Films with: Strathern, Andrew

Bridewealth for a goddess

Documents the Kawelka tribal group's last performance of the ritual for the fertility goddess Amb Kor in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.

DVD 4099

Death to pay for

The film, which consists of interviews with members of the Kawelka group of Papua New Guinea, offers a view into their rapidly vanishing culture. The storyline "surrounds the events that arise after the killing of a young man during a drunken brawl between young men from two different groups. These events largely centered on negotiations over compensation payments to be made for the killing"--Guide, p. 5.

DVD 4025

Kawelka Ongka's big moka /

"The influential leader of New Guinea's Kawelka tribe spends five years amassing an abundance of valuable items including 600 pigs and a motorbike only to give them away in a festive ceremony called the moka. A key component to Kawelka culture, the moka ceremony finds those seeking to gain influence attempting to do so not by acquiring valuable objects, but by giving them away. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned and the leader of the tribe is ultimately threatened with violence as a result of his outwardly selfless act of giving."--IMDb.

DVD 10611