"Wild Man" Behavior in a New Guinea Highlands Community

Abstract

IZARRE behavior patterns, variously referred to as running amuck, going berserk, or madness, have been reported for New Guinea societies. While the specific form the behavior takes varies from one area in New Guinea to another it is generally stated that there is standardization of the pattern within a given area and that it represents abnormal or deviant behavior. Interpretations of these patterns usually point out their highly aggressive character and seek understanding of them as a mechanism for the release of tensions induced in the individual through psychic or social conflicts. Field observation in a New Guinea Highlands community of one of these patterns suggests that interpretations of this behavior must also take into account the community within which the individual displays the behavior, the effect this display may have on community opinion of the person, and the ideological background against which the behavior is played out. These are important factors, for in addition to providing an outlet for aggressive impulses, such behavior also serves as a means whereby the individual can forcefully and dramatically cause the community to revise its image of him in a manner whereby social pressures will be withdrawn without drastic loss of social support. Such a pattern can thus be viewed as instrumental behavior redefining the social situation of the person displaying it and depending for its success on community acceptance of the portrayal. The particular pattern discussed here was observed among the Gururumba, a horticultural people living in the Upper Asaro valley in the Eastern Highlands of the Territory of New Guinea.2 They refer to it as ahaDe idzi Be, being (a) pig. Since they intend by this phrase to draw an analogy between the actions of a pig and a pattern of human action, the phrase will be translated figuratively as wild man. The meaning of the analogy is partly revealed in the fact that there are no pigs in this area of the Highlands that are in the sense of a group of nondomesticated animals roaming free in the forest or grassland unattended by humans. There are only pigs that have temporarily escaped their masters. The Gururumba do not pretend to know exactly what causes a pig to break away from the rather pampered life it leads in the company of man to run wildly about attacking people and other pigs, but they feel it is only a temporary lapse which will either run its course or will be corrected by capturing the pig and subjecting it to a reintegration ritual designed to curb any aggressive impulses that may be in the animal, thus making it again amenable to life under controlled conditions.