This contribution examines briefly some major issues concerning the human colonisation of the Southeast Asian islands which lie east of the Wallace Line, and the Pacific Islands. First, a number of contextual and chronological issues are discussed with respect to the Pleistocene and Austronesian layers of human colonisation. These issues are all subject to debate, and in the second section an opinion is offered as to why different interpretative world views can often appear to clash so inelastically. Looking-in versus looking-out approaches to interpretation, the attractions of phylogeny versus reticulation, and an unfortunate tendency to believe in unsound radiocarbon dates are all major factors here. Indeed, issues connected with archaeolinguistic origin and dispersal, in Oceania as elsewhere in the world, will always attract a polarisation of views because of their underlying broad significance. The final section of the paper discusses some interpretations of archaeolinguistic prehistory in Southeast Asia which are deemed to have multidisciplinary support. People and Culture in Oceania, 16: 5-17.
Key words: Southeast Asia; Oceania; archaeology; prehistory; colonisation; linguistic history.
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New Zealand was one of the last land masses in the world to be colonised by humans. The Polynesian ancestors of the Mãori had to adapt to a land that was fundamentally unsuited to the way of life they were used to on the tiny tropical islands from which they came. Regional diversity in New Zealand meant that the subsistence economy varied considerably from largely horticultural in the most climatically favourable regions to fully hunter-gatherer in southern and inland districts. Even within broadly similar regions, some communities had better access to resources than others did. Human impact on the environment was considerable but people may not have perceived the effects of some of their activities until it was too late. The Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand, were the final frontier of Polynesian adaptation. People and Culture in Oceania, 16: 19-39.
Key words: colonisation; adaptation; environmental impact; New Zealand; Chatham Islands; Polynesian; Mãori; Moriori.
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Detailed records of mobility and changes of residence are analysed, according to sex, status and motive, from one Kubo community over fourteen months (1986-87) and from three neighbouring Kubo and Konai communities across ten years (1986-96). The Kubo-Konai are a low-density, highly dispersed population in which short-term circular mobility is high, settlement relocation is common, but migration beyond the local area is relatively low. Each Kubo or Konai individual may be understood as being embedded in a progressively less dense set of relationships that reaches out from a particular place of residence. A high density of relationships with co-residents of a particular village establishes a localized community that appears cohesive to all participants and observers. A lower density of relationships established through recurring visits to neighbouring communities establishes a sense of community on another scale that acts to guarantee alternative residential possibilities, and access to resources, should the need arise. People and Culture in Oceania, 16: 43-65.
Key words: mobility; nomadism; settlement pattern; Kubo; Papua New Guinea.
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A minimum of ten adults, six sub-adults, and one child were represented from 98 human dental and skeletal remains from two burial caves and three habitation sites on Henderson Island, Pitcairn group, southeast Polynesia. The general health of the individuals was good, although there was a significant amount of periodontal disease, occlusal wear, and antemortum tooth loss. Radiographs of selected bones did not reveal any signs of nutritional stress. Long thought to be the remains of historic castaways, morphological features suggest a Mongoloid biological affiliation and radiocarbon dating establishes the prehistoric age of the bones (early 12th-17th centuries A.D.). Population structure points to a small, but probably resident community on Henderson that experienced periodic influx from populations on Pitcairn island and Mangareva. People and Culture in Oceania, 16: 67-85.
Key words: skeletal biology; prehistoric archaeology; Polynesia; Pitcairn group; Henderson Island; radiocarbon dating.
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Ideas of landscape among the Duna people of Lake Kopiago District in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea center on the people's lived experience of places and the names they give to these places as a record of their relationships with them and with one another in their social groups. Both the experience and the knowledge of places, in particular of sacred sites including secondary burial sites of the dead, are preserved and expressed in a number of genres of speech and song: funeral laments ("cry-songs"), courting songs, ballads, and compensation speeches for past deaths made by leaders. It is thus through their extensive practices of naming places and weaving them into their aesthetic and practical view of the world that the Duna express their continuing attachment to their land. This attachment is also set into a general framework by which the landscape is classified and apprehended. Contemporary changes, such as the activities of international mining companies, have produced a renewed interest in the environment and its named places, because of the Duna people's concern over possible environmental damage and their wish to make authenticated claims for compensation from the companies involved. Knowledge of the landscape has thus become a resource in a contested arena of local power versus outside forms of power. We argue that seeing landscape as a resource in this way enables us to better understand its meanings to the Duna in their contemporary world. These meanings, however, are also rooted in the past. People and Culture in Oceania, 16: 87-107.
Keywords: Duna, environment, landscape, mining, Papua New Guinea, place-names, songs.
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After Sitiveni Rabuka led Fiji's first military coup in 1987, he claimed that he had completed a God-given mission. However, at a church gathering held in November 1996, Rabuka, now Prime Minister of Fiji, apologized to the nation and to God for what he termed his past sinful conduct. Rabuka's apology triggered a heated nationwide debate. Many prominent critics accused Rabuka of mixing politics and faith in order to avoid accountability for the political problems caused by the coup. Many Christians, however, pleaded that Rabuka's apology be understood as an expression of faith and not as a strategic act.
In analyses of Rabuka's uses of his Christian faith in 1987, anthropologists have focused on the "politics of meaning" inherent in his rhetorical manipulations of symbolic categories such as "chiefs," "land," and "church." Yet, Rabuka's 1996 apology poses an uneasy challenge to such analyses: For many Christians, the apology was a moment at which Rabuka submitted himself to God's decision-that is, a moment at which his politics or strategic thought stopped. In this article, I attempt to understand these responses to Rabuka's 1996 apology as an encounter with the nature and limits of politics as a mode of interpretation defined by a particular temporal directionality. People and Culture in Oceania, 16: 109-122.
Key words: agency; politics; temporality; military coups; Christianity; Fiji.
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The use of resources for sustaining livelihood under conditions of rapid population increase was compared between a fishing-trading community called Mouk and a horticultural-fishing community called Perelik, both on Baluan Island, Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. Mouk villagers depended heavily on marine resources, particularly trochus shells, as the main source of cash income, and on coconuts, two-thirds of which were processed into coconut oil and exchanged for sago starch. A 14-day food consumption survey in Mouk revealed that more than 80% of both energy and protein were taken from marine resources and coconuts obtained locally, sago starch obtained by means of exchange for coconut oil, and purchased foods obtained by means of selling marine resources. However, three-quarters of their coconuts were harvested in a neighboring village on Baluan Island and on the neighboring Pam Island. The trochus shells collected from the Mouk reef were smaller than those from the neighboring reefs around Baluan and the "open-access" sea area, reflecting overexploitation in the former. Mouk villagers' coping strategies to contend with their limited resources are compared with those of Perelik villagers and discussed with special concern for their future survival. People and Culture in Oceania, 16: 123-134.
Key words: resource exploitation; coconut; trochus shell; population increase; Titan-speaking population; Manus.
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