Queries on 'wan nem'

[BURTON John]

In Urat (and perhaps other Torricelli groups) names are very important. The
name signifies which group you belong to and hence which land you have
access to. Names are owned by groups and given to children and are a means
of adopting (and expelling) people from groups. Names are given and taken
away. Sometimes a child will be given a temporarary name, until an old
persdon dies, at which time the name will be then be given to the child. It
is not uncommon for people to change names two or three times during their
lives. This is not namesaking in the sense of just naming someone after
another person, but is much more critical to the organisation of land
ownership and group membership. But it does result in the same names being
held by people over and over again. And the term "wan nem" is used when
talking about people with the same name. Areas of land are frequently named
after historical people, rather than people being named after land, even
though it could seem like that was the case. 

The Urat case has been described in an unpublished paper: S.L. Eyre, A
system of name-dtermined residence among the PNG East Sepik Urat. Unpub
seminar paper, University of California at San Diego. (a Tuzin student who
did not carry on with anthropology). he argues that the system evolved to
strengethen groups against enemies, but I think it is more to do with land
tenure than fighting. I think it is a means of evening out the distribution
of people to peices of land, so that the exchange system can work, otherwise
you might ened up with nobody to exchange with, and what would be the fun in
that. 

Bryant 

Bryant J Allen - Senior Fellow and Head - Department of Human Geography 

Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies - The Australian National
University, ACT 0200 

Australia. Phone + 61 2 6125 4347 Fax + 61 2 6125 4896

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