Subject: kain chief
Culture: (n)Dani
Setting: tribal warfare, Irian Jaya highlands mid-20thc
Evolution:
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
* LeBlanc/Register 2003 p21 caption
"The highland peoples of New Guinea were engaged in almost continuous warfare when encountered by European gold seekers in the 1930s. No-man's-lands separated competing social groups, and lookout towers ... had to be manned to guard against surprise raids. Some anthropologists believed this warfare was 'ritual' with few deaths and of little consequence, yet about 25 percent of the men died from such 'inconsequential' warfare."
* Wade 2006 p85-86
"Warfare was common in most Papuan societies until the second half of the twentieth century, ... and casualty rates were high -- about 29% of Dani men were killed in warfare .... This death rate is very similar to the male battle casualties among both chimpanzees and the Yanomamo of South America and presumably is driven by the same motive, the reproductive advantage gained by th successful warrior for himself and his male kin.
"Warfare among hunter-gatherers is deceptively mild compared with the explosive carnage of modern battlefields. Battle may be opened but called off, like a ball game, if rain stops play, or someone is seriously injured. Heider, like many anthropologists, believed at first that warfare among the Dani was not a terribly serious affair. After his first field trip to New Guinea in 1961 he wrote a book entitled Grand Valley Dani: Peaceful Warriors. But after revisiting the Dani for many years, and reconstructing careful genealogies and causes of death, he realized how many men in fact died in battle. If you fight every week, even low casualty rates start to mount.
"Like the !Kung San, the Dani fight to kill. ... Like many other human groups and the chimpanzees of Gombe and Kasakela, the Dani know that killing a few of the enemy leaves the remainder thirsting for revenge, so a more effective solution is extermination."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p135
"The Dani are warriors because they have wanted to be since boyhood, not because they are persuaded by political arguments or their own sentimental or patriotic feelings. They are ready to fight whenever their leaders decide to do so.
"Such decisions are the responsibility of a small number of kains, or influential men"...
* LeBlanc/Register 2003 p6 caption
"This photo of the Dani people of highland New Guinea, taken in the early 1960s, shows what seems to be a chaotic melee characteristic of tribal farmer warfare, and even a minor rain shower can cause this warfare to cease for a day. This had led many to not consider this to be 'true war,' yet the proportional death rate exceeded that of either World War."
Headdress
* Friede/Hays/Hellmich eds. 2017 p579 f17.35 (Anton Ploeg, "Highlands of West New Guinea" p540-613)
"Both Grand Valley Dani and Western Dani men wore headdresses ... during fights and for feasts. The headdresses combined fur and feathers and were set on a frame of pandanus leaf (although this plaint might not have been used for all such headdresses). The resulting ensembles tended to be unique specimens, individuating and identifying their wearers. .... Given their shape, many enhanced the height of their wearers."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p137
"If rain does not put an end to the fighting, most warriors will spend the next six or seven hours without food, and so they are careful to eat well while it is still possible to do so. This is also the time when the men are concerned with their appearance; a formal battle is one of the few occasions when they want to look their best. ... Some will take out their war headdresses, the fronts of which are bedecked with the rare bird-of-paradise plumes that sway to their owner's movements. ... In battle, or perched on a rock waiting for action, the plumed and painted Dani warrior looks as if he might indeed take flight."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p9 caption 13
"At battle, men decorate themselves with pig tusks in their noses, furred and feathered headdresses and chest ornaments of various shells."
Ornaments (Nosepiece, Jewelry, Whisk, Fossil, Bag)
* Campbell 1991 p123
"Shells, animals' tusks and teeth, birds' feathers and fibres from trees, reeds and other plants are used, mainly as body decorations. The colours -- rust, yellow, red, green and white -- are obtained from either vegetable or mineral dyes."
* Heider 1991 p60
"Dani attire is mainly ornamental. It is not necessary for protection against the weather because the days are warm and the nights are spent usually indoors anyway. At a minimum, attire does serve to protect a person's modesty. ... Some men like to wear more ornaments than others. Although there are more and less important men in Dani society, the fact is known to all, so it does not need to be communicated through attire. A stranger looking only at attire could not tell which of a group of men is the most important and which the least.
"Much attire serves to protect a person's vulnerable spots from attack by ghosts. The ghosts can enter the body especially through the anus or the base of the throat, and most adult Dani wear something -- a string, a band made of matted cobweb, or a leaf -- hanging over these spots."
* Campbell 1991 p31
"A mixture of pig grease and soot rubbed into the skin enhances the appearance and creates a fine impression. Pig grease protects the skin from mosquitoes, and is also thought to have magical qualities.
"A downward-pointing boar's tusk, worn by a Dani warrior, signals he is on the warpath!
"An upturned tusk puts one at ease, as it symbolises peace.
"In the past, on reaching manhood, the young men of the tribe would have their septa pierced in order to insert the decorative double boar's tusks."
Armor
* Friede/Hays/Hellmich eds. 2017 p542 f17.3 (Anton Ploeg, "Highlands of West New Guinea" p540-613)
"Cuirasses of various types were in use throughout most of the Central Highlands of West New Guinea, across what is now the national border with Papua New Guinea, and in parts of the lowlands. The present type of cuirass occurred among a number of cultural groups in the western part of the Highlands of West New Guinea. IT had two quite different parts: the lower part consisted of rattan plaited with contrasting design elements; the upper part of tightly looped string. Orchid fiber was wound around both rattan and string. The techniques produced a flexible type of armor. The lower part of the cuirass was most often plain. Cuirasses with vertical bands ... were apparently unusual.
"Europeans on the Wollaston Expedition first noticed these cuirasses in 1912 or 1913 among Amungme living in the valley of the Utakwa River, south of Puncak Jaya (Mount Carstensz). In 1921, they were noticed by Wirz among Western Dani, in the valley of the Dika, a tributary of the Toli. In 1939, Le Roux noted them among the Moni and provided a detailed description of their manufacture. A picture of a cuirass that Wirz collected in the Dika Valley makes it clear that there was more than one way in which the upper part of this type was put together." [references omitted]
* Campbell 1991 p41
"When at war, a vest of woven orchid fibres gives protection to the wearer's body."
* Encyclopedia of World Cultures, v.II Oceania 1991 p44
"Rattan torso armor for protection against arrows was made by Western Dani but the Grand Valley Dani neither made it nor traded for it."
* LeBlanc/Register 2003 p70
"[N]ew Guinea highlanders made armor capable of stopping arrows out of fiber, belying the idea that their warfare was not serious and deadly."
* Stone 1934 p66
"D'Albertis found a somewhat similar suit [to those of the Kingsmill Islanders] in New Guinea in a deserted village. He says (II, 125-6: 'One very important (discovery), because, so far as I know, it is the first one found in New Guinea. It consists of a cuirass of armor made of rattang.' Others have been found since ...." [NOTE: This comment predates the first Western encounter with the Dani by a few years.]
Archery
* Heider 1991 p59-60
"In fighting the Dani use both bows and arrows and spears. The bows are rarely more than 1.5 meters long, strung with a centimeter-wide bamboo band. The arrows are also short, measuring up to about 1.7 meters. They have a hardwood tip set into a reed shaft which is neither notched nor fletched. The weakness of the bow, together with the absence of stabilizing feathers, means that the arrows are neither very accurate nor do they have great range. ...
"The arrows are not actually poisoned but they are certainly dirtied. The hardwood tips are usually notched or barbed so as to break off and stick in the wound, and the very end is often wrapped with greased orchid fiber. If such a tip does break off and remain inside the wound, it can cause severe infection and eventually be fatal. They also have special two- or three-pronged arrows for hunting birds."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p140
"Dani arrows are made so that when they strike a person, particularly if he is in motion, a deliberately weakened portion of the foreshaft breaks off and leaves only the often intricately barbed tip embedded in the flesh. [...]
"Since Dani arrows are often barbed, their removal can be delicate and painful. Still, it is not for these reasons that the specialist is called; almost anyone with good eyes and steady hands can work the arrow free. The specialist is required for the surgery that custom prescribes in all serious wounds. The Dani believe that whenever blood is spilled, especially within one's body, it becomes the source of much pain and perhaps grave sickness. It is called mep mili, or dark blood, and their practice is to draw it off to prevent harm."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p138
"The warriors in the forward and middle positions watch their enemy with mounting alertness. Each side waits for the characteristic opening to such battles -- the advance of a party of perhaps thirty or forty who come forward to reconnoiter the open terrain and to test their enemies' attitude. This is called weem iya, a sort of ceremonial thrust in the direction of the enemy [...] When the two groups are fifty yards apart, bowmen are likely to loose one or two arrows at their opposite numbers, more as a gesture of readiness to engage than in a serious attempt to harm. [...]
"After three or even more such sallies by the forward groups, and at a moment determined by a multitude of obvious and obscure cues, the symbolic release of arrows gives way to deadly fighting."
* Campbell 1991 p123
"Bows are simple and carved from laurel wood. Arrows, tipped with myrtle wood, are more ornate, their barbs elaborately carved. In the days of tribal warfare these barbs were designed to break off on penetration of a body, causing the wound to fester."
* Monbiot 1989 p242
"Dani battles were about the only sort of serious warfare that seldom led to injury. The Dani were such hopeless shots that they could spend a whole day firing arrows at each other without hitting anyone."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p98
"A magic bow and arrows are made as symbolic weapons to be placed within the watchtower so that ghosts can help the men defend against an enemy attack."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p95
"At the same time two other men arise, one to hold a meager bundle of grass above the body [on a funeral pyre], the other standing near to shoot into it an arrow which will release the spirit of the man just committed to the fire when it strikes the bundle. The bundle and its intruding arrow are then carried to the compound entrance to that the ghost may depart with ease."
* Monbiot 1989 p70
"They had ... been carrying heavy bows made out of ironwood and strung with a length of split bamboo, five or six feet long. The arrows were tipped with wood, elaborately carved with strange barbs and points. Some were triple-headed, for small birds, others had a single bamboo blade for tree marsupials and wild pigs. I asked Arkilaus what the points with the deep, hooked barbs were for. 'Manusia,' he shrugged: human beings."
Spear
* Heider 1991 p60
"Arrows are used mainly for crippling people. The real killing weapon is the spear. Dani make their spears with great care from fine 3-meter lengths of myrtle or laurel which they buy from the Jalémo. A man will spend days straightening and smoothing and polishing and waxing his spear. It is much too valuable to be thrown, but it is a deadly jabbing weapon at close quarters."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p139
"Only in the closest and thickest fighting does a warrior risk his finest spear. Besides their best weapon, spearmen usually carry a shorter and less deadly 'throw-away' one. A large spear is a valuable possession since the wood must be procured from the Yalis, who find it in their eastern forests, and it is an object prized by its owner and by the enemy. Along with certain other possessions, such as any shell ornaments, a feather whisk, headdress or human hair itself, a man's spear is, in the language of his enemy, an ap warek, a dead man. Other fighting groups in the Baliem call these trophies sué warek, or dead birds. Both refer to the measure of success in fighting -- a success that at the very least means the capture of valuable belongings, and at best the killing of an enemy warrior who is stripped of his possessions."
* Gardner/Heider 1968 p139
"Along with certain other possessions, such as any shell ornaments, a feather whisk, headdress or human hair itself, a man's spear is, in the language of his enemy, an ap warek, a dead man. "
Dagger
* Friede/Hays/Hellmich eds. 2017 p557 (Anton Ploeg, "Highlands of West New Guinea" p540-613)
"The Dani wore dog-fur armbands into which they would tuck other items, such as bone daggers or leaves, the latter probably to add color or fragrance."
* Blade with a beak 2019-05-30 online
"Bone was one of the most important mediums in the stone tool culture of Papua New Guinea, with an informal hierarchy for preference based on species. Fewer human femur daggers are seen, but they were the most prestigious knives, especially when the perquisite bone was gained from a deceased ancestor or from slain foe. The only alternative for these bone daggers was the tibiotarsus of the cassowary—the middle of the three bones in a bird’s leg. A scientific analysis of some 30 cassowary and human bone daggers interestingly shows that human bone daggers are sturdier than cassowary daggers, a factor of shape rather than bone density or anything else, but secondary to mystical reasons this perhaps further fomented the preference for human bone knives.
"... Several factors go into the usage of both bones as knives and the non-utilitarian rationale behind the usage of cassowary bones is especially fascinating. Endemic to the entirety of New Guinea, these prehistoric holdovers have the benefit of their mythological traits and observed abilities being almost entirely the same. At times passive, at times fierce, cassowaries are known to attack humans—usually for food-motivated reasons—and when using their talons these skirmishes have been known to be fatal. Cassowaries also occupy an important space in Papuan cosmology. Some northeast Papuan groups hold that it was a female cassowary that created land and was a progenitor to the first men."
* Strength of New Guinea's bone dagger examined 2018-04-26 online
"According to a Live Science report, Nathaniel Dominy of Dartmouth College and R. Dana Carpenter of the University of Colorado, Denver, led a study that compared the strength of daggers carved from human and cassowary thigh bones. Such weapons are thought to have been used by warriors in New Guinea to kill enemies or finish them off after they had been wounded with arrows or spears, based upon accounts written by missionaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The researchers collected information on the density of the bones by performing computed tomography scans of five of each type of weapon. They also a purchased a newly made cassowary dagger and subjected it to a bending test. The test results suggest the human bone daggers were about twice as strong as the daggers made from bird bone, but mainly because of the way they had been shaped. Dominy and Carpenter think the warriors may have been more careful when fashioning the human femur daggers, since they were harder to replace. 'Human bone daggers have to be sourced from a really important person,' Dominy said. 'It has to be your father or someone who was respected in the community.'"
Phallocrypt
* Campbell 1991 p29
"Dani men from the age of six onwards wear a holim (penis shield) over the genital area. Made from a gourd, the shield is tied in place with a scrotum string, and held in a vertical position by another string wound under the armpits or waist."
* Bangs/Kallen 1988 p203-205
"In one respect clothing is a simple matter for the Dani -- the men wear virtually none, except a penis sheath and perhaps some necklaces, bracelets and feather decoration. But the hourim is a very strange feature indeed, a narrow gourd grown in village gardens, where it is elongated by tying weights on its end as it matures. Boys begin wearing them at about four to six years of age, well before puberty or any initiation rites. Most men have several hourim, including ones curled at the end, which several wore to the market as their Sunday best; sometimes they dangle the fur tails of the cuscus from the end. The gourds are attached by two thin strings, one at the top that winds around the chest to hold the gourd erect and the other at the bottom, tied around the scrotum.
"This reduction of clothing to the barest minimum had an almost purified quality, as if the entire purpose of clothing had been distilled to its essence: the covering of genitals, a covering that becomes an emphasis. An eighteen-inch gourd rising at a 120-degree angle does not hide the penis, it highlights it."
* Friede/Hays/Hellmich eds. 2017 p547 (Anton Ploeg, "Highlands of West New Guinea" p540-613)
"Heider noted that among the Grand Valley Dani, 'gourds are ... long, narrow, and worn nearly vertically' and that 'visitors to the Grand Valley from the Western Dani areas are particularly noticeable with their short, thick penis gourds, often 10 centimeters [about 4 in.] in diameter [and] standing out at a 45-degree angle to the wearer's body.' These thick gourds were also used to carry small valuables and lumps of tobacco. But not all Western Dani wore such gourds. The Wanggulam, a group of Western Dani in the Bokondini area, north of the Grand Valley, among whom I carried out fieldwork in the early 1960s, did not. They told me about other Dani, living farther west, whose penis gourds, they said, were curiously wide."
* Monbiot 1989 p59
"They [Dani men] wore hollow yellow gourds on their penises and no clothes. The gourds were in all shapes and sizes: long straight ones that ran past the man's shoulder, curly ones like pigs' tails, short delicate ones with a cuscus tail sticking out of the top, fat stubby ones stuffed with cloth, all hollowed from things like hard conical cucumbers and held upright with a string tied round the man's middle."
* Heider 1991 p60-61
"From the age of four or five, males wear a holim or penis gourd at all times .... These dried and hollowed gourds of varying lengths and sizes fit over the penis, are anchored at the base by a string around the scrotum, and are held upright by another string under the arms.
"When I first began to study Dani artifacts, I was sure that the penis gourd would be a gold mine of data. Every man wore one. The gourds varied in length from navel height to chin height; in shape they were straight, curled at the ends, or curved; some were plain, others festooned with furry marsupial tails sticking out of the tips. In short, they promised to be a Freudian library of projective information giving immediate insight into basic personalities, rather like wearing one's Rorschachs on one's sleeves. "Alas, as data they were next to useless. People would have whole wardrobes of penis gourds of different lengths and shapes, and I could find no correlation between the gourd of the day and either long-term and short-term personality.
"Even the general trait itself, which clearly seems to suggest a high Dani concern with phallic masculinity, is misleading. The Dani have little interest in sexuality, and the gourd itself is not a focus or symbol of masculinity or sexuality. We know of such exaggerated phallocrypts from cultures throughout New Guinea, from Africa, from South America, and from Europe .... So the form is not unusual; the lack of significance is." [CONTRA Flannery 1998, Brain 1979]
* Monbiot 1989 p84-85
"Like most of what the Dani did, the penis gourd seemed designed simply to confound anthropologists, for all the vogueish Freudian explanations would have suggested they were very sexy people."
* Flannery 1998 p229-230
"Many older Lani men wear extraordinarily long ones, which are in some cases so extreme that they threaten to poke the wearer in the eye. Youths, on the other hand, prefer the short, broad gourd I came to think of as the 'sporting model'.
"There is a functional reason for these preferences. The gourd worn by the young men serves as a pouch. They remove the plug of fur or cloth at its end, and retrieve from it tobacco, matches or other small knick-knacks. Being broad, it has considerable capacity. Being short, it does not get entangled during a dash through the forest in pursuit of a possum. Such an accident, by the way, could be rather painful, considering the string that ties the gourd at its base to one testicle.
"Older men, of course, have different needs. Their hunting days are over, and politics and diplomacy are their business. Here, the truly long gourd comes into its own. Few mannerisms command as much attention as majestically waving an elongated codpiece away from the face as one prepares to speak."
* Brain 1979 p133
"The penis sheath, the great concealer of male genitalia, may serve as sexual display in the same way as the padded, decorated codpiece: each hides what it wishes to display, a man's masculinity. But even in the case of the penis sheath we cannot always be sure that it has phallic connotations. Sometimes, as for the Dani of New Guinea, the gourd sheath is used like tribal marks as a distinctive group sign: different communities are recognizable according to the length and width of the sheath and the angle at which it is held."
* Kennett 1995 p178 caption
"West Papuan Dani men wear little other than their penis covers and bone or teeth ornaments."
Adze
* Campbell 1991 p123
"Oval stone adzes, once of universal use in the valley for felling trees, trimming wood and butchering pigs, are fast being replaced with metal blades. Adzes are made from hard metamorphic rock or chlorite. The stone is sharpened against limestone rocks by the river's edge and bound with fibres to a branch or piece of wood which forms the handle."
* Friede/Hays/Hellmich eds. 2017 p565 (Anton Ploeg, "Highlands of West New Guinea" p540-613)
"Beautifully made stone adzes and axes were perhaps the most impressive tools made by the West New Guinea Highlanders. Most blades were made of hard basaltic rock, but sometimes a fine greenstone was used, obtained from isolated quarries via extensive trade routes .... The blades were hafted into hardwood handles with often intricate bindings of rattan and woven fiber. Sometimes yellow or red orchid fiber was added for decoration. It is possible that the more refined of these objects became wealth items and were used in ceremonial exchange, as they were in other parts of the Highlands."
* Friede/Hays/Hellmich eds. 2017 p606 f17.56 (Anton Ploeg, "Highlands of West New Guinea" p540-613)
"The foremost researchers on Dani axes and adzes ... agreed that most Western Dani axe and adze blades came from quarries on the northern slopes of the Central Highlands, northwest of the Grand Valley. About the Grand Valley Dani, the Pétrequins and Weller wrote that they also used blades originating from quarries farther east and to the north of the Grand Valley. Given that the Grand Valley Dani lived farther away from the main quarries, it was harder for them to acquire the stone blades, especially large ones." [references omitted]
Club
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Bag
* Campbell 1991 p124-126
"Noken are made of fibre from one of two trees known locally as hekelwalet and yanoguik. Colours are derived from vegetable dyes mainly, the most common being yellow (cellig), white (yangguik in the highlands, or kuron in the lowlands), red (momion) and blue (balakie). Only the red dye is extracted from a mineral source, a local stone.
"Sun-dried fibre is dipped into one of these dyes and then finger-woven across lengths of bamboo strips in a simple design of loops until the noken is long enough to hang from head to below the anus in order to prevent marauding ghosts from entering the body."
