Social structure in New Guinea

Abstract

According to him, there is also a contrast between patrilineal and matrilineal organizations in New Guinea.9 Data from other areas,e.g. Indonesia, teach us however that this may be the result of variations within a structural type which comprises patrilineal as well as matrilineal features. Various cultural elements are distributed more widely and more regularly than one would expect in an area inhabited by "improvisers of culture". [...]the art of New Guinea, so complex at first glance, has proved amenable to classification by distinct stylistic areas, which 9 J. van Baal, o.c, p. 439. According to Pouwer, vagueness of kinship features are the result of an interplay of kinship and other social criteria; he devotes particular attention to the assimilatory effect of the local group. According to Samarokena standards, the life history of its principal members has abnormal features.