Historicizing Motu ceramics and the hiri trade

The Port Moresby region of the south coast of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG) is well known ethnographically as the source-area for the Motu hiri trade, a long-distance maritime enterprise involving shell valuables and the annual local manufacture of tens of thousands of clay pots sent westward in fleets of lagatoi (large Indigenous sailing ships) in exchange for large logs to make hulls and hundreds of tons of sago starch from trading partners in the Gulf of Papua swamplands up to 400km away. Local oral histories relating to the hiri come from the Motu and Koita of the Port Moresby area, two peoples who speak unrelated languages and who have lived in close proximity for an extended period. The Motu are the principal hiri traders and makers of pottery, and while Koita lived near and among them, they made relatively little pottery and did not participate in the hiri to the same extent as the Motu. Here we review ethnographic, oral historical, and linguistic information on hiri trade and associated pottery manufacturing as a prelude to historicizing the hiri from this new archaeological evidence in forthcoming volumes