Although in Highland culture notions of accident do exist, there is a tendency to attribute events to human agencies. Notions of blame, responsibility and liability are crucial in this context. The authors want to draw attention to the phenomenon of compensation payments and the reversals of the direction payments that can result from accusations of wrongdoing.

TheDutch involvement in a late 19th century controversy with Spain on the Mapia islands is analysed as an expression of modern imperialism.

According to the author violence is becoming more and more an expected part of political activity. This is ascribed to commoditization of politics and decreasing legetimacy of the government since the departure of Australian administration.

This article discusses the possible etymoloy of the word Papua and the islands designated by the term.

Based on the specific situation in West New Guinea from 1950 till 962 the authors discuss different critical perspectives on the relation between colonialsim and anthropology.

By utilizing ideas from discussions in the Papua New Guinea ethnographic writings this paper seeks to identify ways in which Irian Jaya ethnographies (Serpenti, Oosterwal, Koch) can be reanalyzed and reinterpreted in order to bring these writings into the context of contemporary critical debate on kinship, exchange, social control and marriage.