DOCSLIB.ORG

Qt8pg2k44f.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Qt8pg2k44f.Pdf UC Irvine Structure and Dynamics Title CONCEPTUALIZING ‘FRONT’ AND ‘BACK’: FRAMES OF REFERENCE AND TAUMAKO REPRESENTATIONS OF SPACE Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8pg2k44f Journal Structure and Dynamics, 9(1) Author Feinberg, Richard Publication Date 2016 DOI 10.5070/SD991031890 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California CONCEPTUALIZING ‘FRONT’ AND ‘BACK’ FRAMES OF REFERENCE AND TAUMAKO REPRESENTATIONS OF SPACE Richard Feinberg Department of Anthropology Kent State University [email protected] The study of navigation involves questions about the conceptualization of space and ways in which people share their spatial understandings with others. This article focus- es on one aspect of spatial cognition, a phenomenon commonly known as “frames of reference” (FoRs). It explores the myriad ways in which Taumako islanders in the southeastern Solomons talk about spatial relations that English speakers term ‘front’ and ‘back.’ I examine how Taumako notions of ‘front’ and ‘back’ articulate with FoRs that are well established in the anthropological literature, and I explore the challenge of applying commonly-accepted FoR typologies to actual Taumako usage. In some con- texts, there was little disagreement among my interlocutors as to proper use of the salient terms. In others, there was considerable divergence; and in certain instances even the same person appeared to be inconsistent from one occasion to the next. I will attempt to identify those areas in which I found widespread consensus as well as those in which disagreements were pervasive, and I will consider possible reasons for that difference. Key words: Polynesia, spatial cognition, frames of reference Introduction The present article, like others in this special issue, emerges from an interest in Pacific Island way-finding. In 2007-08, I spent nine months working with people from the Vaeakau-Taumako region of the southeastern Solomon Islands, studying canoe construc- tion, navigational techniques, and voyaging. Inter-island navigation, my initial focus, is an art that requires specialized skills shared only by a small proportion of the population (cf. Genz, this issue). Way-finding, however, is equally pertinent to ordinary people going about their daily business, whether walking to their gardens, visiting relatives, or locating productive fishing grounds (cf. Schneider and Van der Ryn, both this issue). In the end, such mundane activities loomed every bit as large in my investigation as did long dis- tance voyaging. The study of navigation involves questions about the conceptualization of space and ways in which people share their spatial understandings with others. This article fo- cuses on one aspect of spatial cognition, a phenomenon known in cognitive and linguistic anthropology as “frames of reference” (FoRs).1 More specifically, it explores the myriad !94 ways in which Taumako islanders speak of spatial relations termed ‘front’ and ‘back’ in English.2 It examines how Taumako notions of ‘front’ and ‘back’ articulate with FoRs that have been widely recognized (e.g., Báez 2011; O’Meara and Báez 2011; Bennardo 2002, 2009; Feinberg 2014; Levinson 1996; Palmer 2002). And it explores the challenge of applying commonly-accepted FoR typologies to actual Taumako usage. Like the Ton- gans studied by Bennardo, people on Taumako rely on at least two subtypes of the abso- lute FoR, described in the following section. Unlike Bennardo’s Tongans, however, in- trinsic and relative FoRs are also central. Moreover, it was sometimes difficult to ascer- tain which FoR was being invoked. In some contexts, there was little disagreement among my interlocutors as to the proper use of ‘front’ and ‘back.’ In others, there was considerable divergence; and in certain instances even the same person appeared to be inconsistent from one occasion to the next. I will attempt to identify those areas in which I found widespread consensus as well as those in which disagreements were pervasive, and I will consider possible reasons for that difference. Frames oF Reference: Types and Subtypes When conceptualizing an object’s location, one may pinpoint its position in relation to the speaker/cognizer (ego), a second object, or some fixed external axis. These types of FoR have been dubbed “relative,” “intrinsic,” and “absolute,” respectively. Following Palmer (2002:109-110), an intrinsic FoR is dyadic, as illustrated by the statement, “John is in front of the car,” where John is located in relation to an object that has a clearly-defined front and back. A relative FoR is triadic, as exemplified by the statement, “John is in front of the post.” A post does not have a front and back; rather, the statement means that John is between the post and the speaker. Absolute FoRs resemble the intrinsic type in that both are dyadic, but an absolute FoR locates objects in relation to “pre-established arbi- trary fixed bearings.” This would be illustrated by the statement, “John is north of the house,” indicating that he is located on an axis running between the North and South Poles, and that he is positioned along that axis between the house and the North Pole. Bennardo (2002; 2009) describes these concepts in somewhat different terms but in a manner that is generally consistent with Palmer. For Bennardo (2002:161), a relative frame of reference is “a system of coordinates centred on the speaker/viewer/cogniser”; an intrinsic frame involves coordinates centered on an object other than the speaker; and an absolute FoR is centered neither on the object nor the speaker. Scholars have divided relative and absolute FoRs into a number of subtypes. Sub- types of the relative FoR that appear in Bennardo’s discussion (2009) include “basic,” “translation,” and “reflection.” Subtypes of the absolute FoR include what he calls “car- dinal point,” “single-axis,” “radial,” and “ad hoc/landmark.” The basic subtype of the relative FoR involves three axes—vertical (up/down), transverse (left/right), and sagittal (front/back)—which intersect at the speaker, and ob- jects are located with reference to these three axes. If the speaker moves, the axes also move, and the point of origin remains the speaker. The translation subtype of the relative FoR involves a second object, the “ground,” conceived as facing in the same direction as the speaker. The ground becomes the intersection point of the three axes. Thus, an object !95 on the opposite side of the ground from ego is described as being “in front” of that object. In the reflection subtype, the ground is conceived as facing toward the speaker, and an object located between ego and the ground is described as “in front of” it. The cardinal point subtype of the absolute FoR is typified by the Western division of geographical space in terms of points labeled (in English), north, east, south, and west. Other languages may use different cardinal points, and the numbers of such points may vary. In Vaeakau-Taumako, the ‘wind compass’ (Figure 1; cf. Pyrek and Feinberg, this issue) is conceived as a system of eight cardinal points. The single-axis subtype of the absolute FoR creates an axis between two points of special significance. A common version of this subtype in Oceania involves an imaginary line that runs from the center of an island seaward toward the horizon. Others may in- volve an axis characterized as running upward and downward (which may or may not be a matter of literal altitude), or between two culturally-salient landmarks, such as a town and a village. The radial subtype of the absolute FoR involves a fixed point of reference, and movement is either centripetal (toward) or centrifugal (away) with respect to that central point (Bennardo 2009:61). N Hokohua loa te angeho Tokelau Hakahiu Palapu W Tokelau Tū E Alunga Laki Tonga Ulu Hokohua loa te ngatae S Figure 1. Vaeakau-Taumako ‘wind compass’ and dominant swells as represented by Clement Teniau, November 2007; courtesy of Ghassan Rafeedie. Several authors (e.g., Bennardo 2002, 2009; Levinson 1996; Palmer 2002) sug- gest that Austronesian speakers privilege absolute frames of reference.3 Bennardo adds that in Tonga the predominant FoR is “the radial subtype of the absolute FoR.” Elsewhere (Feinberg 2014), I have described in some detail the conceptualization of space on Tau- mako and the variety of models that the islanders employ. Like Bennardo’s Tongans— and, perhaps, most Polynesians—the Taumako rely heavily on several subtypes of the !96 Figure 2. Map showing Santa Cruz Group in relation to other islands of the central and western Pacific. (Adapted from Yen and Gordon 1973:3.) absolute FoR, but relative and intrinsic FoRs are also important—and sometimes deci- sive. Taumako: The Island and Its People Taumako, also known as the Duff Islands, is a Polynesian outlier in the Solomon Islands’ Temotu Province (see Figures 2 and 3). It has gained prominence among students of Pa- cific navigation thanks to the writings of Davenport (1962, 1964, 1968), Koch (1971), Lewis (1972), and the Vaka Taumako Project (n.d.). It was once part of an elaborate trade network that Davenport (1962) described in his well-known article on “red feather mon- ey.” Until a few decades ago, the system involved production of elaborate voyaging ca- noes (known as puke and alo lili) on Taumako, a high island with dense vegetation and large Callophyllum trees. The Taumako then sold the canoes to voyagers from the Poly- nesian Outer Reef Islands (known locally as Vaeakau), who would sail to the main Reefs and the large Melanesian islands of Vanikoro, Utupua, and Ndeni. They would take pigs, and often women, to exchange for nuts and feather money. Those were then used to pay Taumako craftsmen for additional canoes. The Taumako, in turn, used the feather money as a central element in bridewealth payments.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Food Security and Asset Creation in Solomon Islands: Gender and the Political Economy of Agricultural Production for Honiara Central Market
    PORTAL Journal of RESEARCH ARTICLE Multidisciplinary Food Security and Asset Creation in Solomon International Studies Islands: Gender and the Political Economy of Vol. 16, No. 1/2 2019 Agricultural Production for Honiara Central Market Nichole Georgeou1, Charles Hawksley2, James Monks3, Melina Ki’i4 © 2019 by the author(s). This 1 Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI), Western Sydney University is an Open Access article 2 University of Wollongong distributed under the terms 3 HADRI, Western Sydney University of the Creative Commons 4 HADRI, Western Sydney University Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ Corresponding author: Associate Professor Nichole Georgeou, Humanitarian and Development by/4.0/), allowing third parties Research Initiative (HADRI), Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith NSW 2751, to copy and redistribute the Australia. Email: [email protected] material in any medium or format and to remix, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portalv16i1/2.6542 transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even Article History: Received 04/04/2019; Revised 13/08/2019; Accepted 16/08/2019; Published commercially, provided the 13/11/2019 original work is properly cited and states its license. Citation: Georgeou, N., Abstract Hawksley, C., Monks, J. and Ki'i, M. 2019. Food This article presents data from a 2017 survey of vendors selling fresh produce at the Honiara Security and Asset Creation in Solomon Islands: Gender Central Market (HCM) over a twelve-week period from July–September. It aims to and the Political Economy understand the economic contribution of vendors, and in particular of producer-vendors, of Agricultural Production to their communities.
    [Show full text]
  • Rice and Tea, Fish and Taro: Sikaiana Migration to Honiara
    donner.fm Page 23 Thursday, June 13, 2002 1:13 PM RICE AND TEA, FISH AND TARO: SIKAIANA MIGRATION TO HONIARA William W. Donner Kutztown University For the past seventy years, the people from Sikaiana in the Solomon Islands have been migrating away from their atoll. After World War II, most Sikaiana mi- grants settled in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, located on Guadal- canal Island. Several generations of Sikaiana people have matured in Honiara, and, during my stays in the 1980s, the Sikaiana population in Honiara outnum- bered the population on Sikaiana. In Honiara, Sikaiana migrants have developed many activities that bring them together as a community, including a residential settlement, funerals, wedding exchanges, and fund-raising events. Sikaiana people living on the atoll form a small face-to-face community of biographically known others. Sikaiana migrants in Honiara have developed institutions and events that maintain this kind of intimate community, but economic and demographic factors are not stable, and the lives of migrants are changing in ways that may alter their communal activities. Collective ownership is being replaced by individual owner- ship, generalized reciprocity is replaced by new market relations, and most Sikai- ana migrants are now dependent on earning wages in an uncertain economy and social system. Polopolo mai te tinana koe ka hano ki Tapuaki Sulu tahi ki too sikulu ko he naenae noa i te kuki I promised your mother to make you go to school. Always study hard so that you will not end up making yourself tired working as some white man’s cook.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethnography of Ontong Java and Tasman Islands with Remarks Re: the Marqueen and Abgarris Islands
    PACIFIC STUDIES Vol. 9, No. 3 July 1986 ETHNOGRAPHY OF ONTONG JAVA AND TASMAN ISLANDS WITH REMARKS RE: THE MARQUEEN AND ABGARRIS ISLANDS by R. Parkinson Translated by Rose S. Hartmann, M.D. Introduced and Annotated by Richard Feinberg Kent State University INTRODUCTION The Polynesian outliers for years have held a special place in Oceanic studies. They have figured prominently in discussions of Polynesian set- tlement from Thilenius (1902), Churchill (1911), and Rivers (1914) to Bayard (1976) and Kirch and Yen (1982). Scattered strategically through territory generally regarded as either Melanesian or Microne- sian, they illustrate to varying degrees a merging of elements from the three great Oceanic culture areas—thus potentially illuminating pro- cesses of cultural diffusion. And as small bits of land, remote from urban and administrative centers, they have only relatively recently experienced the sustained European contact that many decades earlier wreaked havoc with most islands of the “Polynesian Triangle.” The last of these characteristics has made the outliers particularly attractive to scholars interested in glimpsing Polynesian cultures and societies that have been but minimally influenced by Western ideas and Pacific Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3—July 1986 1 2 Pacific Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3—July 1986 accoutrements. For example, Tikopia and Anuta in the eastern Solo- mons are exceptional in having maintained their traditional social structures, including their hereditary chieftainships, almost entirely intact. And Papua New Guinea’s three Polynesian outliers—Nukuria, Nukumanu, and Takuu—may be the only Polynesian islands that still systematically prohibit Christian missionary activities while proudly maintaining important elements of their old religions.
    [Show full text]
  • Post Office Box 21, Vavaya Ridge, Honiara, Solomon Islands
    NATIONAL SITUATION REPORT 02: Tinakula Volcano Print NATIONAL DISASTER COUNCIL National Disaster Management Office Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management & Meteorology Post Office Box 21, Vavaya Ridge, Honiara, Solomon Islands Phone: (677) 27937, Mobile: 7410874, Fax: (677) 24293 or 27060 E-mail : [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) NATIONAL SITUATION REPORT 02 Event: Tinakula Volcanic Eruption Date of Issue: 26th October 2017 Time of Issue: 15:30 PM Approved by: N-DOC Chair Issued By: SLB NEOC Next Update: As information become available Sitrep Ref: SR261017002 A. HIGHLIGHTS Volcanic Ash fall is concentrated on Tinakula Island, however, spread over nearby Islands because of the influence of the wind direction Uncertainity on the usage of rain water and bore catchment for household purposes. Signs of complication are now initially reported from some of the villages,this includes, diarrhoea, red eye, skin rush, vomit, and Cough. An Initial Situation Overview (ISO) report has been completed and will be distributed. Outcomes focus on water, health, livelihood, Education and Protection. Water bottles are planned to be shipped to affected communities. A Geologist are deployed to Temotu to monitor the activity SIG Met aviation warning is lifted. N-DOC Health committee are activated and currently supporting the response The estimated population which are expected to be affected is 11,500, however, this can be varied in the coming days as verification continues. Reef Islands and the Polynesian outlayers are most the most vulnerable. 40 Tons of food supply was deployed to Tikopia, Duff and Anuta due to the ongoing food security issues due to the impacts of Tropical Cyclone Donna early this year.
    [Show full text]
  • Land and Maritime Connectivity Project: Road Component Initial
    Land and Maritime Connectivity Project (RRP SOL 53421-001) Initial Environmental Examination Project No. 53421-001 Status: Draft Date: August 2020 Solomon Islands: Land and Maritime Connectivity Project – Multitranche Financing Facility Road Component Prepared by Ministry of Infrastructure Development This initial environmental examination is a document of the borrower. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the ADB’s Board of Directors, Management, or staff, and may be preliminary in nature. In preparing any country program or strategy, financing any project, or by making any designation of or reference to any particular territory or geographic area in this document, the Asian Development Bank does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area. Solomon Islands: Land and Maritime Connectivity Project Road Component – Initial Environmental Examination Table of Contents Abbreviations iv Executive Summary v 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background to the Project 1 1.2 Scope of the Environmental Assessment 5 2 Legal and Institutional Framework 6 2.1 Legal and Planning Framework 6 2.1.1 Country safeguard system 6 2.1.2 Other legislation supporting the CSS 7 2.1.3 Procedures for implementing the CSS 9 2.2 National Strategy and Plans 10 2.3 Safeguard Policy Statement 11 3 Description of the Subprojects 12 3.1 Location and Existing Conditions – SP-R1 12 3.1.1 Existing alignment 12 3.1.2 Identified issues and constraints 14 3.2 Location and Existing Conditions – SP-R5 15 3.2.1 Location
    [Show full text]
  • The Solomon Islands Pacc Ontong Java Pilot Food Securityproject: a Benefit Cost Analysis
    THE SOLOMON ISLANDS PACC ONTONG JAVA PILOT FOOD SECURITYPROJECT: A BENEFIT COST ANALYSIS THE SOLOMON ISLANDS PACC ONTONG JAVA PILOT FOOD SECURITYPROJECT: A BENEFIT COST ANALYSIS Prepared by Andrew McGregor and Casper S Supa June 2012 i THE SOLOMON ISLANDS PACC ONTONG JAVA PILOT FOOD SECURITYPROJECT: A BENEFIT COST ANALYSIS Contents THE SOLOMON ISLANDS PACC ONTONG JAVA PILOT FOOD SECURITYPROJECT: A BENEFIT COST ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................................. i Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... iii List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... vi The Problem ................................................................................................................................... 1 Climate change and food security on the Solomon Islands densely populated atolls .............. 1 The meaning of food security in the context of Solomon Islands atolls .................................... 1 The specific impact of climate on the local availability of food ................................................. 2 The changing food security situation on Ontong Java ..............................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Sociological Factors in Reefs-Santa Cruz Language Vitality: a 40 Year Retrospective
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by RERO DOC Digital Library Sociological factors in Reefs-Santa Cruz language vitality: a 40 year retrospective BRENDA H. BOERGER, ÅSHILD NÆSS, ANDERS VAA, RACHEL EMERINE, and ANGELA HOOVER Abstract This article looks back over 40 years of language and culture change in the region of the Solomon Islands where the four Reefs-Santa Cruz (RSC) lan- guages are spoken. Taking the works of Davenport and Wurm as a starting point, we list specific linguistic changes we have identified and discuss the so- ciological factors which have both promoted and undermined the vitality of these languages. We then determine the level of vitality for each language through the recently proposed Extended Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale — EGIDS (Lewis and Simons 2010), and based on our results for the RSC languages, we provide a short evaluation of the usefulness of EGIDS for prioritizing language documentation efforts. Keywords: Solomon Islands; Solomon Islands Pijin; Reefs-Santa Cruz; Natügu; Nalögo; Nagu; Äiwoo; EGIDS; language documenta- tion; language vitality. 1. Introduction Forty years ago, two authors wrote extensively about the anthropological and linguistic situation in the RSC language communities. Davenport (1962, 1964, 1975, 2005) described the cultural and sociological properties of both the Santa Cruz and Reef Islands cultures, Figure 1, including a description of trade rela- tionships within the Santa Cruz archipelago. At the same time Wurm (1969, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1978) analyzed the linguistic characteristics of the RSC languages. In his later work, Wurm (1991, 1992a, 1992b, 2000, 2002, 2003) also discussed language vitality in the region.
    [Show full text]
  • Raymond Firth's Collection from Tikopia, Solomon Islands. in A
    © Copyright Australian Museum, 2004 Records of the Australian Museum, Supplement 29 (2004): 37–45 ISBN 0-9750476-3-9 Ownership and a Peripatetic Collection: Raymond Firth’s Collection from Tikopia, Solomon Islands ELIZABETH BONSHEK Anthropology, Australian Museum, 6 College Street, Sydney NSW 2010, Australia [email protected] ABSTRACT. The ethnographic collection made by Sir Raymond Firth in Tikopia, Solomon Islands, in 1928 and 1929 is used as a case study for the examination of the different meanings and interpretations attributed to museum collections. This collection is now housed at the Australian Museum in Sydney. In the 1970s the collection was subject to a repatriation request by the National Museum of the Solomon Islands, but the collection was not returned. In examining the progress of this request the history of the collection is traced, including acquisition in the field and subsequent re-locations between university, state and national bodies in Australia. I suggest that the reasons for the failure of the National Museum of the Solomon Islands to successfully negotiate the return of this collection lie in the nature of the repatriation request as an expression of political difference at a national level rather than cultural difference at the local level, and in the specific social relationships, past and present, surrounding the collection. However, the contemporary attitudes to the collection identified in this study should not be assumed to remain constant, as future generations of Tikopia may well reassess the cultural value of this collection. I conclude that museums are sites which mediate specific social relationships, at specific times in history.
    [Show full text]
  • Solomon Islands
    Climate Risk and Adaptation Country Profile April 2011 N Ontong Java Atol Choiseul Malloco Bay Santa Isabel Buala New Yiru Georgia Auki Malaita Harbour Honiara Guadalcanal Kirakira Elevation San Nendo meters above sea-level Cristobal Lata 7088 m Bellona Rennell Utupua Vanikolo -416 m Key to Map Symbols Capital City/Town 0 50 100 200 Kilometers Vulnerability, Risk Reduction, and Adaptation to CLIMATE Climate Change DISASTER RISK ADAPTATION REDUCTION SOLOMON ISLANDS Climate Change Team ENV t Solomon Climate Risk and Adaptation Country Profiles Islands COUNTRY OVERVIEW The Solomon Islands are an archipelago located in the Melanesian region of the Pacific, south-east of Papua New Guinea. The Archipelago consists of 992 small islands that cover approximately 27,000 square kilometers (km2), and a sea area of 1.35 million km2 dispersed between 7 and 12 degrees south of the equator and 156 and 170 degrees longitude. Considered the “Amazon of the Seas”, the country’s 30.00 expansive area covers a unique geographical environment of atolls, mountains, and salt-water 25.00 Thousands lagoons, and has one of the world’s richest marine diversity, including 75% of the known coral species, 20.00 more than 30% of the world’s coral reefs, 40% of the 15.00 coral reef species, and the largest mangrove forest in km2 the world1. Of the 523,170 inhabitants, most live in 10.00 rural areas (~80%)2, in contrast to the rest of East Asia and the Pacific (with rural populations of 60%). 5.00 Agriculture, forestry, and fishing are the mainstay of the economy, with agriculture contributing nearly 0.00 36% of GDP in 2006.
    [Show full text]
  • The Naturalist and His 'Beautiful Islands'
    The Naturalist and his ‘Beautiful Islands’ Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific David Russell Lawrence The Naturalist and his ‘Beautiful Islands’ Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific David Russell Lawrence Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Lawrence, David (David Russell), author. Title: The naturalist and his ‘beautiful islands’ : Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific / David Russell Lawrence. ISBN: 9781925022032 (paperback) 9781925022025 (ebook) Subjects: Woodford, C. M., 1852-1927. Great Britain. Colonial Office--Officials and employees--Biography. Ethnology--Solomon Islands. Natural history--Solomon Islands. Colonial administrators--Solomon Islands--Biography. Solomon Islands--Description and travel. Dewey Number: 577.099593 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover image: Woodford and men at Aola on return from Natalava (PMBPhoto56-021; Woodford 1890: 144). Cover design and layout by ANU Press Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2014 ANU Press Contents Acknowledgments . xi Note on the text . xiii Introduction . 1 1 . Charles Morris Woodford: Early life and education . 9 2. Pacific journeys . 25 3 . Commerce, trade and labour . 35 4 . A naturalist in the Solomon Islands . 63 5 . Liberalism, Imperialism and colonial expansion . 139 6 . The British Solomon Islands Protectorate: Colonialism without capital . 169 7 . Expansion of the Protectorate 1898–1900 .
    [Show full text]
  • Progress and Pathology
    11 Poisonous arrows and unsound minds: hysterical tetanus in the Victorian South Pacific Daniel Simpson When the Royal Navy sloop and flagship of the Australia Station HMS Pearl returned to Sydney harbour on 23 August 1875, it brought with it sad and disturbing news. On the journey home, three sailors, including the Station’s popular and well-respected commodore, James Graham Goodenough, had died from wounds sustained a fortnight earlier at Nendö Island, part of the Santa Cruz group in the South Pacific Ocean. On 12 August, Goodenough and five members of his crew were shot with reputedly poisonous arrows following an unsuccessful attempt to interview Nendö people as part of their investigation into the Pacific Islands labour trade, which Goodenough considered a modern form of slavery. In an echo of the death of Captain James Cook almost one hundred years before, the men came under attack while fleeing the beach for the relative safety of the Pearl’s whaleboats, pursued by island- ers who had long since grown wary of British intrusion. Diligently recorded by the Pearl’s surgeon, Adam Brunton Messer, the symptoms suffered by at least three of the wounded sailors were undoubtedly those of tetanus. Though the disease had long since been associated with open wounds and tropical climates, the tetanus bacterium Clostrid- ium tetani had not yet been discovered; the poisonous arrows’ power to tetanise their victims was therefore unexplained. This chapter explores how Messer subsequently utilised the ambiguous aetiology of tetanus in order to dispute claims that the arrows were poisonous and to argue instead that the sailors of the Pearl in reality suffered from a ‘hysterical’ Daniel Simpson - 9781526147547 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/29/2021 12:21:35AM via free access 270 Negotiating global modernities form of the disease.
    [Show full text]
  • Encarnando a Los Espíritus En La Melanesia
    En c a r n a n d o a l o s Espíritus E n l a ME l a n E s i a : l a i n n o v a c i ó n c o M o continuidad E n E l n o r t E d E va n u a t u Carlos Mondragón CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS DE ASI A Y ÁFRI ca -EL COLEGIO DE MÉXI C O Introducción: Genealogía conceptual de los ritos de paso Al inicio del siglo XX el etnólogo y folclorista francés Ar- nold Van Gennep estableció una serie de categorías ana- líticas para lo que identificó como las etapas primordiales de “transición”, o “paso” (passage), mediante las cuales los individuos inscriben su incorporación a la colectividad de la cual son miembros. En su obra más influyente, Les rites de passage, Van Gennep definió estas etapas como momentos de transformación existencial que se destacan por la cele- bración de “ritos que acompañan todo cambio de lugar, estado, posición social y edad” [Van Gennep, 1909:3].1 Entre los procesos transformativos más significativos que contemplaba Van Gennep en su estudio, estaban los nacimientos, los eventos iniciáticos, los matrimonios y las ceremonias mortuorias (mismos que se han convertido en materia habitual de los estudios sobre el ritual). En línea con las inquietudes comparativistas de su época, 1. Esta cita original y las subsecuentes en francés son traducción del autor. CARLOS MONDRAGÓN Van Gennep propuso también el carácter universal de los ritos de paso, es- tableciendo con ello su trascendencia como herramienta hermenéutica para el análisis general de las formas religiosas (entendido aquí el concepto de “forma” en su sentido durkheimiano clásico, de tipo estructural y simbólico).
    [Show full text]