10
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, April 3, 1968
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Photo by Jerry Bean
LINGUIST DRESSES WIG SHE BOUGHT
Professor Frances Ingemann, chairman of the KU linguistics department, is pictured decorating a wig she purchased from an Ipili-Payali native of New Guinea. The circular wig is adorned with the skin of a small animal, ornamented with clusters of feathers and plumed with white feathers. The other objects in the picture are some of the artifacts she purchased for the anthropology department.
Cosby will entertain KU
Bill Cosbv. nationallv-known comedian and star of the "I Spy" television series, will appear at 7 and 9:30 p.m., Thursday at Hoch Auditorium.
The program, sponsored by the Student Union Activities (SUA), will mark the last of the Special Hoch Concert Series. 400 seats are left for the 7 p.m. show and 800 are left for 9:30 p.m.
Scheduled to backstop Cosby at the concert are the Pair Extraordinaire, a duo consisting of Carl Craig, singer, and Marcus Hemphill, bassist, whose repertoire ranges from soul numbers to rock music.
Cosby has recorded six comedy albums and two singing albums. In NBC's hour long TV series "I Spy," Cosby plays the part of secret agent Alexson Scott, a
KYLE CRAIG student body president
BRUDER STAPLETON senior class president
PETE WOODSMALL IPS president
MIKE KIRK SUA president
— ENDORSE —
HINES—VAN SICKLE PAULSEN—PETEFISH soph. class officers
Rhodes scholar. He received two Emmy awards and was named Best Television Actor by the American Cinema editors for his performance in the series.
Cosby has said his comedy is based on his own experiences.
Pd: hopp
Primitive artifacts provide cultural clues for linguist
By Jerry Bean Kansan Staff Reporter
"If I saw someone wearing something I wanted, I offered to buy it; usually they took off what they were wearing and handed it over," she said, grimming.
Because the clothing was different and was arranged ceremoniously, Miss Ingemann said she "filmed a man getting dressed; everything he put on, to see how he does it."
Fearing these outside influences would change the primitive technology in the area. Miss Ingemann sought artifacts that were actually in use by the owners when they were purchased.
A collection of artifacts from a primitive tribe living in New Guinea has arrived at the University of Kansas. They were collected by a KU linguist as a favor to the anthropology department.
The Ipiili-Paliyeli have had continued contact with western civilization only since 1961 and still live in their traditional way. However, contacts with Australian policemen, who administer the territory, other governmental officials, missionaries, and traders are causing the old patterns of living to undergo rapid change.
The purchases were made possible by funds from the KU Endowment Association. Professor Frances Ingemann, chairman of the linguistics department, bought the articles from natives living in a remote highland area of the United Nations Trust Territory in New Guinea.
Miss Ingemann was interested in the Ipili-Paiyali language because it had not been studied before. She compared this desire to entomology, "If an entomologist hears of a new bug, he wants to see if it is like species elsewhere."
Today, traders bring them shirts from Hong Kong, pots, knives and razors. Almost every family has a knife or a razor, she said.
In studying the language, she had to know the culture—"a culture not yet subject to much change from contact with western civilization," she said.
"The people were friendly, open and cooperative, usually," she said.
"They were as curious about me as I was about them," she said as she described how they were fascinated by seeing an American woman.
The natives are able to make netted material, which men wear around their waists as their only clothing. They can roughly work things from wood and until recently have done this carving with stone axes, she said.
The natives now buy "clothing for the upper parts of their bodies; it gets cold up there." Miss
She soon rectified this as she decided, "if they could come and stare at me. I could go and stare at them." And apparently she did, because she returned with both motion pictures and colored slides to show the life of the people and their use of the artifacts collected. This collection includes a bow and several blood stained arrows, a wig made from human hair with all the trimmings of wooden pins, animal furs and feathers, a carved bamboo pipe, a drum and other musical instruments.
She said the Ipili-Paiyali have a technologically primitive culture.
"They don't know how to weave, make pottery, make glass, forge metals and don't even have beasts of burden," she said. However, "it is surprising how well they get along."
Ingemann said. "Naturally they cover the lower parts," she blushed, "both men and women may wear a wrapped skirt."
With the enthusiasm she displays when describing the people and their culture, she must have gone to know a language and come back knowing the people and how they communicated.
Her methods of study included extensive use of a tape recorder. She noted that even though the natives had never seen a tape recorder before, they reacted much the same way we do. Most of them were fascinated with the magical device and were anxious to have their voices recorded.
"They liked to use dirty language and roar with laughter when it was played back," the linguist noted.
Her recordings consisted mainly of folklore because they were rarely recorded in textual matter.
"The finest ones (folk tales) were chanted for over an hour with stylistic devices and poetic vocabulary," she said. The stories themselves wouldn't make a lot of sense to us. However, they are often about the adventures of a young man after meeting a girl. They did not center on animals as is common in other folk tales, she noted.
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