The word "Iatmul" was coined by Gregory Bateson during his initial period of anthropological research among the language group in the late 1920s. In his 1932 article in the journal Oceania, Bateson wrote that he "adopted the name Iatmul as a general term for the people. But I doubt whether I am right in so doing."Bateson, Gregory. Social Structure of the Iatmul People of the Sepik River. Oceania 2 (3) 1932:245-91. The reference is to fn 2, p. 249. In Mindimbit village, he reported, local people referred to the entire linguistic group with the compound phrase Iatmul-Iambonai. The word Iambon (pronounced Yambon) referred then, and still does, to the uppermost Iatmul-speaking village along the river. Iatmul referred only to a single, small clan. The use of the word Iatmul to signify the entire group was Bateson's convention, and it thereafter gained anthropological and wider currency. However, the term is rarely used by Iatmul speakers. In fact, Iatmul speakers rarely have reason to refer to the entire language group. The Iatmul are not a centralized tribe. They never act politically, socially, or economically as a single unit. Villages are autonomous. People tend to self-identify not as Iatmul or, as they sometimes say, Iatmoi, but in terms of their clan, lineage, village, or sometimes just the colonial-era regional term, Sepik.
