 1.5 times higher than the local species diversity at a single site in Europe, 2.0 times higher in New Guinea and 2.7 times higher in Amazonia. The proportion of species shared between communities decreased with geographic distance in New Guinea and Europe, but not in Amazonia. Main conclusions Frog communities in the lowland tropical rain forests of New Guinea and Amazonia had similar numbers of species, but differed in their beta diversity. More species in Amazonia had restricted distributions than in New Guinea. Both tropical areas had markedly higher alpha and beta diversity than the temperate area in Europe.     

Melanotaenia iris,a new freshwater rainbowfish (Melanotaeniidae) from Papua New Guinea with notes on the fish fauna in Head Waters

A new melanotaeniid rainbowfish,Melanotaenia iris, is described from mountain tributaries of the Strickland River in west-central Papua New Guinea. It is most closely related toM. goldiei of southern New Guinea, but differs in colour pattern, a distinctive high number of scales on the suborbital-preopercle bones, and a greater number of soft dorsal fin rays. Notes are also included on the poorly developed fish fauna of head waters in the Fly-Strickland and Sepik river systems. Most streams thus far investigated have less than 4 species. The plotosid catfishTandanus equinus appears to be the most successful colonizer of fast-flowing highland streams in the Fly-Strickland system and is sometimes the only species present.     

Fish yield estimates for the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea, a large floodplain system east of 'Wallace's Line'

The fisheries of floodplain river systems in Africa, South America and Asia are similar and their yields can be estimated from various morphological, edaphic and other parameters. There is a close similarity in the ichthyofauna of these regions enabling comparisons between systems to be made. The native fauna of New Guinea (Australasia) is devoid of the primary freshwater fishes that compose the majority of the catch from other regions. Various estimates suggest that the present yield of the Sepik River fishery is about 3000–5000 t year⁻¹ This is approximately 10% of the yield of 30 000–45 000 t year⁻¹ predicted by comparison with African rivers. Much of the present catch is introduced tilapia. Considering the native fish species alone, the present yield is only about 5–7% of that predicted. Fishing effort in the Sepik may be low by comparison with African rivers but the faunal difference is probably the main factor involved. This low yield still represents one of the largest and most important fisheries in the country. Such yeild estimates, even if only rough approximations, are vital for planning and management decisions.     

Not Without a Cost: Contemporary PNG Art in the 21st Century

This article addresses the life experiences and work of two contemporary Papua New Guinean artists: Saun Anti from the artistically conservative Middle Sepik River area, and Wendi Choulai, from Melbourne, Australia. Anti's story of reprimand, censorship, and banishment, and Choulai's being the antithetical situation, illustrate some hurdles faced by contemporary PNG artists. Anti's and Choulai's art posed a challenge to their people's concept of traditional forms as well as to the preconceptions of collectors and curators. They are artists torn between two worlds: the world of “tradition,” reciprocity, and initiation, and the sophisticated, cosmopolitan world of the international artist.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (eds) . Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand. Piya Chatterjee . A Time For Tea: Women, Labor, and Post/Colonial Politics on an Indian Plantation. Jean and John L. Comaroff (eds) . Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism. Michael Humphrey . The Politics of Atrocity and Reconciliation: From Terror to Trauma. S. Jaarsma and Marta Rohatynskyj (eds) . Ethnographic Artifacts: Challenges to a Reflexive Anthropology. Gaynor Kavanagh . Dream Spaces: Memory and Museum. Fred R. Myers . Painting Culture: The Making of an Aboriginal High Art. Nigel A. Stephenson . Kastom or Komuniti: A Study of Social Process and Change among the Wam People, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Ida Susser and Thomas C. Patterson (eds) . Cultural Diversity in the United States: A Critical Reader. Elizabeth Wood‐Ellem . Queen Salote of Tonga: The Story of an Era, 1900–1965. Michael W. Young and Julia Clark . An Anthropologist in Papua: The Photography of F. E. Williams, 1922–39.     

Scale bearing chrysophytes from Papua New Guinea

The scaled chrysophytes from Papua New Guinea were studied for the first time. Twenty two taxa of Chrysophyceae and Synurophyceae are reported. Species diversity was highest in black- and mixed water lakes and swamps of the Sepik floodplain. Most surprisingly. the oligotrophic highland lakes were very poor in chrysophytes.     

Anthropologies of art

This paper discusses how different conceptions of the idea of ‘anthropology’ entail different views of the ‘anthropology of art’. The prevailing notion of anthropology as the Western study of small-scale non-Western societies leads to a conception of the anthropology of art as dealing with the visual arts of these societies or cultures. Anthropology is sometimes also interpreted as referring to a particular approach that is applicable in examining sociocultural phenomena in whatever culture, including its art forms. Both conceptions of anthropology may be considered subsidiary to a more encompassing view of anthropology as the multidisciplinary study of humankind. Following this view, the anthropology of art becomes the comprehensive examination of art in human existence. As such it would coincide with World Art Studies, conceived as the global and multidisciplinary study of the visual arts.     

The Bow and Spreadnet: Ecological Origins of Hunting Technology

Mbuti bands in eastern Zaire differ in their hunting use of the spreadnet and the bow, a variation previously attributed to historical contacts with different non-Mbuti groups, population pressure, and differences in the floral diversity and abundance of the Ituri Forest. None of these factors, however, adequately explains a similar differentiation in the Sepik Basin of Papua New Guinea. Instead, the Sepik data indicate that the net and the bow may spread through historical contact and diffusion, but their adoption or rejection is ultimately determined by a conjunction of their technological properties and the horizontal and vertical densities of environmental vegetation. From this perspective, the essential determinants of Mbuti spreadnet and bow use may be spatial variations in the physiognomy of the Ituri.     

Book Review Section: Reviewer's Choice

Art and the Seafarer: The Viking Press, 625 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022: List Price $28.00. Reviewed by Hans Jurgen Hansen.

Sculpture with a Torch: University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis 14, Minnesota: List Price $2.95. Reviewed by John Rood.

Contemporary Art with Wood: Crown Publishers, Inc.: 419 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016: List Price $6.95. Reviewed by Dona 2. Meilach.

All Around-the-House Art and Craft Book: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2 Park Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02107: List Price $5.00. Reviewed by Patricia Z. Wirtenberg.

Creative Ink Drawings: Watson-Guptill Publications 165 West 46th Street, New York, New York 10036: List Price $10.50. Reviewed by Paul Hogarth.

Lithography for Artists: Oxford University Press, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016: List Price $1.75. Reviewed by Stanley Jones.

Graphic Arts Encyclopedia: McGraw-Hill Book Company 330 West 42nd Street, New York, New York 10036: List Price $16.50. Reviewed by George A. Stevenson.

100 Watercolor Techniques: Watson-Guptill Publications 165 West 46rh Street, New York, New York 10036: List Price $15.00. Reviewed by Norman Kent.