Social Change in the South Pacific: Rarotonga and Aitutaki
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC Rarotonga and Aitutaki BY ERNEST BEAGLEHOLE D136D1., ? | ey ro Be Ca ow ; NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1957 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as per- mitted under the Copyright Act 1956, no portion may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. © The Macmillan Company, 1957 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 9d -O PREFACE THIS monograph summarizes the results of applying historical and contemporary fieldwork methods to the analysis of the processes of social change in the two small Pacific islands of Rarotonga and Aitutaki. In its earlier historical sections it relies very largely upon the surviving early Cook Island missionaries’ records now lodged in the London library of the London Missionary Society. I have to thank Miss Irene M. Fletcher, librarian and archivist of the London Missionary Society, for making available these records, and the Secretaries of the Society for their generous permission to use them in any way that suited the purpose of this study. My wife spent many laborious days that might have otherwise been more enjoyably used working through the early Cook Island mission res files in the L.M.S. library. She also read the proofs and prepared the index. I thank her now, as always, for her unfailing help and a ye encouragement. | Thelatter part of this monograph is based on some two months’ intensive fieldwork in Aitutaki in the summer of 1948-49. Although my time was very short its value was immeasurably increased by the unlimited assistance, friendliness and hospitality of John Harrington and Myra Harrington. Because she was Aitutaki by birth and upbringing, later educated in New Zealand, a trained nurse by profession, Myra Harrington was the informant thatall fieldworkers dream of, full of knowledge, sensitive, objective, thoughtful, moving easily between two cultures, a sure guide through the intricacies of contemporary Aitutaki custom andsocial life. Thefirst draft of this manscript was completed in 1951. My main thesis seems as valid today as it was a few years ago. I have therefore left its statement largely unchanged. I have broughtstatistics up to date and addedsufficient notes to record some of the moresignificant official policy decisions, and the reports on which policy has been based, to give a fair idea of the way in which New Zealandis trying to aid the Cook Islander to re-interpret his place and rdéle in the modern world. This aid has been given freely, generously and rapidly, so much so that within the past month or twoit has been officially announced that loans are now available for improving Cook Islands housing, plans and specifications are being prepared for a large new government inter-island freight and passenger vessel, the Cook Soo ~L ee PREFACE Islands Department of Agriculture is to be strengthened, land util- ization surveys initiated, a large central cool store for the citrus industry completed in Rarotonga, ways and means explored for establishing a quick-freeze industry for frozen pineapples and other tropical fruits and finally, political, constitutional, community and social welfare developments are to be further encouraged. Con- solidation of economic and social development will obviously re- quire time, patience and much co-operation on the part of adminis- trators, technical experts and Islanders, but the new policies are a sign that goodwill and intelligent planning have at last reached the stage where social and economic advancement has become the main- spring of official policy for the Cook Islands. Finally, I am not unaware that a morerefined analysis of some phases of CookIsland social change might have been madeby using a conceptual scheme that viewed island society as a system of systems and therefore proceeded separately to annotate changes in culture, social structure, social organization and personality system. Or again, using concepts derived from contemporary réle theory the relations between missionary, trader and administrator on the one hand and CookIslander on the other might have been formulated in such fashion as to emphasize the importance of intercultural rdle networks. But such analyses would necessarily have to place great emphasis on social theory and could well have produced a result not immediately relevant to my present purpose which has been more that of demonstrating the kind and amount of social change in one small Pacific island culture over the past 100 or more years than that of exploring the nature and use of new con- ceptual tools. This latter task may well be reserved for another place and anothertime. The quotation from Lord David Cecil’s study of Cowper, The Stricken Deer, that so aptly sums upthecriss-crossing purposes of the early nineteenth-century Cook Islandssocial scene is reproduced by permission of the publishers, Constable and Company. ERNEST BEAGLEHOLE Victoria University College, Wellington, New Zealand. July 1957 CONTENTS PREFACE PAGE V INTRODUCTION 1 The Place 3 2 The Problem 4 3 Note on Geography and History 6 PART I: THE MISSIONARY ORDER 4 Aboriginal Culture 11 5 Initial Contacts 12 6 Effective Contact. Aitutaki, Phase 1 14 7 Effective Contact. Rarotonga, Phase 1 19 8 Opposition to New Faith, 1827-33, Raro- tonga, Phase 2 23 9 Opposition to New Faith, 1827-33, Aitutaki, Phase 2 38 10 Social Changes in Phases I and 2 40 11 The New Order 43 12 Consolidation of the New Order 56 13. Economic Development | 67 14. Whalers, Traders and Frenchmen 69 15 Introduction of Alcohol 75 16 A Trading Mission 77 17 Factors Influencing Social Change 79 PART II: MISSIONARY AND GOVERNMENT 18 The Period of Stabilization, 1857-1901 87 19 Economic Changes 90 20 Mission Work 94 21 Peruvian Slavers 95 22 Social Problems, 1867-77 96 23 The Protectorate 101 24 Social Change, 1855-1901 118 25 Coda 125 PART III: CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL LIFE 26 Population 129 27 Mortality and Fertility 135 28 Public Health 136 29 Migration 137 30 Population Density 139 CONTENTS 31 Economic Organization PAGE 142 32 Foods 143 33 Land Tenure 146 34 Work Organization 149 35 Organization for Visitors 153 36 Work Habits 156 37 Houses 159 38 Clothing 161 39 The Village Day 162 40 Households 163 41 Adoption 164 42 Kinship 166 43 Tribal Organization 167 44 Warfare 171 45 Village Activities 172 46 Village Leadership 175 47 Marriage 176 Sex Relations in Marriage 178 49 Pregnancy 180 50 Infancy 183 51 Age Grades 184 52 Growing Up 186 53 The Middle Years 188 54 Sickness and Death 19] 55 Religion 194 PART IV: WELFARE, PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 56 Welfare and Development 203 57 Administration 206 58 Administrative Personnel 211 59 Economic Development 212 60 Education 217 61 Intellectual Capacity 219 62 Character Structure 224 63 Rorschach Records 232 64 Development of Character Structure 235 65 Character Structure and Social Change 235 66 Social Change 237 67 Conclusion 255 Index 263 An historical period is not a watertight compartment, containing only whatit has itself created, sharing nothing with what has gone before and what comesafter. It is a tangle of movementsand forces, of variousorigin, sometimes intertwined and sometimes running parallel, some beginning, some in their prime, some in decay; streaked by anomalies and freaks of nature; coloured by physical conditions, by national characteristics, by personalities; struck across by unexpected, inexplicable stirrings of the spirit of God or of man; yet with every strand part of what is past or what is to come;a great river ever fed by new streams, its course continuous and abrupt, chequered and unfaltering, now thundering over a suddencataract, now partially diverted into a backwater and carrying on its mysterious surface fragments of wreckage, survivals of an earlier day, not yet dis- solved into oblivion. LORD DAVID CECIL I do not like dissenters, they are more zealous and consequently more intolerant than the established church. Their only object is power. If we are to have a prevailing religion let us have one that is cool and indifferent. WILLIAM LAMB, LORD MELBOURNE One generalization of importance that emerges from the studies of culture contact and culture change is, that on the whole, the people of a com- munity tend to respond best to stimuli which have somerelation to their traditional values and forms of organization. RAYMOND FIRTH INTRODUCTION 1 The Place THE South Pacific consists of huge expanses of sea and occasional specks of land. The CookIslands are to be found within that part of the Pacific expanse which is boundednorth and south by the 8th and 23rd degrees of south latitude, east and west by the 156th and 167th degrees of west longitude. The ocean thus limited has an area of about 850,000 square miles. Within it, the Lower Group of Cook Islands, eight of them, and the seven islands making up the Northern Group, together have a land area of just over 56,000 acres (about 88 square miles) and a total population in 1956 of 16,424 people, all but approximately 400 of whom are indigenous Cook Islanders. The islands of the lower group are of volcanic origin, generally rising from lowlands close to the beach to hilly or mountainous interiors. The highest peaks of Rarotongaare about 2,000 feet high, those of Aitutaki little more than 450 feet high. The soil is generally rich and fertile. The northern islands are typical coral atolls, low- lying, with infertile coral-sand soil. The average temperature of Rarotonga is about 75 degrees, the average rainfall about 80 inches. In Aitutaki the temperature ranges between 70 and 80 degrees, the rainfall being about 100 inchesora little less.