Customer Reviews

The Ilahita Arapesh: Dimensions of Unity

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I found this book as a reference in the Peter Turchin's War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires.

Turchin discussed the Rise and Fall of empires based on the rise and fall of social cohesion of the empire building nation and the ability or disability to integrate conquered nations as part of the empire. The role of the frontier was especially emphasized by Turchin as kind of generator of social cohesion.

Turchin seems to have been influenced very strongly by Tuzin's work on Ilahita Arapesh documented e.g. in this book published already 1978. Ilahita is/was a tribal "village empire" of nothern Papua New Guinea. Tuzin discusses thoroughly the mechanisms Ilahita village was using to create strong intra-village social cohesion (despite big size) and the way the Ilahita village created "child villages" out of refugees seeking protection in the Southern Arapesh area. Also the role of the frontier is seen in the same way as Turchin is discussing it almost 30 years later. The role of rituals etc. is discussed.

Even if this book is already pretty old it has big value. It discusses the social cohesion ofcourse without knowledge to the modern research by Rob Boyd et al. On the other hand in the light of the modern research we can probably say this book is becoming a classic and certainly will preserve it's value even if in future.

At same time as this book has big theoretical value this is also an interesting ethnography of a papuan tribe.