Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 2 - Oceania - T pot

Tahiti 305 Tahiti ETHNONYM: Society Islands Orientation Identification. The name 'Tahiti"-or, as Bougainville first wrote it in 1768, "Taiti," and Cook in 1769, 'Otaheite"-was the name the natives gave their island and which Europeans came to apply to the indigenes. If the Tahi- tians had a name specifically identifying themselves, it is not known. What is known is that all of those living in the Society Archipelago, including Tahiti, referred to themselves as "Maohi." Location. The island of Tahiti upon which the Tahitians lived is the largest of the Society Islands and is located in the windward segment of that group at 149°30' W and 17°30' S. It is a high island of volcanic origin with peaks rising above 1,500 meters. The mountainous interior is covered with forest and ferns while the lower slopes, especially on the leeward side, are brush and reed covered. In the inhabited valleys and coastal plains open stands of indigenous trees and tall grasses were scattered between the cultivated fields of the Tahitians. Wild fowl were said to have been relatively scarce and limited to a few species, pigeons and ducks being specifically mentioned. Wild four-legged creatures were limited to a few small lizards and the Polynesian rat, the latter probably brought by Polynesians. Linguistic Affiliation. The Tahitic language of the Tahi- tians belongs to the Eastern Polynesian Subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian Subdivision of the Austronesian languages. Demography. Estimates of Tahiti's population in the later years of the eighteenth century varied from as few as 16,050 to approximately 30,000 persons, and thus these estimates are of little factual value. A nineteenth-century decline in population due to wars and diseases is known to have occurred. However, by 1907, after which it was no longer possible to segregate indigenous totals from those of foreigners and immigrant Polynesians from other islands, the number of Tahitians was said to number 11,691. History and Cultural Relations Present archaeological evidence supports the view that the Society Islands, of which Tahiti is a part, were the first to be populated in eastern Polynesia from an eastern Polynesia dis- persal center in the Marquesas, perhaps as early as A.D. 850. Whether later prehistoric migrants ever reached the Society Islands is an open question. Limited archaeological data and tradition suggest the occurrence of prehistoric Society Island emigrations to New Zealand and Hawaii. However, by contact times Tahitian voyaging, primarily for political and trade purposes, was limited to the islands of the archipelago and the atolls of the western Tuamotus. In contrast to prehistoric culture change on Tahiti, which had occurred in small incre- ments, the discovery of the island by Wallis in 1767 marked the beginning of strong European acculturative forces im- pacting on the traditional life-ways of Tahitians. Except for material goods, the most notable changes occurred with the arrival of Protestant missionaries in 1797. Within several years after their arrival a number of Tahitians, including the paramount chief, Pomare 11, had been taught to read and write, and the Christian faith and mores had begun to be accepted. However, objections by more conservative members of the society resulted in a series of internecine wars and it was not until 1815 that Pomare 11 crushed his opponents and, with the aid of the missionaries, successfully guided a religious and political modification of the older traditional order. With the development of American and European whaling arid sealing activities Tahiti became a prime distribu. tion center for goods. By 1840 South American currencies had come to be accepted as a substitute for the old trading techniques. At the same time, foreign immigrants and invest- ments on the island produced a variety of problems for which the Tahitians were ill prepared. Foreign government overtures to Queen Pomare to establish a protectorate resulted in the French moving quickly to annex the island in 1842 and thus dissolving Tahitian native rule. Settlements Prior to European intervention, Tahitians followed a pattern of dispersed settlements, dwellings being scattered along the coastal plain and up the broader valleys. By the nineteenth century missionary activities and the use by European vessels of safe harbors on the island resulted in the formation of villages near these locations. The Tahitian house resembled a flattened oval inground plan, the long sides being parallel and the two ends rounded. The thatched roof extended down on all sides from a central ridgepole extending lengthwise along the house. Most dwellings were enclosed by a wall of vertically lashed bamboo poles, a space being left open in the middle of one long side to serve as a doorway. Such structures averaged about 6 meters in length with a width of 3.6 meters and a ridge height of 2.7 meters. However, important chiefs might have buildings measuring as much as 91 meters in length and proportionately wide, with a ridgepole resting some 9 meters above the tamped earthen floor. Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Tahitians were horticulturalists raising a variety of tree and tuberous crops as well as plantains, all of which, except sweet potatoes, origi- nated in southeast Asia or Melanesia. Domesticated animals included pigs, dogs, and chickens. Fish, caught by a variety of techniques, were a dominant source of protein. Contact with Europeans resulted in the addition of several American and Old World plants and domesticated animals. During the early nineteenth century a successful pork trade with New South Wales was carried on and this was followed later by exports of coconut oil, sugarcane, and arrowroot. Provisioning of Euro- pean ships became a major nineteenth-century source of income. Industrial Arts. Decorated bark cloth was a major aboriginal industrial art created by women and used as clothing, as formal gifts, and for export trade. Bark-cloth production continued into the twentieth century, but such cloth is no longer manufactured. Trade. Regular aboriginal trading was carried on with the leeward islands of the Society Archipelago and the western 306 Tahiti atolls of the Tuamotus. The principal item for exchange was bark cloth, to which was added provisions in the case of the Tuamotu atolls. With the arrival of Europeans, iron became the dominant item traded to those atolls. In exchange, Tahi- tians obtained dog hair, pearls, and pearl shells from the Tua- motus and coconut oil and canoes from the leeward islands. Division of Labor. Traditionally, general construction work and manufacturing of tools, weapons, canoes, and fishing gear was men's work, as was fishing, major ritualism, and warfare. Women created bark cloth, wove mats, and fash- ioned clothing from both materials. Farming was shared by both sexes. Land Tenure. At the time of contact landownership with the right of inheritance was recognized for those of the chiefly and commoner classes, with only the lower class, known as teuteu, being excluded. Such lands were subject to taxation in kind by the ruling chiefs who could banish an owner if such taxes were not forthcoming. Missionary activity in the nineteenth century seems to have resulted in at least some of the teuteu class obtaining land rights. Kinship Kin Groups and Descent. Descent was bilateral with social weight tending to favor patrilateral ties. Consanguineal and, perhaps, affinal kin were grouped in what have been referred to as kin congregations who worshiped their own tutelar deity at their group religious structure, referred to as a marae. Primogeniture was important in ranking within the kin congregation. While women were excluded from the marae of the large kin congregations, that was not always true for marae of smaller kin congregations. Kinship Terminology. The term matahiapo was applied to firstborn as well as all representatives of a family stock de- scended in the line of the firstborn. Teina was used to distin- guish younger brothers, sisters, and cousins who were not matahiapo; otherwise, the Hawaiian type of kinship terminology was used. Marriage and Family Marriage. Tahitians disapproved of marriage between dose consanguineal kin, but how close was never made clear. However, marriage was not permitted between those of differing social classes. Therefore, children resulting from a sexual relationship between partners of differing classes were killed upon birth. In the eighteenth century young couples were required to obtain the permission of their parents before marriage, and among the chiefly class early betrothal was said to be the norm and concubinage was common. Marriage ceremonies, when present, consisted of prayers at a marae. There appeared to be no fixed residency requirement and divorce was by common consent. Domestic Unit. The nuclear family was the dominant unit. Inheritance. The firstborn son became the head of the family at birth and succeeded to his father's name, lands, and title, if any. The father then served as the child's regent until he became of age. In the event of the firstborn dying, the next son succeeded him. There is some indication that in the absence of male offspring, an oldest daughter might be the inheritor. Socialization. Children were raised permissively by their parents, although those of the chiefly class were given a degree of education through teachers of that class. Men and women ate separately, and there was a variety of restrictions regarding who might prepare another's meal. Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization. During the eighteenth century, there were basically three social classes: the ari'i, or chiefs; the com- moners, variously known as manahuni or ra'atira; and the la- boring and servant class known as teuteu. Only the last group could not own land. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, perhaps because of European influence, a fourth class called titi, consisting of slaves derived from warfare, had been added. Political Organization. In the early years of European contact Tahitian tribes were grouped into two major territorial units. One constituted the larger northwestern portion of the island and was known as Tahiti Nui, while the other consisted of the southeastern Taiarapu Peninsula and was known as Tahiti Iti. Each maintained a paramount chief of sociore- ligious power. Below this highest position were chiefs who ruled over what may be likened to districts. These were divided into smaller units and managed by inferior ranked chiefs. A paramount chiefs power was not unlimited, since important matters affecting most or all of his region were de- cided by a council of high-ranking chiefs. Paramountcy was not totally preordained, as wars and kinship alliances served to maintain such a status. It was with European aid and com- binations of these factors that the Pomare paramountcy was maintained well into the nineteenth century. Social Control. Fear of divine retribution was a major control, while human sacrifice and a variety of corporal punish- ments for secular antisocial behavior were also used as sanc- tions. justice in the latter cases was determined by a district chief, and the right to appeal to one's paramount chief was available. Conflict. Confusion regarding tribal territories and overin- dulgence of chiefly demands for products and services were sources of irritation. At the time of European contact, warfare for chiefly aggrandizement, rather than territorial acqui- sition, was dominant. By the close of the eighteenth century the European tradition of warfare for territorial gain had been added to the traditional theme of warfare. Minor interper- sonal conflicts were resolved by each antagonist being allowed to exhibit publicly his strong resentment of whatever indiscretion had caused the conflict, after which both parties soon reconciled. However, more important conflicts were settled by a district chief, the antagonists having the right to appeal his decision to the paramount chief if not satisfied. Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs. Just as with Tahitian society, native religion recognized a ranked series of gods starting with one su- preme deity and passing down through lesser gods and subor- dinates to individual family spirits of departed relatives. Religion was centered on regional, tribal, and kin tutelar dei- Tairora 307 ties, although a few of the gods transcended such limitations and were, in effect, supratribal deities. Gods required a wide variety of appeasements in order to ensure the continued welfare of the individual as well as the tribe. Early nineteenth century missionary activity successfully substituted Christian beliefs for the earlier traditional ones. Reigiou Practitioners. Aboriginally, priests were of the chiefly class and were of two kinds. There were those who conducted formal rituals during which the gods were prayed to and appeased by gifts in order to gain their favor. Others were inspirational priests through whom particular gods spoke and offered oracular advice. AU priests received some sort of payment for their activities and many were believed to have powers of sorcery. With the nineteenth-century accept- ance of Christianity, various Tahitians, not all necessarily of the chiefly class, were trained by the missionaries to become lay preachers. Ceremonies. Religious ceremonies were carried out in marae, most of which were tabooed to women. Some ceremonies were seasonal affairs, while others pertained to war and peace, thanksgiving, atonement, and critical life-cycle events of chiefs. The degree of ceremonialism was dependent upon the deity and the importance of the marae, those for com- moners in districts and smaller land divisions being the least elaborate. Arts. Drums-and, in the early nineteenth century, shell trumpets-were the only musical instruments used during ceremonies. The raised platforms of certain marae were decorated with carved boards, while the god, Oro, was personified by a wickerwork cylinder enclosing sacred feathers. The culture-hero god, Maui, was represented by a large humanoid wicker figure covered with patterns of feathers. Plaited masks were worn during certain ceremonies on the Taiarapu Peninsula. Medicine. Obvious ailments such as sores and open wounds were treated with herbal medicines and poultices, and splints were applied to broken bones. Less obvious illnesses were thought to occur as a result of sorcery, contact with a sacred individual or object, or the anger of one's god. Curing was attempted through priestly prayers and offerings. Among the chiefly class, these cures were performed at the patient's marae and might include human sacrifices. Death and Afterlife. Untimely death was thought to be because of the anger of one's god, while death through aging was regarded as a natural process. Rank determined the extent of expressions of mourning and the length of time the corpse was exposed on a platform before burial. In the case of high-ranking members of the chiefly class, this time factor was greatly extended by evisceration and oiling of the body. Simple burial, secretive for those of high rank, was customary. There is some indication that cremation was employed for certain individuals on the Taiarapu Peninsula. Among the upper classes human relics were preserved. For some, the afterlife was seen as a state of nothingness, but for others it was believed to be a happy life, for rank in the spirit world remained the same as in life. See also Hawaiians, Marquesas, Rapa, Raroia Bibliography Ferdon, Edwin N. (1981). Early Tahiti as the Explorers Saw It. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Newbury, Colin (1980). Tahiti Nui: Change and Survival in French Polynesia, 1767-1945. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Oliver, Douglas L. (1974). Ancient Tahitian Society. 3 vols. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. EDWIN N. FERDON Tairora l~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ETHNONYMS: Kainantu, Ndumba, Ommura, Taiora Orientation Identification. The Tairora live in the Kainantu District of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Group names and place names are usually the same; for example, "Tairora" (or 'Tai-ora") is the name of a phratry, settlement, and creek near the present-day town of Kainantu. This designation was generalized by Europeans in the 1920s to include all of the much larger ethnolinguistic group. Location. Tairora speakers occupy about 1,035 square kilometers of the region south and east of Kainantu, at 145°45' to 146°15' E and 6°15' to 6°45' S. With annual rainfall of 220-250 centimeters, the region is a catchment area for the Ramu and Lamari River headwaters. The terrain is highly diverse, with large, open grassland dominating the northern ba- sins at elevations of 1,625 to 1,880 meters above sea level, and steeply incised forest- or grass-covered ridges in the south, where the Kratke Range culminates in Mount Piora, at 3,450 meters. The climate is fairly uniform throughout the region, with cool nights, warm days, and relatively wet and dry seasons that alternate with the southeast and northwest mon- soons, respectively. Demography. Current estimates for Tairora speakers place the population at about 14,000, reflecting a steady, if slight, rate of increase since European contact. Nowadays, sizable numbers of Tairora, especially from northern settlements, emigrate to the towns of Kainantu, Goroka, and Lae. Linguistic Affiliation. Tairora, with at least five dialects, is a member of the Eastern Family of Non-Austronesian languages in the East New Guinea Highlands Stock. Many Tairora are bilingual with neighboring languages (Agarabi, Auyana, Binumarien, Gadsup, and Kamano in the north; Awa and Waffa in the south) and currently most males and younger women are fluent in Tok Pisin. Summer Institute of Linguistics translators have produced a considerable amount of religious and educational material in Tairora, but the num- 0 I U9TUT ber of people who are literate in their own language is still fairly small. History and Cultural Relations People, perhaps ancestral to Tairora, have occupied the region for at least 18,000 years. The earliest-known era ar- chaeologically, the Mamu Phase, appears to have been a period of continuous growth and development, with subsistence based in hunting and collecting. After 3,000 B.P., in the Ten- tika Phase, evidence for sedentarism occurs, as do other sug- gestions of the adoption of horticulture. In general, oral traditions point to Tairora homelands to the west and southwest, but groups' origin myths tend to be highly localized. Tairora territory abuts those of other language groups on all sides, and many different sources have contributed to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the region. Since earliest contact with European missionaries, gold prospectors, and adminis- trators (beginning in the 1920s in the north and 1950s in the south), the Tairora social universe has expanded considera- bly. The establishment of the Upper Ramu Patrol Post (now Kainantu) in 1932 and the Aiyura Agricultural Experimental Station in 1937-both in the north-were notable events, beginning the processes of pacification and economic development leading to the current situation, in which Tairora play a prominent role in provincial government. Settlements Settlements in northern Tairora are generally closer together and more nucleated than in the south, where they tend to be hamlet clusters about a half day's walk apart. Most settlements are found at elevations between 1,500 and 1,900 meters, and typically they each had 200-250 residents until recent population surges. Traditionally, wherever allowed by the terrain, ridge-top locations were preferred for defensive purposes; also for defense, except for a few groups living in the open grasslands of the north, settlements were surrounded with high palisades. In an arrangement used until the 1960s in the north, and still used in much of the south, Tairora settlements focused on one or more large, separately palisaded men's houses, with women's houses clustered below (where slope permitted) and with seclusion houses- used by women during menstruation and childbirth and sometimes for sanctuary-separated from living areas and usually surrounded by their own fences. The traditional style for all houses is circular, with low grass and timber walls and conical thatched roofs, windowless and tightly insulated against the night cold. Increasingly nowadays, Tairora have adopted rectangular house styles with walls of woven bamboo. Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Tairora derive most of their subsistence from a wide variety of gardens. Sweet potatoes are the dominant root crop, although yams and taro are also major sources of carbohydrates, especially in the south. Tairora are sophisticated horticulturalists, employ- ing fallowing, mounding of sweet potatoes, and ditching of gardens; in the south, elaborate systems of bamboo pipes are used to irrigate taro gardens. Other important crops include legumes, maize, bananas, sugarcane, and leafy greens; tree crops include pandanus nuts and, in some areas, betel nuts. Domestic pigs are a major source of protein, but they are generally killed and the pork exchanged only on ceremonial occasions. Hunting and collecting also yield food, especially in the more heavily forested south where both game and wild plant foods are more abundant; everywhere, however, game has special salience in rituals and ceremonial prestations. The forests, and to a lesser extent the grasslands, also serve as the source of countless raw materials for manufacture, medicines, and ornamentation. In recent decades various cash crops have been tried by Tairora, with coffee being the most suc- cessfull; in the north, cattle raising has also become an important source of monetary income. Industrial Arts. Apart from structures, such as palisades, fences, bridges, and houses, a partial inventory of locally produced goods includes weapons (bows, arrows, clubs, spears lin the north], and shields); implements (digging sticks, wooden spades [in the north], adzes, knives, and daggers); and string bags, pandanus sleeping mats, and bamboo cooking tubes (with wooden cooking cylinders also manufactured in the north). Locally made traditional clothing for both sexes includes skirts or sporrans made of pounded bark strips or rushes and, in the north, wooden 'codpieces" for men. Trade. From neighbors at lower elevations to the east, Tai- rora obtain black palm for arrow shafts and bow, adze, and axe staves; bark cloth for capes worn by both sexes; and shells for ornamentation. Stone adze blades were traded in from any sources available and, in the south, Tairora were important distributors in the Baruya salt trade. Major export items include rush skirts, string bags, and plumes. By the 1980s, many of these items had been replaced by Western goods that were now available in indigenously owned trade stores. Division of Labor. Except for modem skills such as auto mechanics or carpentry that are known only to a few, there is no occupational specialization, although some individuals are renowned as exceptionally good weavers of string bags or arrow makers. Each man is able to build houses and fences, clear garden land, hunt, and fashion his own weapons and implements, just as all women are gardeners and skilled in making string bags, sleeping mats, and items of clothing for both sexes. Construction tasks are male responsibilities, as are clearing garden land, fencing, and ditching; women are charged with planting, weeding, and harvesting of crops, with the exception of tree crops, bananas, sugarcane, yams, and taro, which are the province of males. Both sexes collect wild plant foods opportunistically. Cooking of vegetable foods is largely a female task, while men generally both butcher and cook domestic and wild meats. Land Tenure. In principle, all land, whether for gardening or forest resources, is held by patrilineal descent groups, though residence in itself usually confers rights of usufruct. However, when land disputes arise, claims to land associated with either one's father's or mother's clan are usually stronger than those based solely on residence, with elders called upon to authenticate both genealogy and history of use. Water- courses, paths, fences, and hamlets or village open areas are generally considered the common property of all who live in a settlement. 308 Tairora 309 Kinship Kin Groups and Descent. A patrilineal ideology ascribes at birth membership in one's father's lineage and clan, although residence in itself can blur such distinctions, especially in the north, where immigrants (such as refugees in time of war) acquire the status of "quasiagnates." Patricans are named and exogamous but not localized; while land in any settlement is associated with particular clans, clan seg- ments may reside (and claim land) in a number of neighboring settlements. Clan members seldom act as a unit in ceremonies, exchange, or war. Kinship Terminology. In the north, kin terms are of a modified Iroquois type, with collaterals in Ego's generation other than mother's brother's children, and all collaterals in the first descending generation other than sister's children, being terminologically equivalent to a man's own children. Farther south, terms for mother's kin show Omaha-type ten- dencies; however, choices of terms are complicated by bride- wealth exchange. Marriage and Family Marriage. Pairs of clans often have long-standing patterns of intermarriage, with adult males negotiating complex bride- wealth payments. Settlements have high rates of endogamy, but this practice is not an explicit preference; substantial numbers of women in-marry from enemy groups, with marriages in the past sometimes incorporated into peace-making ceremonies. Individuals of both sexes typically are assigned likely spouses while still in childhood, with formal betrothal deferred until young adulthood. Virilocality is the norm, with a new bride usually moving into the house of her groom's mother, but exceptions can occur. Polygyny is allowed, though few men have more than one wife; cowives typically live in different hamlets and usually object strongly to their husbands' polygyny. Divorce or extended separation is not unusual, but they are formal options only for men; traditionally, a married woman's only alternatives to an unhappy marriage were running away or suicide. Remarriage for both divorcees and widows is usual; there are very few permanent bachelors and virtually no women (apart from albinos and lepers) who go through life unmarried. Domestic Unit Traditionally, out of concern for the sup- posed debilitating effects of contact with women, all males past the age of 10-12 lived in men's houses; a family household would include one or more adult women (sometimes a mother and daughter, or sisters), their uninitiated sons, and unmarried daughters. Variants include households of several nubile young women or young bachelors. Increasingly, especially in the north, Tairora are adopting the practice of nuclear families residing in a single household. Husbands and wives seldom form a work unit, except in early stages of garden preparation. Inheritance. Upon death, gardens and movable property ideally are claimed by adult unmarried children; otherwise they are divided among married sons. Socialization. Responsibility for nurturing and socializing young children primarily falls on the women and older girls of a household; once male children are initiated and move into their fathers' men's houses, their socialization is largely taken over by adult males. Girls work side by side with their mothers from an early age, while boys are allowed to roam freely with age mates until adolescence. Distraction and oral admonish- ments are used rather than corporal punishment for young children, but older boys are sometimes disciplined severely in the men's house. Nowadays, and especially in the north, sizable numbers of children attend mission. or government-run schools, where parental supervision is limited. Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization. Especially in the north, Tairora extend genealogical metaphors widely, qualifying strict reckon- ing of descent and kinship as social identities are based more importantly in residence. Also in the north, clans are linked in phratries, forming near-connubia within which warfare is disallowed; in the south, clans may be joined in exogamous, nonwarring pairs. Coresidents of a settlement act as a unit more often than do kin groups in warfare, ceremonies, and intercommunity exchanges. An egalitarian ethos pervades social life, with an emphasis on individualism, though associa- tions are strong among age mates of either sex. Political Organization. Traditional leadership was of a big-man or 'strong-man" type, with individuals attaining stature through warfare and management of affairs between communities. In recent decades, officials appointed by the Australian administration have been replaced with elected members of the provincial government. Social Control. Disputes arise most commonly over sorcery accusations, failures to meet compensation and bride- wealth obligations, marriage arrangements, land, depreda- tions of pigs, and, nowadayg,-voffse theft. Parties are usually supported by kin and age mates in informal moots. Increas- ingly, disputes unresolved through informal means are referred to elected officials or formal courts in Kainantu. Conflict. Physical violence is strongly discouraged within one's clan, but otherwise it is not infrequent, with domestic violence being especially common. Traditionally, warfare was endemic throughout Tairora, and it has seen a resurgence in the 1980s. Each settlement has "traditional enemies" among its immediate neighbors, though enmity/amity relations are subject to alternation over time, with periods of peace ef- fected through formal ceremonies that often include intermarriage. Competing claims to land are less often the source of intercommunity conflict than are murder and purported sorcery attacks. Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs. The Tairora cosmos is filled with supernatural beings of a wide variety, including ghosts, monstrous anthropomorphs, localized nature spirits, and zoomorphic forest spirits. Men's house rites draw on a generalized force available through ancestors, and diverse types of magic are employed by individuals. Since 1940 in the north and the 1960s in the south, a variety of Christian missions have oper- ated, with a decreasing north-south gradient in numbers of converts. Religious Practitioners. Most adult Tairora have knowledge of spells and magic to meet their individual needs. Knowledgeable elders of both sexes conduct rituals and cere- 310 Tairora monies at the hamlet or settlement level, and some individuals are noted diviners and shamans. Nowadays, too, many settlements have resident mission catechists. Ceremonies. Life-cycle ceremonies include feasts for ba- bies after they emerge from seclusion houses; septum- and ear-piercing (for both sexes, traditionally); first-menstruation and nubility rites; a two-stage sequence of male initiation; weddings; and funerals. Seasonal yam and winged-bean festivals and peacemaking ceremonies draw communities together, as did periodic renewal ceremonies in the north. Re- cently in the north, public community dance festivals have become a source of income, with outsiders being charged admission. Arts. As with other New Guinea highlanders, plastic arts play a limited role in Tairora artistic life; apart from individual costuming and ornamentation on ceremonial occasions, decoration is largely restricted to string bags, arrows, and shields, though in the north men wore wooden frames with painted bark panels on occasions of public dancing. Jew's harps are played occasionally as private entertainment, otherwise only hour-glass drums supplement the human voice. Several genres of oral literature provide evening household entertainment and instruction during ceremonies. Medicine. Their natural environment supplies the Tairora with an extensive range of medicines, which most individuals obtain and administer themselves. Some individuals of both sexes are renowned diagnosticians and curers. Nowadays, most settlements have or are near a mission- or government- run medical aid post. Death and Afterlife. Wakes are held for several days, at the conclusion of which the ghost possesses a local resident who transports it out of the settlement to begin its journey to the land of the dead, located to the northeast in the Markham Valley. There it will live a life that replicates the or- dinary world, complete with gardens and pigs. The corpse left behind is traditionally buried in a grave with its individual fence on clan land. See also Fore, Gahuku-Gama, Gururumba Bibliography Grossman, Lawrence S. (1984). Peasants, Subsistence Ecol- ogy, and Development in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hays, Terence E., and Patricia H. Hays (1982). 'Opposition and Complementarity of the Sexes in Ndumba Initiation." In Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea, edited by Gilbert Herdt, 201-238. Berkeley: University of Cali. fornia Press. Johnson, S. Ragnar (1982). "Food, Other Valuables, Pay- ment, and the Relative Scale of Ommura Ceremonies (New Guinea)." Anthropos 77:509-523. Pataki-Schweizer, K. J. (1980). A New Guinea Landscape: Community, Space, and Time in the Eastern Highlands. Seat- de: University of Washington Press. Radford, Robin (1987). Highlanders and Foreigners in the Upper Ramu: The Kainantu Area, 1919-1942. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Watson, James B. (1983). Tairora Culture: Contingency and Pragmatism. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Watson, Virginia Drew, and J. David Cole (1977). Prehistory of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Seattle: University of Washington Press. TERENCE E. HAYS Tangu ETHNONYMS: None Orientation Identification. The term "Tangu" generally refers to one of several culturally similar communities living in the Bogia region of the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea. The name also refers to the language spoken by both the Tangu "proper" and certain other related groups. Location. Tangu live on a series of steep, forested ridges about 24 kilometers inland from Bogia Bay in the northern coastal area of Papua New Guinea, at about 4°25' S by 144°55' E. Demography. In 1951-1952, the ethnographic present for this report, Kenelm Burridge estimated the Tangu population at roughly 2,000, distributed throughout about thirty settlements of varying size. The population is now approach- ing 3,000. Linguistic Affiliation. Tangu is a Non-Austronesian language in the Ataitan Language Family. History and Cultural Relations While the Tangu are ethnographically quite similar to their neighbors, they consider themselves to be a distinct polity, tied closely together by kinship, trading, and exchange relationships. Perhaps the most distinctive feature setting them apart from their neighbors is their participation in a disputing activity known as br'ngun'guni, in which grievances are aired at public assemblies. European contact with Tangu was first made by German administrative officials shortly before World War 1, although the event had relatively little effect on traditional life. Effective "control" was established by the Australians in the 1920s, at which time a Society of the Di- vine Word mission was also founded. Tangu have been known for participation in cargo cults or millenarian movements under the influence of two messianic leaders: first Mambu, in the 1930s and 1940s, and later Yali, in the 1950s. Tangu 311 Settlements The Tangu population is roughly grouped into four named neighborhoods. Each neighborhood contains one or more large settlements of some twenty or more houses and several smaller settlements, some comprised of only a few home. steads. Settlements are strung out along a series of steep, in- terconnected ridges. Garden sites are scattered around the surrounding countryside. Tangu usually have temporary bush settlements associated with hunting and gardening areas far from the main village, and they may live in them for several weeks at a time. Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Tangu are primarily subsistence farmers who practice swidden or slash. and-bum horticulture. Their staple crops include numerous varieties of yams, taro, and bananas, planted in rotation and supplemented with sago and breadfruit, especially during De- cember and January, which are months of relative scarcity of the primary foods. These main crops are supported by sugarcane, coconuts, pitpit, gourds, beans, squashes, and greens. Maize, tapioca, sweet potatoes, melons, pumpkins, tomatoes, and other vegetables have been recently introduced. Pigs and chickens are kept domestically, the latter mainly for their feathers. Tangu forage in the forest, and they also hunt wild pigs, cassowaries, lizards, possums, cuscus, wallabies and other small marsupials, and birds. Land animals are usually tracked with the aid of dogs, or caught in snares or traps. Birds are usually shot with bows and arrows. Fish were tradi. tonally netted with hand nets by women, speared by men, or stunned in pools by using poison roots. This life-style of basic subsistence farming, supplemented by some hunting and gathering, is also augmented by migrant or occasional labor for cash. Industrial Arts. Tangu produce a variety of utilitarian objects used in their everyday lives, including banana-fiber underskirts, pandanus-fiber skirts, woven-cane bands and personal adornments, and pandanus-fiber cord, from which they fashion string bags and fishing nets. They manufacture slit gongs, used for signaling public announcements, and traditional musical instruments including hand drums and Jew's harps. Their only commercial manufactures are clay pots, made with the coil technique, and string bags. These are traded within Tangu and also sold for cash. Trade. Tangu have extensive trading relations, both among themselves and with neighboring people. Two of the four Tangu neighborhoods specialize in clay-pot making and two specialize in string bag and sago production. These items are traded within Tangu and are also sold to outsiders. The string bags and sago are sold mainly to people from the coast, while the clay pots are sold both to coastal inhabitants and to people from the hinterland. Other traditional items of exchange include hunting dogs, tobacco, and betel nuts. More recently, the mission trade store stocks goods of European manufacture, which are sold or exchanged for local products and services. These items are often exchanged again, typically with hinterland neighbors. Division of Labor. As in most tribal societies, Tangu division of labor is based on age and sex. Women cook, weed, look after young children, and do certain craftswork, such as making string bags. Men hunt, build houses and shelters, and do other craftswork, such as wood carving. Garden work is carried on by both sexes, although the sexes once again perform slightly different tasks, with men doing most of the heavy felling, clearing, and digging and women doing most of the daily carrying, weeding, and cleaning. Land Tenure. Land can be 'inherited" through either male or female relatives, but the practices governing the actual transfer of land are extremely flexible. Each individual has 'claims" on land belonging to his or her relatives, de- pending on the closeness of those relatives, and the strengths of the competing claims of others. Such "claims," recognized to a greater or lesser extent by the community, are always greater when actually exercised. Particularly strong structural claims can be made by sons on their father's claims, by neph- ews on their mother's brother's claims, and by husbands and wives on each other's claims. In general, the Tangu have ample land, and they tend to gravitate toward those areas where their claims are most easily exercised and their personal prospects best. Kinship Kin Groups and Descent. Perhaps because individual Tangu can choose to exercise their "claims" in a variety of ways, Tangu have no named lineal descent groups. Kinship is based on mutual relationships between people rather than on corporate groups defined by categories of parentage or quasi- parentage. The most important interrelationships are between brothers, sisters, brothers and sisters, friends, siblings- in-law, cross cousins not intending to marry, betrothed couples, and spouses. Kinship Terminology. Kinship terminology is of the Iroquois type. Marriage and Family Marriage. Because of the sexual division of labor in Tangu, there are few unmarried adults. Marriages bring about cooperative exchange relationships between the families of the husband and wife. Ideally, marriages are arranged between the children of people who are already friends or between certain cross cousins. There is a period of formal betrothal lasting for several years, marked by the groom's family presenting a pig, chaplets of dogs' teeth, and other valuables to the wife's family. At first the engaged pair practice avoidance behavior, but later they exchange labor in one another's households. At the wedding itself, the wife's brothers host the husband's family. This practice not only clears the debt created by the betrothal pig and valuables, but it also sets up the exchange relationship between husband and wife's brothers that continues through the life of the marriage. Either partner is free to break off the marriage at will, but the dose ties between their families make it difficult to do so without good cause. Men may often seek a second wife, commonly a sister ofthe first wife, or sometimes a divorced woman. These second marriages are accompanied by relatively little ceremony: a payment to the woman's brothers usually contracts the marriage. Later, a return payment to the husband sets up the exchange relationship and frees the woman to divorce the man if she wishes. 312 Tangu Domestic Unit. The basic and most permanent cooperative work group is the household, generally consisting of a man, his wife or wives, and their natural and adopted children. Occasionally an aging parent of either spouse may reside with them, but households are typically small and simply constituted. Inheritance. Among the most important things that can be inherited are land claims and friendship relationships. These pass fom parents of either sex to all of their children. People of the same sex, whose parents were friends, are expected to be friends. Land claims and personal relationships can also be inherited from other close relatives. As with land claims, people usually inherit more friendship relations than they can actually use, and they choose to activate those they find most congenial or most useful. Socialiation. Young children spend most of their time with their mothers and mother's sisters for the first few years of their lives. For girls, the natal household is the focus of their lives. They follow a fairly tranquil transition to adulthood, practicing the skills of Tangu womanhood from an early age. They learn the skills and crafts of women ftom their mothers and aunts: how to cook, carry, collect water, clear brush, and weed; how to make string, skirts, and string bags; how to gather and use wild plants; and how to care for younger siblings. For boys, the path to adulthood is less smooth. When a boy is about 6, he leaves his mother and be- gins to spend more time with his father, for whom he per- forms small services, and is taught a variety of skills. He learns about household lands and his father's special talents, such as curing, painting, carving, drumming, dancing, plaiting, building, trapping, or fishing. At the same time, he becomes involved with his mother's brothers, from whom he learns of their land claims and their special skills. Traditionally, at adolescence, boys entered a clubhouse, to be secluded, circum- cised, and initiated. With the breakdown of this system, ado- lescent boys have some difficulties handling the authority of their fathers and mothers' brothers as they come of age, and a period of contract labor is common before marriage. Sociali- zation in sexual matters is provided in part by the gangarin- gniengi or 'sweetheart" relationship with a particular cross cousin who, although in a marriageable category, is forbidden as a marriage partner. 'Sweethearts" dance, sit together, flirt, and fondle and stroke one another, engaging in love play. Breast and penis stimulation are common, but coitus is for- mally prohibited. Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization. Traditionally, local communities were comprised of two exogamous intermarrying groups called gagawa. Households would establish exchange relationships with other households in the opposite group. Ide- ally, these exchange relationships would continue through time as parents transmitted them to their children. Today, exchange relationships are still of major importance. Through marriage and formal friendships, individuals in different communities are also linked. Thus Tangu society is integrated through mutual relationships between individuals and between families. Political Orpnization. Tangu have no chiefs. Instead, groups of households tend to be held together by wunika ruma, dynamic and hardworking big-men, who have no specific authority but lead by example and through respect gained in production and oratory. Social Control. Social control within the group is maintained largely through the institution of br'ngun'guni: debat- ing, talking, and disputing in public assembly. Matters of public concern are brought up and discussed on frequent occasions, and the weight of public opinion is usually enough to make people conform to collective norms of behavior. Conflict. Conflict within the group often arises out of competition for status. Grievances may relate to competing claims on fishing, hunting and gardening resources, kinship matters, exchange obligations, or allegations of sorcery or trespass. Traditionally, when grievances arose between people whose groups were not sufficiently close to engage in br'ngun'guni, feuds and warfare generally resulted. Warfare with outsiders, such as the Diawat people, who were trying to expand their territory at the expense of the Tangu, was also common. Religion and Expressive Culture Religion Beliefs. Tangu believe in a group of divine beings called puoker, water beings called pap'ta, and ghosts of the dead, who ultimately become ancestral beings. Spirit beings of all sorts are thought to be capable of affecting human affairs, but they are somewhat capricious and difficult to placate. Religious Practitioners. The nature of Tangu religious practitioners is linked to the belief in ranguova, men who practice a combination of sorcery and witchcraft. Ranguova are responsible for inflicting many types of illness and death. Their identity can be determined by dreamer-diviners, and they can be killed by a different sort of specialist. Ceremonies. Dances and feasts are held frequently to mark a variety of social occasions. Formerly, elaborate ritual accompanied boys' circumcision and also the manufacture and positioning of wooden slit gongs, but these rites are no longer practiced. Arts. While goods of European manufacture are increasingly taking the place of certain traditional arts, finely produced personal accessories are still made, including banana- fiber underskirts and pandanus-fiber overskirts, bark-cloth breechclouts, woven-cane ornaments and waistbands, and string bags. Slit gongs and hand drums are made, but without the carving, incising, pigmentation, and decoration that they formerly carried. Medicine. Tangu recognize certain types of sicknesses as physiological and treat them with a variety of medicines. Other illnesses are linked with the activities of ranguova (sorcerers). Such illnesses are "treated" by determining the identity of the sorcerer, exposing him, and forcing him to cease his harmful activities. Death and Afterlife. In Tangu, death is matter-of-fact, and deceased are buried quickly, often within an hour or two of dying. Traditionally, personal valuables were buried with the corpse. People mourn individually, on slit gongs, when they think of deceased loved ones from time to time. Each individual is thought to have a "soul" or "mind" called gnek. Tanna 313 After death, this soul becomes a ghost temporarily, then - nally becomes an ancestral spirit. Bibliography Burridge, Kenelm (1960). Mambu: A Melanesian Millen- nium. London: Methuen. Burridge, Kenelm (1969). Tangu Traditions: A Study of the Way of Life, Mythology, and Developing Experience of a New Guinea People. London: Oxford University Press. RICHARD SCAGLION Tanna ETHNONYMS: Ipare, Tana, Tannese Orientation Identificadon. Tanna Island is part of the Southern Dis- trict of Vanuatu, a southwestern Pacific archipelago once called the New Hebrides. James Cook, the first European to visit this part of Melanesia, gave Tanna its name in 1774. "Tanna," in many of the island's languages, actually means "ground" or "land." Cook, pointing downward, no doubt asked "What do you call this [place]?' The Tannese mistook his question just as he mistook their answer. This cross- cultural misunderstanding was the first of many to follow. Location. Tanna is located at 190 S and 1690 E. The island is 40 kilometers long by 27 kilometers wide at its broad- est point, with a total area of 561 square kilometers. A well- populated central plateau (Middle Bush) rses in the south to mountains more than 1,000 meters high. The island is mostly tropical forest, except for a grassy plain in the northwest that lies in the rain shadow of the mountains. In the east, a small but continuously eruptive cinder-cone volcano coughs up lava bombs and spreads volcanic ash across the island. Demography. There are about 20,000 Tannese, 10 percent of whom have left home to work in Port Vila or Lugan- ville, Vanuatu's two towns, and in New Caledonia. The island's population density is around 32.3 persons per square kilometer; the population is growing at a rate of 3.2 percent per year. Linguistic Affiliation. The Tannese speak five related languages that are syntactically and semantically very similar, differing mostly in phonology and lexicon. They are part of the Southern Vanuatu Subbranch of the Oceanic Branch of Austronesian languages. Most Tannese also speak Bislama (Vanuatu Pidgin English), and some are schooled in English or French as well. History and Cultural Relations Although the archaeological record has yet to be fully ex- plored, it is thought that oceangoing Melanesians first landed on tanna about 3,500 years ago. The island has also experi. enced considerable Polynesian influence. In fact, Tanna's two nearest neighbors, Aniwa and Futuna, are Polynesian outliers. From the 1860s through 1900, labor recruiters re- moved more than 5,000 Tannese men to work on plantations in Queensland and Fiji. During these years, too, Presbyterian missionaries opened stations on the island. In mission literature, Tanna was infamous for its resistance to Christianity, but by 1910 the missionaries had succeeded in converting about two-thirds of the population. Mission success corre- lated with the establishment of joint British and French colonial rule over the archipelago in 1906. Vanuatu remained under this unusual 'condominium" form of colonial administration until its independence in 1980. Starting in the late 1930s, a number of island social movements emerged in reac- tion to foreign rule, and many people quit the missions. The John Frum movement, much influenced by World War 11, is the best known of these. A spirit figure, John Prum, coun- seled people to return to traditional practices and to seek help from American troops. This movement, once a cargo cult, remains an important religious group and political party. Other national political parties are also active on the island. In general, Presbyterians support the Vanuaaku party, while John Frum and 'Custom" people (traditionalists) and French- educated Catholics support its rival, the Union of Moderate Parties. This contemporary political opposition reflects an enduring traditional dualism in island culture. Settlements The most salient feature in the cultural landscape is the kava- drinking ground. These are forest clearings, shaded by mag- nificent banyan trees. Men convene there daily to prepare and drink kava (Piper methysticum). People also meet there to dance, to exchange goods, and to resolve disputes. Nucleated villages or scattered hamlets are located along the periphery of these circular clearings. At the last official census in 1979, Tanna had ninety-two villages that included 370 hamlets. Most villages are small, averaging about sixty residents. Most families possess one or more sleeping houses, plus a cook house. The traditional thatched house is still common, although many people now also build with corrugated alumi- num and cement brick. Economy Subsistence and Commercial Actvites. The Tannese are swidden horticulturalists. Using hand tools, they clear and burn off plots for yams and taro, ritually the two most important staples. They also grow manioc, sweet potatoes, bananas, and a range of other fruits and vegetables. Thanks to fertilizing ash falls from lasur volcano, garden-plot fallow time is quite short. Domestic animals include pigs, dogs, fowl, and also introduced cattle and horses. Coastal villagers fish and gather reef products, although the Tannese are indiffer- ent fishers. People are engaged primarily in subsistence production, although they also plant cash crops, especially coconuts, coffee, and vegetables. The average family's annual cash income, however, is less than $500 [U.S.]. Industrial Arts. Traditionally, island industrial arts were quite simple, consisting of stone tool making, the weaving of pandanus mats and baskets, and the manufacture of women's 314 Tanna bark skirts and tapa belts that once held up men's penis wrap- pers. Today, a few men earn a little money in cement brick manufacture, automobile repair, etc. Trade. The island's principal exports are copra and coffee. Its imports include Japanese vehicles, fuel, tools, processed foods, and clothing. Cooperatives and small-business owners operate a handful of trade stores, and women sell produce at several roadside markets. Rudimentary tourism, focused on the volcano, also brings some money into the island. Division of Labor. Islanders practice a muted division of labor. Men do heavy garden clearing, plant yams, erect house frames, fish beyond the reef, and drive trucks. Women perform day-to-day garden work, cook, wash clothes, and weave baskets and mats. Men, however, also cook, weed gardens, and may wash their own clothes in a pinch. Both sexes, more, over, care for children. Land Tenure. Every Tannese boy receives a personal name that entities him to several plots of land near a kava, drinking ground. Women's names have no land entitlements. A name also may entitle a male bearer to perform various ritual acts, to control a section of traditional road, and so on. Every family possesses a limited number of names that are used each generation. If a man has no sons, he adopts boys (or other grown men) by giving them one of his names. In actual practice, the exact connection between a particular personal name and its associated lands is often disputed. Garden land, however, is plentiful, except in a few locales. Moreover, most people neither live nor garden upon their own lands; permission to use another's land is usually readily obtained. Kinship Kin Groups and Descent. The most important kin group is the nuclear family. People have a notion of patrilineal de. scent, and families group into something like patrilineages, localized at kava-drinling grounds. These larger groups, however, are perhaps better called 'name sets" rather than line. ages inasmuch as new members are recruited by receiving personal names rather than by being born into the groups. A man only becomes a member of his father's lineage if he receives one of its names. Up to half of all men receive names from someone other than their fathers, and thus they may belong to a different name set. Single lineage/name sets are joined into larger groupings, associated with particular places or regions. Finally, each lineage/name set belongs to one or two moieties, Numrukwen and Kaviameta, though today these have only occasional ritual importance. Kinship Terminology. The terminological system is of the Dravidian type in which every person of one's generation falls into one of four categories: brother, sister, spouse, and brother/sisterin-law. Marriage and Family Mfarriae. Kin terminology reflects the island practice of sister-exchange, bilateral cross-cousin marriage. The ideal marriage partner is a child of one's mother's brother, or father's sister, although many people marry less closely related classificatory cross cousins. The ideal marriage also consists of a sister exchange between two men. Many marriages, in ac- tuality, involve complex transactions in which women are 'swapped' among three or more families. Many men obtain a wife by exchanging a classificatory sister or some other female relative. Some promise a firstborn daughter in return for her mother. A concern for balance governs marriage, as it does all other forms of exchange. With sister exchange, every marriage entails another, and divorce is very uncommon. Should a marriage fail, the wife's family must provide the husband's family with another woman in order to maintain the exchange balance. Domestic Unit. A nuclear family is the basic domestic group that produces and consumes food and other goods. Residence is virilocal. As boys get older, many build their own sleeping houses, although they continue to eat with their parents until they marry. Inheritance. There are few material goods on Tanna that survive more than one generation. Women inherit little. Men inherit land as well as rights to ritual and medical knowledge from the men who named them, most often their fathers. Men also succeed to the social positions of older namesakes. Socialization. A child is raised by both parents and, importantly, by older siblings. Disciplining is rarely physical, but rather takes the form of teasing and shaming. Boys are cir- cumcised between 5 and 10 years of age; their emergence from about six weeks of social seclusion is an important ceremonial occasion. Girls' first menstruation is sometimes marked by the gift of pig and kava from their fathers to their mothers' brothers. Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization. Two or more lineages/name sets are localized at each kava drinking ground. The men of several neighboring kava-drinking grounds together belong to a named, regional group, of which there are about 115. Kava- drinking grounds across the island are linked by a complex system of traditional 'roads" along which men exchange mes- sages, goods, and spouses. This road network, by which each Tannese village is linked to all others, has produced cultural homogeneity across the island, despite linguistic diversity. Political Organization. Tannese society is hierarchically organized on the basis of sex and age. There are also two chiefly positions at most kava-drinking grounds: the ianiniteta ("spokesman of the canoe") and the ierumanu ("ruler'). These today have only occasional ritual importance. Among adult men a principle of egalitarianism governs social interaction. A few men, however, enjoy more influence and prestige than others. In the main, these iema ason, big- men, are unlike those found elsewhere in Melanesia whose positions depend on economic ability. On Tanna, a village leader owes his status to his age, his ritual and other local knowledge, and to the size of his name set. A second kind of "ideological" big-men are the leaders of the various island- wide political and religious organizations, such as the John Frum and Custom movements. Social Control. Although national police and island courts operate on Tanna, most disputes are handled unoffi- cially. Avoidance is a common tactic. When people must resolve their differences, they convene a dispute-settlement meeting at a local kava-drinling ground. Here, big-men and involved third parties attempt to establish a social consensus that at least temporarily resolves the problem and ends avoid- [...]... commercial activities or entertainment are officially allowed Tongareva It should be pointed out, however, that these legal regulations do not coincide with actual activities Arts In traditional Tonga, tattooing was an important form of ornamentation, but with European contact this traditional art has all but vanished One of the highest forms of traditional arts that has survived into the twentieth century... the introduction of Tongan law codes and the constitution of 1875 Socialization That which occurs in Tonga in day-to-day existence is fakatonga, or the Tongan way of life or doing things; Tongans have continuously adapted to changing environmental situations to the best of their abilities The most important agents of socialization in traditional Tonga were members within the immediate family and then... was the brother of the Tu'i Tonga was designated the "Tu'i Ha'a Takalaua," the administrator of the secular aspects of Tongan society Approxi mately 20 0 years later, the Tu'i Ha'a Takalaua delegated some of his secular authority to his son and created the lineage known as the "Tu'i Kanokupolu." In traditional times, the fourth major Tongan individual was the sister of the Tu'i Tonga, designated the 'Tu'i... regular, though often interrupted by poor sea communication Settlements The population is distributed in more than twenty nucleated villages, situated around the sandy coastal strip at the base of the hills; there is no settlement on the rocky northern coast Houses are still of traditional pattern, built directly on the ground in rectangular shapes, with low palm-leaf thatched roofs on a timber frame,... division is the pivot ofTolai social organization Every Tolai belongs to one oftwo matrimoieties, the chief function ofwhich is the regulation of marriage Sexual relations within the moiety constitute the most heinous of offenses, which in the past called for the death of the guilty parties By birth every Tolai is also affiliated with the clan of the mother The clan is a dispersed unit, associated with a... Dundas at Garden Point, was first established as a government settlement in 1939 In the late 1940s the government settlement was moved from Garden Point to Snake Bay (Milikapiti) Milikapiti continued as a government settlement until the late 1970s, when it became the first of three communities to incorporate as a township Settlements The Tiwi today live in housing largely built by outside contractors... relationship between the 'wild" (kariari), and the "tame" or domesticated (vala), is fundamental to the worldview of the Tauade The forest is represented in myth as the antisocial opposite to village life, but it is not merely the destructive alternative to the social orderand it is the source of life and of creativity in general The Tauade have no beliefs in any kind of god, but their elaborate mythology... health Today there are modem hospital facilities on Tongatapu Death and Afterlife In traditional times, after a Tongan titleholder died the body would be interred in a royal tomb (langi) on Tongatapu Island, and the soul was believed to go to Pulotu, the home of Tongan deities and the location where Tongans were thought to reside with their principal gods in the afterlife Prior to the introduction of. .. meters at the ridgepole, with their eaves supported on 30-centimeter stakes Although they had no walls beneath the eaves, matting often was used against the wind Houses of both types commonly rested on rectangular stone floors, strewn with coral gravel and curbed with thin slabs of coral that jutted 1 0-3 0 centimeters above the ground Pandanus-leaf mats sometimes covered the floors Economy Subsistence... participate fully in the important ceremonial activity of composing and singing songs 327 History and Cultural Relations The prehistory of the Tiwi is related to that of other Aboriginal Australians Recently calculated (1981) dates for earliest signs of human cultural activity are approximately forty thousand years ago The Tiwi themselves are mentioned in historic records from the early eighteenth century, . panels on occasions of public dancing. Jew's harps are played occasionally as private entertainment, otherwise only hour-glass drums supplement the human voice. Several genres of oral literature provide evening household entertainment and instruction during ceremonies. Medicine. Their natural environment supplies the Tairora with an extensive range of medicines, which most individuals obtain and administer themselves. Some individuals of both sexes are renowned diagnosticians and curers. Nowadays, most settlements have or are near a mission- or government- run medical aid post. Death and Afterlife. Wakes are held for several days, at the conclusion of which the ghost possesses a local resident who transports it out of the settlement to begin its journey to the land of the dead, located to the northeast in the Markham Valley. There it will live a life that replicates the or- dinary world, complete with gardens and pigs. The corpse left behind is traditionally buried in a grave with its individual fence on clan land. See also Fore, Gahuku-Gama, Gururumba Bibliography Grossman, Lawrence S. (1984). Peasants, Subsistence Ecol- ogy, and Development in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hays, Terence E., and Patricia H. Hays (19 82) . 'Opposition and Complementarity of the Sexes in Ndumba Initiation." In Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea, edited by Gilbert Herdt, 20 1 -2 3 8. Berkeley: University of Cali. fornia Press. Johnson, S. Ragnar (19 82) . "Food, Other Valuables, Pay- ment, and the Relative Scale of Ommura Ceremonies (New Guinea)." Anthropos 77:50 9- 523 . Pataki-Schweizer, K. J. (1980). A New Guinea Landscape: Community, Space, and Time in the Eastern Highlands. Seat- de: University of Washington Press. Radford, Robin (1987). Highlanders and Foreigners in the Upper Ramu: The Kainantu Area, 191 9-1 9 42. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Watson, James B. (1983). Tairora Culture: Contingency and Pragmatism. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Watson, Virginia Drew, and J. David Cole (1977). Prehistory of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Seattle: University of Washington Press. TERENCE E. HAYS Tangu ETHNONYMS: None Orientation Identification. The term "Tangu" generally refers to one of several culturally similar communities living in the Bogia region of the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea. The name also refers to the language spoken by both the Tangu "proper" and certain other related groups. Location. Tangu live on a series of steep, forested ridges about 24 kilometers inland from Bogia Bay in the northern coastal area of Papua New Guinea, at about 4 25 ' S by 144°55' E. Demography. In 195 1-1 9 52, the ethnographic present for this report, Kenelm Burridge estimated the Tangu population at roughly 2, 000, distributed throughout about thirty settlements of varying size. The population is now approach- ing 3,000. Linguistic Affiliation. Tangu is a Non-Austronesian language in the Ataitan Language Family. History and Cultural Relations While the Tangu are ethnographically quite similar to their neighbors, they consider themselves to be a distinct polity, tied closely together by kinship, trading, and exchange relationships. Perhaps the most distinctive feature setting them apart from their neighbors is their participation in a disputing activity known as br'ngun'guni, in which grievances are aired at public assemblies. European contact with Tangu was first made by German administrative officials shortly before World War 1, although the event had relatively little effect on traditional life. Effective "control" was established by the Australians in the 1 920 s, at which time a Society of the Di- vine Word mission was also founded. Tangu have been known for participation in cargo cults or millenarian movements under the influence of two messianic leaders: first Mambu, in the 1930s and 1940s, and later Yali, in the 1950s. Tangu 311 Settlements The Tangu population is roughly grouped into four named neighborhoods. Each neighborhood contains one or more large settlements of some twenty or more houses and several smaller settlements, some comprised of only a few home. steads. Settlements are strung out along a series of steep, in- terconnected ridges. Garden sites are scattered around the surrounding countryside. Tangu usually have temporary bush settlements associated with hunting and gardening areas far from the main village, and they may live in them for several weeks at a time. Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Tangu are primarily subsistence farmers who practice swidden or slash. and-bum horticulture. Their staple crops include numerous varieties of yams, taro, and bananas, planted in rotation and supplemented with sago and breadfruit, especially during De- cember and January, which are months of relative scarcity of the primary foods. These main crops are supported by sugarcane, coconuts, pitpit, gourds, beans, squashes, and greens. Maize, tapioca, sweet potatoes, melons, pumpkins, tomatoes, and other vegetables have been recently introduced. Pigs and chickens are kept domestically, the latter mainly for their feathers. Tangu forage in the forest, and they also hunt wild pigs, cassowaries, lizards, possums, cuscus, wallabies and other small marsupials, and birds. Land animals are usually tracked with the aid of dogs, or caught in snares or traps. Birds are usually shot with bows and arrows. Fish were tradi. tonally netted with hand nets by women, speared by men, or stunned in pools by using poison roots. This life-style of basic subsistence farming, supplemented by some hunting and gathering, is also augmented by migrant or occasional labor for cash. Industrial Arts. Tangu produce a variety of utilitarian objects used in their everyday lives, including banana-fiber underskirts, pandanus-fiber skirts, woven-cane bands and personal adornments, and pandanus-fiber cord, from which they fashion string bags and fishing nets. They manufacture slit gongs, used for signaling public announcements, and traditional musical instruments including hand drums and Jew's harps. Their only commercial manufactures are clay pots, made with the coil technique, and string bags. These are traded within Tangu and also sold for cash. Trade. Tangu have extensive trading relations, both among themselves and with neighboring people. Two of the four Tangu neighborhoods specialize in clay -pot making and two specialize in string bag and sago production. These items are traded within Tangu and are also sold to outsiders. The string bags and sago are sold mainly to people from the coast, while the clay pots are sold both to coastal inhabitants and to people from the hinterland. Other traditional items of exchange include hunting dogs, tobacco, and betel nuts. More recently, the mission trade store stocks goods of European manufacture, which are sold or exchanged for local products and services. These items are often exchanged again, typically with hinterland neighbors. Division of Labor. As in most tribal societies, Tangu division of labor is based on age and sex. Women cook, weed, look after young children, and do certain craftswork, such as making string bags. Men hunt, build houses and shelters, and do other craftswork, such as wood carving. Garden work is carried on by both sexes, although the sexes once again perform slightly different tasks, with men doing most of the heavy felling, clearing, and digging and women doing most of the daily carrying, weeding, and cleaning. Land Tenure. Land can be 'inherited" through either male or female relatives, but the practices governing the actual transfer of land are extremely flexible. Each individual has 'claims" on land belonging to his or her relatives, de- pending on the closeness of those relatives, and the strengths of the competing claims of others. Such "claims," recognized to a greater or lesser extent by the community, are always greater when actually exercised. Particularly strong structural claims can be made by sons on their father's claims, by neph- ews on their mother's brother's claims, and by husbands and wives on each other's claims. In general, the Tangu have ample land, and they tend to gravitate toward those areas where their claims are most easily exercised and their personal prospects best. Kinship Kin Groups and Descent. Perhaps because individual Tangu can choose to exercise their "claims" in a variety of ways, Tangu have no named lineal descent groups. Kinship is based on mutual relationships between people rather than on corporate groups defined by categories of parentage or quasi- parentage. The most important interrelationships are between brothers, sisters, brothers and sisters, friends, siblings- in-law, cross cousins not intending to marry, betrothed couples, and spouses. Kinship Terminology. Kinship terminology is of the Iroquois type. Marriage and Family Marriage. Because of the sexual division of labor in Tangu, there are few unmarried adults. Marriages bring about cooperative exchange relationships between the families of the husband and wife. Ideally, marriages are arranged between the children of people who are already friends or between certain cross cousins. There is a period of formal betrothal lasting for several years, marked by the groom's family presenting a pig, chaplets of dogs' teeth, and other valuables to the wife's family. At first the engaged pair practice avoidance behavior, but later they exchange labor in one another's households. At the wedding itself, the wife's brothers host the husband's family. This practice not only clears the debt created by the betrothal pig and valuables, but it also sets up the exchange relationship between husband and wife's brothers that continues through the life of the marriage. Either partner is free to break off the marriage at will, but the dose ties between their families make it difficult to do so without good cause. Men may often seek a second wife, commonly a sister ofthe first wife, or sometimes a divorced woman. These second marriages are accompanied by relatively little ceremony: a payment to the woman's brothers usually contracts the marriage. Later, a return payment to the husband sets up the exchange relationship and frees the woman to divorce the man if she wishes. 3 12 Tangu Domestic Unit. The basic and most permanent cooperative work group is the household, generally consisting of a man, his wife or wives, and their natural and adopted children. Occasionally an aging parent of either spouse may reside with them, but households are typically small and simply constituted. Inheritance. Among the most important things that can be inherited are land claims and friendship relationships. These pass fom parents of either sex to all of their children. People of the same sex, whose parents were friends, are expected to be friends. Land claims and personal relationships can also be inherited from other close relatives. As with land claims, people usually inherit more friendship relations than they can actually use, and they choose to activate those they find most congenial or most useful. Socialiation. Young children spend most of their time with their mothers and mother's sisters for the first few years of their lives. For girls, the natal household is the focus of their lives. They follow a fairly tranquil transition to adulthood, practicing the skills of Tangu womanhood from an early age. They learn the skills and crafts of women ftom their mothers and aunts: how to cook, carry, collect water, clear brush, and weed; how to make string, skirts, and string bags; how to gather and use wild plants; and how to care for younger siblings. For boys, the path to adulthood is less smooth. When a boy is about 6, he leaves his mother and be- gins to spend more time with his father, for whom he per- forms small services, and is taught a variety of skills. He learns about household lands and his father's special talents, such as curing, painting, carving, drumming, dancing, plaiting, building, trapping, or fishing. At the same time, he becomes involved with his mother's brothers, from whom he learns of their land claims and their special skills. Traditionally, at adolescence, boys entered a clubhouse, to be secluded, circum- cised, and initiated. With the breakdown of this system, ado- lescent boys have some difficulties handling the authority of their fathers and mothers' brothers as they come of age, and a period of contract labor is common before marriage. Sociali- zation in sexual matters is provided in part by the gangarin- gniengi or 'sweetheart" relationship with a particular cross cousin who, although in a marriageable category, is forbidden as a marriage partner. 'Sweethearts" dance, sit together, flirt, and fondle and stroke one another, engaging in love play. Breast and penis stimulation are common, but coitus is for- mally prohibited. Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization. Traditionally, local communities were comprised of two exogamous intermarrying groups called gagawa. Households would establish exchange relationships with other households in the opposite group. Ide- ally, these exchange relationships would continue through time as parents transmitted them to their children. Today, exchange relationships are still of major importance. Through marriage and formal friendships, individuals in different communities are also linked. Thus Tangu society is integrated through mutual relationships between individuals and between families. Political Orpnization. Tangu have no chiefs. Instead, groups of households tend to be held together by wunika ruma, dynamic and hardworking big-men, who have no specific authority but lead by example and through respect gained in production and oratory. Social Control. Social control within the group is maintained largely through the institution of br'ngun'guni: debat- ing, talking, and disputing in public assembly. Matters of public concern are brought up and discussed on frequent occasions, and the weight of public opinion is usually enough to make people conform to collective norms of behavior. Conflict. Conflict within the group often arises out of competition for status. Grievances may relate to competing claims on fishing, hunting and gardening resources, kinship matters, exchange obligations, or allegations of sorcery or trespass. Traditionally, when grievances arose between people whose groups were not sufficiently close to engage in br'ngun'guni, feuds and warfare generally resulted. Warfare with outsiders, such as the Diawat people, who were trying to expand their territory at the expense of the Tangu, was also common. Religion and Expressive Culture Religion Beliefs. Tangu believe in a group of divine beings called puoker, water beings called pap'ta, and ghosts of the dead, who ultimately become ancestral beings. Spirit beings of all sorts are thought to be capable of affecting human affairs, but they are somewhat capricious and difficult to placate. Religious Practitioners. The nature of Tangu religious practitioners is linked to the belief in ranguova, men who practice a combination of sorcery and witchcraft. Ranguova are responsible for inflicting many types of illness and death. Their identity can be determined by dreamer-diviners, and they can be killed by a different sort of specialist. Ceremonies. Dances and feasts are held frequently to mark a variety of social occasions. Formerly, elaborate ritual accompanied boys' circumcision and also the manufacture and positioning of wooden slit gongs, but these rites are no longer practiced. Arts. While goods of European manufacture are increasingly taking the place of certain traditional arts, finely produced personal accessories are still made, including banana- fiber underskirts and pandanus-fiber overskirts, bark-cloth breechclouts, woven-cane ornaments and waistbands, and string bags. Slit gongs and hand drums are made, but without the carving, incising, pigmentation, and decoration that they formerly carried. Medicine. Tangu recognize certain types of sicknesses as physiological and treat them with a variety of medicines. Other illnesses are linked with the activities of ranguova (sorcerers). Such illnesses are "treated" by determining the identity of the sorcerer, exposing him, and forcing him to cease his harmful activities. Death and Afterlife. In Tangu, death is matter -of- fact, and deceased are buried quickly, often within an hour or two of dying. Traditionally, personal valuables were buried with the corpse. People mourn individually, on slit gongs, when they think of deceased loved ones from time to time. Each individual is thought to have a "soul" or "mind" called gnek. Tanna 313 After death, this soul becomes a ghost temporarily, then - nally becomes an ancestral spirit. Bibliography Burridge, Kenelm (1960). Mambu: A Melanesian Millen- nium. London: Methuen. Burridge, Kenelm (1969). Tangu Traditions: A Study of the Way of Life, Mythology, and Developing Experience of a New Guinea People. London: Oxford University Press. RICHARD SCAGLION Tanna ETHNONYMS: Ipare, Tana, Tannese Orientation Identificadon. Tanna Island is part of the Southern Dis- trict of Vanuatu, a southwestern Pacific archipelago once called the New Hebrides. James Cook, the first European to visit this part of Melanesia, gave Tanna its name in 1774. "Tanna," in many of the island's languages, actually means "ground" or "land." Cook, pointing downward, no doubt asked "What do you call this [place]?' The Tannese mistook his question just as he mistook their answer. This cross- cultural misunderstanding was the first of many to follow. Location. Tanna is located at 190 S. and with- drawal of reciprocity. Tact is highly prized, and people avoid giving offense for fear of sorcery. Intravillage disputes generally go unaired; the parties merely avoid each other until matters cool down. Conflict. Traditionally, warfare only took place between Telefolmin and other ethnic groups (especially Falamin, Tifalmin, Miyanmin, and the now-defunct Iligimin). Ten- sions between Telefol villages sometimes erupted into brawl- ing, but more often it surfaced in sorcery suspicions. Violence between fellow villagers was and is rare. The government holds village councillors responsible for reporting trouble cases, but such reports are made only when all else fails. Religion and Expressive Culture Since the late 1970s the majority of Telefolmin practice a local version of Baptist Christianity. Some older men, and especially the villagers of Telefolip, however, adhere to traditional religious practices. Religious Beihef. Traditional ritual knowledge is parti- tioned along lines of sex, age, and ritual moiety affiliation; cult secrecy is highly developed, with the result that there is great variation in belief. The division in cult lore parallels a ritual division of labor, with the Taro moiety responsible for life promoting (gardening, pig rearing) while the Arrow moiety is responsible for life taking (warfare and hunting). The two most important cosmological figures are Afek and Magalim, the Bush Spirit. Afek founded Telefol culture and the men's cult, and she left a legacy of myths and rituals. She is closely identified with the central cult house at Telefolip, which is held to govern the fertility of taro gardens throughout the region. But while Afek died long ago, Magalim continues to play an active role in Telefol life by disrupting the expected pattern of things. Christians espouse belief in God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, who intervenes in human affairs through mediums. Although many beliefs surrounding Afek seem to have been relegated to the past, Magalim remains active in Telefol thought. He is capable of assuming many forms, including posing as the Holy Spirit, and he is often interpreted by Christians as a manifestation of the deviL Religiotu Practitioners. Ritual experts officiated in the men's cult on the basis of esoteric knowledge; outside of the cult, seers or diviners diagnosed illness and sorcery. Nowa- days village churches are presided over by pastors, and a number of women act as diviners and mediums for the Holy Spirit. Sorcerers are feared, are almost always unidentified, and are generally thought to belong to other Telefol villages. Ceremonies. Traditional religion revolves around a complex series of male initiations. Senior rites were performed at Telefolip, where they have recently been revived after a long hiatus. AU Telefolmin, pagan or Christian, also celebrate Christmas, which coincides with the return of mine workers to their home villages for the holidays. Arts. Carved and painted shields and house boards are the most prominent forms of visual art. Men's arrow shafts are often intricately carved and sometimes painted, and women's net bags are locally renowned for their quality. Although some individuals are better at these things than others, no craft specialization exists apart from the sexual division of labor. Medicine. Minor ailments are treated by heating the body with warm stones, rubbing with nettles, and avoiding foods thought responsible for a particular complaint. More serious illnesses are attributed to sorcery, violation of food taboos, cult spirits punishing misconduct, attacks by the Bush Spirit (Magalim) or, nowadays, the Holy Spirit. Such matters were usually determined by diviners; since the Rebaibal, female mediums also diagnose illness and often prescribe a course of treatment involving prayer and changes in the patient's pat- tem of activities. Most villages are also in close proximity to rural aid posts where routine problems are dealt with. More difficult cases are brought to the government hospital or the Baptist maternity clinic. Death and Afterlife. Burial was by exposure on a raised platform, often in or near a garden of the deceased. Tradi- tional ideas hold that ghosts depart for an underground land of the dead, where they have no further contact with the living. Those killed in warfare, however, were inimical to the living and returned as fruit bats to raid gardens. In addition, the bones of noted warriors, gardeners, and pig rearers were re- trieved as men's cult relics. These relics were the locus of the spirits who voluntarily remained among the living to promote village welfare in return for pig sacrifices and the observance of food taboos. The Australian administration prohibited exposure burial in the 1950s, and since then Telefolmin have buried their dead in village cemeteries. Contemporary beliefs assign the souls of pagans to the traditional land of the dead, while Christians go to heaven. See also Miyanmin 324 Telefolmin Bibliography Craig, B., and D. Hyndman, editors (1990). The Children of Afek. Tradition, Place and Change among the Mountain Ok of Central New Guinea. Oceania Monograph no. 40. Sydney: Oceania Publications. Jorgensen, Dan (1980). 'What's in a Name: The Meaning of Meaninglessness in Telefolmin." Ethos 8:34 9-3 66. Jorgensen, Dan (1981). "Life on the Fringe: History and So- ciety in Telefolmin." In The Plight of Peripheral People in Papua New Guinea, edited by R. Gordon, 5 9-7 9. Cultural Survival Occasional Paper no. 7. Cambridge, Mass. Jorgensen, Dan (1983). "Mirroring Nature? Men's and Wom- en's Models of Conception in Telefolmin." Mankind 14:5 7-6 5. Jorgensen, Dan (1985). "Femsep's Last Garden: A Telefol Response to Mortality." In Aging and Its Transformations: Moving toward Death in Pacific Societies, edited by D. A. Counts and D. Counts, 20 3 -2 2 1. Lanham: University Press of America. DAN JORGENSEN Tikopia ETHNONYM: Nga Tikopia. Orientation Identificaton. The name "Tikopia" (sometimes written "Tucopia" by early European voyagers), given to a small island in the Solomon group, is also applied by the inhabitants to themselves. The expression, glossed as "we, the Tikopia," is commonly used to differentiate themselves from the people of other islands in the Solomons and elsewhere. Location. Tikopia is a little, isolated, high island, primarily an extinct volcano with fringing coral reef, rising to a peak of 350 meters but extending only 4.6 square kilometers. It is in the southeast of the Solomons, at 168°50' E and 12 18' S. Historically, until the mid-1950s, the Tikopia people occupied only this island. But then, stimulated by the pressure of the population on the food supply and by a desire for experience of the outside world, Tikopia people began to settle in groups elsewhere in the Solomons. Now the substantial settlements abroad include Nukufero in the Russell Islands, Nukukaisi (Waimasi) in San Cristobal, and Murivai in Vanikoro. All Tikopia live in a tropical climate, with altemat- ing trade-wind and monsoon seasons; during the latter their homes are subject to periodic hurricanes (tropical cyclones). Demography. About half a century ago Tikopia had a dense population, about 300 persons per square kilometer. This density caused anxiety among the people's leaders, who feared food shortages. (In 19 5 2- 1953 a famine occurred as a result of a tropical cyclone.) In 1 929 the population was about 1 ,27 0; by 19 52 it had risen to about 1,750. But by about 1980, through emigration, the population on Tikopia Island had been reduced to about 1,100, while another 1 ,20 0 or so Tikopia lived in the external settlements and around Honiara, the capital of the Solomons. There is much inter- change of population between the settlements and Tikopia Island. linguistic Affiliation. The Tikopia are Polynesian in language and culture, their language being assigned to a Western Polynesian grouping. But from neighboring peoples they have acquired some Melanesian loan words as well as other cultural items. Tikopia has no dialects. But as a result of external contact many Tikopia now speak English and all can use pijin." History and Cultural Relations From recent archaeological research it appears that Tikopia has been occupied for about 3,000 years. Three phases of traditional culture have been distinguished. The earliest (c. 900 to 100 B.C.) used locally made sand-tempered earthenware of Lapitoid type; the second (c. 100 B.C. to AD. 120 0) probably imported its pottery, of more elaborate style, from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) to the south. In the latter part of the third phase (c. AD. 120 0 to 1800) no pottery was used at all. Diet changes were marked. In the first two phases pigs, fruit bats, and eels were eaten. By the end of the last phase, into the historical period (c. AD. 1800 to present) no pigs were kept and bats and eels were regarded with aversion as food. The third traditional phase was seemingly the result of a sepa- rate immigration and bore a more markedly Polynesian char- acter. It is clear that over the whole period of occupation Tikopia people have had irregular, infrequent, but sustained cultural relations with Polynesian and Melanesian peoples in other islands around, by arduous, often dangerous canoe voy- ages. European contact began with a sighting of the island by Spanish voyagers in 1606, and was renewed in the early nineteenth century by visits of Peter Dillon and Dumont d'Urville and by later calls of labor recruiters and missionaries. Only toward the end of the century did the British government claim control over Tikopia; this control was exercised only rarely until after World War II, during which Tikopia remained undisturbed. Since then both mission and govem- ment contacts have been fairly regular, though often interrupted by poor sea communication. Settlements The population is distributed in more than twenty nucleated villages, situated around the sandy coastal strip at the base of the hills; there is no settlement on the rocky northern coast. Houses are still of traditional pattern, built directly on the ground in rectangular shapes, with low palm-leaf thatched roofs on a timber frame, and doorways to be entered only on hands and knees. Earth floors are covered with plaited coconut-palm-leaf mats. Houses in a village are set irregu- larly, in no formal pattern, with canoe sheds adjacent, giving easy access to the sea. In the settlements abroad, housing is often of traditional style, but modem types also occur. . the reefs and mountain peaks. The Polynesian Mauididtic (Mwatiktiki on Tanna) is also a popular culture hero. John Frum continues his work as a spiritual mediator to the outside world, particularly to America. The John Frum-Custom people of the southwest claim a special relationship with Prince Philip of Britain who is, they maintain, a son of the mountain spirit Kalpwapen. Religious Practitioners. All men are in contact with their own ancestors. Kava drinkers, spitting out their last mouthful of the drug, utter prayers to surrounding ancestors buried on the kava-drinking ground. A few men and women are known to have particularly good contacts with the supernatural world by way of dreams and various ritual devices. These clevers" diagnose illness, find lost objects, and so on. Most of the Christian denominations have ordained local pastors. The successful prophets of John Frum and other notable spirits also serve as religious officiants. Ceremonies. All Tannese ceremonies consist of exchange (of pigs, food, kava, woven goods, and lengths of cloth), kava drinking, and dancing that lasts through the night. Most of them are associated with important events in the life cycle of individuals. The family of the person involved gathers goods to present to his or her mother's brothers, with an equal amount of goods returned when the exchange is later re- versed. Two ceremonies, not tied to individual life cycles, function to maintain regional relations. In nieri, people of two kava-drinking grounds exchange different kinds of food such as yams for taro. The nakwiari, involving several thousand people, is the island's most spectacular ceremony and in- volves exchange of pigs and kava between two regions, after a night and day of song and dance. Arts. There is little material art on Tanna. Island aesthet- ics focus instead on singing, dancing, and body decoration. Although people make panpipes and bamboo flutes, they use no musical instruments to accompany song or dance that, for rhythm, relies instead upon hand clapping and foot stomp- ing. Women paint their faces in mosaics of color that reflect the decorative dyed patterns on the bark skirts they wear to dance. Medicine. Island etiology cites maleficent spirits and ancestral displeasure to explain many illnesses. Also, an imbal- ance of body elements may cause disease. Everyone knows at least one or more secret herbal cures for specific ailments, and a few men and women are renowned as particularly astute curers or bone setters. Death and Afterlife. Important men are buried on the kava-drinking ground; other people are buried in the village. Christian pastors typically officiate at burial. The traditional funeral, however, that takes place a month or so after death is the final exchange between a person's family and that of his or her mother's brothers. Ancestral ghosts go off to a land called Ipai"; they may also remain close to their old homes, and they are often seen in gardens and the forest. Bibliography Adams, R (1984). In the Land of Strangers: A Century of Eu- ropean Contact with Tanna, 177 4-1 874. Canberra: Austra- lian National University. Allen, M. R., ed. (1981). Vanuatu: Politics, Economics, and Ritual in Island Melanesia. Sydney: Academic Press. Bonnemaison, J. (1987). La derniere ile. Paris: ORSTOM/ Plon. Guiart, Jean (1956). Un siicle et demi de contacts cultures Tanna, Nouvelles-Hibrides. Paris: Musie de l'Homme. LAMONT LINDSTROM Tasmanians ETHNONYMS: None Orientation Identification. The term 'Tasmanians" refers to the native inhabitants of the island of Tasmania. These inhabitants formed a number of societies and communities, all of which had disappeared as distinct cultural groups by the twentieth century. What is known of the Aboriginal culture is largely the result of archaeological research and reconstructions based on the reports of early European visitors and settlers. The name of the island and its inhabitants is taken from the Dutch navigator, Abel Tasman, who discovered the island in 16 42. Despite being extinct, the Tasmanians have continued to draw scholarly and public attention, caused in part by their 316 I LaimanansI__ _ isolation from other cultures for thousands of years and the Stone Age technology they used when first discovered by Europeans. Location. Tasmania is an island of some 67,000 square kilometers located about 24 0 kilometers southeast of mainland Australia, with the two land masses separated by the rough waters of the Bass Strait. Tasmania is a state of Australia. At one time a peninsula of Australia, Tasmania was cut off by rising waters about 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. It is a mountainous island, with a variety of ecological zones, considerable rainfall, and a generally mild climate. Land mammals such as kangaroos, wallabies, and native dogs are relatively abundant as are seals, shellfish, and birds. Demography. Estimates place the precontact population at from 2, 000 to 5,000 individuals. Linguistic Affiliation. Experts guess that from five to twelve different languages, with some grammatical, phono- logical, and lexical similarities between them, were spoken by Aboriginal Tasmanians. What relationship those languages had to other Papuan or Australian languages is unknown. History and Cultural Relations The Tasmanian peninsula of Australia has been occupied for some 23 ,000 years. Since the islands separated from the mainland some 7,000 or so years ago, there is little evidence of contact between mainland peoples and the Tasmanians. In fact, it is likely that the Tasmanians were largely isolated until contact with the Dutch in 16 42, the French in 17 72, and settlement by the English in 1803. The English regarded the Tasmanians as subhuman and hunted them down; the Tas- manians responded by both fighting back and retreating farther and farther inland. In 1835, after repeated attempts by the English to round them up, the 20 3 surviving Tasmanians were gathered together and resettled on Flinders Island in Bass Strait. Although treated more kindly, their numbers continued to decrease and in 1847 the 40 survivors were again resettled, this time on a reserve near Hobart. The last "full-blood" Tasmanian died there in 1876. While the native languages and culture have disappeared, there are still some few dozen individuals who claim biological links to the indigo enous population. Settlements It is not clear whether the Tasmanians were nomadic, moving to new encampments every day or two, or transhumant, moving inland in the warm months and to the sea in the colder months. There is some evidence of regional variation in settlement patterns, with groups in the west being more settled than those in the east. In either case, the location of settlements was determined largely by the availability of food. Tas- manian societies were territorial, and trespass into another group's territory usually led to warfare. Shelters for nomadic groups were windbreaks made from bark, while more settled groups lived in communities of beehive-shaped shelters located along the banks of rivers or lagoons. Economy Subsistence Activities. The Tasmanians were hunters and gatherers who had no agriculture and no domesticated animals but exploited nearly all animal and plant foodstuffs available to them. Kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, and seals were speared; snakes, lizards, snails, insects, eggs, scallops, and other mollusks were gathered; and root, fungus, berries, and native root crops were picked and dug. There is some evidence of communal hunting of kangaroos and birds and gathering of plant foods. For the most part, however, food acquisi- tion was a matter for the household unit of a man, a woman, and their children. The most interesting and perplexing as. pect of Tasmanian subsistence practices was the absence (during the last 4,000 years of their existence) of fishing and consumption of scaly fish. Why they gave up fish is not clear, and a variety of explanations citing religious factors, isolation from the mainland, and the difficulty of catching fish have been suggested. Industrial Arts. The Tasmanian tool kit was limited largely to objects made from wood, stone, and shell. Wooden spears and throwing sticks were the main weapons, and flaked stone knives and scrapers were used for shellfish gathering and food preparation. Shellfish shells served as cooking vessels, along with kelp baskets and baskets and nets twined from grass, reeds, and bark. Trade. There is no record of trade between Tasmanian societies nor between Tasmanians and peoples of Australia or other Pacific islands. Division of Labor. Men made the wood and stone tools, hunted for large animals, and fought in wars with other island societies. Women did most everything else, including building the windbreaks and huts, gathering water, and hunting possums by scaling trees. Land Tenure. Weapons, ornaments, and other objects could be owned individually, though there was no individual ownership of land. Evidence suggests that each community in each society controlled access to a 30 0- to 5,600-square- kilometer territory. Use of another community's land without permission was the primary cause of war, particularly between communities from different societies. Kinship, Marriage and Family Little is known about Tasmanian kinship and kinship terminology. Marriage. Marriage was evidently community exogamous and many men captured wives from other communities. Ar- ranged marriages are also reported. Most marriages were monogamous, although older men might have more than one wife. Divorce was allowed, and widows were considered the property of the society into which they married, suggesting the generally lower status afforded women than men. Domestic Unit. The monogamous or polygynous family (perhaps with an additional relative) was the basic residen- tial, production, and consumption unit. Early reports suggest large families, with later accounts noting frequent abortion and infanticide after contact with Europeans. Socialization. Children were cared for primarily by their mothers. Both parents were indulgent and physical punishment was not used. The major childhood task for boys and girls was to master the hunting, collecting, climbing, building, and manufacturing skills they would need as adults. At pu- berry, boys were initiated through a ceremony involving .Tauade 317 scarification, naming, and the presentation of a fetish stone. There evidently was no comparable ceremony for girls. Sociopolitical Organization As noted above, the term 'Tasmanians" refers to an unknown number of groups or societies. The societies had no formal leaders nor were they landholding or war-making units. Each society was composed of a number of named communities which were further subdivided into households. Each society had from five to fifteen communities (with from thirty to eighty related members in each), which were the basic landholding and war-making units and were led by an older man renowned for his hunting ability, although he probably had little authority except during warfare. Community affiliation was expressed through shared myths, dances, songs, and hair style. Affiliation with other communities within the society was weak, even though it was expressed by a reluctance to fight against affiliated communities and a greater willingness to allow those communities access to community land. The aged were afforded some prestige, and there is some evidence of three age grades for males, with ceremonial marking of pas- sage into a new age grade. Social Control. In the absence of centralized leadership, social order was maintained by the community. Individual disputes were often settled by throwing-stick duels and viola- tions of customs were punished by group ridicule. Transgres- sions against the community were punished by hurling spears at the stationary offender who could try to dodge them only by twisting his body out of the way. Conflict. War between communities from different societies is reported to have been common, although this may reflect only the postcontact situation. Trespassing and stealing a woman were the major reasons for war, which consisted mostly of surprise attacks and skirmishes and rarely produced more than one death. Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs. Tasmanian religious beliefs focused on ghosts and their influence on the affairs of the living. While they might occasionally be considered beneficial, spirits of the dead were mostly feared and thought to be the source of much harm and suffering. Consequently, burial spots were avoided and the names of the dead tabooed. They also believed in categories of spirits more powerful than ghosts, including a thunder demon, a moon spirit, and harmful spirits who occupied dark places such as caves and tree trunks. Magic and witchcraft were important and death and sickness were always attributed to the action of evil spirits or witchcraft. The bones of the dead and certain stones were believed to be imbued with protective, curative, or malevolent powers. Ceremonies. Community dances were an important form of social, religious and artistic expression. Men danced until collapse, while women kept time with sticks and rolled-bark drums. Religious dances were open only to the men; women evidently had secret dances of their own emphasizing wom men's activities such as digging roots or nursing infants. The initiation ceremony for boys and the age-grade ceremonies were of considerable social importance. Ceremonies marking birth and marriage are unreported, although death was marked as discussed below. Reliiu Practitioners. Part-time shamans used bleed. ing, sucking, baths, massage, and vegetal remedies to cure illness or treat injuries. They also relied on the supernatural, which they reached through possession trance and a rattle made from a dead man's bones. Arts. In addition to dances, the Tasmanians decorated trees and their huts with charcoal figures of people and objects and sang of the heroic deeds of the singers and their ancestors. The most elaborate form of artistic expression was re- served for body adornment. Men colored their hair and skin with charcoal, clay, and grease and both sexes wore colored feathers and flowers in their hair. Both sexes also scarified their extremities and rubbed charcoal in to produce rows of dark scars. Deat and Afterlife. The deceased was disposed of as quickly as possible, usually by cremation and then burial of the bones and ashes, although some bones might be retained to be worn by relatives. During the night of the burial, the en- tire community assembled around the grave, where they sat and wailed until dawn. Widows cut and burned their bodies and cut off their hair and placed it on the grave. Each person was believed to have a soul which lived on after death as a ghost. The afterworld was though to be much like the real world, except for the absence of evil. BMiliography Jones, Rhys (1974). 'Tasmanian Tribes." In Aboriginal Tribes of Australia, edited by N. B. Tindale. Berkeley: University of California Press. Roth, Henry L. (1890). The Aborigines of Tasmania. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trfibner. Tauade ETHNONYMS: Goilala, Tauata Orientation Identification. Tauata is one of a number of closely related dialects, and the name 'Tauatade," which is used by the neighboring Fuyughe to designate the speakers of all these dialects, passed-slightly modified-into official usage as "Tauade." Location. The Tauade live in the Goilala Subprovince of the Central Province of Papua New Guinea, mainly in the valley of the Aibala River, at 8' S, 147° E. The elevations of this valley range from 600 to 3,000 meters; the lower slopes are grassland, produced by prolonged burning, and the upper slopes are forested. Rainfall averages 25 4 centimeters per year, humidity is seldom below 75 percent, and the yearly average temperature at 2, 100 meters 18° C. The main rainy sea- son lasts from the beginning of December until the end of 318 Tauade May, and the months of June to September tend to be the driest. Demography. In 1966, the population of the Tauade census districts was 8,661. The precontact population was probably smaller. A number of Tauade have migrated to Port Moresby in recent years. linguistic Affiliation. The Tauade language is a member of the Goilalan Family of Papuan languages. History and Cultural Relations The first recorded European visitor was Fr. V. M. Egidi of the Sacred Heart Mission in about 1906, and the first patrol by the Australian government was in 1911. Pacification of the area was a very slow process and was not fully accomplished until after World War II. The Sacred Heart Mission came to the area in the 1930s and established a school at Kerau in 1939. The government established a school at Tapini, the Subprovince headquarters, in 19 62. Graded tracks, con- structed under the supervision of the mission, extend throughout the Subprovince, but there is no vehicular road link with the coast. An airstrip was built at Tapini in 1938 and another at Kerau in 1967; they provide the main access to Port Moresby, approximately 50 kilometers away. There has been considerable labor migration and an influx of trade goods, notably steel axes and other tools, and alternative sources of food, such as rice. Government incentives to raise cattle as a form of income have generally been unsuccessful. Local councils were established in 1963, and in the following year elections were held for the national House of Assembly. Papua New Guinea received its independence in 1975. Settlements The typical settlement pattern is one of scattered hamlets with an average population of forty-five and about fifteen houses (fewer today), often located on the crests of ridges near the forest line. The houses, arranged in two parallel rows, accommodate the women and children, while married men and bachelors occupy the men's

Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 2 - Oceania - T pot

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