This comes from They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases by Howard Rheingold.
Ginny
biga peula (Kiriwina, New Guinea)
Potentially disruptive, unredeemable true statements. [noun]
In most cultures around the world, certain words or phrases are almost never used because they invariably lead to physical violence, and often to the death of either the person who utters them or the person to whom the words were directed. In the West, these are known as "fighting words," and both their nature and their effect seem to vary from culture to culture. In some cultures and circumstances, insults are considered friendly. And in some countries, an insult to one's horse or manner of dress can be far more odious than the worst kinship-related insults.
The Kiriwina tribespeople of the Trobriand Islands vest great power in certain unspoken truths (see mokita in this chapter). There are many things in Kiriwina life that everybody is presumed to know about but that nobody talks about directly. The Kiriwina use the phrase biga peula (literally, "hard words," pronounced BEE-kuh POOL-uh) to refer to direct references to certain unspoken truths. Social contracts among the Kiriwina, like social contracts among any other group of people, consist of many arrangements, spoken and unspoken, by which the members of the society agree to pay attention to certain things or to ignore certain things, in order to promote the smooth functioning of the society. Among the Kiriwina, so much power resides in the unspoken social contracts that the rare use of the biga peula can reorder the reality of individuals and entire social groups by forcing them to pay attention to that which is commonly ignored. So much power is vested in these words that the act of "speaking hard words" is irrevocable. Even the most vicious insults can be atoned for by the right kind of apologies and/or reparations. But a Kiriwina cannot redeem "hard words" by apologizing.
This phenomenon is not confined to the Kiriwina. In many companies, you can get yourself fired by saying out loud what everybody knows to be true: "The boss is an idiot." In every marriage, there are phrases that partners never use, no matter how bitter the argument, unless they are ready for the marriage to end: "I've had a mistress for six years" is biga peula for a husband to say to a wife, just as "You aren't Tommy's father" is a biga peula for a wife to say to a husband. A useful phrase in many of these situations might be: "Wait! Don't say what you are about to say. It could be biga peula for us." But in the rough-and-tumble world of business and other pragmatic enterprises like war and marriage, it is sometimes necessary to speak openly of that which is normally left unspoken. When a board of directors, a platoon, or a family approaches certain critical decisions, it is time for somebody to take the chance of suffering extreme social consequences for the sake of a possible breakthrough by deliberately speaking biga peula.
Among the Kiriwina, there are only a few alternatives to combat once biga peula have been spoken. One of these alternatives is a ritual that averts outright violence; however, one anthropologist reported that this ritual produced more fear and anxiety than any other public event he had witnessed. See the definition of biritilulo in chapter five for more details of the terror-producing yam-comparing ceremony of the Kiriwina.
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biritilulo (Kiriwina, New Guinea)
Comparing yams to settle disputes. [noun]
The difference between literal and metaphorical meaning of words and gestures is most critical when it comes to the rites and rituals we use to mediate conflicts between people. In the Trobriand Islands, settling disputes between different social groups can be a thorny matter, even in a racially and culturally homogeneous society like that of the Kiriwina, who believe that people can live together in peace only if nobody talks about what everybody knows concerning certain sensitive matters. Because of the taboos built into their use of language, opposing Kiriwina individuals and groups can find themselves involved in mortal combat if they happen to say the wrong thing in the heat of anger. (See mokita and biga peula in chapter two.) In order to avoid or defuse the potentially explosive situations, the Kiriwina resort to a linguistic abstraction involving an inanimate object that has great symbolic importance in Kiriwina life and lore--the yam.
Anthropologist Annette B. Weiner, who lived among the Kiriwina, wrote, "A biritilulo [bury-tee-LOO-low] produces more fear and anxiety than any other public event I witnessed." This fearsome ritual occurs when two opposing clans gather in front of witnesses, then retire for a short time and produce a number of yams, which are then exhibited and compared against one another! To understand the way this culture has found a way to use such a seemingly innocuous object as an important social pressure valve, it is necessary to understand the central importance of yams to Kiriwina life and society. Each adult male in the society owns a yam house, which is filled not by the individual's unassisted efforts but through the work of all the men who are related to the owner by means of a network of kinship and clan connections. During the yam harvest, men spend most of their time working for other men.
Because the yam is a currency and a symbol of important social relationships, the act of displaying a yam is a potent means of drawing attention to the power, abilities, status, or political intentions of the person or group who displays it. When a member of a group makes the mistake of saying the irrevocable "hard words" (see biga peula in chapter two) to a member of another group, the individuals and their associates have the choice of combat or the ritualistic comparison of yams. The offending individual's clansmen quickly organize a biritilulo; as soon as the loud and frightening but ultimately harmless exchange of boasts about the size of the opposing clan's yams is under way, the fighting is averted.
In contemporary American business practices similar situations sometimes arise, in which people watch their colleagues drift toward mutually destructive infighting and outright conflict, often over an incident where one party or the other made the mistake of saying some "hard words." In politics, these disputes are sometimes handled informally, by the opposing politicians' clans of advisers. In business, a ritual for averting conflict is badly needed. On the international level, wouldn't it be a powerful tool for peace if we could only convince diplomats to use yams instead of armies to settle arguments? The next time you see your boss or your colleague on a collision course, and you are on friendly terms with a friend of the opposing side, perhaps you ought to suggest an Americanized version of biritilulo: Gather at the local bar and select a ritual object for clamorous comparison: A personal computer? Briefcases? Watches?
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