| Abstract: |
This article presents data regarding the Bintuni area in the southeastern Bird's Head, in particular the Sougb people. The data are presented from the perspective of 'movement of objects, persons, relationships, and ideas': the circulation of valuables, marriage exchange, migrations, and oral tradition. The article begins with an analysis of historical sources concerning foreign principalities which for centuries dominated, either directly or by their representatives, the western part of the Bintuni Gulf. The migrations and expanding exchange relations, triggered off by this domination, are contextualized on the basis of publications on the eastern Bird's Head from the end of the 1950s/beginning 1960s. In addition, some research data are compared with those from the Moi in the northwestern Bird's Head. The concluding section briefly analyzes the Sougb myth of origin.
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