Vocabulary

Dama: spirits and ancestors; now spoken of as "satan"

Tari basin: local region, underdeveloped

anda: house, inside, private; female realm

hama: cleared ground, public; male realm

Iba Tiri: "water fool"–a spirit featured in a prominent Huli drama who is a trickster; he has illicit sexual intercourse with the female progenitor of the Huli people and, because desire destroyed Utopiea, he experienced shame which led to hard work, morality, and order. Can be benign or malevolent. Often characterized as dissheveled and incompetent

nambis: the areas outside Tari where Huli go to find work; periphery; power is found there; associated with women and thus polluting

lulu: a condition of irrational but overpowering sexual desire, caused by gold, which leads to illness; appears in a context of a mingling of relatives, enemies, and strangers

Quotes

1) "I will demonstrate that among the Huli, gold is interpreted as a substance analogous to menstrual blood and that both serve as symbols of a reproductive power that is considered polluting, dangerous, and in need of control" (Clark 1993:742).

2) "The mythology of gold is part of an attempt to deal with these dimensions of the nambis, providing an indigenous account of the experience of encapsulation by new structures of power" (Clark 1993:746).

3) "Gold . . . symbolized a new threshold between Tari and periphery through which power slips away, and along with hit the ideal of Huli manhood and men's health" (Clark 1993:748).

4) "Women and the snake represent the primordial power of fertility, growth, and reproduction that is based in the periphery, and power always brings with it the danger of pollution" (Clark 1993:749).