The Etoro, or Edolo, are a tribe and ethnic group of Papua New Guinea. Their territory comprises the southern slopes of Mt. Sisa, along the southern edge of the central mountain range of New Guinea, near the Papuan Plateau. They are well known among anthropologists because of ritual homosexual acts practised between young boys and men of the tribe. The Etoro believe that young boys must ingest the semen of their elders to achieve adult male status and to properly mature and grow strong.
The Etoro believe that they each contain a certain amount of life force, the highest concentrations of which are contained in semen. This life force passes to others through sexual relations. Women are seen to waste the life force if they do not get pregnant after sexual intercourse. As people get older, and their bodies weaken, this is attributed to a depletion of their life force.
Homosexual acts, particularly oral sex, is encouraged throughout youth for males, with different sexual roles fulfilled by adolescents of different ages. Heterosexuality is permitted only during a distinct time period of the year (about 100 days) and only in certain places (neither in sleeping quarters nor in the fields, but only in the woods).
A woman who enjoys sex too much is seen as a witch trying to steal the life force from a man . Similarly, boys who grow too quickly are assumed to be sapping the life force from other boys. Seen as too sex-hungry, he might be shunned as a witch .
Kottak reports that whilst homosexual behaviour is encouraged between older men and younger boys it is discouraged in other pairings.
O'Neil and Kottak agree that most men marry and have heterosexual relations with their wives. The fear that heterosexual sex causes them to die earlier and the belief that homosexual sex prolongs life means that heterosexual relations are focused towards reproduction.