"In working among the Abelam of New Guinea, Richard Scaglion was puzzled why they invest so much energy in growing giant ceremonial yams, sometimes more than ten feet long. And why do they abstain from sex for six months while they grow them?
...The Abelam think of yams as having souls that appreciate tranquility. Yams also have family lines; at marriage, the joining of family lines is symbolized by planting different yam lines in the same garden.
During the yam-growing cycle, lethal warfare and conflict become channeled mostly into competitive but nonlethal yam-growing contests."
-Ember & Ember & Peregrine, New Directions in Anthropology
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