Fact or Fiction

Enga historical traditions are a mixture of fact and fiction. In the past, each person was instructed in his genealogy that extended back eight to twelve generations. The first two or three generations, what we will call ‘the founding generations,’ give the names of tribal founders their children. These names are representative of supposed tribal and clan founders. Subsequent generations appear to record the names of real people. Events that are recounted in historical traditions can be placed in genealogies to allow for sequencing or approximate dating of events by generation.

Enga province has been inhabited for at least 13,000 years as evidenced from archaeological excavations at Yuku Cave in the Baiyer area and Kutepa rockshelter at Tipinini. Origin myths or narratives in the founding generations of genealogies thus do not explain tribal beginnings. They are charter myths or stories that validate tribal identities and unite them in cooperative activities. In western Enga, origin myths often explain the establishment of ritual sites that required the participation of entire tribes. Mythical origin narratives are most likely ancient; however, they contain important information on the location of tribes and clans in the past and their relation to neighboring groups.

Have tribal histories been overwritten or altered to suit the designs and agendas of successive generations?

This does not appear to be the case, because narratives of a single historical event collected in different clans of a tribe or across tribes rarely contradict one another on major points. Rather forefathers retained the entire collection of their historical narratives, so that chapters of history legitimating current interests could be opened strategically, leaving other chapters to be called on when conditions changed.

We developed a system to roughly date or sequence events such as wars, migrations, or the spread of rituals by generation. Before Generation 5, events can only be sequenced. After Generation 5 they can be roughly dated relative to some known events.

It should be noted that around the seventh generation, the population of Enga would have only been 20,000 to 30,000. This means that most tribes would have been between the sizes of 200 and 600 members. By 1960, the population had grown to about 100,000 according to (Meggitt 1956). In the 1980 census, the population of Enga was around 150,000. With improvements in diet and modern medicine and breakdown of birth spacing between children, the population estimates for Enga Province in 2021 are 571,060 (EPG website). An important consideration when imagining life in the past is recognizing that the population was very sparse then.

While collecting tribal origin traditions, we asked for the names of clans and their locations as they were in the late 1980s. For some groups, this information is incomplete simply because they were so dispersed. We also added the nearest school or aidpost for orientation, but of course this may have changed over the past decades.