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The wider movement, of course, culminated later in the politically inspired withdrawal from the national civil service of Bougainville's most highly qualified people. The years from 1969 saw the rise of the Hahalis 'camp' as an informal institution, reaching a peak in size in the early 1970s. The paradox began to emerge that Hahalis was seen from the outside as being slow to take up the concrete structures which had been foreshadowed by its own ideological commitments. A combined meeting of Welfare and Council representatives was convened at Hahalis in November 1968, five months after it was proposed but the first such meeting to be held on Welfare territory. Ever since the organisation of the clubhouses as equivalent cells in the Welfare organisation, the tsunono had been sending to Hahalis their young teitahol, the point of new growth and the guarantee of continuity, and their numbers reached a peak.

The present paper discusses some of the ways feminist discourse was articulated on Bougainville both during and after the secessionist war that took place on the island between 1989 and 2000. Inspired by feminist discourse, non-governmental organisations have reconfigured Bougainvillean women into newly organised spheres of influence (as moral agents, peacemakers or victims) that potentially distort the matrilineal structure of their society, which is the true source of the women's power and authority. Gender mainstreaming has become a major platform for social and political change managed by outside agencies in what is now the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. The present paper engages with current feminist debate that challenges the universal application of the concept of gender and gender mainstreaming, and especially considers the indigenous African critique in relation to matrilineal societies.

Sacrifice is an act and a concept of considerable importance to contemporary conflict. However, interpretations of the role and nature of sacrifice vary historically, culturally, and situationally. This article discusses the various ways that sacrifice has been interpreted in the anthropological literature, including an analysis of forms of conflict, negotiation, and sacrifice pertaining to Bougainville. Profes sional conciliators and government emissaries negotiating a solution to the Bougainville conflict brought into play ideologies and processes they often claimed were based on an understanding of indigenous ways of resolving conflict. A critical assessment of this claim discusses the possible effects of the co-option of ritual and traditional means of negotiation and considers what is lost in translation.