Inequality in New Guinea Highlands Societies

Now reissued in paperback with a new preface. The Highlands societies of Papua New Guinea, which have been studied intensively by numerous anthropologists since the 1950s, have been widely described as egalitarian and as characterised by achieved leadership. The Melanesian 'big-man' system, in which men achieve social status largely by their manipulation of wealth in elaborate structures of ceremonial exchange, has become an established anthropological model. However research has suggested ...