Diverse Culture in the “Ongka’s Big Moka” Film Essay

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Culture and traditions are a big part of our lives, which is represented in the way we dress, build relationships with others, things we say, and so forth. As many people seem to grow up in one particular culture, they tend to adopt a certain viewpoint on life. In the film, Ongka’s Big Moka, completely diverse culture is demonstrated for a viewer to compare and gain insights on the world’s diversity. In this response paper, the film’s idea, major cultural themes, and key topics will be discussed.

The main point of the film was to demonstrate the social, political and cultural traditions of New Guinea tribes and illustrate the tradition of Moka. Moka is the basis of the tribal economy and is an important ritual, which seems to contrast with Western, Asian or any other traditions. The culture and economy of life built around giving gifts to other people are indeed very rare, and the authors of the film apparently wanted to describe it in a documentary.

Gift-based economies represent a particular interest to modern science as archaic forms of organization of society, distribution of wealth and power. The film creates a sense of parallel reality as one tries to believe that such a relationship system can exist in real life. The film also shows that power as the ability to influence other people’s decisions is important for many people, and some are ready to put everything on the line to achieve it. One scene from the film, where Ongka was trying to persuade other tribes to initiate gift giving, however, showed that verbal negotiation is also a big part of social life.

One of the main themes in the film is the role of a deed as opposed to spoken word. In the tribes depicted in the film, an act of giving possesses the ultimate power. It can give a person either the status of a Big Man or lead them to poverty and loss. In western culture, language serves as an instrument to achieve wealth and status (Eller, 2009). Here one can see that it is not always true. It is fascinating how these people value only the physical act of what they consider to be a virtue and necessary attribute of life.

In comparison to American culture where language and verbal communication constitutes the basis of human relationship, here it is valued to the extent of voicing one’s intentions. Such considerations imbue the idea of cultural relativism and inappropriateness of western values for evaluation of such in these tribes.

Another topic that could be identified in the film is the notion of cultural diffusion being not effective in this case. The reason why the penetration of Asian or Western cultures did not occur is probably the relative isolation of the area. The globalization also surprisingly did not cause significant fundamental changes in the way the tribal society works. This is probably because there is no need for them or that the cultural exchange started fairly recently and generations have to change.

All in all, the film was a fascinating cultural discovery. It illustrated a variety of topics from the lectures including cultural diffusion, language as a source of power, globalization and cultural change, and overall variety of cultures. While actions seem to dominate over words in this tribe’s culture, it is still an instrument of negotiation. The film raises a lot of interesting themes and is an informative documentary piece.

Reference

Eller, J. D. (2009). Cultural anthropology: Global forces, local lives. London, UK: Routledge.

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