The social organisation of a Polynesian atoll - article ; n°32 ; vol.27, pg 250-264

Sachiko Hatanaka

Description

Journal de la Société des océanistes - Année 1971 - Volume 27 - Numéro 32 - Pages 250-264
15 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Informations

• Publié par: JOURNAL_DE_LA_SOCIETE_DES_OCEANISTES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1971
• Nombre de lectures: 47
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Sachiko Hatanaka
The social organisation of a Polynesian atoll
In: Journal de la Société des océanistes. N°32, Tome 27, 1971. pp. 250-264.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Hatanaka Sachiko. The social organisation of a Polynesian atoll. In: Journal de la Société des océanistes. N°32, Tome 27,
1971. pp. 250-264.
doi : 10.3406/jso.1971.2333
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migration, in high 1962 This volcanic and paper most nearly islands. is of based the a year atolls I on took in field were Pukarua 1963 work settled and on as 1964. in a Pukarua case the relatively for In resettlement done the process during recent of through past three Polynesian from months popul the
ation movements in the eastern Tuamotus and I tried to analyse the socio-
economic organisation of an island long isolated from the outside world. In this
paper, I take up the relationship between social organisation and land tenure
under the changing economic circumstances.
Introduction
Pukarua atoll is located at 18 degrees South latitude and 137 degrees
West longitude in the eastern part of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French
Polynesia. It is separated from the nearest adjacent islands of Reao and
Tatakoto by about 63 Km. to more than 180 Km. of open ocean, respectively.
The greatest length of Pukarua atoll is about 16 Km. from the northwest
to the southeast. It is a typical atoll with a central lagoon and a fringing
reef. The northeastern side, Tokerau, is an elongated area used for coco
nut planting and the southeastern side, Kereteki, comprises a chapleted
low-lying coral string of more than 40 islets. One village, Marautangaroa,
is located in the northwestern part of the island. There are 230 inhabi
tants : 204 local Polynesians, 15 half-Chinese, 9 half-Tahitian and 2 Chinese.
The Pukaruans have been under French administration since 1842.
The Tuamotu Archipelago is composed of 76 coral atolls extending
nearly 2,000 Km. from north to southeast, centering on the same latitude
as Tahiti. They were discovered by European explorers at the beginning
of the seventeenth century. However, these provided few records
of the Tuamotus, for they did not land because of difficulty in anchoring
and the poor resources of the atolls. Because coconut palms were scarce
251 SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES
there in those days and pandanus covered most parts of the atolls, they
did not seem attractive to the navigators. As a result, the Tuamotus did
not enter world history before the twentieth century. Pukarua is one of
many scattered atolls far from Tahiti. This tiny atoll, which produces
nothing of commercial value, has not been getting much official attention.
There are variables even among the Tuamotus. E. Caillot, who was a
pioneer in eastern Polynesian study, pointed out * la diversité des types
d'hommes ' in the Tuamotus around the beginning of this century. Puka
rua and Reao apparently differ in language and physical character from
most other Tuamotuans. The Western Tuamotuans actually think that
the Reao-Pukarua peoples are rather like Taratoni (New Caledonians)
(Ottino 1965 : 3). The Pukarua language differed markedly from the adja
cent islands when Fr. Maze worked there in the 1920s, although it is now
rapidly changing because of communication with Tahiti and other areas.
The people of Pukarua had gradually migrated from Reao following
the first re-settlers. They began to plant coco-nut palms as soon as they
settled down on the deserted island. While the people of the Society Islands
were commercially connected with the world economy through the export
of copra or vanilla, the inhabitants of Pukarua were still living in a subsis
tence economy based on fish, shell-fish, pandanus fruit and few coconuts.
When copra came into great demand in the world market in the 1920s,
the missionaries made the inhabitants plant young coconut palms. Like
some other atolls of the Tuamotus, Pukarua offers few possibilities for agri
culture, for there is little soil, water or sporadic hurricanes. But the coco
nut trees are particularly suited to this environment, and yielded fruits
after 5 to 7 years. When the island began to be covered by coconut palms,
a copra-schooner began to collect copra. Copra became the most important
export from French Polynesia, especially after World War II. The Depart
ment of Agriculture encouraged the people to plant more coconut trees
during the 1950s. The government occasionally asked the Catholic Mis
sionary on consignment to supervise the remote eastern Tuamotus. Thus,
Pukarua gradually entered the agricultural economy.
Natural Environment and Subsistence
Pukarua atoll is intermittently covered by water. It is a series of islets
made up of accumulations of coral debris. These islets are not more than
two or three metres above sea-level, or occasionally less. The vegetation
included the few coconut palms introduced to Pukarua before the advent
of missionaries. The growth of breadfruit was limited by the calcareous
soil and the sensitivity of the trees to salt spray or occasional inundation
(Rappaport 1963 : 161), although eastern Polynesia had many varieties
of the breadfruit. The atoll's dominant plant cover is the pandanus (Pan
danus tectorius Solander), Portulaca johnii, Morinda citrifolia, and other
common atoll plants. The inhabitants utilised island vegetation to its
maximum for food, oil for cooking, medicine, a sweet scented oil for their
252 !
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253 SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES
bodies, charcoal, mats or baskets, ropes, canoes, houses, and other items of
material culture. Above all, the pandanus was important in traditional
subsistence on many coral atolls. Its fruits for food, and leaves for mats,
shelter, and other uses made it possible for people to settle and live on this
deserted island, Pukarua. The establishment of introduced root crops,
Kape (Alocasia macrorrihiza) generally required painstaking preparation
of the cultivation sites. In the past, Kape was planted in several places,
but as the staple food of the natives changed due to the imported food,
the of Kape was replaced by that of rau fara. The rau fara
is a species of Pandanus, without fruits, the leaves of which are used to make
sleeping mats and hats, which are sold to the schooner. Now, rau fara
no longer grows wild.
The coconut palms were first cultivated as a cash crop in the Tuamotus
in the middle of the nineteenth century. They were first brought to Puka
rua by the immigrants from Reao. Now Pukarua is covered by coconut
palms and the people fully utilise them. The coconuts are indispensable
food for the people. Through contact with the trading boat, the islanders
of Pukarua began to obtain imported foodstuffs. But their bartering of
copra is insufficient for daily consumption of imported foodstuffs. There
is little variation in diet among the people. The ipo, ball of flour with gra
ted coconut meat, poached in boiling water or baked in the earth oven,
is the staple food in the whole area of the Tuamotus. Formerly the Puka-
ruans had a meal once a day but now they eat twice a day, in the morning
and the evening, using a typical Polynesian earth oven. With coconuts
their staple food, the people studied every phase in their growth and made
a detailed practical classification of their stages of growth and food values.
The use of domesticated animals has only begun, for the pig, the dog and
the fowl which reached many islands did not arrive at Pukarua until recently.
Dogs were first brought from other islands about thirty years ago. The
absence of land animals and the infertility of th