Kwoma Death

University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
Kwoma Death Payments and Alliance Theory

Author(s): Ross Bowden
Source: Ethnology, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Jul., 1988), pp. 271-290
Published by: University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher
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KWOMA DEATH PAYMENTS AND
ALLIANCE THEORY
Ross Bowden
La Trobe University
Recent analyses of exchange in the structure of Papua New Guinea societies

have focussed predominantly on competitive or ceremonial forms of
reciprocity, such as the Moka, Tee, and Kula, rather than the complex,
multigenerational exchange relationships that marriages commonly establish
between wife-giving and wife-taking groups. One consequence of the
neglect of affinal in favor of ceremonial exchange is that it is difficult, if not
impossible, to determine for many otherwise well-described societies what
affinal transactions take place, how they are related to such other aspects of
social structure as the extensive negative marriage rules characteristic of this
region, and in those societies where competitive systems are found, how the
ceremonial and affinal aspects of exchange are articulated. To take one of
several possible examples, Feil (1984) reports that the Tee competitive
exchange system of the Tombema Enga is built upon and interdigitates with a
base of affinal exchange relationships. But Feil is ambiguous as to whether
affinal and competitive exchange are distinguishable institutions or a unitary
phenomenon. For instance, he states that exchange partners in the Tee are
invariably conceptualized as affines--i.e., as linked by a marriage (e.g., Feil
1984:101, 156)--but he also states that not all affines are exchange partners
(Feil 1984:102, 127-8). What is not clear from Feil's various reports is
whether affinal transactions ever take place outside the context of the Tee
and, if so, to what extent; whether some categories of affines are more likely
to be chosen as exchange partners than others and on what grounds; and
what the implications are for kinship relationships generally of passing over
particular affines (including matrilateral relatives) as exchange partners in the
Tee. In contrast to many recent Papua New Guinea ethnographers, however,
Feil (1980) provides a detailed account of the wide-ranging Tombema
marriage prohibitions, and how these are related to the structure of the
competitive exchange system.
This paper has two aims. The first is to contribute to the ethnography of
affinal exchange systems in New Guinea by describing the cross-generational
exchange relationships and wider alliances that marriages establish between
individuals and groups in one lowland Papua New Guinea society. The
structure of these alliances shows a striking similarity to those underlying
affinal exchanges in many other Papua New Guinea societies and points to
some very widespread but largely neglected similarities in the structures of
both lowland and highland social systems (but see Rubel and Rosman 1978).
It is beyond the scope of this article to examine these similarities in detail,
but I will allude to some of the most basic in the discussion of two highland
societies in the conclusion.
271
272 ETHNOLOGY
The second aim is to offer an interpretation of the structure of Kwoma

death payments. Death payments occur widely in New Guinea, both in the
lowlands and the highlands, where they constitute major redistributions of
wealth between individuals and groups (e.g., Bulmer 1960:5; Forge 1972:537;
Lewis 1980:91; Mead 1947:404; Meggitt 1965:200-201; Ryan 1958-59:262;
Salisbury 1962:97; Strathern 1971a:234-5; Weiner 1979:76-77; Young 1971:38-
39). Among the Kwoma, death is the principal occasion on which wealth is
redistributed between groups and people regard the payments made on this
occasion as important levelling mechanisms politically, thus helping to ensure
that in this aggressively egalitarian society no one group over time
accumulates an inordinately greater amount of wealth than any other. Their
importance as levelling mechanisms is buttressed by two other aspects of
Kwoma social organization: by the fact that the size of a death payment
customarily varies directly with the prestige (and wealth) of the deceased
(that required for a big man, hisawa ma, or wife of a big man being
substantially greater than that for a man, or wife of a man, with no "name" as
a leader in village affairs); and by the fact that wealth is not inherited by a
deceased person's children. In this society a deceased man's or woman's
wealth in the form of shell valuables, together with personal possessions
including domestic utensils, clothes, and even pets, are all distributed to
affines in other clans.
Like affinal exchanges generally, and with one or two notable exceptions
(e.g., Brown 1961; Weiner 1976), death payments have not been well
described. The evidence that is available, however, suggests that despite
important regional variations in social and economic organization such
payments commonly have a similar structure. I argue that all of the various
exchanges that take place obligatorily following a death in Kwoma society
can be seen to form part of the wider affinal alliances that marriages
establish between wife-giving and wife-taking patrilines. The explicit
alliance interpretation I offer differs in one major respect from alliance
models of marriage advanced by such writers as Dumont (1953; 1971), Levi-
Strauss (1969), and Needham (1960). For these theorists, and for the authors
of standard texts on kinship (e.g., Buchler and Selby 1968:130, 134; Keesing
1975:45), the concept of affinal alliance applies most suitably or exclusively
to those societies where marriages are regularly repeated between relatively
stable wife-giving and wife-taking groups. The alliance approach developed
in this article, by way of contrast, applies to a society in which marriages are
not regularly repeated, actually or notionally, between such groups. Indeed,
in common with most other Papua New Guinea societies, Kwoma actually
prohibit the repetition of marriages, symmetrically or asymmetrically,
between affinally-linked lines for several generations. My alliance model',
therefore, applies to a society which in Levi-Strauss's (1966) terms is
"transitional" or "Omaha" rather than "elementary" in structure (see also
Bowden 1983a).
KWOMA SOCIETY
The Kwoma are a nonAustronesian people numbering approximat

who live in the Washkuk Hills in the East Sepik Province of Pap
KWOMA DEATH PAYMENTS AND ALLIANCE THEORY 273
Guinea. The Washkuk Hills are a 100-square kilometer range of rugged,

densely forested, low mountains on the north side of the Sepik River
immediately northwest of Ambunti township (Bowden 1983b; Whiting and
Reed 1938-9; Whiting 1941). Kwoma literally means hill people and is the
term the occupants of the range use to distinguish themselves from
neighboring river peoples on the Sepik, and headwater peoples (including
other Kwoma-speakers) on tributaries of the Sepik to the northwest. The
local economy is based on sago, which predominantly grows wild,
supplemented by swidden gardening and fishing. Like neighboring Sepik
peoples, Kwoma keep few pigs, and these animals do not figure as wealth
objects in intergroup exchanges. The population is divided into four named,
politically autonomous tribes. Traditionally, warfare among these groups and
with surrounding tribes was common. Prior to about 1940 each tribe formed
a large but discrete settlement group made up of scattered hamlets located for
defensive purposes on the top of a high ridge. Today, each comprises one or
more nucleated villages located lower down the hills next to or near
waterways. Tribes are composed of many small totemic patrilineal and
patrilocal exogamous clans. On average, clans contain between five and ten
married male members each. There are probably between 60 and 80 clans in
the society as a whole. The Hogwama tribe, in which I did the bulk of my
fieldwork, contained 24.
As in many other Papua New Guinea societies, a single Kwoma marriage
establishes an asymmetrical exchange relationship and wider political alliance
between (primarily) the male members of a wife-giving and wife-taking
patriline that potentially endures for several generations (see Figure 1). On
the assumption that marriages are fertile, an alliance persists obligatorily for
two generations: for the duration of the marriage in the first generation and
for the lives of the wife-taker's son(s) in the second; and informally or
nonobligatorily for two further generations: for the duration of the lives of
the wife-taker's sons's son(s) in the third generation, and son's son's son(s) in
the fourth. For all four generations of an alliance, no further marriages may
take place between the same two lines, though--contrary to Levi-Strauss's
(1966) model of Omaha systems--they may between other members of the
same two clans (Bowden 1983a). The fact that marriages may not be repeated
between affinally linked lines for the duration of an alliance means that
marriage is prohibited with a wide range of patrilines outside a person's own
clan. From the point of view of members of a wife-taking line, these consist
of the patrilines of WB and BWB (e.g., WZ, BWZ and WBD); MB (e.g.,
MBD); FMB (e.g., FMBSD) and FFMB (e.g., FFMBSSD). From the point of
view of members of a wife-giving line, prohibited spouses include the
husband's sibling, child, son's child and son's son's child of natal female
members of own line (e.g., ZHZ, FZD, FFZSD and FFFZSSD). More
generally, a person is prohibited from marrying a member of any line th
has given a wife to his (or her) line in the same, first, second, or third,
ascending generation.
The first generation of an affinal alliance is defined primarily by an
obligatory asymmetrical exchange relationship between the wife-taker (the
husband) on the one hand and the male members of the wife-giving line of
the wife's brother's generation and below on the other. Thus, as soon as
274 ETHNOLOGY
Figure 1. Structure of Affinal Alliances
WIFE-TAKING LINE
WIFE-GIVING LINE
A==a
OBLIGATORY
" A WEALTi
^
RECIPROCAL
SERVICES
111 A <?
FOOD
OPTIONAL
IV A A
NO FURTHER CONNECTION
WITH WIFE-GIVING LINE
possible after a marriage has commenced, the husband is required to make a

bridewealth payment to the wife's brother. The husband contributes
approximately half of the wealth donated and the remainder is contributed
principally by the husband's same-generation clansmen; i.e., persons the
husband refers to as "true" brothers. In making such payments married men
are assisted by their wives. In monogamous households a man and his wife
jointly hold a stock of shell valuables used for affinal transactions; in
polygynous households each wife has a separate collection on which she
draws to make contributions to exchanges in which her husband is involved.
The husband's father and other adult clansmen usually also contribute to the
bridewealth payment, but only the husband's "true brothers" are formally
obligated to do so. The wife's brother retains approximately half of the
wealth donated but is obligated to distribute the remainder

"true" brothers. The latter, if married, will share the wealth they receive
with their wives. The husband and wife's brother, in other words, are the
principals in the exchange but the "true" brothers of both men are also
formally implicated. Kwoma, in fact, explicitly conceptualize a bridewealth
payment as one made by one group of brothers to another group of brothers.
Women are implicated in the exchange in their capacity as wives of the male
participants; unmarried girls neither contribute to nor receive a share of the
wealth exchanged in any affinal transaction.
The exchange relationship between brothers-in-law does not end with the
bridewealth payment but continues obligatorily for the duration of the
marriage. Throughout the marriage the wife's brother is required regularly to
visit his sister to ensure that she is being well treated, and periodically to
give her substantial gifts of food, as well as any personal or household items
that she may request of him. The woman's husband in turn is required to
"pay" her brother for these gifts with additional quantities of shell valuables.
The husband and the wife's brother also reciprocally exchange a variety of
social and economic services, such as assistance with gardening and
housebuilding. The husband "pays" for these services with shell valuables,
and the wife's brother reciprocates (but does not "pay") with additional gifts
of food. Traditionally brothers-in-law also acted as allies in warfare by
secretly informing each other of impending raids on their respective
settlements and by avoiding each other during fighting.
When a married woman dies her husband with the assistance of his
clansmen is required to make a final, very large payment of shell va
the woman's brother. This is the death or "head" (masiik) payment for a
married women (see Figure 2); such a payment culminates and terminates the
exchange relationship that has obtained between the woman's husband and
her brother throughout the marriage. As in the case of the bridewealth
payment, the wife's brother retains approximately half of the wealth donated
but is required to distribute the remainder among all of his clan "brothers."
If the wife's brother predeceases the wife, as commonly happens, the head
payment is made not to one of the woman's other clan "brothers" but to her
deceased brother's son. Following her brother's death, the woman's brother's
son is obligated to take care of her in exactly the same way as her brother
(the wife's brother) did before him. If both the woman's brother and
brother's son predecease her, the head payment will be made to her brother's
son's son, and so on down the wife-giving line; there is no theoretical limit,
furthermore, to the number of descending generation members of the wife's
brother's line who, at least potentially, could become the recipient of such a
payment. A head payment will only be made to some other member of a
deceased woman's clan if her actual brother (or brother's son, etc.) has no
sons of his own. In this society, that is, lineal inheritance of exchange rights
in outmarried clanswomen (and their children) always takes precedence over
lateral inheritance (Bowden 1983a). What begins in the first generation of an
affinal alliance as an exchange relationship between brothers-in-law,
therefore, may be transformed on the wife's brother's death into an exchange
relationship between a WBS and FZH, and on the WBS's death into an
exchange relationship between a WBSS and FFZH, etc.
276 ETHNOLOGY
Figure 2. Death Payments (Masiik)
DEATH PAYMENT FOR B
AA
DEATH PAYMENT FOR E
CA
D ? (AND D WHILE UNMARRIED)'
If no children have resulted from the union, the exchange r

wider alliance between the husband and male members of the wife's brother's
patriline comes to an end when the wife dies. But if there are children, the
original wife-giver (the wife's brother) is entitled, and obligated, to initiate
an identical asymmetrical exchange relationship with his sister's son; initially
his sister's children of both sexes. A mother's brother, for instance, is
obligated to give his sister's children while they are young regular gifts of
food and also any personal or household items they might request of him.
The children's father (i.e., the original wife-taker) is required to pay the MB
periodically for these gifts with shell valuables. When the oldest sister's child
reaches puberty (the time traditionally when Kwoma were betrothed), the
child's father with the assistance of his clansmen makes a hadapiya (puberty
payment) on behalf of all of his children to their MB. This is roughly
equivalent in size to the bridewealth payment (made to the same man) for
their mother.
Kwoma say that a puberty payment serves two purposes. First, it

constitutes an additional payment to the MB for the food and other
commodities he gave his ZC while they were young. The second explicit
purpose is to terminate the MB's exchange rights in the ZD following her
marriage and transfer these to her brother, the ZS. Thus, following the ZD's
marriage, her brother has the exclusive right to "hold" (i.e., receive) the
bridewealth payment her husband makes for her, as well as all of the other
payments of wealth (including her death payment) which he will make
throughout the marriage. The girl's MB is explicitly said to have no right to
receive a share of any of this wealth. Although a puberty payment
terminates a MB's exchange rights in a married ZD, it does not terminate the
MB's exchange rights in his ZS, for an asymmetrical exchange relationship
identical to that which obtains between brothers-in-law continues obligatori
between the MB and ZS for the duration of the ZS's life. A MB is obligated
to continue to give his ZS regular gifts of food and any personal or household
items the latter might request, and also assist him with such activities as
gardening and housebuilding (a service that the ZS reciprocates). In return
for these goods and services the ZS periodically "pays" the MB with shell
valuables, and the MB reciprocates (but does not "pay") with additional gifts
of food. Traditionally a MB and ZS also acted as allies in warfare in the
same way as brothers-in-law.
When the ZS dies, his surviving clansmen are obligated to make a large and
very valuable payment of shell valuables to his MB (Figure 2). This
represents the death or head payment for a man (married or unmarried), a
payment that culminates and terminates the MB-ZS exchange relationship.
The MB retains approximately half the wealth donated but is required to
distribute the remainder among all of his "true brothers." If a MB dies
before his ZS, as usually happens, the head payment is made not to one of
the MB's other clan brothers (unless he has no sons of his own) but to the
MB's son. Following the MB's death, this man (the MBS) is obligated to
"look after" the ZS (his FZS) in exactly the same way as his father (the MB)
did before him. If a ZS should outlive both his MB and MBS, as occasionally
happens, the head payment is made to the MB's son's son, and so on down
the MB's patriline. What begins in the second generation of an affinal
alliance as an exchange relationship between a MB and ZS, therefore, may be
transformed on the MB's death into an exchange relationship between a MBS
and FZS, and on the MBS's death into an exchange relationship between a
MBSS and FFZS, etc.
I noted above that the head payment for a married woman customarily
goes to a member of her brother's patriline. If a girl dies before she marries
her head payment, like that for a man, always goes to a member of her MB's
patriline (Figure 2), for members of her MB's line hold exchange rights in
her up until the time she marries.
Following the death of a wife-taker's sons, the formal asymmetrical
exchange relationship between the wife-giving and wife-taking lines comes to
an end. However, a similar but informal (nonobligatory) exchange
relationship may continue between the same two lines for a further two
generations: between the wife-taker's son's son(s) and son's son's son(s)
respectively on the one hand; and male members of the wife-giving line on
278 ETHNOLOGY
the other. For instance, the original wife-giver (or, if h

his son, or son's son, etc.) is entitled to give his ZSS per
of food and to assist him with gardening and housebuilding, The ZSS will
periodically "pay" for the food and services received with small quantities of
shell valuables. If the wife-giver himself initiates the exchange, this
represents an exchange relationship between a FMB and a ZSS. If the wife-
giver's son, or son's son, initiates it, this represents an exchange relationship
between a FMBS and FZSS, or FMBSS and FFZSS. Similarly, the original
wife-giver (or, if he is no longer alive, his son, son's son, or son's son's son,
etc.) is entitled to give his ZSSS periodically small gifts of food and to assist
him with such activities as gardening and housebuilding; the ZSSS in turn
"pays" for the food and services received with small quantities of shell
valuables. If the wife-giver himself initiates the exchange, this represents an
exchange relationship between a FFMB and ZSSS; if the wife-giver's son, or
son's son initiates it, this represents an exchange relationship between a
FFMBS and FZSSS, or FFMBSS and FFZSSS.
Like the exchange relationships that define the first two generations of an
affinal alliance, Kwoma regard such informal exchanges as forging important
political ties with members of other, potentially hostile, clans (all of whom,
including those in the same village, are called enemies); but the amount of
wealth that flows to members of the wife-giving line at these levels is much
less important than it is during the first two generations of an alliance. The
reason is that members of the wife-giving line receive no share of the ZSS's
or ZSSS's puberty or death payments. These go exclusively to the lines of the
mothers' brothers of the men concerned; lines that are always distinct from
that of the original wife-giver because of the prohibition on repeating a
marriage between two lines for the duration of an alliance. (They similarly
receive no share of the ZSD's or ZSSD's marriage or death payments. These
go exclusively to the original wife-taking line; i.e., the women's brothers'
line.)
Following the deaths of all male descendants in the wife-taking line in the
third descending generation (i.e., of the wife-taker's son's son's sons) all
formal and informal exchange relationships between the two lines come to an
end and the two lines are now said to be unrelated (akiira). It is only at this
level, in the fourth descending generation, that another marriage may take
place between the two lines. If it does, men say that ideally it should take
place in the opposite direction from the earlier one to "balance" the exchange
of women between the two lines. Fourth and further descending generation
members of the wife-taking line have no relationship terms for members of
the original wife-giving line (and vice versa). However, they may refer to
the original wife-giving line as warchil nowkwapa (mother warchil). This
term literally denotes a small forest tree that propagates itself by sending out
runners at ground level. The point of referring to the original wife-giving
line by this term, Kwoma say, is to liken the relationship between affinally-
linked lines to that between a "mother" warchil tree and one of its offshoots.
Just as a "mother" warchil tree sends out runners that give rise to new trees,
so a wife-giving line creates a new line (the wife-taker's patrilineal
descendants) by giving up a woman in marriage to another group. A
schematic representation of the relationship between a "mother" warchil tree
and one of its offshoots could be achieved simply by inverti

wife-giving line then represents the "mother" tree, the wife one of its
runners, and the wife-giving line a new warchil plant. Like the "mother"
warchil tree, that Kwoma say "nourishes" or "feeds" its offshoots with sap (pi9
blood) while they are growing, the wife-giving line similarly nourishes and
feeds the developing wife-taking line by regularly giving its members food
for several generations.
DISCUSSION
I have indicated that the head payments for married or unmarried

women form part of the wider exchange relationships marriages establish
between wife-giving and wife-taking lines. The death payment for a married
woman is made by members of her husband's clan to members of her natal
(i.e., her brother's) clan, and for a man or unmarried,girl, by members of the
deceased's own clan to his or her MB's clan. The former culminates the
exchange relationship that defines what I have termed the first ge
an affinal alliance, and the latter the exchange relationship that de
second generation of an alliance.
Figure 3. Sobatakep Payments Made on the Death of a Man (Ego
r "i
DECEASED'S MB
A
(RECIPIENT OF
THE MASIIK)
(FOR C)
, RESIDENT MEMBERS OF THE DECEASED'S HOUSE AND* (F0R 6)

~ - ? CLOSELY RELATED HOUSEHOLDS _ J
280 ETHNOLOGY
The masiik or head payment is only one of three distinct types of

payments made following a death. The second is known as sobatakep;
literally a payment (kep) for the "living" (sobatawa). Sobatakep in this
context refers to the surviving resident members of the deceased's household
and closely related coresident households in the same clan. For instance, if
the deceased was a man or unmarried girl, the "living" includes the surviving
members of the deceased's own household, and the households (if different)
of his or her father, married brothers, and (if a man) married sons. In the
case of a deceased married woman, "living" refers to the same persons defined
from her husband's point of view. Sobatakep payments are never made for
outmarried natal female members of the same households. Subject to the
qualification noted below, a separate sobatakep payment is made for each
resident member of the households described above, and is made to the
person who holds exchange rights, in an affinal alliance, in the person for
whom it is made. In the case of a man or unmarried girl, the payment
customarily goes to a member of that living person's MB's clan, normally
either the MB or one of his male lineal descendants. For a married woman,
the payment goes to a member of her brother's clan, normally to her brother
or a descending generation male member of her brother's patriline. The
persons who are primarily obligated to make sobatakep payments are the
male members of the households for whose members they are made, but these
men will be assisted by other clansmen. Except in the case of an unmarried
girl who directly participates neither as a donor nor recipient of wealth in
any affinal transaction, the persons for whom they are made also contribute
substantially to them. Figure 3 (based on the genealogy of one man whose
death payment I witnessed) illustrates the sobatakep payments that are made
on the death of a male ego. The figure indicates that the "living" consist of
the deceased's surviving wife, a married son and the latter's wife, an
unmarried daughter, a half-brother and the latter's wife, and the half-
brother's unmarried son. In this case there are four sobatakep payments.
These are made for (1) the deceased's surviving half-brother (B), to his MB;
(2) for the same half-brother's wife (A), to her brother; (3) for the deceased's
widow (C), to her brother; and (4) for the deceased's son's wife (G), to her
brother. No sobatakep is made for the other surviving relatives illustrated
(viz. D, E, and F), because it is a convention in Kwoma society that no
person can be the (primary) recipient of more than one payment on the
occasion of any one death. This means that a man cannot be the formal
recipient of, say, a masiik and one or more of the sobatakep payments
made at the same time. In the case illustrated, no sobatakep payment is
made for the deceased's surviving son (F), since the person who would
receive it (the surviving son's MB) is the recipient on this occasion of the
sobatakep for the deceased's widow; and no sobatakep payment is made
for the deceased's half-brother's son (D) since the latter's MB, who would
receive it, is the recipient on this occasion of the same man's mother's
sobatakep. Likewise, no sobatakep is made for the deceased's daughter (E)
since the latter's MB is the recipient on this occasion of the sobatakep made
for the girl's mother, the deceased's widow. Like the masiik already
discussed, sobatakep payments form part of the wider cross-generational
exchange relationships that marriages establish between members of affinally
linked lines, for they are exclusively made by (or on behalf

wife-taking lines to members of wife-giving lines.
Figure 4. The Akakep Payment
RECIPIENT OF
MASI1K
7_*
//
k$
RECIPIENT Of A
SOBATAKEP
= CT ~2*
/ /
RECIPIENT OF A
SOBATAKEP
= G /W
PRIMARY DONORS
/ OTHER DONORS
1-he'house'
The third type of payment made on the occasion of every death is akakep
(payment to the house). The house (aka) in this context refers to the
combined households of the persons for whom sobatakep payments are
made; i.e., the deceased's household and closely-related coresident households
in the same clan. The akakep is actually composed of several separate
payments made independently by the men in other clans who are formally
implicated as members of wife-taking lines in affinal exchange relationships
with members of the "house." That is, they are made by the husbands and
sons of outmarried natal female members of the deceased's household and
closely related coresident households (such as the deceased's Z or FZ). Figure
4 is a schematic representation of potential donors of wealth to an akakep
following the death of a man. In this case, the contributors include the sons
of the deceased's Z, FZ and FFZ, and the husbands of the deceased's (living)
Z and FZ. Although the figure indicates that the mothers' brothers of ego's
282 ETHNOLOGY
FZS and FFZS (i.e., ego's F and FF respectively) have predeceased ego, both
men (the FZS and FFZS) are still actively involved in formal exchange
relationships with male members of ego's line, since the duration of these
exchange relationships is determined not by how long individual members of
ego's line live but by how long the FZS and FFZS live. In the case illustrated,
their common exchange partner (including that of ego's ZS following ego's
death) is ego's son, the senior surviving male member of the various mothers'
brothers' line. Similarly, deceased ego's ZH and FZH continue to be actively
involved in formal exchange relationships with (one or more) members of
ego's line, since the duration of these exchange relationships is determined by
how long their wives live, not by how long any individual male member of
ego's line lives. In the case illustrated, their common exchange partner
(following ego's death) is again ego's son.
Like the masiik and sobatakep payments, the separate donations of
wealth that compose the akakep form part of the wider cross-generational
exchange relationships marriages establish between the members of affinally
related lines, for they are all made by members of wife-taking lines to
members of wife-giving lines. In contrast to the masiik and sobatakep,
however, which are made by members of the deceased's "house" to members
of wife-giving lines in other clans, the akakep is made collectively by
members of wife-taking lines in other clans to members of the deceased's
"house."
In addition to the persons identified above, donors to an akakep usually
also include the recipients of the masiik and various sobatakep payments
made on the same occasion (see Figure 4). Kwoma emphasise that the
recipients of these payments are under no formal obligation to contribute to
the akakep, being members of wife-giving lines vis-a-vis the recipients of
the akakep, but do so out of sympathy for the members of the "house" for
having had to lay out so much wealth in order to make the masiik and
various sobatakep payments. Such informal (nonobligatory) contributions to
the akakep represent the only occasion in Kwoma society when prestations of
wealth are made by members of wife-giving lines to members of wife-taking
lines. Normally, wealth flows exclusively in the opposite direction, to wife-
givers.
The masiik, sobatakep and akakep are the three kinds of payments made
obligatorily following every death in Kwoma society. Figures 2-4 illustrate
the donors and recipients of these payments following the death of a man,
but I have indicated that the same range of payments is made following the
death of a woman or unmarried girl. With reference to Figure 3, for
instance, if the deceased had been ego's wife (C) rather than ego himself, the
same range of sobatakep payments are made, except that none go to the
deceased woman's brother, since he is now the recipient of the deceased's
masiik; and a sobatakep is made for the woman's (surviving) husband to his
MB, since the latter is no longer the recipient of the masiik. Similarly, if the
deceased in Figure 3 had been ego's unmarried daughter (E), the same range
of sobatakep is made, except that no payment is made for the girl's surviving
mother to the latter's brother, since this man now becomes the recipient of
the deceased girl's masiik; and a sobatakep is made in place of the masiik
illustrated for the girl's surviving father, to his MB.
OTHER PAPUA NEW GUINEA SOCIETIES
Enduring, multi-generational affinal alliances similar to those of the

Kwoma occur widely in the Sepik (cf. Rubel and Rosman 1978; Lewis
1980:86ff) and elsewhere in New Guinea. In concluding, I comment on two
other societies where similar alliances are found but where their structures,
including those of the death payments forming part of them, have been
interpreted somewhat differently from the explicit alliance approach outlined
here.
Figure 5. Chimbu and Daribi Death Payments
DEATH PAYMENT FOR A
DEATH PAYMENTS FOR
B AND C
A
B
A A
Daribi
??o A
284 ETHNOLOGY
Brown (1961) indicates that a marriage in Chimbu society establishes a

cross-generational alliance ("exchange relationship") between a wife-giving
and a wife-taking line that endures for two generations; i.e., between the
husband (the wife-taker) and members of the wife's brother's line in the first
generation, and the wife's sons (initially the children of both sexes) and the
same members of the wife-giving line in the second generation. As with the
Kwoma, no further marriages may take place between the same two descent
lines for the duration of this alliance. The death payment for a married
woman is conventionally made to a member of her brother's line (Figure 5),
and for a man or unmarried girl to a member of his or her MB's line, in the
same way as among the Kwoma. Brown (1961) raises the possibility of
interpreting such payments, following the work of Louis Dumont, in terms of
an explicit alliance model of marriage, but she rejects this possibility on the
grounds that the payments are occasionally made to persons other than the
genealogically-defined relatives referred to above, and that they will only be
made to the relatives specified if the latter have actively assisted the deceased
in various ways during his or her lifetime. If they failed to do so, the
payments will be made to persons who did. Because Chimbu death payments
are exclusively made to people who actively assisted and helped the deceased,
Brown argues that the recipients of the payments should be conceptualized
not as affines (as an alliance model would require) but as kin.
Brown's reasons for rejecting an alliance interpretation of Chimbu death
payments lack cogency. The fact that death payments are occasionally made
to persons other than those defined above does not necessarily entail that the
recipients are not conceptualized as members of wife-giving groups vis-a-vis
the deceased. Among the Kwoma, for instance, death payments are not
uncommonly made to persons other than the genealogically-defined relatives
identified in Figures 2-4, and often for the same reasons as they apparently
are in Chimbu. Thus, if a Kwoma man neglects actively to "look after" his
ZS (or unmarried ZD) by regularly giving him gifts of food and assisting him
with such activities as gardening and housebuilding, the ZS is entitled to turn
to another of his mother's clan "brothers" for this assistance. If this happens,
the head payment that is eventually made for the ZS goes to that other
"mother's brother." Similarly, if a man fails adequately to care for his
married sister by ensuring that she is well-treated by her husband and by
regularly giving her gifts of food, the woman is entitled to turn to another of
her clan brothers for these goods and services. If this happens, the death
payment for the woman always goes to that other "brother." The possibility
that death (and other) payments may be redirected away from their otherwise
rightful recipients is actually one of the major sanctions in this society that
ensures that members of wife-giving lines honor their obligations to members
of wife-taking lines; for to lose exchange rights in a married sister, or a
sister's child, "cuts off' a major source of wealth open to a man, and his
group. The fact that a death payment may not go to a man's (or girl's) actual
mother's brother, or a married woman's actual brother, is no reason,
therefore, for automatically rejecting an alliance model of such payments, for
the recipient (as in Kwoma society) may still be a member of a wife-giving
group vis-a-vis the deceased's. Among the Kwoma he is still a member of a
wife-giving group (and explicitly conceptualized as such) since exchange
rights in married sisters and their children are ultimately vested not in
individuals but in clans as wholes.
Brown (1961) also rejects an alliance model of Chimbu death payments
because the recipients must have actively assisted the deceased in various
ways during his or her lifetime. The role of helper or assistant, she believes,
is incompatible with their status as affines. But in Kwoma society, members
of wife-giving lines are by definition and of necessity helpers and nurturers
vis-a-vis members of wife-taking lines. I have indicated that the former lose
exchange rights in the latter if they fail actively to help and assist them in
various ways, and their role as helpers and nurturers is also implicit in the
use of the metaphor "mother warchil plant" for wife-giving lines. The fact
that the recipients of death payments must have actively assisted the persons
for whom they are made does not necessarily entail, therefore, that they
cannot be conceptualized as affines.
A second Papua New Guinea society that possesses enduring affinal
alliances and death payments similar in structure to those of the Kwoma is
the Daribi (Wagner 1967; see Figure 5). Wagner indicates that a Daribi
marriage establishes an affinal alliance between a wife-giving and wife-
taking patriline that endures for three generations. As in the case of the
Kwoma and Chimbu, additional marriages may not be contracted between the
same two lines for the duration of the alliance. This entails among other
things that marriage is prohibited between cross-cousins and the children of
cross-cousins (Wagner 1967:117, 127-8). It is only in the third descending
generation, when the relationship between the two lines has become "too
distant, and must be renewed if the alliance is to continue" (Wagner 1967:127)
that another marriage may take place. If one does occur at this level, ideally
it should be contracted in the opposite direction from the earlier one to
balance the exchange of women between the two lines (Wagner 1967:143).
The death payment for a married woman normatively goes to her brother's
line and the death payments for a man and unmarried girl go to their MB's
line (Wagner 1967:69,72).
In contrast to my alliance interpretation of Kwoma death payments,
Wagner (1967) interprets their Daribi equivalents, and the other payments
that are customarily made to members of wife-giving lines at various stages
in an individual's life-cycle, as deriving from the genealogically-based
consanguineal ties that connect intermarrying lines. The exchange relationship
between a MB and ZS, in his view, derives not from an enduring affinal
alliance between the two men's patrilines but from the actual consanguineal
connection between them (Wagner 1967:69, 75; cf. Strathern 1968:451). In
ways that are strongly reminiscent of the writings of Meyer Fortes and other
descent theorists in the 1950s, Wagner even argues that the affinal
relationship between brothers-in-law derives not from the marriage that
connects them but from an anticipated, indirect consanguineal tie via the
children that might result from the marriage (Wagner 1967:76).
Wagner's discussion of death payments focusses on the mother's brother-
sister's child relationship, and in particular on the MB-ZS relationship. A
Daribi child, he argues, is thought to be related consanguineally both to its
mother's and father's clans. The consanguineal tie to the mother's clan,
however, is believed to be stronger than that to the paternal clan, with the
286 ETHNOLOGY
result that the MB is regarded as the sister's children's re

1967:67-8). To ensure that a child is allocated or recruited to his (or her)
father's clan in this normatively patrilineal society, the child's father must
therefore "redeem" it by periodically making payments of wealth to its MB
(Wagner 1967:68-71, 117). Failure to do so entities the MB to claim the child
as his own. When a ZD reaches adulthood she "outgrows" any claims her MB
might have to custody of her (in default of recruitment payments) and her
father consequently ceases to make further payments for her, except for a
final one following her marriage, that marks her change in status vis-a-vis
her MB (Wagner 1967:72, 80; 1977:630-631). A ZS, however, remains
permanently subject to a MB's claims for such payments and, when the ZS
reaches adulthood, takes over the role of making them from his father; he
continues to make these payments for the rest of his life. Wagner argues tha
the payment that the ZS's clansmen eventually make to his MB when he dies
is simply the last in this life-long series of "recruitment" payments.
Wagner's interpretation of Daribi death payments as recruitment paymen
is open to question on two grounds. First, his account of them is
inconsistent. In the same volume (Wagner 1967:70-71) he first states that th
need to make recruitment payments for a sister's child ceases when the chi
(male or female) reaches adulthood; the children's father may even
satisfactorily compensate their MB by means of a single payment. Later,
Wagner (1967:117) shifts his position significantly and argues that
"recruitment" payments for a man (but not for a woman) need to be made to
his MB throughout the man's life, culminating in his death payment. Second,
and more important, Wagner fails to provide a plausible explanation for why
the death payments for men and women should have such different
structures, structures that parallel those of the Chimbu and Kwoma.
Wagner states explicitly that a ZS and ZD are conceptualized as having an
identical consanguineal relationship to their MB. He also affirms repeatedly
that the purpose of recruitment payments made to a MB is to negate these
consanguineal ties that remain throughout a person's life "whatever may
happen" (Wagner 1967:75), and to allocate the sister's child unambiguously to
his or her father's group. But as Wagner himself acknowledges, a ZS has a
very different relationship to his MB defined in terms of exchange from that
of a ZD. The ZS makes recruitment payments to his MB throughout his
adult life, but payments to a MB on behalf of a ZD terminate (as in Kwoma
and Chimbu societies) when the girl marries. Given that Wagner wishes to
explain the payments that a ZS makes to his MB throughout his life
exclusively on the basis of this consanguineal connection (e.g., Wagner
1967:69, 75), one can reasonably ask why similar payments do not continue to
be made by or on behalf of a ZD throughout her life to her MB, since she is
related identically to him consanguineally. Wagner is aware of this problem
and attempts to overcome it by arguing that a woman ceases to be a member
jurally of her father's group when she marries (Wagner 1967:72).
According to Wagner (1967:81-83, 228), a Daribi bridewealth payment
"recruits" a wife to her husband's clan in exactly the same way as the
payments that a man makes on behalf of his children to their MB "recruit"
his children to his patrilineal group. Furthermore, just as a ZS is required to
make recruitment payments to his MB throughout his life, culminating in the
one made at his death, a woman's husband is required to make continual

recruitment payments to the woman's brother's clan throughout his marriage
culminating in her death payment (Wagner 1967:73). For Wagner,
therefore, the reason a man ceases to make recruitment payments to his
daughter's MB on her behalf following her marriage is simply that she "is no
longer a member of her father's clan" (Wagner 1967:72).
Wagner's contention that a bridewealth payment cancels the wife's jurai
membership in her natal patrilineal clan and transfers it to her husband's
group is implausible both on comparative grounds and on the basis of the
evidence that he himself presents. In Papua New Guinea generally and
elsewhere (e.g., Radcliffe-Brown and Forde 1967:50ff.) a bridewealth
payment typically serves not to cancel the wife's membership in her natal
group but to transfer certain rights in the woman to her husband's group:
principally sexual, domestic and reproductive, as Wagner (1972:50) himself
acknowledges. Among the Kwoma, for instance, a bridewealth payment gives
a man a legitimate call on his wife's sexual and domestic services and
allocates his children unambiguously to his clan; until the bridewealth
payment is made a man's children are said to belong to his wife's clan.
Among other things, therefore, a Kwoma bridewealth payment is genuinely a
recruitment payment, but it recruits a couple's children to their father's clan,
not the wife herself. The evidence Wagner himself presents, furthermore,
makes it abundantly clear that a Daribi woman does not cease to be a jurai
member of her natal group following her marriage. He (Wagner, 1967:108;
1978:229-30) points out that a married woman can expect support from her
brothers throughout her married life if she is threatened with injury; that
brothers will avenge wrongs done to their married sisters; that a woman, as
an expression of solidarity with her siblings, might leave her husband if he
kills one of her children and does not adequately compensate her brothers
(Wagner 1967:109); that a woman might return to her father's group following
her marriage if she is ill-treated by a co-wife (Wagner 1967:72); and that if a
woman is widowed at any time in her life she is entitled to return "to her
own clan" (Wagner 1967:111) to live. After her husband's death, furthermore,
a woman "properly" should return to "her own clan" (Wagner 1967:112), there
to be claimed by another man.
The fact that a Daribi woman demonstrably does not cease to be a jurai
member of her natal clan following her marriage, even if she is operationally
incorporated into her husband's group through virilocal residence, means that
Wagner offers no plausible explanation for why recruitment payments for a
woman should not continue to be made to her MB following her marriage in
the same way as they are for a man. It also follows that the payments that the
ZS in Daribi society unquestionably is required to make throughout his life to
his MB cannot be explained (if at all) on the basis of consanguineal ties
alone. Such payments must be explicated in some other way. On the basis of
the ethnographic evidence Wagner himself presents, the best explanation is
provided by reference to an enduring cross-generational affinal alliance
similar to what I have described for the Kwoma.
288 ETHNOLOGY
CONCLUSION
This paper has two main objectives. The first is to give a description and
interpretation of the structure of Kwoma death payments. In common with
many other Sepik societies Kwoma lack competitive exchange relationships,
and death is the principal occasion on which wealth is redistributed between
individuals and groups. Death payments similar to those of the Kwoma are
found in many Papua New Guinea societies, and I suggest that these
similarities point to some very widespread, but largely neglected,
resemblances in the social structure of societies in this region.
The second aim is to demonstrate the utility of an explicit alliance model
of marriage for the explication of the structure both of Kwoma death
payments and the wider affinal exchange relationships between groups in
which they are embedded. Hitherto, alliance models have been thought to
be applicable only to certain types of societies, notably those in which
positive rules entail the regular exchange of spouses, symmetrically or
asymmetrically, between relatively stable wife-giving and wife-taking groups.
Like most other Papua New Guinea societies, Kwoma lack positive marriage
rules, and marriage is actually prohibited with members of a wide range of
descent lines outside one's own exogamous clan. Papua New Guinea societies,
that is, typically have "Crow/Omaha" rather than "elementary" marriage
systems. Notwithstanding the absence of positive rules, individual Kwoma
marriages can be seen to establish alliances between affinally related lines
that potentially endure for several generations. Death payments, I have
shown, form part of the obligatory asymmetrical exchange relationships that
define these alliances. Since individual marriages in many other Papua New
Guinea societies establish multi-generation affinal alliances similar to those of
the Kwoma, explicit alliance models are suitable to the analysis of these
societies as well. Of more general relevance for kinship theory, the range of
societies to which alliance models apply needs to be widened substantially
from the "elementary" systems that have been the focus of interest for
alliance theorists to include many "Crow/Omaha" societies as well.
NOTES
1. In common with the majority of neighboring Sepik peoples, Kwoma lack com
institutions and men do not (at least overtly) use death payments or other affin
compete for prestige; e.g., by maximizing their size. Rather, men endeavor in all af
to give the minimum that is acceptable so as to conserve as much of their wealth
numerous other obligatory affinal transactions in which they and their clansmen ar
2. A person's "classificatory" brothers are same-generation male members of other c
totemic division (Bowden 1983b).
3. Kwoma use the terms "pay" or "buy" (tokitow) exclusively for giving shell valua
currency) in exchange for something. Since wealth items in affinal alliances conve
wife-givers rather than to wife-takers, the latter "pay" or "buy" the former but not v
4. The exchange relationships that define Chimbu affinal alliances may continue
additional generations, but the exchanges at these levels, as among the Kwoma,
important than those in the first two generations (Brown 1961:91).
KOWMA DEATH PAYMENTS AND ALLIANCE THEORY 289
5. Chimbu marriage prohibitions apply to close agnates, mother's sub-clan and other "traceable kin"
(Brown 1964:338), but not to the groups of either "grandmother." Marriage is therefore clearly
permissible with members of FMB's sub-clan; it is not clear whether marriage is permissible with a
member of FMB's line (e.g., FMBSD).
6. The likelihood that death payments in Chimbu society will be made to persons other than the
genealogically-defined relatives referred to above is increased by the fact that young people
commonly spend long periods living away from the natal sub-clans. In Kwoma society such changes
in residence are much less common.
7. That marriage may not be repeated between a wife-giving and wife-taking line for the duration of
a Daribi alliance needs to be qualified by the observation that men are apparently entitled to
contract several marriages simultaneously with members of the same wife-giving clan, including
members of the same wife-giving line (e.g., WZ, WFZ, and WBD) (Wagner 1977:630-633;
1978:116). But Wagner's accounts of this entitlement vary. In one place he (Wagner 1978:116)
states that while men see themselves as having this entitlement, their intended wives, and the
latter's clansmen, may not. Wagner (1977:632) also indicates that sister exchange occasionally
occurs, but that this is not condoned.
8. Wagner's statements about death payments for married women are inconsistent. He (Wagner
1967:69) reports that a married woman's brother is the recipient of her death payment, but
elsewhere (Wagner 1972:53) states that this is passed on to the woman's maternal kin. See
Strathern (1968; and 1971b) and de Lepervanche (1969) for further criticisms and comments on
Wagner's argument.
9. Why further recruitment payments should be made for a woman to her natal clan throughout her
marriage if a bridewealth payment effectively recruits her to her husband's group is one of many
matters that Wagner does not adequately explain. If such payments should be made to anyone they
should presumably be made to the woman's MB, since she is still consanguineally related to him.
But apart from the death payment, about which he is ambiguous, Wagner clearly indicates that this
does not happen.
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University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education

Kwoma Death Payments and Alliance Theory

University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education is

Recent analyses of exchange in the structure of Papua New Guinea societies

The second aim is to offer an interpretation of the structure of Kwoma

The Kwoma are a nonAustronesian people numbering approximat

Guinea. The Washkuk Hills are a 100-square kilometer range of rugged,

Figure 1. Structure of Affinal Alliances

WITH WIFE-GIVING LINE

possible after a marriage has commenced, the husband is required to make a

wealth donated but is obligated to distribute the remainder

Figure 2. Death Payments (Masiik)

DEATH PAYMENT FOR B

DEATH PAYMENT FOR E

If no children have resulted from the union, the exchange r

Kwoma say that a puberty payment serves two purposes. First, it

the other. For instance, the original wife-giver (or, if h

and one of its offshoots could be achieved simply by inverti

I have indicated that the head payments for married or unmarried

Figure 3. Sobatakep Payments Made on the Death of a Man (Ego

, RESIDENT MEMBERS OF THE DECEASED'S HOUSE AND* (F0R 6)

The masiik or head payment is only one of three distinct types of

linked lines, for they are exclusively made by (or on behalf

Figure 4. The Akakep Payment

OTHER PAPUA NEW GUINEA SOCIETIES

Enduring, multi-generational affinal alliances similar to those of the

Figure 5. Chimbu and Daribi Death Payments

DEATH PAYMENT FOR A

DEATH PAYMENTS FOR

Brown (1961) indicates that a marriage in Chimbu society establishes a

result that the MB is regarded as the sister's children's re

one made at his death, a woman's husband is required to make continual

Bowden, R. 1983b. Yena: Art and Ceremony in a Sepik Society. Oxford.

_1964. Enemies and Affines. Ethnology 3:335-56.

Lewis, G. 1980. Day of Shining Red. Cambridge.

Weiner, J. F. 1979. Restricted Exchange in the New Guinea Highlands. Canberra A

Whiting, J. W. M. 1941. Becoming a Kwoma: Teaching and Learning in a New Guinea Tr

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