Ongkas Big Moka Essay

His moka as the culmination of feasts ending a particularly bitter war Lessons from the Film: *Illustrates the Big Man as hero but also as persuader, not commander *Complexity of competitive feasting, rival Big Men on all sides *The guests are not transformed, they remain enemies or rivals *The huge quantities of goods given away – does it seem strange to you? *Both redistribution and balanced leading to negative reciprocity here. General Notes: *Headmen can only persuade, not order people around. If he pushes too hard, people will not go along with him. *Ongka lives in the men’s house which is communal. He has 4 wives and 9 children. Each wife has her own residence in which she lives with her children. *Cassowary – birds captured in the forest – given in Moka much like the Chinese give pandas to foreign dignitaries *Sweet potatoes are the food of humans and pigs. Food/shelter/clothes/tools come from the gardens and the forest, but to get ahead in life, one must have pigs. *Only 8-10 full grown pigs can be taken care of at a time. so, one must invest in other people’s pigs to gather together enough for a Moka. *Ongka’s great skill is his speech-making abilities. He also has $1800 Australian dollars in a Mt. Hagen Savings Bank from the sale of coffee that comes from the mountains and the Kawelka. *Dressing up for Ongka meant to put on traditional garments, Bird of Paradise feathers, Cassowary feathers, etc. *What do they need money for? False teeth; transportation services; some clothes *Before the Moka, Ongka found an extra wife just because of her capacity for work to help Rumbicore with the pigs for the final Moka. *Riema upset the date for the Moka by saying that he and his group had done sorcery on a neighboring headman that caused him to die suddenly. Some of his pigs were killed and he had to go into hiding. The Moka finally happened and included:Ongka says it is the biggest Moka ever given.