R. Firth Tikopia social space - A commentary by Raymond Firth

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 125 (1969), no: 1, Leiden, 64-70

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A COMMENTARY BY RAYMOND FIRTH

uestions of the patterning of space concepts in relation to the Q patterning of social concepts are intriguing, and I am grateful to Dr. Eyde for his courtesy in sending me the first draft of this paper and allowing me to use the present version as a basis for this comment. I am indebted also to the Editors for having invited me to submit my views. s First, a few general remarks. I find nothing odd in the idea that the Tikopia may have conceptualized space in ways which were consonant with aspects of their social structure, even though they themselves did not explicitly or consciously formulate these patterns in any compre- hensive schematic design. But I do think that the evidence of such implicit patterning needs to be quite ample if assertions about it are to carry conviction. I should state right away that in Tikopia I made no systematic enquiries of a quasi-experimental kind about Tikopia attitudes to such basic spatial forms as circle, square, triangle, cube and sphere. Nor did I explore very far the linguistic data about their spatial concepts. I contented myself with nothing such usages as that the term arofi in arofi rima, palm of the hand, occurred also in arofi vae, sole of the foot, and arofi tai, flat land above the beach, and concluding that the basic concept here was that of a level expanse, envisaged by the Tikopia in a variety of contexts different from ordinary western usage. I was prepared to find that the Tikopia might have had an explicit analogic concept of their world as having the shape of a gourd or bowl or house or other natural or manufactured object, and that this might express their ideas of space accordingly. I did find a few expressions which could be so construed, as that the mountain of Reani, on which the gods were thought to descend from the sky, was thought of as the "ridge-pole" of Kafika temple (1967a, p. 407). But I regarded this as a poetic expression, one image among others, and not implying

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 10:26:10AM via free access TIKOPIA SOCIAL SPACE 65 that the whole Tikopia spatial concept of the island was moulded in "house" form. I did not discover any general explicit imagery of this kind. But the present issue, I take it, is not concerned with the question of whether any Tikopia explicit formulations of this sort have gone unreported, but rather with the interpretation of the implicit significance of what has been reported. I have already written briefly about the possibility of certain abstract schematic patterns being revealed in Tikopia space arrangements (1936, 79; 1957, 80; 1969, —). Inferring ways of thought from observation of ways of behaving is a hazardous process, the difficulties of which seem to me to be much underestimated by some of my colleagues who indulge in these games. But Eyde is right in pulling me up for asserting that "it is safe to say that no Tikopia thinks of the situation in this diagrammatic way." (his note 8, p. 56 above). On the other hand the converse does not necessarily apply, that it is safe to say that the Tikopia do think thus... So while at an elementary level Eyde's view and mine of Tikopia socio-spatial concepts broadly coincide, mine remains much more tentative and limited. In a generous note Eyde writes that our differences are mainly of theoretical approach. I think this is true, but in a special sense, with reference to the identification of relevant evidence. There are two broad issues, one of emphasis, the other of insight. In this particular discussion, a major difficulty I have with Eyde's interpretation is that certain elements seem to have got out of proportion in the total pattern. Such, for example, seems to me to be the weight he attaches to the male/ female dichotomy as a spatial expression and not simply as a social principle. In such matters the original collector or interpreter of the data — in this case myself — cannot claim to be a final arbiter, because his own selection of the evidence and the proportion he assigns to details initially may have been influenced by vested interests of an academic, theoretical order or by more personal factors. Still, insofar as he has observed a flow of events, and even participated in them — i.e. acted in concert with others of the society upon his inferences — his opinions on relative emphasis must have some weight. A difficulty in demonstration is that the whole question of emphasis in selection of relevant data is one of delicate judgement, hard to solve without pro- duction of a great mass of evidence. The issue of insight is more subtle still. Anthropological theory like any other is built upon imaginative insight, the perception of relation- ships and of pattern in relationships not previously recognised, which

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therefore stimulates further enquiry. But the line between insight, which is controlled and susceptible of validation, and speculation, which is not, is very thin, and opinions can differ about the validity of the evidence. And when a theoretical framework has proved its value for the interpretation of some types of data there is a strong temptation to try and impress it upon others, to which it may not really apply. It is primarily in such sense that I see the differences between Eyde and myself in this particular interpretation of a sector of the Tikopia data. I am interested in his line of enquiry and admire the ingenuity of his analysis. I think the few ethnographic misconceptions I have found in his presentation have been due as much to my own too brief reports as to any lack of comprehension on his part. But I find his general conclusions unacceptable because in my view he is too selective in choosing his data and tries to force them into a preconceived mould. So while I find myself agreeing with some of his propositions I find the total exercise stimulating but unconvincing. I restrict my specific comment to a few points.

1. The House and the World.

Clearly, the Tikopia have attached great importance to dual and to quadripartite sectorising of their society, and to the corresponding spatial distribution of these sectors on significant social occasions. But I think the conception of the world as a kind of projection of the structural members of the house is pushed too far. The concept of layers of Heavens (1967b, p. 339) has no basis in the roof of a house, for example, nor is there any conception of land or ocean as house floor. As regards the four house posts and the four major wind points, there is a superficial analogy. But my reference to these four major wind points (in the Fate of the Soul) was oriented to my discussion of Heavens, and was necessarily brief; I was concerned only to speak of the four prime gods, each head of a clan. But the Tikopia wind-point chart is actually more complex; there are seven separately named wind points (mata matangi - eyes of the wind) and in the pagan religious system five of them had important gods as controllers. Fakatiu (northwest) had the Atua i Kafika; Tokerau (north) the Atua i Tafua; Tuauru (south) the Atua i Taumako; and Tonga (southeast) the Atua i Fangarere. In addition Raki (west) was controlled by Tuisifo, Pu Kafika Lasi, a Kafika chief said to have lived about eight generations ago, and regarded as on&

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 10:26:10AM via free access TIKOPIA SOCIAL SPACE 67 of the great ancestral marine spirits of Tikopia. In Tikopia concept each of these gods was responsible for lightning and storms from his direction, though other powerful gods also might raise storms or send calm. Now the wind-points can be put roughly into clan quadrants, and associated with a monsoon-trade wind duality of alternation. But each god was described as dwelling (nofo) in the "eye" of his appropriate wind, i.e. in the wind point. While he was a Post or Stay for his own individual set of Heavens, he had a house of his own; he was not a post in a house-frame of linked Heavens. The gods were described as part of an elaborate structure, but the Tikopia concept was that of a set of personalised power relations operating from wind points (and elsewhere), not that of a celestial or aerial building with posts at four corners.

2. Sex Dichotomy and Seasonal Rites.

As I have amply demonstrated, sex dichotomy principle is very important in Tikopia social and ritual affairs. But I think that Eyde's polarization of monsoon rites to male deities and trade-wind rites to female deities is unwarranted. There was a certain orientation of trade-wind activity towards female deities. But trade-wind rites had a general male orientation in many aspects. As with the monsoon rites, the Atua i Kafika was believed to be responsible for the Work of the trade-wind season, and the turmeric manufacture, which Eyde notes as dealing "primarily with female oven, deities" was in fact specifically cited as being dedicated to the Atua i Kafika, a male deity (1967a, p. 146). On the other hand, monsoon rites also involved female deities: of canoe yard ovens (1967, p. 81); of canoe tutelaries (1967, p. 98, 99); of female participants in plucking the repa for yam rites (1967, p. 142-3); and of female participants in getting sand for the mound of Kafika temple (1967, pp. 242-3).

3. The Concept of Paito.

I think there is confusion here. To argue that "there is firm evidence that in some contexts the term / paito / refers to the entire cognatic stock descended from a particular ancestral couple" is a misjudgement. The Tikopia recognise the bilaterality of kinship, attach great importance

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 10:26:10AM via free access 68 RAYMOND FIRTH to the tie through the mother, and admit limited land rights to daughters (or sisters) and their children. But while these children are of great social significance (hence tama tapu) and are recipients of many goods and services from their mother's paito, it is as members of specifically named other paito from that of their mother that they are objects of so much attention. Moreover, these goods and services are repaid in part at least by goods and services rendered by sons-in-law (or brothers- in-law) to their children's mother's paito, and as sons of these men the male children may take on this affinal role. Children of daughters certainly have rights to! explicit performance by members of their mother's paito, but these rights are limited, discretionary and of a different order than rights enjoyed by members of that paito, the children of sons. The Tikopia might have set up a cognatic system of Samoan type with a kind of tama tane and tama fafine joint member- ship — if indeed the Samoan system is actually of this order — but they did not do so (cf. 1936, pp. 391, 580-1 for a few comments oh the Tikopia vis-a-vis the Samoan system). So, "the entire cognatic stock" descended from an ancestral couple is recognised as having a certain unity, but is not aggregated under a single paito term. The Tikopia view is rather: a "house" does not make gifts to itself; children of sisters and daughters get gifts from their mother's house because they belong to other "houses". So too I think the notions of subsidiary "houses" occupying figur- atively the four corners of the ancestral house, and of new houses originating in alternate generations are too formalistic, and are not supported by Tikopia evidence.

4. Tikopia Marriage System.

I have sympathy with Eyde's complaint (note 9) that the genealogical data about lineage marriages are fragmentary. I can only plead that my original genealogical records are bulky, and analysis and. publication of the results would be a major task. I had not thought it necessary to give them in detail because it seemed quite clear to trie that the Tikopia had not got a prescriptive marriage system, either as a rule ("ideology") or as a practice. From totals of what appeared as relatively unpatterned unions I did extract a general tendency, compared as between 1929 and 1952, for union with people in the same or in an adjacent village; I could find no marked lineage marital patterning (1959, pp. 208-12). It is true

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 10:26:10AM via free access TIKOPIA SOCIAL SPACE 69 that I felt there were hints of regular marriage arrangements between groups, such as that of a man seeking a bride in the group from which his mother came, or a forced exchange of women (1936, p. 565). But when I followed these up I found they were no more than casual state- ments without prescription, and they were not borne out by the data on actual marriages. These original data are not at the moment available to me for checking, but certainly my memory of them as well as the fairly considerable body of evidence already published leads me to reaffirm the view that the Tikopia have not got an alliance system of a prescriptive asymmetric type, unperceived by them or by me, even among the chiefly groups.

5. Position of Stones.

A brief addendum: Eyde has been puzzled by the presence of the stone of the Atua i Niumano (Taumako) on the side of Tafua — near the mat of the Ariki Tafua — in Marae Lasi. This is explicable on "realistic" as against "intellectualistic" grounds. The elder of Niumano lived in Namo, under the local jurisdiction of the Ariki Tafua, just as the elder of Sao (Tafua) lived in Ravenga under the local juris- diction of the Ariki Taumako (1959, pp. 221-2). In olden days, when relations between chiefs and their elders were not always good, local ties could count more than clan ties, as indeed they still often do. So for ritual purposes the stones of Niumano and Sao were set near those of the local companions of their elders, not only in Marae Lasi but also in Marae Matautu. It may be argued that this is only another example of a balanced dualism. But the ritual affairs of the elders of Raropuka and Marinoa also tended to be intermingled in practice with those of the Ariki Tafua, as well as those of their own Kafika chief.

To conclude, I find Eyde's essay extremely interesting, ingenious and thought-provoking, especially in the section on binary and quadri- partite perception of space, though I cannot support his general con- clusions. I think it raises by implication a very serious problem of interpretation, in that two anthropologists of broadly similar interests can come to very different conclusions about a social structure from what one of them had thought to be a fairly full, systematic set of materials. From this I draw two methodological inferences. One is the power of a preconceived theoretical framework in the arrangement and

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 10:26:10AM via free access 70 RAYMOND FIRTH interpretation of data; the other is the significance of proportion in the selection of evidence. The essay also implies the problem of what happens to such concepts when religion changes; modern reactions have not supported the view that Tikopia spatial concepts were so firmly anchored to their pagan religious system.

University of Hawaii RAYMOND FIRTH

REFERENCES

Firth, Raymond 1936 We, The Tikopia: a Sociological Study of Kinship in Primitive Poly- nesia. London: Allen & Unwin. 1957 We, The Tikopia. (paperback, abridged) Boston: Beacon Press. 1959 Social Change in Tikopia: Restudy of a Polynesian Community after a Generation. London: Allen & Unwin. 1967a The Work of the Gods in Tikopia. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology, nos. 1 & 2. new. ed. London: Athlone Press. 1967b Tikopia Ritual and Belief. London: Allen & Unwin. 1969 Postures and Gestures of Respect in Tikopia. Melanges Levi-Strauss. Paris, (in press).

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