Paper short abstract:

Huli traditional land boundaries can be seen as an indigenous cadastral system that maps directly onto the state system of land title certification. As the desire for city life intensifies, Huli are radically transforming their traditional relationships to the land.

Paper long abstract:

Almost the entire Huli landscape within the highland basins of Papua New Guinea’s Hela Province has been profoundly altered by an indigenous system of land categorisation that is at least several centuries old. Known by the Huli term hameigini, or ‘father-son’, patrilineal land boundaries are inscribed in the landscape with a commitment to categorical definition and permanence that is not exceeded by institutional instruments imposed by the contemporary nation state. In some cases Huli land boundaries are even measured by licensed surveyors and given legal status on Certificates of Land Title that are able to be sold and transferred. Yet hameigini has a dual meaning and is also the foremost category of descent that grants the right of individuals to inhabit and work these bounded land holdings. Tension exists between these fixed categories and a highly fluid network of historical relationships that underpin these categorical claims. The discovery and exploitation of natural gas resources in Hela Province has accelerated a near universal desire for urbanisation and citification with the ultimate goal of transforming Hela into a Melanesian oil and gas funded equivalent of Dubai. The promise to transform Hela into a city is a galvanising vision that belies a complex descent system that has underpinned the occupation of agricultural, rather than urban landscapes. This transformation is resulting in radical changes to the ways in which Huli have traditionally negotiated their relationship to the land.