A Kewa Religious Argot (New Guinea)
Karl J. Franklin
Contents:
1. The Religious Setting
2. Function of the Argot
3. Argot Terms
4. Alternative Spirit Names
5. Summary
For the Kewa, a name implies a certain power 1 . This power is related to
the response of a being (whether living person or disembodied spirit) when its
n arne is spoken. The use of a name implies a relationship between the speaker
a nd the being named, and it is important that the correct name, the one that
lr nplies the appropriate relationship, be used in social intercourse. It is not
uncommon to bring into play a new set of names on the occasion of establishing
a new relationship between individuals, which means, in turn, that old names
§° out of use.
A common function of such vocabulary is to denote an exchange rela
tionship. When a marriage contract is made between two families, gifts are
e xchanged to cement the affinal relationships being established, and the rela
tionships are sealed by the use of new names. After such a contract has been
uiade, the use of an old name would cause embarrassment since it implies
the former non-exchange relationship, and would undermine the newer one.
1 The Kewa language is spoken by over 40,000 people in the Southern Highlands
district. Since 1958 my wife and I have worked intermittently in two main villages,
^tuli in the Eastern dialect and Usa of the Western dialect. The material in this paper
deludes information from both areas, as well as the third main Southern dialect (see also
f Ranklin 1967, 1968, 1970, and 1972 for related studies). All told over five years have
keen spent in the villages of Muli and Usa under the auspices of the Summer Institute of
Linguistics. This research has been supported in part by a grant from the New Guinea
branch of the Summer Institute of Linguistics Research Fund. I would like to thank
William Merrifield, William Samarin, and Robert Litteral for helpful suggestions
031 this paper.
Anthropos 70. 1975
K. J.
K J1H1
46