Stone and Steel Tool Use in a New Guinea Society

Abstract

The Heve people live in the foothills adjacent to the Wogamus River, a southern tributary of the Sepik River, in New Guinea, at a latitude of 4?32'i9 South and a longitude of I42?i3/i6 East. They speak the Sanio language, a member of the Sepik Hill language family (Dye, Townsend, and Townsend 1969). A typical hamlet consists of one or two houses located on the top of a hill that rises out of the swamp forest. Houses are rectangular and are built of the trunks of many small trees, ranging from half an inch to about two inches in diameter. Roofs are thatched with leaves of the sago palm. Leaf midribs and bark of sago are used for the walls, and strips of palm bark for flooring. A typical house is elevated two or three feet off the ground and has a corridor in front at ground level. Starch from the sago palm provides more than 80 per cent of the Heve diet (Townsend n.d.). Either men or women fell the palms, but the re? mainder of work in producing sago is done by women. In addition to sago, the diet is composed largely of greens (mostly ferns), pork from domestic and wild pigs, fish, sago grubs, and various other wild foods. The men hunt, but with less apparent success than in adjacent areas to the east and west. Men clear trees and plant gardens, which contribute less than 5 per cent to the Heve diet. No attempt is made to burn, fence, or weed. Produce in 1966 consisted mainly of bananas and taro; in 1967, cucumbers, squash, and papayas were also harvested. European goods have been introduced to the headwaters of the Wogamus River by two trade routes. The first starts at Telefomin in the western highlands and ends near the headwaters of the Wogamus River. The people immediately south of the Heve obtained their first steel axes by this route, and some goods have also come to the Heve in this way. The second route starts at the Ambunti patrol post and goes up the Sepik River to the Wogamus River. The first Heve steel axes came by this route, which in 1966-67 was often used by natives from the Sepik River. A steel axe could be purchased with a good war shield for export from New Guinea or with a grown pig traded downriver. Steel tools began to trickle into the area of study a decade ago but had not fully replaced any traditional tools until 1966. The Heve use three types of stone tools: a stone adze, a sago cutting tool, and a sago pounder (see Figure 1). All three are hafted similarly, using