Domestic water use in the New Guinea Highlands: the case of the Raiapu Enga. May 1973.

Abstract

Study of traditional patterns of water use. Data reported for the Raiapu Enga clan in the Saka Valley near Wapenamanda in the Western Highlands. Regional and environment and culture briefly described. Attitudes to water, including fear of poison,, female contamination. Sources are natural streams, rivers and springs. Rainwater also in the wet season. Pollution status varies from relatively clean to human and porcine faecal material. Water is collected in late afternoons in gourds, bamboos, tins and cooking pots, for which the average return journey takes 12.5 minutes. Each domestic group collects 2.46 liters a day of which 79% is drunk. The rest is used for cooking food (for humans and pigs), drinking for dogs, pigs and chickens, washing utensils, and discarded. Total per capita use is 0.68 litres per day. On average 0.54 litres are drunk daily and, including the water both contained in food and caused by food oxidation. 2.4 litres per day are available to the body. Per capita use decreases with increasing size of domestic group: travel time to source has no association with water use patterns. Major non-domestic uses of water include coffee washing and growing the reed-like plant Kuta from which women's aprons are made.