From Trobriand cricket to rugby nation

The mission of sport in Papua New Guinea

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5772391
AutoresJoel Sherzer (0000-0003-4353-956X, autor correspondente)
Ano2006
Volume23
Fascículo5
Páginas739-758
Data de publicação2006-06-19
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe International Journal of the History of Sport (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0952-3367 • E-ISSN: 1743-9035
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09523360600673138
OpenAlexW2043236341
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas17
Referências citadas20

This paper seeks to revise and enlarge the received understanding of Trobriand cricket, a game made famous by Leach and Kildea's 1975 documentary film. Looking at the political and economic goals of the Kabisawali Association who staged the visually stunning cricket matches for the documentary, the game is re-examined in the context of Papua New Guinea's colonial history. Trobriand cricket embodies not only the assertion of Trobriand cultural values but also the assertion of a political alternative to the communities imagined by both colonial officials and nationalist leaders. The moral discourse that brought cricket to British New Guinea in the nineteenth century now uses rugby to motivate a project of nation-building rather than one of personal reformation. It demonstrates how sport has figured in projects of moral education, contemporary as well as colonial, and how Trobrianders and other Papua New Guineans, past and present, have responded to these projects. Notes [1] Leach and Kildea, Trobriand Cricket (videorecording). [2] Australia ruled Papua (formerly British New Guinea) as a territory from 1906; from 1921 Australia ruled the Territory of New Guinea (formerly German New Guinea) by mandate of the League of Nations. The two territories were first jointly administered by Australia in 1949 as the UN Trust Territory of Papua and New Guinea; a Legislative Council was established in 1951. In 1964, the Legislative Council was replaced by a House of Assembly with an elected indigenous majority. The territories were renamed 'Papua New Guinea' in July 1971. Self government was granted in December 1973, and full independence followed on 16 September 1975. [3] Ortner, 'The Comaroffs and their Critics'. [4] Papua New Guinea is the most ethnolinguistically diverse country in the world, home to over 700 different languages; English and two pidgin-creoles, Tok Pisin and Motu, serve as official languages. See Foster, 'Oceania, sociocultural overviews: Melanesia' for more on the linguistic, cultural and ecological diversity of PNG and Melanesia. [5] Gissua and Hess, 'Icing on the Cake?', 81. [6] Wetherell, Charles Abel, 49. [7] Wilde, 'From Racing to Rugby', 286. [8] Gissua and Hess, 'Icing on the Cake?', 81, quoting Wetherell, Reluctant Mission, 16. [9] Young and Clark, An Anthropologist in Papua, 29; Wilde, 'From Racing to Rugby', 286. [10] It is important to note that in at least one ethnographic case, the precepts of muscular Christianity resonated with rather than contradicted certain indigenous ideas about proper masculinity and efficacious personhood (see Wilde, 'Acts of Faith'). [11] See Weiner, Review of Trobriand Cricket; Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. [12] See Leach, 'Structure and Message' for more detail. [13] Tapioca is a common phallic symbol, and scraping the tuber in preparation for cooking is a common idiom for sexual intercourse. [14] Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea, 167. [15] Weiner, 'Ten Years in the Life of an Island', 73. [16] Clifford, The Predicament of Culture, 147. [17] Ibid., 148. [18] Ibid., 146. [19] Sahlins, 'Preface', 4. [20] Ibid., 4. [21] Ortner, 'The Comaroffs and Their Critics'. See also, Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Vols. 1 and 2. [22] Ortner, 'The Comaroffs and Their Critics', 79. [23] Australian Strategic Planning Institute (ASPI), Strengthening Our Neighbour. [24] I leave aside the question of how the topic of the ASPI report is connected to a much larger one - the American imperial project of 'nation-building' being undertaken as part of the global war on terror, later renamed the struggle against violent extremism (see Fukuyama, State-Building; M. Ignatieff, 'Why are we in Iraq? (And Liberia? And Afghanistan?)', New York Times, 7 Sept. 2003). [25] ASPI, Strengthening Our Neighbour, 3, 13. [26] Ibid., 4. [27] Ibid., 34. [28] See Reilly, 'State Functioning and State Failure'. [29] Reilly, 'Democracy, Ethnic Fragmentation, and Internal Conflict', also argues, counter-intuitively, that PNG's diversity actually facilitates democratic procedure to the extent that it prevents any one ethnic group from dominating national government. [30] The Australian, 8 Oct. 2001. [31] ASPI, Strengthening Our Neighbour, 47. [32] Blenkin, 'Fed: Warning on PNG, But Footie Could Help-Report'. [33] See Foster, Materializing the Nation. [34] Post Courier, 31 May 2000. [35] National, 29 May 2000. [36] Anderson, Imagined Communities. [37] Schein, 'Of Cargo and Satellites'. [38] Likewise, the surprisingly small amount of writing on the film - including the director's own viewing notes (Leach, 'Structure and Message') - focus on other aspects of the film and/or the performances represented in the film (see, e.g., Ness, 'Understanding Cultural Performance'). The reviews of Annette Weiner ('Review of Trobriand Cricket', 1977; 'Epistemology and Ethnographic Reality') refer briefly to the political circumstances of filming (see also Weiner, 'Ten Years in the Life of an Island', 1982; Liep, 'Kula and Kabisawali: Contexts'). [39] See Weiner, 'Review of Trobriand Cricket', 506-7. [40] Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea, 115, contrasts the role of women as spectators in Trobriand cricket with their equality to men as partners in traditional dance competitions; however, it seems that women do on occasion play cricket themselves (see Malnic, Kula: Myth and Magic). [41] See May, Micronationalist Movements. [42] See Weiner, 'Epistemology and Ethnographic Reality' for a review. [43] Leach, 'Socio-Historical Conflict'. [44] Ibid., 252. [45] Ibid., 253. [46] H.A. Powell, 'Cricket in Kiriwina', The Listener, 4 Sept. 1952, 384-5, describes modifications to the game that were in place by the 1950s. Malinowski, Coral Gardens and Their Magic, Vol. 1, 211-12, noted how the game, due to the quarrels it provoked, was already in 1918 becoming associated with kayasa, competitive yam displays used to organize and settle disputes. Malinowski observed 'how difficult it is for real diffusion to take place': 'Cricket, which to an Englishman has become a synonym for honour and sportsmanlike behaviour, is, to a Kiriwinian, a cause for violent quarrelling and strong passion, as well as a newly invented system of gambling; while to another type of savage, a Pole, it remains pointless - a tedious manner of time-wasting'. (See the similarly witty film review by Edmund Leach, 'Review of Trobriand Cricket'). [47] Leach, 'Socio-Historical Conflict', 254. [48] Weiner, 'Ten Years in the Life of an Island', 70. [49] Leach, 'Socio-Historical Conflict', 284. [50] Kasaipwalova, 'The Reluctant Flame'. [51] See, for example, J. Kasaipwalova's short story, 'Betel Nut is Bad Magic for Aeroplanes', in Powell, Through Melanesian Eyes, for an indictment of the everyday forms of racial discrimination faced by 'black citizens of Niugini'. [52] Noel Levi, quoted in Nelson, Taim Bilong Masta, 177-8. [53] Ibid., 178. [54] Ibid., 177. [55] Wolfers, 'Trusteeship without Trust', 119. [56] Kiki, Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime, 101. [57] Nelson, Taim Bilong Masta, 177. [58] Gissua and Hess, 'Icing on the Cake?', 85. [59] See Grossart, 'Nationalism and Micronationalism'. [60] D. Jenkins, 'Kaputin Strikes Back at the Empire', Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 1993. [61] Leach, 'Socio-Historical Conflict', 283. [62] AAP Newsfeed, 14 Dec. 2004. [63] Geertz, 'The Integrative Revolution'. [64] Reilly himself inexplicably cites this violent history as an example of how bi-polar ethnic identities created by colonial rule 'overlaid and sometimes replaced' the 'fragmentation of traditional society' (Reilly, 'State Functioning and State Failure, 486, n.6; 491). [65] Guardian, 27 Sept. 1996. [66] K. Ricketts, 'Origin Behind Drunken, Violent Behaviour in PNG', Australian Associated Press, 8 May 2001. [67] Robbins, 'On Reading "World News

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