View
221
Download
5
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
BOOK REVIEWS 223
Pies Blong Iumi: Solomon Islands, ThePast Four Thousand Years, edited byHugh Laracy. Suva and Honiara: University of the South Pacific, 1989. ISBN
a drunk (and died later in the day, as itturned out). Yet when I drove to SapukVillage, formerly a notorious troublespot, on that same payday evening, Ihad no fear of having to dodge rocks orthe knife thrusts of young men leapingonto the road.
Drinking continues and so doesviolence, the authors acknowledge, butwith some notable changes. Publicdrunkenness and violence occur lessfrequently, police arrests for drunkenand disorderly behavior short ofassault are more numerous, and drinkers are far more cautious than in thepreprohibition days. While this mayseem to have driven the alcohol problem from the streets into the backyard(homicides occur increasingly withinthe family or neighborhood circle), thisin itself is no small achievement. Butperhaps the greatest gain is that localpeople have successfully altered thepattern of alcohol use and in doing so,have reasserted their control over theircommunity. The significance of thismay have gone unnoticed in the continuing debate over prohibition if theMarshalls had not underscored it intheir valuable little book. Before judgments are passed on the wisdom of theMoen law or on similar attempts ofother traditional communities to"exorcise their evil spirits," SilentVoices Speak is must reading.
FRANCIS x. HEZEL, SJ
Micronesian Seminar
~. ::- ~.
982-02-0027-X, xiv + 151 pp, appendixes, photographs, select bibliography, index. US$12.
The book Pies Blong Iumi is importantin three ways: it represents the firstattempt by Solomon Islanders to reinterpret, produce, and add an indigenous perspective to their history; itcontributes to the development of literature by Islanders emerging from thiscountry and the Pacific; and by usingand documenting indigenous sourcesof knowledge, it underscores the valueof the experiences and achievements ofthe people of Taem Bilo.
In the chapter entitled "Digging,"Alec Rukia presents two indigenousviews of Islander origins and examineslinguistic theories on the settlement ofthe Solomons by two distinct languagegroups (Papuan and Austronesian) thatcame from Southeast Asia between fivethousand and thirty-five hundred yearsago. He summarizes the nature, development, and findings of archaeologicalinvestigations. Remains are categorized into three broad "cultural complexes," the Lapita Cultural Complexbeing the only one that can be correlated with a linguistic group whoseearliest settlements go back in timesome three thousand years. The question of why Papuan speakers arepresent on Lapita sites cannot beanswered at this time since no investigations have been conducted on themajor islands (except Guadalcanal)where the oldest settlements are likelyto be found. The current evidence doesnot represent the earliest settlements.
In "Remembering," Jan Sanga discusses how the various bodies of traditional knowledge were preserved
224 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC. SPRING I99I
through their repetition and oral transmission. Memory is key in this process,and Sanga illustrates its importancethrough two stories, one being anaccount of the settlement of Ulawa thatnow serves as a record of the genealogyof the chiefs of that island. Memoriesof experiences andperteptibI1s ofIslanders who participated in majorevents such as laboring on Europeanplantations and the Second World Waradd an Islander perspective to existingwritten records.
In "Writing I," Joseph Waleanisiabegins with an examination of the useof European written records to reconstruct some of the past of SolomonIslands. He then traces the development of indigenous literacy, first initiated through missionization and laterby international labor migration.Notable achievements include the ethnographic accounts by Geoffrey Kuperand George Bogese. The 1970S saw thebirth of indigenous newsletters thatserved asa vehicle for discussion ofimportant issues and for an intellectualdebate between the local elite and theAraikwao (white persons). The participation of Islanders in documentingtheir own past is also given significanttreatment.
In "Writing II," Edward Iamae illustrates the use of poetry as a form ofexpressive narrative for entertainmentand as a means of preserving and transmitting knowledge and social values inTaem Bifo. Much like the earlierguardians of kastom, contemporarypoets and other writers are seen ascommentators on political, economic,and social values.
In the chapter "Time," JosephWaleanisia discusses the concept oftime, contrasting Western examples
with some traditional ones. Unlike thereckoning of Western time, the function and measurement of traditionaltime were bound up with the occurrence of natural and supernaturalevents. Such events were used to chartimportant ceremonies and rituals, but
"these and"people's immediate needs-and activities in turn adjusted time,giving it a flexible, unregulated, andunstructured nature. The Lisiala Calendar provides a view that is numericalyet cyclical, in contrast to the lineardimension of Western time.
Romano Kokonge, in his chapter"The Arts," makes the close connectionbetween the arts and the people's mundane activities. Valued not only fortheir aesthetic value, the visual arts hadsignificant religious, ceremonial, andsocial meanings. The performing artswere forms of entertainment, maintaining social harmony, and a meansthrough which traditions were preserved and passed on. Art forms andthe contexts in which they were practiced or performed have changed tremendously following Westernization.What continuity has been maintainedin some of the visual arts is mostlythrough their increasing commodification.
Lawrence Foanaota, writing on"Social Change," presents a generalizedview of the impact of modernization onvarious aspects of traditional societies-settlement patterns, religious practices, population movements, andsocial organization. Amid thesechanges, continuity is maintained, forexample, through family lineage,which determines the allocation ofproperty and, most important, theinheritance of land.
In a broad discussion of religion,
BOOK REVIEWS
Father Leslie Fugui and Simeon Butuattempt to explain the nature and function of traditional religion. The variousChristian affiliations are situated in thehistory of the missionization of the different islands by the various Christiandenominations. According to theauthors, the most important contribution of Christian ideology has been thepromotion of peace and national unity.
Moffat Wasuka, Toswell Kaua, andSimeon Butu discuss the traditionaleducation that was carried out in a cultural context immediate and meaningful to the lives of children as they weresocialized to become adult members oftheir societies. Western education, initiated by the missions, later supervisedby the British administration, and nowthe responsibility of the Solomons government, alienates youth from theircultures and fails to fulfill their aspirations. One of the notable consequencesof Western-style education has been thedevelopment of social differences manifest in the existence of an elite. As aninstitution through which social valuesare instilled and perpetuated, formaleducation, the authors imply, is likelyto promote such differences, especiallyin a country where education is notaccessible to all.
Sam Alasia discusses populationmovement as a feature of the islands'past that involved numbers of peoplemoving between and beyond theirislands. This traditional movementwas intensified by the internationallabor trade in the I870S and the subsequent development of plantations.Associated with population movementare the more recent inflow of otherethnic groups and the relocation ofpockets of population due to pressureon land resources and natural disas-
225
ters. In examining this modern movement, Alasia focuses on the movementbetween Malaita and Honiara.
John Ipo is concerned with severalissues: traditional land tenure systems,land as the fundamental basis for sustaining a subsistence economy, andland as an intricate link to political andsocial institutions. The establishmentof a Western export-oriented economywas necessary to support the protectorate and was facilitated through thealienation of large tracts of land. Disputes between Islanders and Araikwaoplanters were often due to misunderstandings regarding land ownership.The most significant current land disputes have been between the peopleand the government, which facilitatesthe exploitation of natural resources bytransnational companies. There arealso contests between more kastomminded groups and those who nowperceive land increasingly in commercial terms. EVidently government landdevelopment schemes have contributedto notions of individual land ownership.
Sam Alasia, in his second chapter,discusses the nature of the traditionalpolity and the development of Westernstyle politics. Colonialism, Christianity, and a capitalist economy resultedin the demise of many traditional political systems, and their replacement bya central government. He cites some ofthe significant indigenous politicalstruggles against the protectorate asattempts by Islanders to either asserttheir own sovereignty or to participatein the colonial political system. Prior tothe I960s, Islander participation inpolitics was nonexistent. Politicalorganization in the following decadewas a step toward attaining self-gov-
. ~
226 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1991
ernment and the development of partypolitics. Alasia notes features of bigman politics that have been incorporated into contemporary political practices.
Pies Biong Iumi, like any other history, is not without its flaws andbiases. Two basic questions that cometo mind are: What sort of history arewe producing? and Who is it for? Moststriking is the unbalanced compositionof the contributors. Among the fourteen writers, there is only one womanand no representative of other ethnicgroups such as the Araikwao, the Chinese, or the I-Kiribati. While Guadalcanal, Santa Catalina, Marovo,Bellona, and the Shortlands are represented by one writer each, the othernine contributors are from Malaita.Consequently, although certain chapters use illustrations from some of theother islands, for example Kokonge'schapter on the arts, the book as awhole draws examples predominantlyfrom Malaita. It would be more correcttherefore to say that Pies Biong Iumi isa history seen through the eyes of oneofthe dominant groups, and a maledominated one at that.
The other works in the University ofthe South Pacific history series werepublished both in English and the vernaculars. Why was Pies Biong Iumi notpublished in Pijin as well? Who is theintended readership-foreign scholars,our educated elite, or school children?If for school children, at what stage inthe education curriculum is it intendedto be used? Publication only in Englishdrastically limits readership.
Pies Biong Iumi gives an elitist perspective on the Solomons' past. Theemphasis on certain events and individ-
uals in the chronology, the choice ofphotographs, and the contents of thechapters all illustrate this point. It is nowonder that the Western-educatedauthors of the book are concerned withreconstructing history or preoccupiedwith the rhetoric of preserving cultures
- and traditions. 'These writers are-liketourists to the people and the past theydescribe. The people who actually livethese cultures and traditions are not atall represented.
How can we produce or create Solomon Islands literature within a broaderscholarship? Overall the chapters areuneven. While some are well-written,for example John Ipo's "Land andEconomy," Joseph Waleanisia's"Time," and Jan Sanga's "Remembering," others are either too general orunsubstantiated. As a case in point,Lawrence Foanata's chapter on socialchange would have benefited from further research. Sam Alasia makes adirect link between recent populationmovemenrand rapid populationgrowth (119). While it is true that population pressure on land resources wasthe impetus for the relocation of certain pockets of population, it is simplynot true in the case of the Solomonsthat these phenomena are exclusivelylinked. There is also the question of aregional focus in this population movement. Although the movement between Malaita and Honiara is morevisible, it is not the most significant.The proportion of people moving inand out of Honiara (1986 census) andMakira is about the same as that forMalaita. All in all, population movement since the 1960s is a complex phenomenon and should perhaps havebeen omitted from the chapter.
BOOK REVIEWS 227
SALOME SAMOU
University ofHawaii at Manoa
Contracting Colonialism: Translationand Christian Conversion in TagalogSociety under Early Spanish Rule, byVicente L. Rafael. Ithaca and London:Cornell University Press, 1988. ISBN 0
8°14-2065-2, xiii + 230 pp, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.us$26·95·
There are also flaws in the referencing style used. It is frustrating whenarchival material and other publishedworks are cited without full references.It would have been useful to haveincluded individual reference lists foreach chapter. Finally, the volumewould have been better served by morecareful editing. In this way, misspellings of personal names and places, andinconsistencies in grammar, could havebeen avoided.
My complimentary copy of VicenteRafael's Contracting Colonialism is agift that has already put me in great"debt." Answering more questions thanit asks, covering more theoreticaldomains than those on which itfocuses, Contracting Colonialism spillsout of the boundary of early TagalogChristian colonial society to establishitself as an authoritative model for anyhistorical and political inquiry intocolonialism, Christian conversion, andthe local, indigenous responses to theseprocesses.
For Rafael, who is himself a nativeTagalog speaker, the consolidation ofSpain's imperial order and Tagalogconversion in the Philippine lowlands
are best understood in terms of a seriesof translations between the agents of aCastilian Catholic regime and variousclasses of Tagalog society. To conceiveof colonialism and conversion "fromthe perspective of translation," Rafaeldirects the reader to the semantic relations among the Spanish terms traduccion 'translation', conquista 'conquest',and conversion 'conversion'. Suchaffinities, according to Rafael, "reflectas much as they are reflected by theirhistorical configurations" in the Spanish Imperio (x).
Rafael argues that translation's"configurations" reveal the Spanishintent and desire to identify, relocate,and reorder pagan (read Tagalog)ideas, words, and bodies back to theirpresumed positions under the hierarchy of God's Word and Kingdom. Buttranslation also describes how variousclasses of Tagalog society (maginoo'elites,' maharlika 'commoners') soughtto appropriate external or novel thingsof value with which to guard againstthe shock or anxiety of threatening(colonial) impositions. Here translation simulates conversion in the veryprocess of subjecting or submittingoneself to external, foreign systems inorder to "inoculate" oneself againsttheir possible threats. But for Spaniardand Tagalog alike, the history of colonialism entailed the translation orconversion-what we might call the"restructuration"-of threatening linguistic or political conventions intosafe spaces from which to speak andtherefore register one's involvement ina constantly shifting social world. As apredicate of colonialism and conversion, translation, or, as Rafael prefers,"mistranslation," denotes a political
::-~.::.
Recommended