Conclusion

Religion in the Polynesian outliers is connected with the islands’ changing social orders. The patterns observed by ethnographers reflect the communities’ related Polynesian origins, the geographical and cultural impediments to contact among inhabitants of the various islands, and the contacts that nevertheless occurred among outlier Polynesians as well as between them and their non-Polynesian neighbors.

The relatively recent arrival of Christianity and its aftermath in these societies provide an ethnographically and ethnohistorically visible case of religious conflict, admixture, and replacement. The records of these events, both in written sources and in living memories, suggest documented historical scenarios for understanding how outlier religions must have interacted and shaped one another in the centuries before the advent of a new, particularly powerful, proselytizing religion from outside of the region. From the time that Polynesian settlers landed in the outliers, the venerable religious traditions they bore likewise made themselves natives of the land. These traditions continuously underwent the introduction and development of new beliefs and practices that resulted in admixture and replacement in some sectors, and traditional continuity in others. Now many indigenous beliefs remain in primarily Christian contexts, and multiple sects both isolate themselves and interact with one another. New ideas and practices will arise internally, enter from outside, be rejected and accepted, mix, and carry on tradition as Polynesian outlier religions continue their inevitable transformations.

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. This chapter has been a thoroughly cooperative effort. In addition to the three primary authors, it has benefitted from important contributions by Richard Moyle (University of Auckland), William Donner (Kutztown University), and Janet Dixon Keller (University of Illinois—Champaign/Urbana) for critical information on Takū, Sikaiana, and West Futuna, respectively.

1. Firth (2001), in his final academic contribution, described this well for Tikopia.

2. See, particularly, Redfield (1965) for Latin America; Singer (1972) for South Asia.

3. Sua is a modified form of the more frequent Polynesian atua. The initial /a/ is dropped, and Taumako often pronounce the common Polynesian /t/ is as /s/.

4. Crusoe Kaveia is the same person whose name is spelled Koloso Kaveia on the Vaka Taumako Project website <http://www.pacifictraditions.org/vaka/>. Koloso is common Taumako pronunciation for Crusoe. While Chief Kaveia used both spellings, his grandson of the same name regularly uses Crusoe, as do most of the more educated Solomon Islanders.

5. The related terms, kai, kkai, kakai, tangikakai, or lalakai, are applied to stories for amusement on other Polynesian islands; kakai also means ‘people’ in Tongan (Churchward 1959:246).

6. In the twentieth century, the position of “paramount chief” was created by colonial authorities in consultation with the local population.

7. Firth’s important article was first published in 1939 in the Journal of the Polynesian Society 49:483-510. It was later extended and appears as chapter 8 of Tikopia Ritual and Belief, with an attributed date of 1940. Most of what Firth writes about the Tikopian concept of mana applies equally to Anuta.

8. This is not to say that the feet are always profane in an absolute sense. On Takū, although the lower extremities carry less sanctity than the head, it is forbidden even to walk over the ariki’s footprint.

9. This metaphor is used elsewhere in the Polynesian outliers as well. On Anuta, for example, anything important, worthy of respect, or demanding to be taken seriously is said to be mamapa ‘heavy’. Inconsequential matters, objects, or other phenomena are maamaa ‘light’. A similar figure of speech, also appears in common English.

10. Firth spells the Tikopian term ararafanga or arārafanga. To our ears, the word is based on a reduplicated form of ara, and the correct spelling should be araarafanga (or araarapanga in Anutan).

11. On West Futuna, certain trees and coral formations play a similar role.

12. History and Traditions of Tikopia (Firth 1961) is a comprehensive collection of tales from the origin myth, the works of culture heroes in establishing the land and customs, and internal fighting over land and power, to inter-island voyaging. A summary cannot do justice to the complexity of Tikopia’s oral traditions.