Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea: A Lasting Society

The people of the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea have been a source of interest to anthropologists since the early 1900s, when Bronislaw Malinowski first studied them. In a time when anthropology was "barely established as a formal discipline" (Weiner, 1988), Malinowski had an intense interest in ethnographical field work as well as the fascinating culture of the natives of what was then called Papua, the southeastern part of mainland New Guinea. The Trobriand way of life is extremely different from that of typical western or eastern cultures. In addition to being a matrilineal society, the Trobrianders engage in markedly different courtship and marriage activities, and have been able to preserve much of their culture despite colonization and influence from other cultures.

The first anthropologist to perform an ethnographic study of the Trobriands was Malinowski. Between 1915 and 1918, Malinowski lived a total of two years with Trobriand people and gathered information for what would be his most significant and memorable work in the field of anthropology. Though Malinowski made vast improvements in the field of ethnographical research, he was not without flaws. As many early anthropologists and social scientists did, Malinowski focused mainly on the role of males in the society, with less regard to female influence or way of life. Since Malinowski, other anthropologists have returned to New Guinea to study the Trobriands. Among these is Annette B. Weiner, who performed her predoctoral fieldwork in the Trobriand