HWST 107 Exam 1 Part 1

Three methods that reflect the process of synchronic rupture or gap in common continuous history and reflects the importance of new homeland histories.

1. Technique in oral prose- "Shadowing", may obscure the identities and order of arrivals 2. Older traditions about important explorers were often transported as part of cultural lore in much the same manner as traditions about cultural heroes were. 3. Traditions naming "first arrivals" and "first discoveries" usually more often speak of the founders of particular communities rather than the first discoverers.

What is more likely proposition of so many places sharing the same name?

As ancestors migrated across the Pacific they named one place after another, and while doing so used the names as labels for spiritual threshold between creation and reality because they regarded the ideas of geographic and spiritual origin as mutually similar.

What is not emphasized in Polynesian lore and is considered a striking feature of Polynesian oral tradition?

As ancestors migrated they transported much mythological lore about the creation, gods and culture heroes, because their cultural, religious and philosophical importance, but very little historical lore concerning the places they originated from

What are migration traditions difficult to interpret?

Because it is mixed

What is Hawaiki?

Both a historical-geographic and religious-symbolic concept

Views of the people in a dominant position and how are these views perpetuated to then have significant consequences on their inferiors?

Derogatory and belittling. Accepted by their inferiors, who behave in ways that serve to perpetuate the relationship.

What event or action can be traced to the derogatory and belittling views of indigenous cultures?

Early years of interactions with Europeans. Condemnations by Christian missionaries of Oceanic cultures as savage, lascivious, and barbaric.

Purpose of lore?

Establish and involve moral codes and reinforce the legitimacy of existing social institutions and customary practices by projecting current beliefs, practice and institutions back onto the creation and demigod traditions.

If ideas of "narrow, deterministic perspectives" continue for generations, what would happen to the people and what would happen to the land and seas?

Eventual consignment of groups of human beings to a perpetual state of wardship wherein they and their surrounding land and seas would be at the mercy of the manipulators of the global economy and "world offers" of one kind or another.

Cultural import of migratory traditions

Explain their existence of land as opposed to its discovery

Where does lore pertaining to the natural world, emanate from?

From the creation and demigod traditions to describe, trade and define the origin, existence and characteristics of natural phenomena.

Three failures that have led to unscholarly publications on these traditions

Fundamental failure to understand the internal, historical and symbolic dynamics of these traditions, literal misinterpretation and the fact that there is a significant amount of deliberately invented materials

Migration traditions contain?

Greatest mix of history and symbolism of all traditions

What are culture heroes?

Intermediaries between gods and humans. Tests parameters of existence and the boundaries between reality and supernatural, if and death. Stories between the thresholds

What is the prevailing view that has been unwittingly propagated mostly by social scientists about Islanders?

Islanders and their physical surroundings could inflict lasting damage on people's images of themselves about their ability to act with relative autonomy in their endeavors to survive reasonably well within the international system in which they have found themselves.

What reason was given to explain why aristocracy in Tonga used belittlement with commoners?

Keep the ordinary folk in the dark calling them ignorant, making it easier to control and subordinate them.

Neocolonialism

Make people believe they have no choice but to depend

Culture hero and journey they are famous for?

Maui- figure who challenges death. Adventures and journeys involve risk. Fishing up the islands, ensnaring the sun, obtaining fire and struggling to gain immortality for humankind.

What does current scholarship argue about the names through Polynesia?

Migrants named new places Hawaiki one after another and then transmitted the name into a spiritual concept once the location of their original island origin was forgotten.

Vies from the level of national governments vs that of the ordinary people?

National government: plan and dictate present and future of Pacific island states and territories Ordinary people: Plan and make decisions about their lives independently. Results sometimes dramatic and go unnoticed.

Did Europeans invent belittlement?

No, it was part and parcel of indigenous cultures.

What idea was the author bound to?

Notion of smallness that even if we improved our approaches to production, the absolute size of our islands would still impose such severe limitations that we would be defeated in the end.

Example how language can be used as a tool to control and emphasize social and ethnic differences

Papua New Guinea- European males= masters, workers= boys

Name at least one geographic cognate and list four locations (island nations) where the same name can be found.

Polutu- Ha`apai, Vava`u, Tongatabu, and Manono

In Polynesia, who is the father and mother that is found as a common theme throughout Polynesia and all other gods gods are born from?

Rangi- skyfather Papa- Earthmother

"Idea of smallness" and "tiny confined spaces" relative to

Relative- depends on what is included and excluded in any calculation of size. When people see a polynesian or micronesian land, they call it small, their calculation is based entirely on the extent of the land they see.

Core of all oceanic cultures not taking into account by economists

Social centrality of the ancient practice of reciprocity.

What are the names of the most well known, first order gods of Polynesia deities?

Tanagroa, Tane, Rongu and Tu

What elements do each of the gods represent?

Tangaroa- Associated with the sea, heavens and creation. God of sea and progenitor of fish, canoes and carving. Tane- God who travelled between the heavens and the Earth. God who separated the heavens and earth and held them apart with posts or trees. Rongo- God of peace and cultivated foods. Tu- God of War (Ku)

Where can cognates of Hawaiki be found?

Through East and West Polynesia as a geographic place of origin and as the name of a spiritual place, threshold or passage between creation and reality.

Oceania

Vast, expanding, hospitable, generous. Humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper. Must not allow anyone to belittle us again and take away our freedom.

New view of Oceania that the author at the "Big Island" conference?

World of Oceania is not small, it is huge and growing bigger everyday

Did Oceania's environment extend beyond the shoreline?

Yes, their universe included the surrounding ocean as far as they could transverse and exploit it; underworlds and heavens

Viewing Pacific as "islands in a far sea" vs "a sea of islands"

islands in a far sea- emphasizes dry surfaces in a vast ocean far from he centers of power. Stresses smallness and remoteness a sea of islands- holistic perspective in which things are seen in their totality of their relationships

perspectives: pacific islands vs oceania

pacific islands- small areas of land sitting atop submerged reefs or seamounts oceania- grand and somewhat romantic. so vast that it would compel them to a drastic review of their perspectives and policies. Sea of islands with their inhabitants