The people of the lower Arafundi: Tropical foragers of the New Guinea rainforest

Abstract

Ethnographic work in the Sepik Basin of New Guinea has been heavily biased toward the region's more dense and culturally elaborated communities. This article uses archival documentation and the results of rapid ethnographic surveys to reconstruct the contactera ethnography of one of its lesser-known groups, the Lower Arafundi. The Lower Arafundi people were ethnographically significant as foragers of the tropical rainforest, as progenitors of a rock art tradition, and as one of a small circle of human societies that claim not to recognize paternity. (Hunters and gatherers, tropical foragers, New Guinea, Sepik, Lower Arafundi) Show more