The Baruya are a people of the highlands of Papua New Guinea. They were extensively studied by French anthropologist Maurice Godelier between 1967 and 1988.
In 1973 there were approximately 1500 Baruya people living in the Wonenara and Marawaka valleys. They have been described as characterised by a strong inequality between males and females; all their organisations, institutions, and myths present male domination. They have traditionally practised a ritual in which boys give fellatio to young males and drink their semen, to "re-engender themselves prior to marriage". According to French anthropologist Maurice Godelier,
However, according to a 2016 study by Anne-Sylvie Malbrancke, "male domination is no longer ideologically inscribed in the superiority of semen by analysing the symbolic shift that both semen and menstrual blood have undergone and showing how closely tied this shift is to a new organisation of gendered roles and places within Baruya society".
For seven years between 1967 and 1988, French anthropologist Maurice Godelier, assistant of Claude Lévi-Strauss, lived among the Baruya people and studied them. Godelier invited Australian ethnographic filmmaker Ian Dunlop, of the Australian Commonwealth Film Unit, to film their initiation ceremonies, which was produced as a nine-part series called Towards Baruya Manhood in 1973, as well as another 13-part series.