Myths: Fabric of

the social process

Transformation of Polynesian Culture: Ed. Antony Hooper and Judith Huntsman. Pub lished by University Of Hawaii Press, 1986. ISSNOO79-3779.

Price: $24.

The book explores the dy namics of transformation within Polynesian societies from the structuralist perspective. It rep resents high intellectual calibre.

The ten contributors, several of whom are distinguished anthropologists, are intent on exploring the validity of a Polynesian cultural mode and

its permutations.

The belief persists that a parent Polynesian culture ex isted which was then exported to other islands. The Polynesian Islands are scattered over a much broader area than either Melanesia or Micronesia.

Further, Polynesian influ ences have infiltrated parts of both Melanesia (Fiji and Vanuatu) and Micronesia (Kiri bati). The cause of the trans formations within the Polyne sian cultural mode occupy most of the papers.

Ultimately, the query is where power comes from and how it is verified.

Most of the authors are also interested in myth (oral narra tives) as a key to unlocking the structures of Polynesian societies and the transformation within them. Anthropologists have handled myth far more constructively than have most historians.

The latter, except for a grow ing number of ethnographic historians, have often exposed myth to the scrutiny given to

written documents. Given the many gaps and distortions, his torians have then usually re pudiated myth as an invalid source for information.

An anthropologist would answer that perhaps they are looking for the wrong informa tion. As the papers in this book amply demonstrate, what myth does unfold is the social and political process, a way of “organising and interpreting history rather than chronicling it.”

Alan Howard argues in rela tion to his use of recorded oral narratives, collected in 1873: VJe must recognise these texts for what they are residues of living performances, recorded by individuals who had particu lar notions about what was worth recording . . . This is not to say Rotumans are incap able of reporting events accur ately; they do so all the time.

However, the statements re corded by early observers were not of specific events but of presumed usual practice . . .

All of the date . . . including the mythical texts, are relevant for interpreting Rotuman con ceptions of chieftainship and political structure.

Many of the authors in the book use myth and oral narra tive in the same way. Their quest is to understand how political structures were per ceived as working, actually did and the transformations which occurred through time. It is the interplay between these two explorations, the exploration of the diversity of a Polynesian mode and analysis of myth as a means of decoding structures, which provide the basis for the arguments espoused in the book.

Alan Howard compares political structure in Rotuma with the idealised Polynesian model. He notes that in Rotu ma chiefs draw authority from the people and not from defied ancestors.

From his exploration of two myths he develops an argu ment on how this change occurred. Howard sees the cause of this permutation as the interaction between the “cultu ral logic” and a particular en vironment. In small, isolated Rotuma with its medium popu lation, geneologies became truncated. Chiefs were not so distanced from the people; they

were not differentiated enough from each other.

In contrast to larger and more stratified societies such as Ton ga, Hawaii and Tahiti in which all major chiefs traced their ancestry directly to a defied ancestor, Rotuman district chiefs draw their authority more directly from their people.

Valerio Valeri likewise makes a similar exploration. His analy sis of the legend of “Umi” leads him to the conclusion that it is “the expression of some fun damental aspects of Hawaiian kingship and its relationship to society. ” He sees the legend as delineating the process by which a strong man through successful conquest becomes the king selected by the gods.

Adrienne Kaeppler looks to material culture, in particular feathered cloaks and capes, for an understanding of societal transformations. In ancient Hawaii cloaks of heavy mats were worn by all men in battle but the more elaborate feath ered cloaks of the chiefs afforded spiritual as well as physical protection. After Euro pean contact and a new mode of warfare, the cloaks lost their function.

They took on ceremonial and status function. Kaepler be lieves that: Artefacts and works of art are products of human action and interaction and are visual manifestations of social relationships.

Kamehameha signalled a change to a system based on military power rather than to geneological prestige. Stratifica tion increased. The increased number of feathered cloaks in dicates a shift in power which enabled chiefs to commend more and more feathers as taxes.

The colour of the chiefs’ cloaks changed from red (reli gious and status function) to yellow (political symbolism).

Kamehameha’s successors, however, transferred the values of a stratified society to a vague concept of status. The cloaks then gradually became works of art.

Marshall Sahlin’s paper is an analysis of myth from New Zealand and Hawaii, at oppo site ends of the Polynesian Triangle. Sahlins notes that in Hawaii the King redistributed the land among ruling chiefs.

The geneological organisation

of the underlying population was thereby eroded.

In contrast, in New Zealand, clan and tribe remained potent political entities. Sahlins bril liantly traces the differences through examination of ritual on sacrifice in Hawaii and can nibalism in Maori society.

The book has a sting in the tail. All of the authors cited are interested in exploring the transformation of political mod es. All seem to harbor, also, the notion of a distinct Polynesian

entity or structure.

Emund Leach, in his con cluding comments argues that the distinctiveness of the Polynesian culture is a reflec tion of former European atti tudes which expected uni formity.

Am I saying that Polynesia is a subjective figment of the ethnographic immagination which has no basis in objective experienced historical reality?

Not quite, perhaps, but nearly.

Sandra Rennie.