Flexible Groups

Abstract

In the Aluni Valley there are five named territorial parishes, and there is a further parish area, historically associated with those of the Valley, bordering the Strickland River: this is the parish area known as Yeru, in which today the airstrip and mission station of the Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea are situated. In the Valley the five parishes are Nauwa, Kunai (or Kunei), Haiyuwi, Aluni, and Yangone (or Yangoane/Yangwane). There is a historical separation within Aluni as a whole between the area around the Aluni Station and the hillside settlement of Hagu. From certain viewpoints, Hagu can be considered as a separate unit from Aluni. However the chief agnatic line in Hagu, which in 1991 was centered on the local Baptist pastor who lived there, is the same as that which is recognized as having priority in Aluni, and the pastor served both places. In terms of descent ties, then, Aluni and Hagu are one unit. In terms of practical social relations and senses of identity during the 1990s there was a feeling of an unequal division between them. The feeling perhaps dates only from colonial times, when the grassy knoll now called Aluni was made an administrative center with an Aid Post and school, and the hillside dwellers came to be regarded as ancillary to Aluni “proper.” Within the parishes there are several smaller recognized settlement or locality names.¹