Difference between revisions of "Polynesia" - New World Encyclopedia
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It is likely that the Polynesians also used wave and swell formations to navigate. Many of the habitable areas of the Pacific Ocean are groups, or chains, of islands (or atolls) in long chains—hundreds of kilometers long. Island chains have predictable effects on waves and on currents. Navigators who lived within a group of islands would learn the effect various islands had on their shape, direction, and motion and would have been able to correct their path in accordance with the changes they perceived. When they arrived in the vicinity of a chain of islands they were unfamiliar with, they may have been able to transfer their experience and deduct that they were nearing a group of islands. Once they had arrived fairly close to a destination island, they would have been able to pinpoint its location by sightings of land-based birds, certain cloud formations, as well as the reflections shallow water made on the undersides of clouds. It is thought that the Polynesian navigators may have measured the time it took to sail between islands in "canoe-days’’ or a similar type of expression (Gatty 1999). | It is likely that the Polynesians also used wave and swell formations to navigate. Many of the habitable areas of the Pacific Ocean are groups, or chains, of islands (or atolls) in long chains—hundreds of kilometers long. Island chains have predictable effects on waves and on currents. Navigators who lived within a group of islands would learn the effect various islands had on their shape, direction, and motion and would have been able to correct their path in accordance with the changes they perceived. When they arrived in the vicinity of a chain of islands they were unfamiliar with, they may have been able to transfer their experience and deduct that they were nearing a group of islands. Once they had arrived fairly close to a destination island, they would have been able to pinpoint its location by sightings of land-based birds, certain cloud formations, as well as the reflections shallow water made on the undersides of clouds. It is thought that the Polynesian navigators may have measured the time it took to sail between islands in "canoe-days’’ or a similar type of expression (Gatty 1999). | ||
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==Politics== | ==Politics== | ||
| + | Polynesia includes six independent nations (New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Samoa), two political units that are parts of larger nations (Hawaii is a state of the United States, and Easter Island is part of Chile), two self-governing entities that remain linked with their former colonial power (Cook Islands and Niue with New Zealand), and five territories administered by other nations — New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna, all administered by France, Tokelau, administered by New Zealand, and American Samoa administered by the United States. | ||
| + | Polynesian governments vary. The independent nations replaced hereditary chiefs with constitutions providing for executives and legislatures. In Tonga, politics are controlled by a hereditary king, who serves as head of state and appoints the head of government. In the nations that have entered pacts with the United States or New Zealand, the pattern is for local self-government with matters of defence overseen by the foreign power. | ||
| + | Internal self-government is also the rule among the territories of overseas powers, with elected legislatures and executives. Some elected representatives are sent to the national legislature in the overseas capital. French Polynesia sends one voting member to each house of the French National Assembly in Paris. The territories are dependent on the mainland government for economic subsidies, and often have little control over political decisions. | ||
==Economy== | ==Economy== | ||
Revision as of 08:59, 18 July 2006
Polynesia (from the Greek words meaning "many islands") is a large grouping of over 1000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The term "Polynesia" was coined by Charles de Brosses in 1756, and originally applied to all the islands of the Pacific. Jules Dumont d'Urville in an 1831 lecture to the Geographical Society of Paris proposed a restriction on its use, and also introduced the terms Micronesia and Melanesia. This division into three distinct Pacific sub-regions remains in widespread use today.
Geography
Polynesia may be described as a triangle with its corners at Hawai'i, New Zealand and Easter Island. The other main island groups located within the Polynesian triangle are Samoa, Tonga, the various island chains that form the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. A Polynesian island group outside of this great triangle is Tuvalu. There are small Polynesian enclaves in the Solomons and in Vanuatu. It is also an anthropological term referring to one of the three parts of Oceania (the others being Micronesia and Melanesia).
The Pacific Islands, except New Zealand and Easter Island, lie within the rainy tropics or the humid subtropics. In such areas there are no abrupt seasonal changes as occur in regions of temperate climate. Temperatures typically average close to 27° C (80° F) most of the year.
There are coral atolls, volcanic islands, many with active volcanoes, and some of the highest mountains in the world. The vegetation varies. Soils on coral atolls are thin and sandy. Sparse vegetation consists of shrubs, small trees, grasses, and coconut palms. Continental islands have mangrove forests on the coast, palm trees further inland, and rainforest in the interior.
The following are the islands and island groups, either nations or sub-national territories, that are of native Polynesian culture. Some islands of Polynesian origin are outside the general triangle that geographically defines the region.
American Samoa (overseas United States territory), Anuta (in the Solomon Islands), Cook Islands and Niue (both self-governing states in association with New Zealand), Easter Island (part of Chile, also called Rapa Nui, Emae (in Vanuatu), French Polynesia (a territory of France), Hawai‘i (a state of the United States), Kapingamarangi (in the Federated States of Micronesia), Loyalty Islands (a dependency of the French territory of New Caledonia), Mele (in Vanuatu), New Zealand (also called Aotearoa), Nuguria (in Papua New Guinea), Nukumanu and Takuu (both in Papua New Guinea), Nukuoro (in the Federated States of Micronesia), Ontong Java, Pileni, Sikaiana, Rennell, and Tikopia (all in the Solomon Islands), Samoa (an independent nation), Swains Island (politically a part of American Samoa), Tokelau (an overseas dependency of New Zealand), Tonga (an independent nation), Tuvalu (an independent nation), and Wallis and Futuna (overseas territory of France)
History
Polynesian culture has developed in four different historical eras: Exploration and settlement (from about 1800 B.C.E. to 700 C.E.), pre-European growth (from 700 B.C.E. to 1595), European discovery and colonization until World War II (1595 to 1945), and modern times (from 1945 to present)
Maternal mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests that Polynesians, including Tongans, Samoans, Niueans, Cook Islanders, Tahitians, Hawaiians, Marquesans and Maori, are genetically linked to indigenous peoples of parts of Southeast Asia including those of Taiwan. Between about 3000 and 1000 B.C.E. speakers of Austronesian languages spread through island South-East Asia – almost certainly starting out from Taiwan – into the edges of western Micronesia and on into Melanesia. In the archaeological record there are well-defined traces of this expansion. In the mid 2nd millennium B.C.E. a distinctive culture appeared suddenly in north-west Melanesia, in the Bismarck Archipelago. This culture, known as Lapita, is distinctive for its large permanent villages on beach terraces, and the making of pottery. Between about 1300 and 900 B.C.E., the Lapita culture spread 6000 kilometers east until it reached Tonga and Samoa. In this region, the distinctive Polynesian culture developed.
The early Polynesians were an adventurous seafaring people. Archaeological evidence indicates that by about 700 C.E., the Polynesians had settled the vast Polynesian triangle. By comparison, Viking navigators first settled Iceland around 875C.E. Most evidence indicates that their motivation was to ease the demands of burgeoning populations.
Each island or island group's culture developed in isolation. There was no widespread inter-island group communication, nor is there much indication during this period of any interest in such communications, at least not for economic reasons. This fact makes all the more astounding the limited linguistic entropy of the Polynesian languages.
Each local population developed politically in diverse ways, from fully-developed kingdoms in some islands and island groups, to constantly-warring tribes or extended family groups between various sections of islands, or in some cases, even within the same valleys on various islands.
On low islands, where communications are essentially unimpeded, there does not appear to have developed any widely-observable incidence of conflict. But on most high islands, there were, historically, warring groups inhabiting various districts, usually delimited primarily by mountain ridges, with carefully drawn lowland boundaries. Early on, however, many such islands developed a united social and political structure, usually under the leadership of a strong monarch.
The first Polynesian islands visited by European explorers were the Marquesas Islands, first discovered by Europeans when the Spanish navigator, Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, found the islands in 1595.
Because of the paucity of mineral or gemological resources, the exploration of Polynesia by European navigators (whose primary interest was economic), was of little more than passing interest. The great navigator Captain James Cook was the first to attempt to explore as much of Polynesia as possible.
Europeans brought a great number of changes within Polynesian culture, mostly as a result of colonization, the introduction of a large number of alien diseases to which the Polynesians had no immunity, slavery to supply plantations in South America, and an influx of Christian missionaries, many of whom regarded the Polynesians as descendants of the Lost Tribes|lost tribes of Israel. In many cases, colonizing powers, usually under pressure from missionary elements, forcibly suppressed native cultural expression, including the use of the native Polynesian languages.
By the early 1900s, almost all of Polynesia was colonized or occupied to various degrees by Western colonial powers. However Tonga (or the "Friendly Islands") maintained its independence, at least nominally. Meanwhile, all of the Polynesian outliers were subsumed into the sometimes-overlapping territorial claims of Japan, the United Kingdom and France.
During World War II, a number of Polynesian islands played critical roles. The critical attack which brought the United States into the war, was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in south-central Oahu, Hawaii. A number of islands were developed by the Allies as military bases, especially by the American forces, including as far east as Bora Bora.
Following World War II, political change came more slowly to the islands of Polynesia than to the other parts of overseas colonies of European powers. Although sovereignty was granted by royal proclamation to New Zealand as early as 1907, this did not go into full effect until 1947.
Following in independence were the nations (and the sovereign powers from which they obtained complete political independence) of: Samoa, as "Western Samoa" (from New Zealand) in 1962, Tonga (from the United Kingdom) in 1970, Tuvalu (from the United Kingdom) in 1978, the Phoenix Islands and most of the Line Islands as part of the republic of Kiribati (from the United Kingdom) in 1979
The remaining islands are still under official sovereignty of the following nations: American Samoa (United States), Cook Islands (New Zealand), French Polynesia (France), Niue (New Zealand), Pitcairn (United Kingdom), Tokelau (New Zealand), Wallis and Futuna (France), Easter Island (Chile), Howland, Baker, Jarvis, and Palmyra Islands (United States).
The various outliers lie within the sovereign territory of the nations of Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the French territory of New Caledonia.
Migration
The migration of the Polynesians is impressive considering that the islands settled by them are spread out over great distances — the Pacific Ocean covers nearly a half of the Earth's surface area. Most contemporary cultures, by comparison, never voyaged beyond out of sight of land.
Knowledge of the traditional Polynesian methods of navigation was largely lost after contact with and colonization by Europeans. Explorer Captain James Cook, already familiar with Charles de Brousse’s accounts of large groups of Pacific islanders who were driven off course in storms and ended up hundreds of miles away with no idea where they were, encountered in the course of one of his own voyages a castaway group of Tahitians who had become lost at sea in a gale and blown 100 miles away to the island of Atiu. Cook wrote that the Atiu incident ‘will serve to explain, better than the thousand conjectures of speculative reasoners, how the detached parts of the earth, and, in particular, how the South Seas, may have been peopled’ (Sharp 1963:16).
By the late 19th century to the early 20th century a more generous view of Polynesian navigation had come into favour, perhaps creating too romantic a picture of their canoes, seamanship and navigational expertise. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century writers such as Abraham Fornander and Stephenson Percy Smith told of heroic Polynesians migrating in great coordinated fleets from Asia to the islands now known as Polynesia (Finney 1976:5). In the mid-twentieth century, Thor Heyerdahl proposed another romanticised theory of Polynesian origins, arguing that the Polynesians had migrated from South America on balsa-log boats (Sharp 1963:122-128, Finney in Finney 1976:5).
Research and practice: A more sober and analytical view was presented by Andrew Sharp, who amassed a wealth of evidence to challenge the ‘heroic vision’ hypothesis, asserting instead that Polynesian maritime expertise was severely limited and that as a result the settlement of Polynesia had been the result of luck, random searching, and drifting, rather than as organised voyages of colonisation (Sharp 1963). Sharp’s reassessment caused a huge amount of controversy and led to a stalemate between the romantic and the sceptical views (Finney in Finney 1976:5).
By the mid to late 1960s it was time for a new hands-on approach. Dr David Lewis sailed his catamaran from Tahiti to New Zealand using stellar navigation without instruments (Lewis 1976). Ben Finney built a 40-foot replica of a Hawaiian double canoe and tested it in a series of sailing and paddling experiments in Hawaiian waters. At the same time, ethnographic research in the Caroline Islands in Micronesia brought to light the fact that traditional stellar navigational methods were still very much in everyday use there. This was also the case in the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines. The building and testing of canoes inspired by traditional designs, the harnessing of knowledge from skilled Micronesian and Philippine navigators, as well as voyages using stellar navigation, allowed practical conclusions about the sea-worthiness and handling capabilities of traditional Polynesian canoes and allowed a better understanding of the navigational methods that were likely to have been used by the Polynesians and of how they, as people, were adapted to seafaring (Finney in Finney 1976:6-9).
Recent re-creations of Polynesian voyaging have used methods based largely on Micronesian methods and the teachings of a Micronesian navigator, Mau Piailug. See also Polynesian Voyaging Society, Hokulea.
Techniques: It is probable that the Polynesian navigators employed a whole range of techniques including use of the stars, the movement of ocean currents and wave patterns, the air and sea interference patterns caused by islands and atolls, the flight of birds, the winds and the weather (Gatty 1999). See Polynesian navigation.
Scientists think that long-distance Polynesian voyaging followed the seasonal paths of birds. There are some references in their oral traditions to the flight of birds and some say that there were range marks onshore pointing to distant islands in line with these flyways. A voyage from Tahiti, the Tuamotus or the Cook Islands to New Zealand might have followed the migration of the Long-tailed cuckoo (Eudynamys taitensis) just as the voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii would coincide with the track of the Pacific Golden Plover and the Bristle-thighed Curlew. It is also believed that Polynesians employed shore-sighting birds as did many seafaring peoples. One theory is that they would have taken a frigatebird with them. These birds refuse to land on the water as their feathers will become waterlogged making it impossible to fly. When the voyagers thought they were close to land they may have released the bird, which would either fly towards land or else return to the canoe (Gatty 1999).
The peoples of the Pacific, including Micronesians and Polynesians, developed navigating by the stars into a fine art. It is surmised that the Polynesians imagined the heavens as the interior of a dome where a star proceeded along a path which passed over certain islands. They had names for over a hundred and fifty stars. A navigator would have known where and when a given star rose and set, as well as which islands it passed directly over. Thus Polynesian navigators would have then been able to sail toward the star they knew to be over their destination, and as it moved westward with time they would then set their course by the succeeding star which would have then moved over the target island (Gatty 1999).
It is likely that the Polynesians also used wave and swell formations to navigate. Many of the habitable areas of the Pacific Ocean are groups, or chains, of islands (or atolls) in long chains—hundreds of kilometers long. Island chains have predictable effects on waves and on currents. Navigators who lived within a group of islands would learn the effect various islands had on their shape, direction, and motion and would have been able to correct their path in accordance with the changes they perceived. When they arrived in the vicinity of a chain of islands they were unfamiliar with, they may have been able to transfer their experience and deduct that they were nearing a group of islands. Once they had arrived fairly close to a destination island, they would have been able to pinpoint its location by sightings of land-based birds, certain cloud formations, as well as the reflections shallow water made on the undersides of clouds. It is thought that the Polynesian navigators may have measured the time it took to sail between islands in "canoe-days’’ or a similar type of expression (Gatty 1999).
Politics
Polynesia includes six independent nations (New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Samoa), two political units that are parts of larger nations (Hawaii is a state of the United States, and Easter Island is part of Chile), two self-governing entities that remain linked with their former colonial power (Cook Islands and Niue with New Zealand), and five territories administered by other nations — New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna, all administered by France, Tokelau, administered by New Zealand, and American Samoa administered by the United States. Polynesian governments vary. The independent nations replaced hereditary chiefs with constitutions providing for executives and legislatures. In Tonga, politics are controlled by a hereditary king, who serves as head of state and appoints the head of government. In the nations that have entered pacts with the United States or New Zealand, the pattern is for local self-government with matters of defence overseen by the foreign power. Internal self-government is also the rule among the territories of overseas powers, with elected legislatures and executives. Some elected representatives are sent to the national legislature in the overseas capital. French Polynesia sends one voting member to each house of the French National Assembly in Paris. The territories are dependent on the mainland government for economic subsidies, and often have little control over political decisions.
Economy
With the exception of New Zealand, the majority of independent Polynesian islands derive much of their income from foreign aid and remittances from those who live in other countries. Some encourage their young people to go where they can earn good money to remit to their stay-at-home relatives. Many Polynesian locations, such as Easter Island, supplement this with tourism income. Some have more unusual sources of income, such as Tuvalu which marketed its '.tv' internet top-level domain name, or the Cooks that relied on stamp sales. A very few others still live as they did before Western Civilization encountered them.
Demographics
Polynesia divides into two distinct cultural groups, East Polynesia and West Polynesia. The culture of West Polynesia is conditioned to high populations. It has strong institutions of marriage, and well-developed judicial, monetary and trading traditions. It comprises the groups of Tonga, Niue, Samoa and the Polynesian outliers.
Eastern Polynesian cultures are highly adapted to smaller islands and atolls including the Cook Islands, Tahiti, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, Hawaii and Easter Island. However, the large islands of New Zealand were first settled by Eastern Polynesians who adapted their culture to a non-tropical environment. Anthropologists term the Eastern Polynesian system of kinship the Hawaiian system.
Religion, farming, fishing, weather prediction, out-rigger canoe (similar to modern catamarans) construction and navigation were highly developed skills because the population of an entire island depended on them.
Trading consisted of both luxuries and mundane items. Many low-lying islands could suffer severe famine if their gardens were poisoned by the salt from the storm-surge of a hurricane. In these cases fishing, the primary source of protein, would not ease loss of food energy. Navigators, in particular, were highly respected and each island maintained a house of navigation, with a canoe-building area.
Settlements by the Polynesians were of two categories. The hamlet and the village. Size of the island inhabited determined whether or not a hamlet would be built. The larger volcanic islands usually had hamlets because of the many zones that could be divided across the island. Food and resources were more plentiful and so these settlements of four to five houses (usually with gardens) were established so that there would be no overlap between the zones. Villages, on the other hand, were built on the coasts of smaller islands and consisted of thirty or more houses. Usually these villages were fortified with walls and pallisades made of stone and wood [Encyclopedia Britannica, 1995]. However, New Zealand demonstrates the opposite; large volcanic islands with fortified villages.
Because of a strong readiness to accept new ideas and due to relatively large numbers of competitive sects of Christian missionaries in the islands, Polynesians readily adopted Christianity.
Polynesian languages are all members of the family of Oceanic languages, a sub-branch of the Austronesian language family.
Culture
Issues
Independence and/or increasing autonomy is not the only influence affecting modern Polynesian society. The primary driving forces are, in fact, the ever-increasing accessibility of the islands to outside influences, through improved air communications as well as through vastly improved telecommunications. The economic importance of tourism has also had a tremendous impact on the direction of the development of the various island societies. Accessibility of outside sources, as well as the tourism viability of individual islands has played an important role to which the modern culture has adapted itself to accommodating the interests of outsiders, as opposed to the influences of those intent upon promoting the retention of native traditions. Because of this, Polynesia is today an area in varying degrees of extreme cultural flux.
See also
- Polynesian mythology
- List of Polynesians
Template:Polynesia
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