Building on an incipient tendency to make comparisons between Indonesian and Melanesian cultural themes, this study makes a fresh comparison of themes that interrelate ethnographies of eastern Indonesia (for example, Sumba, Flores), Irian Jaya (the Bird's Head), and the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (Melpa, Duna). The themes chosen include slavery and personhood, kinship and commoditization, cassowary myths, sky beings, witchcraft, female spirits,...