Javier Sandoval Guzman

EDS 111: Social Anthropology

Article Summary: Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations among a New

Guinea People - Roy A. Rappaport.

The author uses scientific evidence from two fields, ecology and anthropology (or other
anthropocentric fields). He begins with general definitions of religious behavior and
their corresponding social units, distinguishing characteristics like place, size of the
group and material exchange.

As religious behavior, the author describes what is considered to be a ritual and he

presents the dominant definition of it. What is important of this definition is that it
considers that ritual produce no practical results in the external world. It also states that
some of its functions are: to dispel anxieties, to give confidence and to keep discipline
among a group. In contrast, the case discussed by the author shows that the effects over
the external and material world are many, including effects inside and outside the
community, like the influence on the frequency of fighting and their organization
according to the moment they are living. The rituals of the Tsembaga also define rules
of land redistribution, population redistribution and war codes.

The author describes the Tsembaga, including their history, political structure,
physiology, feeding habits and he introduces the view of the Tsembaga as part of an
ecosystem. Starting from here he states how Tsembaga’s rituals interact or influence
their ecosystem and how this ecosystem could be influencing, at the same time, the
existence of these rituals. The rituals have effects like maintaining the biotic
communities, redistribute land and food, and regulate the frequency of fights. He asserts
that is convenient to regard the Tsembaga as a population in the ecological sense, being
just one more of the components of an ecosystem, having a trophic exchange within
their territory, and thus giving them non-protagonist role among the biota. This shows
his cultural-ecological approach.

The article also gets into some discussions that can open other topics, when he mentions
scientific data relating the stress in humans as a motive to eat meat. Up to certain point,
the author gets deeply into scientific terms, like the nitrogen in human organisms and
the influence of its level according to the protein diet humans have. In this way, the
article could also suggest ideas for further discussions, like the consumption of meat
(excessively or not) and its relation with stressed lifestyles in contemporary or civilized
societies.

During the article, the author includes direct testimony of members of the Tsembaga,
showing that during his research he established direct contact with them. The
testimonies of the Tsembaga play an important role on the author's analysis. In this way
it can be deduced that the author uses both emic and etic approaches.

Moreover, the author argues that the use of the concept ecosystem could be limiting, if
we consider that an ecosystem studies interspecific exchanges exchange in a limited
area. But the case of the Tsembaga is actually an intraspecific exchange in a broader
territory. However, the author adds that they would present the same characteristics than
other animal aggregates which live in broader regions. He describes the Tsembaga as an
aggregate which is part of what is called population by geneticists, being “ephemeral”
while the whole specie (humans) would survive for longer periods of time.

The author describes the almost herbivorous diet of the Tsembaga people in order to
emphasize the exceptionalness of the activities carried in their rituals and to explain the
need (or the result) of a double approach in the study of this people. An ecological
approach would explain that they eat meat because of biological reasons (high levels of
stress imply high demand of proteins by the organism) and the cultural approach would
consider the spiritual reasons that force them to perform rituals. The author provides
evidence stating that the nutrition level of the Tsembaga is good, despite their normal
herbivorous diet. They are above the international standards. But the author argues that
these international standards don’t include stress levels on their analyses.

Another important analysis made by the author considers the interaction of pig herds
and the Tsembaga people. The size of the pig herd fluctuates throughout cycles
(between rituals). The quantity of pigs influences their food production, their cultivating
and sanitary aspects, their human relations, and their allocation on territories
(considering cases of people avoiding contact with pigs of other gardens). In this
analysis, the author includes again the cultural-ecological approach, because the
influence and interaction between the humans and pigs include ecological and cultural
aspects. The influence between pigs and the Tsembaga is also noticed when examining
the carrying capacity of pigs. According to the author, pig herds of the Tsembaga never
reach their carrying capacity as it could happen with a population of pigs without
human contact, because the quantity of pigs is dependent upon the population density of
people and pigs, becoming intolerable for humans before reaching this capacity.

The article states that the behavior of the Tsembaga in reference to their “cognized
environment” seems appropriate for their subsistence, resulting in a coincidence of their
spiritual and their biological needs.

The author adds another example of cultural-ecological approach by describing the role
of the ingestion of high quantities of salt before fighting. This habit is part of a ritual
and, at the same time, a biological method of limiting the time spent on battle.

In conclusion the article describes the behavior of these people in analogy to the one
detected in non-human animals, emphasizing again the idea of considering humans as
just a part of a whole ecosystem.

Their rituals are therefore regulating two subsystems described at the beginning (the
Tsembaga and their immediate non-human environment, and their exchange in a
broader as part of a population of humans). The culmination of the ritual cycle (the
kaiko) reverses changes in both subsystems maintaining a certain kind of equilibrium
within each and between them. The author concludes that the ritual is a bind between
the social unit and its environment.

References

1. Rappaport, R. A. (1967). "Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations among a

New Guinea People." Natural Science Models of Resource-Use: 11.