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The Tolai Tradition of the Tubuan, Matrilineality and an Absent Myth of Matriarchy
In a recent post, Rabaul and the Tolai: Some reflections upon a most remarkable place and people, I described my birth in Rabaul in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea and my long-standing family association with the Melanesian Tolai community of the region. And I related the great honour I experienced in being offered initiation (to the first stage) as a member of the Tolai community on one of my recent visits to Rabaul.
The tubuan
Despite the Tolai having probably the longest and closest associations of any Papua New Guinea community with colonial and Western influences, their cultural traditions remain strong. One of the most significant of those traditions is the tubuan which has survived notwithstanding colonial efforts (by both colonial administrations and the church) that were variously made to stamp it out, suppress it, undermine it or at least restrict its functions. Indeed, the tubuan has become a prime symbol of Tolai identity, while also providing the Tolai with a connection with the past and with their ancestors as well as a structure that serves to shape, maintain and strengthen their living relationships.
Tubuan is also the name for the well-known masked figure that wears a vividly painted conical headdress and billowing spherical skirt of leaves. That figure is the incarnation of a deceased’s soul and that soul is female. The tubuan is controlled by the associated Tolai secret male-only society, and my initiation was as part of its rituals. Only men may be initiated and women are generally prohibited from even approaching or looking directly at the tubuan figure.
I am strongly committed to social justice, and my writing has often reflected my desire for greater recognition in our community in particular of the interests of both women and animals. So, it is not surprising that my initiation as a member of this male-only society has led me to try to more fully understand the place of women in the tubuan. That quest for understanding gave rise to this paper.
At the outset, I note that secrecy is an essential part of the tubuan, including its initiation rituals. I have sought to respect that secrecy in this post. Bar relating one anecdote from a personal conversation, everything I discuss has been drawn from public sources and records, and there are also matters I found that, although they were in the public record, I omitted in view of concerns I nevertheless had about their sensitivity. I am very conscious that every element of the tubuan is secret in the sense that the knowledge passed to the initiate must be zealously guarded from the uninitiated, and especially women.
View from Matupit towards Tavurvur (author’s own photo)
Exclusion of women
I was interested though to better understand why the tradition so vehemently excludes women. Was the reason to be found anywhere in the public record? I found various versions of the origin of the tubuan. Historian Mary R. Mennis has suggested that in the most common version it is found by a woman who on donning it finds it to be too long. The men are jealous and, stating that women are not tall enough for it, buy it but then forbid women ever again going near it. On the other hand, in another narrative, Dr A.L. Epstein related that the tubuan having been first discovered by women is not bought but stolen from them by the men who subsequently retain its secrets for their own power. Lisa Hilli recounts in more detail a similar version involving its theft: two sisters, hiding in the bush while dancing and using as body adornment tegete leaves (which come from the dracaena or cordyline plant), were discovered by some men who not only killed them but then also adapted their conception, creating what became the tubuan Society.
The tradition as related by Hilli, suggesting male control of ritual through theft by violence upon women, is far from unique to the Tolai. It can be found in other indigenous traditions. Professor Joan Bamberger, for example, has related similar traditions of various South American peoples, amongst them the Yamana-Yaghan origin tradition of a ritual known as the Kina (interestingly the modern currency of Papua New Guinea is the Kina). In the tradition, women were the first holders of its knowledge but, simulating spirits, hid their possession of that knowledge from the men. The women had used their secret knowledge to exercise power over the men, frightening them and hold them in “fear and submission”. The women’s deception was discovered one day when a man saw two girls in the bush ‘transforming’ themselves from ‘spirits’. The men revenged themselves upon the women, murdering many and transforming others into animals, before stealing the tradition for themselves.
The myth of past matriarchy
The exercise by women of power over the men in this origin tradition of the Kina is an evident extension of the Tolai origin tradition of the tubuan. Indeed, Bamberger identifies in various of the South American narratives a society in which women originally ruled, through subterfuge or tyranny, until men on discovering the source of their power forcibly removed it from them through theft and violence. Bamberger concludes that “[w]hether or not women actually behaved in the manner of the charges recorded in myth is not an issue in understanding the insistent message of the myth”. That message is that women did not know how to handle power when they had it, leading to misrule. Having shown themselves to be unworthy of leadership roles lay the justification for “male dominance through the evocation of a vision of a catastrophic alternative – a society dominated by women”.
These traditions bring to mind the mythology of a past Golden Age of Matriarchy that I explored in my paper published in Ancient Origins, Uncovering the Truth Behind Matriarchal Societies in the Ancient World. But while in these South American narratives it was obviously not a Golden Age in the minds of men, the Tolai tradition by comparison does not present its origins as growing from any claimed past era of matriarchy (used in this paper in the sense of rule by women): the theft by men of the women’s secrets is not portrayed as a response to the women having used those secrets to dominate or rule men. Similarly, Dr Terence Hays, having noted the real sense of déjà vu in these South American narratives of female exclusion for anyone familiar with New Guinea ethnology, nevertheless also found little evidence in the traditions of communities in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands of a myth of past matriarchy. What is stolen in the Highlands’ myths had not been used by women to misrule. Rather, Hays observed that its theft by men provided them with forces they could use to accomplish goals they sought (such as individual and clan prestige). When men took control of these forces from the women, it was not because the women had been using those powers in that way when they had possessed them. It would appear that the same analysis could equally be applied to the Tolai narrative.
Absence of the myth in Tolai tradition
Although the South American myths of misrule appear to seek to provide a moral justification for subsequent male patriarchy, no similar justification would therefore seem to emerge from either these Papua New Guinea Highlands’ traditions or the Tolai origin story of male appropriation from women of the tubuan ritual secrets. This, of course, begs the question: in the absence of an apparent foundation in a revolt against an allegedly abusive matriarchal rule, what is the basis for women’s exclusion from these traditions in these Papua New Guinea contexts? While in seeking to answer this question I found a rich literature on narratives around the world considering female exclusion, given my Rabaul origins and Tolai connection, my focus in this paper will be on the Tolai tradition.
Matrilineal system of descent
The Tolai, while not described as matriarchal, do have a matrilineal system of descent. Dr Tandy Lubett describes this matrilineal structure as “the fundamental defining characteristic of the Tolai social system”, adding that “[t]his principle finds its clearest expression in the concept of vunatarai …, the central corporate unit in Tolai society, comprising all persons who trace their matrilineal descent from a single female ancestor”. The key to understanding the exclusion of women from the tubuan Society appears to lie in this matrilineal system. In it, not only are all Tolai are members of their mother’s lineage: a child belongs to the clan of the mother (the vunatarai) rather than the father (the mother’s brothers are considered the father figures to her children), but land inheritance is through the matrilineal system of descent, with the land held through the vunatarai tracing descent through the female line. It was once remarked to me that, while Tolai men engage in the ceremony and display associated with the male only tubuan Society, the matrilineal system of descent ensures that through their matrilineal clan women have a role within the community’s social structure that still ensures they enjoy a form of ‘real power’.
Moreover, there is a clear association of a tubuan with its matrilineal clan. Tubuan activities are matrilineal clan affairs with each clan normally having its own tubuan, uniquely designed with a female name and which is most commonly raised by the clan to commemorate and honour the clan’s ancestors. Dr. Hirokuni Tateyama has commented that given this matrilineal clan association the tubuan is not properly viewed as simply “a manifestation of male dominance over women”.
On the other hand, Dr Cyndi Banks reminds us that real control of the matrilineal land of the clan resides with “the male resident on that land and his matrilineage”, a Tolai woman’s male matrilineal relations such as her brothers and maternal uncles. Indeed, while there are a number of matrilineal communities in Papua New Guinea where descent is traced through the female line, decision-making power still resides with men. While it appears that as a matter of practice in the modern community life of such matrilineal societies most decisions are made by men in consultation with women, Dr Anastasia Sai has commented that “the right to rule still remains the prerogative of the men”. And, as Banks has similarly concluded, ultimately “[i]n both patrilineal and matrilineal systems women are controlled by men”, by their husband and his brothers in the former and by their brothers and uncles in the latter.
Nevertheless, there is an evident underlying balancing of interests in the power of men and women in the Tolai community for ultimately a man’s power derives from his matrilineal lineage. Lubett observes that as a matter of practice “female clan members have a major say in the ownership and use of the land”. And Andy Newlin, also commenting that “some women have considerable power”, adds that, although residence after marriage is most commonly not matrilocal, the fact that the death of a woman’s husband “would end all ties with his kin and she would be free to return with her children to her own maternal kin, exemplif[ies] how strong the matrilineages are amongst the Tolai”. Indeed, Lubett suggests that Tolai male culture resorted to secret societies such as the tubuan specifically “to restore and maintain a perception of social balance in a strongly matrilineal society”.
Given that Melanesian societies are generally patrilineal, I wondered though what had prompted the Tolai to adopt matrilineal descent in the first place, and whether this might be relevant to understanding the absence of a claimed past matriarchy in the tubuan origin narrative?
Why are the Tolai matrilineal?
As to the first question, I found in Banks an explanation for the Tolai’s matrilineality. Observing that as Melanesian peoples have traditionally been horticulturalists, she commented that the choice of matrilineal or patrilineal systems of descent was related to the availability of resources. Where less fertile land gave rise to competition over available resources for group survival, control over production and allocation of resources was placed in the hands of men with a need for male solidarity reflected in a patrilineal system of descent. Matrilineal descent, on the other hand, where control over resources is placed in the hands of women, was to be found among communities that resided on fertile land, diminishing the impact of competition over resources and allowing a stable and cooperative economic system.
Dr Peggy Reeves Sanday appeared to provide further support for this thesis. In her suggestion, strains in a community, such as food stress, may impact the cultural distribution of power between women and men. While acknowledging that male oppression of women is neither an automatic nor an immediate response to stresses in the community, Sanday posited that a causal relationship can be found between a decline in female power and strains such as depleting resources. Where there is severe social stress or cultural disruption, men may “band together”, “excluding women from male-oriented power ceremonies” and “turning aggression against women” as “the whole of public life … becomes synonymous with the male collective”. In consequence, in Sanday’s assessment, patrilineality is engendered where there is competition for scarce resources while matrilineal structures engendered by favourable environments generally promote more accommodating forms of community cooperation and coordination.
These analyses resonated with me for, while the Tolai have long been grappling with growing land shortages and disputes, it was the highly fertile volcanic soils of East New Britain that had originally attracted their ancestors to migrate from New Ireland (where their ancestors it seems were also matrilineal and where it appears that the Tubuan system originated). Indeed, the Tolai have traditionally enjoyed a vibrant economic environment in one of the most prosperous areas of Papua New Guinea and, for a number of reasons, the Tolai emerged at the country’s independence in the mid-1970s as a particularly affluent, educated and influential community. The question remained though: was this influence of abundant resources that first attracted the Tolai to the area and apparently shaped the Tolai as a matrilineal society also relevant to the lack of the development of a myth of past matriarchy in the tubuan origin story?
View outside Rabaul looking south west over the jungle of the Gazelle Peninsula (author’s own photo)
Why is there no myth of past matriarchy in the tubuan origin story?
I found in Sanday’s further analysis a possible answer to this question. Noting that “anthropologists have shown that myth themes reflect many aspects of social life” (p.74), she suggests that access to resources similarly shapes a community’s mythology for “[a]nother response to cultural disruption and growing chaos is to generate new symbols or to widen the domain that the gods control”. Such a symbolism would appear to be “the myth of former female power” for Sanday argues that “[m]ale dominance in myth and everyday life is associated with fear, conflict and strife”, and in such a case:
… males believe that there is an uncontrollable force that may strike at any time and against which men must be prepared to defend their integrity. … Men believe it is their duty to harness this force, with its power over life and death, to prevent chaos and maintain equilibrium. They go to extraordinary lengths to acquire some of the power for themselves so that they may not be impotent when it is time to fight. Men attempt to neutralize the power they think is inherent in women by stealing, nullifying it, or banishing it to invisibility.
And what is this “uncontrollable force” men seek to harness through theft from women? In Sanday’s description, while “[t]he nature of the force and its source are not well defined, … often they are associated with female sexuality and reproductive functions”: “Male power is based on … acquiring the symbols of uterine power”, and “the myth of former female power … echoes the theme … of taking by force something that naturally belongs to females”. “Having acquired from women these symbols of power”, she concludes that “men go to extraordinary lengths to keep women from gaining them back”.
These observations appear to support the idea that a lack of access to resources might have a general association with the development within a community of a myth of past matriarchy in which, as women had shown themselves to be unworthy of ruling, men were justified in seizing that power from women and preventing their recovering it. Indeed, given Sanday’s analysis that patrilineality is engendered where there is competition for scarce resources, it would seem to be no coincidence that patrilineal societies are far more likely than matrilineal societies to have masculine origin symbolism.
Equally, inversely, it would seem that diminished competition over resources in Tolai society might have influenced there being no such claimed past matriarchy in the tubuan origin story.
In the light of Sanday’s observations about the acquisition of “uterine power symbolism”, it is interesting that, in the Tolai story of the origin of the tubuan, men seize from women magical secrets in a tradition represented in a female ancestral spirit. Yet, the story involves no associated myth of a past matriarchy. And it would seem that this may be because a favourably resourced environment supported a matrilineal descent system and with it a more cooperative economic and social system with a more balanced distribution of power between Tolai men and women.
My concluding thoughts
Since retiring I have been seeking to renew and strengthen my relationship with the place of my birth and with a part of the world with which my extended family have enjoyed a relatively long relationship. In strengthening that relationship, I am greatly honoured to have been initiated as a member of the Tolai community. And I am very conscious that the honour was offered to me in recognition, in particular of the contribution of my ancestors, my grandfather and father, to the historical life of Rabaul, and to a lesser extent, as reflected in my own birth and early childhood there. Now a member of the Tolai community, it has been important to me to make efforts to better understand Tolai culture, and in particular the tubuan into the traditions of which I have been initiated and related aspects of the role of women within Tolai community. The Tolai are, and will always be for me, an amazing people, impressive, capable, clever and friendly, and I am deeply honoured to be a part of their community.
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References (current as at 11 August 2016)
Bamberger, Joan. “The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society.” In Woman, Culture, and Society, edited by Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, 263–280. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974, esp. at pp.269-270 (http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/wp-content/uploads/class_text_052.pdf)
Banks, Cyndi. 1993. Women in transition: social control in Papua New Guinea. Australian studies in law, crime and justice no. . Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/lcj/lcj-6, esp. at pp.5-6, 108-109 (https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/women_full_report.pdf)
Epstein, A. L. In the Midst of Life: Affect and Ideation in the World of the Tolai (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), esp. at pp. 134, 295, note 23 (limited access at https://archive.org/details/inmidstoflifeaff0000epst/page/n9/mode/2up?q=tubuan)
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Inner Scribe 
