Changes in Trobriands

New Books

A PAPER on the cultural changes in Kiriwina (the largest of the Tro briand Group, Papua) has recently been reprinted from the September 1945, issue of “Oceania”, the quarterly publish ed by the Department of Anthropology, Sydney University.

The author of the paper is Mr. Leo Austen, formerly a Resident Magistrate in the Papuan Service and for many years stationed in the Trobriands.

The Trobriand Islands were the happy hunting ground of the eminent anthro pologist Malinowski in the early 1920’5. These islanders, in culture, tend more towards the Polynesian than the Melanesian, and Malinowski wrote several books about them, one of which (“The Sexual Life of Savages”) had, for obvious reasons, a great vogue amongst laymen as well as scientists. Austen writes of the changes in culture between the time Malinowski’s record was made and the outbreak of the Pacific war. As he himself says, the Japanese invasion of New Guinea and part of Papua and the subsequent military occupation, has no doubt had further repercussions on Tro briand life and custom.

In his conclusion, Austen asks that our watchword in relation to our dealing with the Trobriand Islanders be “Go slow,” and he states that sudden change, although desirable perhaps in our eyes, would do more harm than good and would probab ly result in further depopulation. The pop ulation of the Trobriands showed a steady (and sometimes alarming) decline from the time that Europeans first settled there and introduced such diseases as measles, influenza, etc., but between January 1935 and March 1936 a small increase was re gistered for the first time. In the early part of the century venereal disease was rife among the people but when Australia assumed responsibility for the Territory this was almost wiped out—except during the First World War, when the incidence gain rose steeply. (Paper reprinted by Australasian Med ical Publishing Co., Sydney.)