Female spirit cults as a window on gender relations in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Early writings on male cults in the highlands of Papua New Guinea tended to stress the exclusion of women and the collective agency of men. Looking at a subset of these cults from the Western and Southern Highlands Provinces, centering on Female Spirit figures, the authors argue that in these cases the cults are better understood as expressions of a collaborative model, in which gendered cooperation, both in practice and in terms of ritual symbolism, is activated in order to produce fertility and wealth. Positive collaboration is involved as well as structural complementarity. The collaborative model is therefore suggested as an alternative to the model of "male exclusivity" in the analysis of certain cult practices in these parts of the New Guinea highlands region.