Antoni Judit: „Ablakok Pápua Új-Guineára" (Távoli világok emberközelben II. Gödöllői Városi Múzeum, 2008)

South of Mendi we find Lake Kutubu, which plays an important role in the life of the Foi and Fasu peoples. The 20 km long, 5 km wide lake is 70 m deep in places. It lies at 800 m above sea level, in a transitional area between the lowland flats and the Highlands. This is a karstic region, full of limestone mountains, high cliffs and deep valleys. The linguistically and culturally related Foi (4,000 individuals) and Fasu (1,000 individuals) peoples unite in clans, with several clans living in the same village. In principle the members of a clan are those who descend from a common ancestor - but in practice the structure is much looser, since they also take in those from other clans if their interests so require. In their villages, set up at easily defensible places (such as in a river bend), men and women are housed separately. Their settlements are real villages, unlike the diffuse farm-house colonies generally found in the Highlands. Men and young boys live in longhouses 60 to 100 m long, while the women and children live in rows of smaller houses built along the two sides of the longhouses. Men keep their valuables in the women's houses, and the utensils of everyday life, such as fishing nets, fish traps, tools for the preparation of the meal of sago, fishing pikes, etc., are also placed in the porch of the women's houses. The number of hearths in each house depends on how many people sleep there. The scene of private life is the hut built in, or next to, the garden: here, too, sago powder is prepared and pigs are kept. Sago-palm is cultivated separately, for it is much more important than the plants grown in the garden (sweet potato, taro, yam, sugarcane, banana, pandanus and breadfruit). Hunting and, especially, fishing play an important role. The pigs raised at home are exchanged for the kina shells (half-moon shaped pearl-oyster shell discs) indispensable in paying bride price. Many have the skills to prepare articles for personal use - wooden bowls, drums, tapa mantles, bags for storing sago powder, and bilums - but only a few are capable of preparing the chert choppers used to pound the sago powder. The quarries of flint nodules are highly respected: it is forbidden to speak near them in case the chert, which are regarded as living beings, stop growing. When marriage ceremonies take place the bridegroom's clan members distribute presents - bridewealth among the family and clan members of the bride in recognition of the fact that they fed, brought up, and educated the girl who will belong to the bridegroom's clan. Bridewealth items include pearl-oyster kina shells, long kauri laces and, in addition, recently also bank notes. The accumulation and safe-keeping of the assets is for one single purpose: to show these assets before the community, and to distribute them, which in reality means exchanging them. The exchange transaction greatly increases the prestige of the person concerned, who may reasonably hope for return in the future, and furthermore maintains and strengthens the personal and group relations. The dead are first laid on a catafalque in the corridor of the longhouse, then placed on a scaffold in the forest where the body is left to decay. Finally, the bones are relocated to one of the limestone caverns where all the ancestors rest. The above phases are accompanied by mourning celebrations to calm the soul of the deceased, and also to support the widow. The Kaluli people, who number 2,500, lives in the virgin forest at a height of 2,500 m near Mount Bosavi (an extinct volcano). Their settlements usually consist of one longhouse and a few smaller houses, and they tend to be located on the ridges near to Mount Bosavi. Nearly eighty people can be lodged in each house, which can be up to 40 m long and 18 m wide. Each family also has a house near their garden in the forest: this relatively big garden is cultivated jointly by two or three families, and protected against pigs with a fence. Their main staple is sago, but they also plant taro, sweet potato, sugar cane, banana, vegetables, and many other plants. They also keep domestic pigs, but to a lesser extent than the highlanders in general pigs do not play as important a role in their lives as in those of the surrounding peoples. The men are good hunters, catching pigs, cassowaries, possums, and birds with the help of their dogs and traps. In addition, they catch many small fish in the streams. While the Kaluli people live in the territory of the Southern Highlands, they may be more readily considered as a lowland people in so far as culture is concerned. A number of their features do show the influence of their highland neighbours, but they also have many links with the lowland especially in terms of commercial ties. 135