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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2009
Big-men have appeared frequently in my discussion of the moka so far. It is clear that they are prominent organisers and financiers of ceremonial prestations and that from time to time they emerge as instigators of interpersonal as well as inter-group competition. In this and the final chapter I shall examine the position and importance of big-men further. In this chapter I consider ‘big-manship’ as a status which is aimed at by ambitious men and is marked out by custom in numerous ways. Within every clan there is rough agreement as to who can and who currently cannot lay claim to this status, and in the second part of the chapter I shall discuss patterns of status-differentiation within a number of clans.
CULTURAL MARKERS OF THE STATUS OF BIG-MAN
There is a proliferation of terms describing attributes and actions of bigmen. The most general term, which one hears most often, is wuә nyim. This is the term which I translate as ‘big-man’. Both ‘rich man’ and ‘chief are inappropriate as translations here, the first because it is not the fact of wealth but its deployment which is important and the second because the big-man occupies no definite office of headship over specific numbers of subjects (cf. Strauss 1962: Ch. 26).
As Table 25 shows, the terms for ‘big-man’ employ concepts of size and physical well-being as well as referring directly to the financial status and power to speak and propose plans which big-men are supposed to have.
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