Maisin people
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Maisin are an indigenous people of
Oro Province Oro Province, formerly (and officially still) Northern Province, is a coastal province of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Popondetta. The province covers 22,800 km2, and has 176,206 inhabitants (2011 census). The province shares l ...
in
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
. Most of the population of 3000 live in villages clustered along the southwestern shores of Collingwood Bay with an outlier (Uwe) on Cape Nelson. Far from roads and markets, villagers subsist mainly from the land and sea, making extensive use of rain forest for swidden (
slash and burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed veget ...
) gardens, hunting and materials for houses and canoes. Despite the 'traditional' appearance of villages, however, the Maisin have long been integrated into the larger Papua New Guinea society. Schools, initially set up by the Anglican mission and now run by the government, have existed in the villages since 1902 and today almost all adults can communicate in at least basic English as well as
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...
and their own Maisin language. A quarter or more of the population now lives in urban areas elsewhere in the country and their remittances form an essential part of the local economy. The Maisin are best known internationally for their exquisitely designed painted bark cloth (
tapa cloth Tapa cloth (or simply ''tapa'') is a barkcloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, but as far afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Futuna, Solomon Islands, Java, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea an ...
).


Recent problems and actions

During the 1990s, Maisin aligned themselves with a number of environmental non governmental organizations, most notably Greenpeace, in opposition to commercial logging in the rainforests behind their villages and to foster small scale, environmentally friendly, development. Their quixotic fight against a logging company, which had illegally claimed access to their lands, garnered a great deal of international attention up to 2002, when the Maisin defeated the company in a national court case. Despite this victory, the area continues to be eyed by logging and mining interests and the community is divided in their support or opposition to large scale 'development' projects in the region. In November 2007, the Maisin villages along with much of Oro Province were hit by devastating floods that destroyed gardens and undermined many houses.


Notes

John Barker. Ancestral Lines: The Maisin of Papua New Guinea and the Fate of the Rainforest. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.


External links


The Maisin Archives

Maisin Christianity: An Ethnography of the Contemporary Religion of a Seaboard Melanesian People

Missionaries, environmentalists, and the Maisin, Papua New Guinea

Engendering Objects: Dynamics of Barkcloth and Gender among the Maisin of Papua New Guinea
{{authority control Indigenous peoples of Melanesia Ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea