Oceania Books

Author of this book died in 1980, about twenty years after the book has been published. Have things changed? You should read this book and see! The book covers Rites and Ceremonies, Iatmul (Papua New Guinea People), Ethnology, Social life and Customs.

This is a wonderful book. Bateson is writing in the mid-1930's about his stay a few years earlier with the Iatmul, a tribe of recently subdued headhunters, on the Sepik River in the mandated territory of New Guinea. The people are fierce, yet ultimately they are people like everyone else. Bateson seems to have arrived at an easy working relationship with them, and he sets about defining the mechanics of their society, with an eye on the similarities and differences in Iatmul and European approaches to life. Bateson leaves it to us to combine this information with the premise that all of us are made of the same stuff, in hopes of learning things that would otherwise be denied us.

The aspect of Iatmul culture which interests Bateson most is the eponymous "naven." Although descent is patrilineal in Iatmul society, there is also a strong matrilineal element. Every male, and to a lesser extent every female, has a "wau", a maternal uncle, who from the day of his birth goes to great lengths to build an ongoing relationship with him. This includes gifts of food, support during the painful initiation process, and in former times assistance with early homicides.

The recipient of these favors is known as a "laua". Whenever the "laua" accomplishes something for the first time, his "wau" dresses up like a shabby old woman, parades, dances, and acts like a buffoon to commemorate the event. It is this display which is known as the "naven." Qualifying events include building a canoe, killing a crododile, killing an inhabitant of one of the other villages, or luring such an inhabitant to the Iatmul village under friendly pretenses, allowing others to kill him. Not only does the "wau" put on this display, but he is joined by other males who are not quite as closely related to the "laua", and women who are related in various ways dress up as men to commemorate the achievement. Bateson's primary question is why do these people do these things?

To answer his question, Bateson has to tread lightly between the competing "functionalism" of Bronislaw Malinowski and the "structural" approach of Reginald Radcliffe-Brown. He seems to address both viewpoints satisfactorily, simultaneously showing us how the "naven" allows the members of a Iatmul village to get what they want out of life, and how the custom itself is the consequence of the structure of Iatmul society, and how it contributes to the structure of that society. Basically, both "wau" and "laua" get strong allies for life, something not to be taken lightly in the violent internal and external environment of a Iatmul village. They also get a relationship which can be a source of personal pride to both of them. Bateson thinks that given the contentiousness of the individual Iatmul men, it is surprising that they can live in villages of two hundred to one thousand inhabitants. He attributes their ability to do so to the "naven" customs, which in conjunction with patrilineal and initiatory affinities bind members of the society to multiple clans and moieties. Once the village attains a certain size, even the ties of the "naven" are not strong enough to hold it together. The village is split into factions, and one group leaves to found a new village.

Bateson finds the individualism of the Iatmul people splendid. He points out that there is no law of the sort that Europeans are accustomed to. There are taboos and prohibitions, but it is always understood that if an individual is strong enough to defy these taboos and prohibitions, then he may do as he pleases. There is no chief. There are no tribal elders as such, although the older men have more sway than the younger ones. Needless to say, if the individual is not strong enough to defy the taboos and prohibitions and does so anyway, he suffers a much unhappier fate. When conflict arises, various individuals decide they have an interest in one side or the other, and they confront each other. This does not necessarily lead to violence, although one gets the impression that it did so more regularly in pre-European times. Rather, an offender's actions may result in the slit-gongs being sounded, summoning all the men of the village to the Ceremonial House for a debate concerning what is to be done. In the course of the debate the speakers will make their points by beating a ceremonial stool with branches of certain trees while declaiming their points of view. Sometimes they will threaten to expose the totemic secrets of the other side, and sometimes they will do so, openly mocking them. When this happens, a brawl often results. Women are excluded from these prceedings.

Since the "naven' is basically an exercise in transvestitism, Bateson examines in depth the differences between Iatmul men and women. The men tend to be harsh, arrogant, and uncooperative. These traits are so exaggerated that Bateson is sometimes surprised that they can live together at all. The women, on the other hand, tend to be jolly and cooperative, especially when they are away from the men. The women do most of the day-to-day work, gathering food in the surrounding forest, raising pigs, catching prawns and fish in the river, and tending to the young. The men get together in groups to build houses and communal structures, and they often put on shows and festivities, one of whose purposes is to impress the women who constitute their audience. They have many secrets which are hidden from the women. The woman's role in sexual activities is regarded as shameful.

The concept of death by natural causes is alien to the Iatmul. Violent death is quite common, and those who die by other means are considered the victims of sorcery. When an influenza epidemic kills a number of people in the villages, this is considered a series of murders by sorcery, one in retaliation for another. And there are village "sorcerers" who step forward to take credit for these deaths, sometimes explaining how the deceased or a relation of the deceased had offended in some way. These sorcerers use the fear engendered by their claims to extort food, wealth, and women from the other villagers. They tend to be hated as well as feared. They also tend to prosper.

Anthopology monographs go out of print rather quickly. This one is still in print. I think the book's high quality, combined with its entertaining style, is responsible for this. Bateson went on to other pursuits, including attempts to communicate with dolphins in Hawaii. I acquired the book, willing to indulge in anthropological theory, but really seeking the forbidden pleasure of watching people go about their lives free of the constraints with which I had grown up. Although Bateson ultimately gave his backers the science they had paid for, I always counted him as a fellow traveler in this pursuit.

The B&B book is loaded with choices of nice places to stay with personal writings on each by the owner/operators of the various B&Bs. My only request would be for each entry to show one photo of the rooms at their establishment.

A beautifully illustrated book, very reasonably priced for the wealth of information it contains. My husband and I love choosing our own itinerary when travelling and especially love staying at Bed and Breakfasts. A very informative book which correlates very well with the Lonely Planet on New Zealand. I do have the Friar's Guide to New Zealand Accommodation for the Discerning Traveller 2005 which is a magnificent book to have in one's library. However, this Guide by Elizabeth James is something one can take on one's travels and is compact. It also has a great description and lovely, individual illustrations of many places of varying cost from which to choose in both the North and South Islands. A great purchase!

Peter's journey throughout the Pacific, following in the footsteps of the travelling Polynesians, takes you far and wide across the vastness of the ocean. Excellently written and divided into easily negotiated sections, you can see in stages, how the islands came to be inhabited.

The pictures are breathtaking although the maps of the Pacific and individual islands look a little cheap and could have been more detailed for the price of the book.

Particularly poignant is the story of the most remote spot on earth, namely "Rapa Nui" or Easter Island. This strange tale tells how the island was populated and then brought about it's own extinction, leaving the eerie Moai figures staring out across the sea for all eternity.

A beautifully written piece of work, that I would recommend any arm chair traveller to read.

When I read this book I was looking for a detailed account of the natural history of the south pacific-the people, cultures, places, maps, archaeology, geology, biogeography, and so on. This book is very good, but not by any means exhaustive-its 11 chapters provide a useful overview of natural history, initial polynesian and then European discovery, and the various cultures of the Tahitian islands (chapters 1-2), the Fijian group (3), the Tongan group (4), a chapter on polynesian seafearing (5), the story of Fletcher Christian and the Bounty Mutineers (6), the Cook Islands (6), the Marquesas Islands (6-7), Easter Island (8), European Impact (9), Hawaii (9), New Zealand (10), and the future (11).

A strong point is the beautiful colour photographs and cultural depictions, however a notably weak point is the poorness of the maps. Often it is difficult to tell which islands belong to which particular "group" from the text, and the maps don't help in this respect-they are very simplisitic and look hand-drawn. These maps are in stark contrast to the beauty and extravagance of the colour photos of various wildlife, vistas and aerial photographs.

One of the best chapters is that on Easter Island with its stone statues, general cultural and natural history and subsequent decline. It is a little brief, but I found the archaeological accounts of it the islands cultural downfall particularly interesting. Basically, the ruling religious class (hanau eepe) are overthrown by a warrior class (matatoa) after the resource base of the island, and the cultural structure which depended on it, collapsed. By the time Europeans arrived in the 17th and 18th centuries, the island was already in warfare and decline.

Typical useful snippets include the taro root being found to contain natural flouride complexes by western science, which was discovered after someone researched why the polynesians seemed to have such good teeth. After the connection was made, flouide was routinely introduced into toothpaste/water in western societies. The New Zealand Maoris had no pigs or chickens, unlike other polynesians, probably because they were substituted by the now extinct Moa as a food source, after they first arrived in New Zealand. The presence of the sweet potatoe and other South American oddities suggests some natural or cultural influx from South America-either with seafarers from the east, by natural currents and winds (eg some lizards on Fiji, and South American trees on Easter Island), or by the polynesians themselves who may have reached South America, but never settled there. Another bit of trivia is on page 84-it is an aerial colour shot of the island where Tom Hanks was marooned in the movie "Castaway".

Overall quite a useful overview of the natural history of Polynesia, and beautifully illustrated, but not presented in any exhaustive detail.

This is a good book to start with if you want to expose yourself to different methods of rapid weight loss. If you are a fan of fruits and vegetables, this may be a really good book to look into because a lot of the strategies involve these specific foods as the basic foundation. It's a good way to segue into a better way of eating for health and fitness. I would suggest also that anyone interested in a weight reduction program be cautious with any method that they use, but this may be a sound beginning for those seeking change.

I bought this book years ago and recently picked it up again. There is nothing hard or challenging in it. It is a good 'food' for thought book. I'm recommending it to all of my family. It offers a lot of variety

I learnt of this book from a friend in London -- it is an excellent history of race and British imperialism. The author has a very impressive breadth of knowledge and writes clearly. I really liked the material on India, especially on Sikhism. It is nice to read a British historian who takes religion seriously and who read Indian sources. The final chapter of the book on Indian nationalism shows the ways in which Hindu nationalists used this Aryan idea for their own Nazist needs agains Muslims and Sikhs.

In the 1760s, as the British Empire expanded into Asia and the Pacific, its rulers proposed that certain peoples could be understood, and privileged, as a separate ?Aryan? race. Aryanism suggested that this whole region had originally been peopled by successive waves of vigorous Aryans, culminating in British colonisation. Ballantyne traces how this idea ?was used to naturalise, justify and celebrate British colonisation of South Asia.?

Chapters 1 and 6 look at imperial notions of India, which were used as a template for understanding other colonised societies. Chapters 2 to 5 examine how the Empire used these to try to control New Zealand?s Maori society. As ever, the empire exploited existing social divisions, to divide and rule, while claiming that it freed the most exploited from bonds of caste and priestly power. It called its domination ?liberation?, its exploitation ?development? and its wars ?pacifications?.

Unfortunately, Ballantyne commits what we may call the scholarly fallacy, asserting that the empire was woven together by webs of relationships, modes of discourse, rather than hammered into place by the capitalist mode of production. Only in passing does he note that the East India Company, the revenue manager for Bengal, collected increased revenues while famine killed a third of the people. Under Empire, rule, regular famines, in 1770, 1783 and throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, killed tens of millions.

Ballantyne does not challenge the imperial myth that settlers, both military and missionary, benefit the host country, not their own individual gain. This is now transmuted into the liberal myth that immigrants benefit the host country.

He claims that there was a ?progressive? side of Aryanism, inclusive, globalising and non-racist. He praises the imperial policies of free flows of labour and products and ideas, and he opposes all forms of nationalism as exclusive and racist. This fits neatly into the Empire?s hostility to ?backward-looking? nationalism, and it also suits US imperial policy today.

But empire is always undemocratic, because it is based on rule by one class over other nations. Empire benefits its rulers, never the peoples, whatever the forms in which people think.

i thought this was a good book for kids. it has the definition of some of the difficult words on the side of the text and has great art to complement the stories. but for someone from the islands, it was a bit dissappointing in that some of the legends were seriously augmented. granted, there are many versions of the same legends in the islands but not one that is so far from all the rest that they are hardly recognizable, save for the title. but overall, i found the book to be beautifully written and magical.

The legends and folk lore embodied in the culture and values of Pacific island peoples are showcased in Pacific Island Legends, a single, easy to read volume that is beautifully illustrated with the woodcut images of Connie J. Adams. Educators Bo Flood, Beret Strong, and William Flood have successfully collaborated to present forty-four legends from all over the Pacific, serving to provide cultural access that will be appreciated by scholars and non-specialist general readers alike. Pacific Island Legends is a highly recommended addition to any personal, academic, or public library multicultural myth, legend and folklore reference collection.

This is a charming story of the true life experiences of a girl (now a Grandmother) growing up in the Philipines during World War 2.

I am sure that teen-agers would enjoy reading this book, as well as adults. It's a small book and can be read in a matter of hours. I found I could not "put this book down"!

Very appealing!

Written from a child's perspective with vivid detail that will also captivate adults, Barbara-Ann's stories of her childhood in the Phillipines during the WWII Japanese occupation is a fascinating read. Her stories are a personal glimpse into the struggles of a multiracial child growing up poor during wartime told with humor, emotion and acute observation. "Pooh" will steal your heart.

We found this book to be very helpful and especially appreciated the Conversation/ Essentials in the rear of the book.
We only visited 'Upolu, and the guide gave us important insights about the Samoan culture and etiquette which served us well.
We stayed at Sinalei Reef Resort which we would highly recommend if you are traveling without children, and the restaurant at Coconut's Beach Club was excellent.
This guide is a must if you're going to Samoa and really want to enjoy it to it's fullest.

I have never liked how LP guides are arranged but have found them to consistantly have the best information [not perfect but better than other guides.] I wish they had not included Tonga as I am not going there and always travel as light at possible. The binding is not condusive to removing unwanted pages but I will remove the Tonga section anyway. I say, 'buy it!' but don't get bent out of shape should some info not prove to be correct.

Michelle Matthews has unearthed a pot-pourri of alternative venues for the discerning consumer. Street smart and shopping savvy, this book oozes class and cuts a swathe through similar projects aimed at a peculiar niche. Its light, breezy treatment and contemporary pace only hastens the buyer's decision-making process. What a Mecca Melbourne is! Roll on San Francisco, London...Moscow!

This book breaks Melbourne into shopping districts that can be covered in an afternoon or a day. Brief descriptions are sufficient to get a feel for whether you would be interested in visiting certain stores, or even whole districts, so that you can more efficiently plan your trip. Hours of operation are included. Colorful pictures of the interior of stores and their merchandise are helpful, but a relative indicator of prices (like a 1 to 5 dollar sign system) would be extremely helpful. Also, mileage indicators on the maps would be a big plus.

I bought this book in Sydney and found it a wealth of information on Sydney's beginings. The first time I read it, I savored every page...I couldn't put it down. As I got to the end of the book I felt bad that it was over, so I re-read it every few years. Jan Morris's style of writing is so entertaining and makes for a easy read.

Jan Morris has been everywhere, seen everything, met everyone, and tries to see the good in all of it. She seems happiest, though, among the young. She is surprisingly forgiving toward some of the hollower booster-driven cities of North America, while often coming down hard on New World cities that seem too full of themselves. (She memorably describes Washington, DC as seeming designed for nuclear annihilation.)

Not surprisingly, then, Morris is generous toward Sydney, honoring its brief history but focusing on its childlike present. Since the book was completed, of course, the child has become an adolescent, frantically acquiring attractions that will make it seem more adult -- preening itself for its moment on the world stage in the 2000 Olympics. Like many books about childhood, this one should be read wistfully, with the knowledge that the city it describes is only a snapshot, circa 1990, of a place that seems to be disappearing under its own need for approval.

Of course, during the inevitable post-Olympics hangover, this book may be useful in another way. When we lose track of who we are, when the purpose that has obsessed us suddenly evaporates, it's sometimes helpful to recall what gave us pleasure when we were children. At such a moment, Morris's portrait of Sydney in its last moments of childhood may offer the city a route back to its core, and thus forward into a happier adulthood.