pig's teeth and skull cycles: both sides of the face of humanity

Abstract

Pigs are a multivocal key symbol in Kaulong definition of humanity. According to individual behavior both pigs and people are placed along a continuum marked at one extreme by that which is characteristic of the inhuman “wild boar,” and at the other by that characteristic of the “ideally human” person of renown. The essential and continuous interdependence of pigs and people in order to maintain humanity in an otherwise inhuman world is explored in depth and in both ritual and nonritual contexts, extending our understanding of the meaning of pigs in Papua New Guinea beyond that of transactable symbols of wealth and power and as elements in ritual ecology. [pigs, humanity, social identity, Melanesia, death rituals]