1. I would like to thank Bruce French, who was the Southern Highlands provincial agronomist during my fieldwork period, for much of this information.

2. This approximation applies only to the people of Hegeso, Barutage, and Herebo with whom I lived. I received the impression during brief visits to Tugiri and Yomaisi villages, however, that there were other areas in the Mubi Valley where people were more dependent upon sweet potato and could be said to have a double staple of sweet potato and sago.

3. The obsidian for such blades is not found in Foi territory but is imported from groups living to the southwest in volcanic areas.

4. During my first fieldwork period, the men and women of each village spent one day a week on road maintenance, upkeep of aid post and primary school grounds, and similar activities. The Local Government Council fined all people who did not attend communal work duties, and hence men and women drastically curtailed their time spent at Ayamo. Hunting activity was also greatly reduced by the responsibility of children's attendance at local primary schools and the desire of people to attend weekly church services. A favored time then for "family hunting outings" was the end of December and early January when the children received a prolonged Christmas holiday.

During my last trip to Hegeso in 1984-1985, however, government funding allocated to such rural improvement work had been suspended, and many men had been living at Ayamo for some time when I arrived, returning only to participate in the Dawa pig-kill that was held in January 1985.

5. Hegeso rebuilt their present longhouse in the early 1960s, locating it along the footpath but still near the River. When Barutage longhouse split into the new Barutage and Baru longhouses, the latter moved further up the Baru River in the bush and Barutage relocated to ridged ground south of the Mubi River. Men told me that an ideal site for longhouses was a ridge or spur near the river which made defense easier during times when warfare was still practiced.

6. The Foi were fond of telling me how in early days when a non-Foi-speaking stranger arrived and indicated the east as his origin, men assumed he was speaking "ghosts'" language.

7. Ta'i is the form used when speaking of position or location; ta'o by

contrast is used when indicating motion to or from a point. Similarly kore (when speaking of motion to the west) versus kuri (when speaking of position), and so forth.

8. Several spells I recorded refer to rivers that are said to exist in distant places to the west outside Foi territory, such as the Tunamo, which is said to be "near Koroba" (near the Upper Strickland River) and is considered "sacred" by the Foi; or the Dunu River that the Foi locate in the Mount Bosavi region. These waters are sacred because they are nearer the imagined source of all waters, which to the Foi is synonymous with the source of life itself.

9. This is true even though Ayamo is always kasia , because it is in the Yo'oro River valley and is approached by walking down intervening Mount Aguba.

10. I am indebted to Tirifa and his elder sister Ibume of the Hegeso So'onedobo clan for elucidating Foi conception theory and to their brother's son Heno for aiding me in a difficult translation.

11. "Eleven" in the Foi counting system is indicated by pointing to the side of the shoulder "where a man carries a child." "Nine" is the elbow "where a female holds a nursing child.''

12. This was also true in traditional times according to Williams (1977: 250).

13. The acquisition and use of irika'o as a valuable parallels the use of busare poison among the Daribi (Wagner 1967:73). I had no knowledge of irika'o ever being used as an item of Foi bridewealth, though such an occurrence would be rare and highly clandestine. The use of husare by Daribi sorcerers seems to belong to the same class as fana sorcery among the Foi: that performed on the personal leavings of a victim.

Men also told me that Highlanders from Nembi and further north would purchase irika'o from Foi men for shell wealth, pigs, and other valuables.

14. The Foraba or Polopa people live along the eastern portion of the Erave River near the border of the Southern Highlands and Simbu Provinces. They are neighbors of the Daribi to the east and the Kewa to the west (see Brown 1980).