EXILES AND MIGRANTS IN OCEANIA EXILES AND MIGRANTS IN OCEANIA ASSOCIATION FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN OCEANIA Monograph Series Mac Marshall, Series Editor Other books in this series: No. 1 Adoption in Eastern Oceania, edited by Vern Carroll No. 2 Land Tenure in Oceania, edited by Henry P. Lundsgaarde No. 3 Pacific Atoll Populations, edited by Vern Carroll No. 4 Transactions in Kinship, edited by Ivan Brady ASAO Monograph No. 5 EXILES AND MIGRANTS IN OCEANIA Edited by Michael D. Lieber THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF HAWAII HONOLULU Open Access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Licensed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 In- ternational (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits readers to freely download and share the work in print or electronic format for non-commercial purposes, so long as credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require per- mission from the publisher. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The Cre- ative Commons license described above does not apply to any material that is separately copyrighted. Open Access ISBNs: 9780824880743 (PDF) 9780824880750 (EPUB) This version created: 16 May, 2019 Please visit www.hawaiiopen.org for more Open Access works from University of Hawai‘i Press. Copyright © 1977 by The University Press of Hawaii. To Homer Barnett Who began this work And showed us what culture change is about CONTENTS CONTENTS Dedication vi Maps ix Tables x Editor’s Preface xi 1. Introduction: Locating Relocation in Oceania Martin G. Silverman 1 2. Commas in Microcosm: The Movement of Southwest Islanders to Palau, Micronesia Robert K. McKnight 8 3. The Processes of Change in Two Kapingamarangi Communities Michael D. Lieber 31 4. Communities and Noncommunities: The Nukuoro on Ponape Vern Carroll 60 5. The Relocation of the Bikini Marshallese Robert C. Kiste 70 6. Making Sense: A Study of a Banaban Meeting Martin G. Silverman 107 7. Rotumans in Fiji: The Genesis of an Ethnic Group Alan Howard and Irwin Howard 143 8. Sydney Island, Titiana, and Kamaleai: Southern Gilbertese in the Phoenix and Solomon Islands Kenneth E. Knudson 175 9. Tikopia in the Russell Islands Eric H. Larson 220 10. The Exploitation of Ambiguity: A New Hebrides Case Robert Tonkinson 245 11. What Did the Eruption Mean? Erik G. Schwimmer 269 vii CONTENTS 12. Conclusion: The Resettled Community and Its Context Michael D. Lieber 310 Notes 354 Appendix 385 References 396 Contributors 411 Production Notes 414 viii MAPS MAPS 1. Movement of Southwest Islanders to Palau 2. Southwest Islander settlements on Palau 3. Movement from Kapingamarangi to Ponape 4. Areas on Ponape designated for use by Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro settlers 5. Movement from Nukuoro to Ponape 6. Relocation from Bikini and Eniwetok 7. Relocation from Ocean Island to Rambi 8. Movement from Rotuma to other Fiji Islands 9. Relocation of Gilbertese to Solomon Islands 10. Destination islands: Ghizo and the Shortlands 11. Movement from Tikopia to Russell Islands 12. Tikopia settlements in the Russell Islands 13. Relocation from Ambrym to Efate 14. Mount Lamington, Papua ix TABLES T ABLES 1 Ethnic Status of Last Spouse, Ever-Married Members of Nukuoro Living Ethnic Population, by Location, 15 March 1965 2 Tikopia Migrating to Russell Islands, by Sex, Number of Visits, and Duration of Stay: 1949–1964 3 Tikopia Migrating to Russell Islands, by Age: 1949–1964 4 Tikopia Populations in Russell Islands and on Tikopia: 1964 5 Composition of Tikopia Households in Russell Islands and on Tikopia: 1964 6 Comparative Advantages of Maat Ambrym and Maat x EDITOR’S PREFACE EDITOR ’S PREF ACE Resettled communities are ancient in human history. The Babylonian Captivity, the Romans’ establishment of colonies in conquered territories, and the more recent establishment of reservations for Native Americans are three well-known ex- amples of this time-honored practice. Despite the antiquity and ubiquitousness of resettlement, Exiles and Migrants in Oceania is, to my knowledge, the first attempt by anthropologists to confront the practice in a comparative effort. The comparative study of resettled communities was initiated largely through the thinking, planning, and coordination of Homer G. Barnett, to whom this volume is dedicated. The volume is, if anything, a first fruit of Barnett’s vision and labor. Like the other volumes of the ASAO Monograph Series, this is a symposium volume. With but two exceptions, the authors of the papers included here met at the University of Wash- ington in 1970 to determine, through presentations and dis- cussion, the significant issues raised by the study of resettled communities. On the basis of these discussions, papers circu- lated before the symposium convened were rewritten so that each essay addressed the same issues. It was this sort of com- parison that Barnett envisioned when he established the Pacific Displaced Communities Project. This volume is, hopefully, a first step toward that end. Chapters 1 and 12 discuss the theoretical and comparative issues inherent in the study of resettled communities. They are concerned mainly with the generalizations that can be made from comparing resettled communities and with how these generalizations fit with the larger body of anthropological knowledge. Chapters 2 to 11 present data on specific resettled communities in Oceania. Although each of these chapters con- xi EDITOR’S PREFACE centrates primarily on a particular resettled community (often in comparison with the home island), its comparative focus can be seen in the presentation of the data. I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Martin G. Silverman to the organization and success of the symposium that resulted in this volume. I also wish to emphasize the con- tributions of Murray Chapman and David Schneider. The di- rection which the symposium and the volume took was pro- foundly shaped by Chapman’s masterful exposition of the re- lation between local social units and the larger social systems that are their contexts. David Schneider’s penetrating discus- sions of the shape that culture must inevitably give to the way a community regards its situation was equally determinative of the theoretical and substantive direction of the volume. My special thanks go to Sally Furecz and Emily Friedman for their editorial assistance in preparing the manuscript. Vern Carroll, the past editor, and Mac Marshall, the present editor of the ASAO Monograph Series, provided continual encouragement and advice during the long period of editing and reediting that followed the symposium. In addition to his other considerable contributions to the symposium and this volume, Murray Chapman also directed the preparations of the maps for this volume. To Robert Campbell, the cartographer of these maps, goes my very special gratitude. His careful reading of the manuscript and preparation of maps on the basis of the often dense anthropological prose he had to read was, in my estimation, a marvel. He contributed his time and talent with patience, understanding, and consummate pro- fessionalism. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the generosity of the National Institute of Mental Health for supporting the symposium and much of the costs of preparing the volume (PHS 1 R13 MH18376–01). I also wish to thank the University of Washington for support of the symposium and for a stipend that allowed me to organize this volume during the summer of 1971. xii 1 INTRODUCTION: LOCATING RELOCATION IN OCEANIA Martin G. Silverman Chapter 1 In 1961, Homer G. Barnett of the University of Oregon, with a number of collaborators, presented a proposal to the National Science Foundation for a study of relocated communities in the Pacific Islands. Through the fieldwork of students under the di- rection of Barnett and others, the Barnett project revitalized the study of many parts of Oceania. The project takes its place in the history of anthropology beside those other coordinated en- terprises that have inspired and enabled fieldwork of extraordi- narily high quality.1 This volume contains chapters by members of the Barnett project and others who have, at first hand, studied relocated Pa- cific peoples. Most of the contributors participated in a 1970 conference which not only provoked a useful exchange of ideas but also—and this is probably rare, as anthropological con- ferences go—redefined for the conferees many aspects of the nature of the problem itself.2 In retrospect, the emphases de- veloped were faithful to the original objectives of the Barnett project. I shall not attempt to define relocation or devise a logical set of categories into which the various cases can be sorted. In each of our cases we find, at least, a number of culturally homogeneous people living in a locale which is different from the place they come from. Among the ten resettled groups de- scribed here, we find considerable variation in the composition of the moving group. There are groups who identify themselves as complete societies, such as the Banabans and the Bikinians, groups that begin as “satellites” of the home island, such as the Kapingamarangi on Ponape and the Tikopia in the Russell Islands, and groups consisting of people who had not previ- ously lived together, such as the Southern Gilbertese and the 1 Chapter 1 Southwest Islanders on Palau. At the extreme end of this range are individuals from a natal community who go to a single island and, despite the opportunity to form a community there, choose not to do so. The Nukuoro on Ponape represent this end of the range. There is also much variation among these resettled communities in the types of movement that resettlement consti- tutes for them. For the Bikinians and Southwest Islanders, re- location was a novel experience; for the Southeast Ambrymese and Rotumans, resettlement was part of an ongoing history of movement in the area.