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.In the words of the anthropologist RaymondFirth, who lived on Tikopia for a year in 1928-29 and returned for subse-quent visits, "It's hard for anyone who has not actually lived on the island torealize its isolation from the rest of the world.It is so small that one is rarelyout of sight or sound of the sea.[The maximum distance from the center ofthe island to the coast is three-quarters of a mile.] The native concept ofspace bears a distinct relation to this.They find it almost impossible to con-ceive of any really large land mass.I was once asked seriously by a groupof them, 'Friend, is there any land where the sound of the sea is not heard?'Their confinement has another less obvious result.For all kinds of spatialreference they use the expressions inland and to seawards.Thus an axe lyingon the floor of a house is localized in this way, and I have even heard a mandirect the attention of another in saying: 'There is a spot of mud on yourseaward cheek.' Day by day, month after month, nothing breaks the levelline of a clear horizon, and there is no faint haze to tell of the existence ofany other land."In Tikopia's traditional small canoes, the open-ocean voyage over the cyclone-prone Southwest Pacific to any of those nearest-neighbor islandswas dangerous, although Tikopians considered it a great adventure.The ca-noes' small sizes and the infrequency of the voyages severely limited thequantity of goods that could be imported, so that in practice the only eco-nomically significant imports were stone for making tools, and unmarriedyoung people from Anuta as marriage partners.Because Tikopia rock is ofpoor quality for making tools (just as we saw for Mangareva and HendersonIslands in Chapter 3), obsidian, volcanic glass, basalt, and chert were im-ported from Vanua Lava and Vanikoro, with some of that imported stonein turn originating from much more distant islands in the Bismarck,Solomon, and Samoan Archipelagoes.Other imports consisted of luxurygoods: shells for ornaments, bows and arrows, and (formerly) pottery.There could be no question of importing staple foods in amounts suffi-cient to contribute meaningfully to Tikopian subsistence.In particular,Tikopians had to produce and store enough surplus food to be able to avoidstarvation during the annual dry season of May and June, and after cyclonesthat at unpredictable intervals destroy gardens.(Tikopia lies in the Pacific'smain cyclone belt, with on the average 20 cyclones per decade.) Hence sur-viving on Tikopia required solving two problems for 3,000 years: Howcould a food supply sufficient for 1,200 people be produced reliably? Andhow could the population be prevented from increasing to a higher levelthat would be impossible to sustain?Our main source of information about the traditional Tikopian lifestylecomes from Firth's observations, one of the classic studies of anthropology.While Tikopia had been "discovered" by Europeans already in 1606, its iso-lation ensured that European influence remained negligible until the 1800s,the first visit by missionaries did not take place until 1857, and the first con-versions of islanders to Christianity did not begin until after 1900.HenceFirth in 1928-29 had a better opportunity than subsequent visiting anthro-pologists to observe a culture that still contained many of its traditional ele-ments, although already then in the process of change.Sustainability of food production on Tikopia is promoted by some ofthe environmental factors discussed in Chapter 2 as tending to make soci-eties on some Pacific islands more sustainable, and less susceptible to envi-ronmental degradation, than societies on other islands.Working in favor ofsustainability on Tikopia are its high rainfall, moderate latitude, and loca-tion in the zone of high volcanic ash fallout (from volcanoes on otherislands) and high fallout of Asian dust.Those factors constitute a geographi-cal stroke of good luck for the Tikopians: favorable conditions for which they personally could claim no credit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.In the words of the anthropologist RaymondFirth, who lived on Tikopia for a year in 1928-29 and returned for subse-quent visits, "It's hard for anyone who has not actually lived on the island torealize its isolation from the rest of the world.It is so small that one is rarelyout of sight or sound of the sea.[The maximum distance from the center ofthe island to the coast is three-quarters of a mile.] The native concept ofspace bears a distinct relation to this.They find it almost impossible to con-ceive of any really large land mass.I was once asked seriously by a groupof them, 'Friend, is there any land where the sound of the sea is not heard?'Their confinement has another less obvious result.For all kinds of spatialreference they use the expressions inland and to seawards.Thus an axe lyingon the floor of a house is localized in this way, and I have even heard a mandirect the attention of another in saying: 'There is a spot of mud on yourseaward cheek.' Day by day, month after month, nothing breaks the levelline of a clear horizon, and there is no faint haze to tell of the existence ofany other land."In Tikopia's traditional small canoes, the open-ocean voyage over the cyclone-prone Southwest Pacific to any of those nearest-neighbor islandswas dangerous, although Tikopians considered it a great adventure.The ca-noes' small sizes and the infrequency of the voyages severely limited thequantity of goods that could be imported, so that in practice the only eco-nomically significant imports were stone for making tools, and unmarriedyoung people from Anuta as marriage partners.Because Tikopia rock is ofpoor quality for making tools (just as we saw for Mangareva and HendersonIslands in Chapter 3), obsidian, volcanic glass, basalt, and chert were im-ported from Vanua Lava and Vanikoro, with some of that imported stonein turn originating from much more distant islands in the Bismarck,Solomon, and Samoan Archipelagoes.Other imports consisted of luxurygoods: shells for ornaments, bows and arrows, and (formerly) pottery.There could be no question of importing staple foods in amounts suffi-cient to contribute meaningfully to Tikopian subsistence.In particular,Tikopians had to produce and store enough surplus food to be able to avoidstarvation during the annual dry season of May and June, and after cyclonesthat at unpredictable intervals destroy gardens.(Tikopia lies in the Pacific'smain cyclone belt, with on the average 20 cyclones per decade.) Hence sur-viving on Tikopia required solving two problems for 3,000 years: Howcould a food supply sufficient for 1,200 people be produced reliably? Andhow could the population be prevented from increasing to a higher levelthat would be impossible to sustain?Our main source of information about the traditional Tikopian lifestylecomes from Firth's observations, one of the classic studies of anthropology.While Tikopia had been "discovered" by Europeans already in 1606, its iso-lation ensured that European influence remained negligible until the 1800s,the first visit by missionaries did not take place until 1857, and the first con-versions of islanders to Christianity did not begin until after 1900.HenceFirth in 1928-29 had a better opportunity than subsequent visiting anthro-pologists to observe a culture that still contained many of its traditional ele-ments, although already then in the process of change.Sustainability of food production on Tikopia is promoted by some ofthe environmental factors discussed in Chapter 2 as tending to make soci-eties on some Pacific islands more sustainable, and less susceptible to envi-ronmental degradation, than societies on other islands.Working in favor ofsustainability on Tikopia are its high rainfall, moderate latitude, and loca-tion in the zone of high volcanic ash fallout (from volcanoes on otherislands) and high fallout of Asian dust.Those factors constitute a geographi-cal stroke of good luck for the Tikopians: favorable conditions for which they personally could claim no credit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]