Peoples Of The Pacific

Presenting the history of the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands from first colonization until the spread of European colonial rule in the later 19th century, this volume focuses specifically on Pacific Islander-European interactions from the perspective of Pacific Islanders themselves. A number of recorded traditions are reproduced as well as articles by Pacific Island scholars working within the academy. The nature of Pacific History as a sub-discipline is presented through a sample of key articles from the 1890s until the present that represent the historical evolution of the field and its multidisciplinary nature. The volume reflects on how the indigenous inhabitants of the Pacific Islands have a history as dynamic and complex as that of literate societies, and one that is more retrievable through multidisciplinary approaches than often realized.

Essential single-volume history of the Pacific region and the global interactions which define it.

Written by a senior scholar and master mariner, Sailors and Traders is the first comprehensive account of the maritime peoples of the Pacific. It focuses on the sailors who led the exploration and settlement of the islands and New Zealand and their seagoing descendants, providing along the way new material and unique observations on traditional and commercial seagoing against the background of major periods in Pacific history. The book begins by detailing the traditions of sailors, a group whose way of life sets them apart. Like all others who live and work at sea, Pacific mariners face the challenges of an often harsh environment, endure separation from their families for months at a time, revere their vessels, and share a singular attitude to risk and death. The period of prehistoric seafaring is discussed using archaeological data, interpretations from interisland exchanges, experimental voyaging, and recent DNA analysis. Sections on the arrival of foreign exploring ships centuries later concentrate on relations between visiting sailors and maritime communities. The more intrusive influx of commercial trading and whaling ships brought new technology, weapons, and differences in the ethics of trade. The successes and failures of Polynesian chiefs who entered trading with European-type ships are recounted as neglected aspects of Pacific history. As foreign-owned commercial ships expanded in the region so did colonialism, which was accompanied by an increase in the number of sailors from metropolitan countries and a decrease in the employment of Pacific islanders on foreign ships. Eventually small-scale island entrepreneurs expanded interisland shipping, and in 1978 the regional Pacific Forum Line was created by newly independent states. This was welcomed as a symbolic return to indigenous Pacific ocean linkages. The book’s final sections detail the life of the modern Pacific seafarer. Most Pacific sailors in the global maritime labor market return home after many months at sea, bringing money, goods, a wider perspective of the world, and sometimes new diseases. Each of these impacts is analyzed, particularly in the case of Kiribati, a major supplier of labor to foreign ships.

During the nineteenth century, British and American settlers acquired a vast amount of land from indigenous people throughout the Pacific, but in no two places did they acquire it the same way. Stuart Banner tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Today, indigenous people own much more land in some of these places than in others. And certain indigenous peoples benefit from treaty rights, while others do not. These variations are traceable to choices made more than a century ago--choices about whether indigenous people were the owners of their land and how that land was to be transferred to whites. Banner argues that these differences were not due to any deliberate land policy created in London or Washington. Rather, the decisions were made locally by settlers and colonial officials and were based on factors peculiar to each colony, such as whether the local indigenous people were agriculturalists and what level of political organization they had attained. These differences loom very large now, perhaps even larger than they did in the nineteenth century, because they continue to influence the course of litigation and political struggle between indigenous people and whites over claims to land and other resources. "Possessing the Pacific" is an original and broadly conceived study of how colonial struggles over land still shape the relations between whites and indigenous people throughout much of the world.

How, asks John Terrell in this richly illustrated and original book, can we best account for the remarkable diversity of the Pacific Islanders in biology, language, and custom? Traditionally scholars have recognized a simple racial division between Polynesians, Micronesians, Melanesians, Australians, and South-east Asians: peoples allegedly differing in physical appearance, temperament, achievements, and perhaps even intelligence. Terrell shows that such simple divisions do not fit the known facts and provide little more than a crude, static picture of human diversity.

Pacific Islander Americans constitute one of the United States' least understood ethnic groups. As expected, stereotypes abound: Samoans are good at football; Hawaiians make the best surfers; all Tahitians dance. Although Pacific history, society, and culture have been the subjects of much scholarly research and writing, the lives of Pacific Islanders in the diaspora (particularly in the U.S.) have received far less attention. The contributors to this volume of articles and essays compiled by the Pacific Islander Americans Research Project hope to rectify this oversight. Pacific Diaspora brings together the individual and community histories of Pacific Island peoples in the U.S. It is designed for use in Pacific and ethnic studies courses, but it will also find an audience among those with a general interest in Pacific Islander Americans. Contributors: Keoni Kealoha Agard, Melani Anae, Kekuni Blaisdell, John Connell, Wendy Cowling, Vincente M. Diaz, Michael Kioni Dudley, Dianna Fitisemanu, Inoke Funaki, Lupe Funaki, Karina Kahananui Green, David Hall, Jay Hartwell, Craig R. Janes, George H. S. Kanahele, Davianna Pomoaikai McGregor, Brucetta McKenzie, Helen Morton, Dorri Nautu, Tupou Hopoate Pauu, A. Ravuvu, Carol E. Robertson, Joanne Rondilla, E. Victoria Shook, Paul Spickard, Haunani-Kay Trask, Debbie Hippolite Wright.

Herring are vital to the productivity and health of marine systems, and socio-ecologically Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) is one of the most important fish species in the Northern Hemisphere. Human dependence on herring has evolved for millennia through interactions with key spawning areas—but humans have also significantly impacted the species’ distribution and abundance. Combining ethnological, historical, archaeological, and political perspectives with comparative reference to other North Pacific cultures, Herring and People of the North Pacific traces fishery development in Southeast Alaska from precontact Indigenous relationships with herring to postcontact focus on herring products. Revealing new findings about current herring stocks as well as the fish’s significance to the conservation of intraspecies biodiversity, the book explores the role of traditional local knowledge, in combination with archeological, historical, and biological data, in both understanding marine ecology and restoring herring to their former abundance.

"Science of the Pacific Island Peoples is a series of four volumes which contains a unique collection of traditional scientific and technical knowledge from the Pacific Islands. Traditional knowledge, based on accumulated experience or continuous usage, is usually passed from one generation to the next by work of mouth and demonstration. Having had little attention from the media, education ministries, or development agencies, traditional knowledge is in danger of being forgotten. These books attempt to record some aspects of traditional knowledge before they are lost. This, the fourth volume, on Education, Language, Patterns, and Policy contains chapters on allegory, Australia, tourism, the 21st century, Fijian cosmology, Tongan symmetries, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, communication and information, the Crown Research Institutes of Aotearoa/New Zealand, Polynesian thought, Maori knowledge, developmental activities in Western Samoa, Fijian mats, Micronesian development, and Vanuatu games. The other volumes in the series are Ocean and Coastal Studies (volume 1); Land Use and Agriculture (volume 2); and Fauna, Flora, Food & Medicine (volume 3)."--Back cover.