Piot was one of the great puzzlements of my fieldwork in Lihir. It was a concept I heard used continuously throughout my time in Lihir once it came to my attention about six weeks after my arrival. In this chapter I employ the concept of piot as a window onto Lihirian notions of personhood, as well as the importance and high frequency of mobility between households, villages and islands. Piot highlights one aspect of the nature of the relationship between people and place.

The nature of piot

In general, piot is a condition with a number of bodily symptoms that arises when people either leave the house to sleep elsewhere or people come from elsewhere and sleep in the hamlet. While the person who moves feels nothing, those who were occupying the house/hamlet prior to the arrival/departure develop a range of symptoms including headache, bodily pain, tiredness, and if already ill they feel worse generally for one day after the arrival/departure. Piot makes people sleep late. I once had my sore throat ascribed to piot by a neighbour, as a number of people had returned to the hamlet after a few days absence.

If a person moves between houses within a household, other members of the household will feel piot but other people in the hamlet will not.