cJ. is an abbreviation for 'classificatory'. F ... present publication Vengeance is Their Reply (i.e. R 132 means raid ...... There was a certain prestige CDn-.
Rolf Kuschel
Vengeance is Their Reply BLOOD FEUDS AND HOMICIDES ON BELLONA ISLAND
Part 1: Conditions underlying generations of bloodshed
FRIE '/ SEMPLAH MA IKKE VIDERESA:LGES
Dansk psykologisk Forlag
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE OF RENNELL AND BELLONA ISLANDS: VOL. VII, PART I
Rolf Kuschel VENGEANCE IS THEIR REPLY Blood Feuds and Homicides on Bellona Island Part 1 © 1988, Rolf Kuschel og Dansk psykologisk Forlag Cover design: Michel Kaiser, Honolulu Coverphotograph depicts: Takiika, Nuku'angoha lineage, Bellona Island 1977 Sats: AN:SATS, Esperg",rde Tryk: FB Bogtryk, Slangerup ISBN: Part I + Part 2 87 7706 0164
This book is the seventh volume on the language and culture of Rennell and Bellone islands by a group of Danish and American scholars.
The publication of this book was made possible by grants from: The Danish Research Council For The Humanities, and Kinovox
Denne afhandling er af Det Humanistiske Fakultet ved K13henhavns Universitet anlaget til offentligt at forsvares for den filosofiske doktorgrad.
Kebenhavn den l.februar 1988
•
JlZlrgen Skafte Jensen h.a. dec. Forsvaret finder Sled fredag den 10. februar 1989, kl. 14.00 pa K0benhavns Universitet, Studieslrrede 6, Auditorium A.
FOR SUSANNE
Mutual killing is our custom wl)ich goes back to Ithe time of the first immigrant] Kaitu'u. (Torna/au kasitomu mai Kaifu'l/ Ie he/aa'aki.)
Takiika, N.uku'angoha lineage. November 3,1977.
Preface
Ever since a group of Polynesians left their native land in Western Polynesia more than 24 generations ago and settled on Rennell Island and the 20 km' small neighboring island of Bellona, killing has been part of their life style. Generation after generation, the Polynesian enclave in the Melanesian dominated Solomon Islands has been the scene of bloodshed, acts of vengeance and feud. Many of the incidents which have given rise to killings may seem trifling not only to outsiders, but even from a Bellonese point of view. According to the ethos of the culture, however, each humiliation and disgraceful act perpetrated against oneself or one's agnatic kin must be avenged. Hence the title of the book: Vengeance is Their Reply. This study tries to describe and analyze the conditions which generated and maintained the incessant bloodshed on Bellona Island. The analysis is based on 195 homicides occurring within the last 600 years. The last homicides incorporated in this study took place in 1938, just before Christianity was introduced on the island. Since the present analysis focuses mainly on a rather destructive aspect of the Bellonese society, one could easily get the impression that the Bellonese were a very hostile people, just as the Aymara Indians were depicted in early anthropological studies. This is far from being the case. For shorter or longer periods, with low levels of social strife, the Bellonese were friendly and risible. Large ritual feasts with dancing and singing, friendly cooperation and falling in love were just as much parts of their daily social life as in many other societies. Without these more positive aspects of everyday life, the society would hardly have been able to survive. However, the large amount of material collected on the topic of feuding has, unfortunately, rendered it impossible to do justice, at the same time, to these other aspects of Bellonese life. A more varied picture can be found in several books, articles, films and recorCls (Christiansen, 1975; Elbert 1967[a]; Elbert and Monberg, 1965; Kuschel, 1975[a]; Monberg 1966; 1974; 1976; 1980; Paludan, 1978; Rossen, 1976; 1978; 1987). A close look at these publications will, I hope, compensate the reader for my one-sided concentration on the more sanguinary part of the Bellonese society's history. Finally, a note a; warning: The oral traditions rendered in Part 2 can not be used by Solomon Islands' public authorities as a basis for legal decisions. The reasons for this are given in Part I, Section 1.3.3.
7
Acknowledgements
Many Danish institutions and individuals have been of inestimable help in the preparation of this book. Since 1968 the Danish Research Council for the Humanities has given financial support to five research excursions to Bellona and has also met expenses in connection with a Bellonese informant's stay in Denmark. The University of Copenhagen and especially my place of work, the University's Psychological Laboratory, have supported my research in numerous ways by releasing me from teaching and administrative tasks for short periods of time. Moreover, the University's East-Asian Institute has been exceptional, placing an office at my disposal which made it possible for me to collect and process all my field data in one place. I would like to thank all these institutions and their representatives. The openness and helpfulness which the Bellonese showed me was of paramount importance to the completion of this study. It would be impossible to name all those who in various ways have helped me on Bellona. However, especially Toomasi Taupongi, Daniel Tuhanuku, Sengeika Tepuke, Temoa Puangongo and Tongaka Ngepetuha are to be singled out for having answered my thousands of questions in course of time. Working with these men was an incredibly exciting and challenging process. With their passion for their own traditional culture and their unending interest in other cultures' ways of life, they caused me more than once to change some of my own values. A description of these men as informants is found in Section 1.3.1. I would like to draw special attention to Sengeika Tepuke and his wife Ungamasi, whose unlimited hospitality I was lucky enough to enjoy during my many visits to the island. The affection and gratitude I feel towards the Bellonese, and especially the people named here, will never end. As for the individuals outside Bellol\a, I would first like to thank Professors, Dr. Franz From and Dr. Torben Monb'erg, who arranged my first expedition to Bellona. My psychology teacher, Franz From, has supported my interest since my very first attempt to understand human behavior in other cultures, and in the course of time he has shown a continued engagement in this work. The encouragement ProfessQr From has given me to continue my anthropological studies has been an invaluable help. I am especially indebted to Professor Torben Monberg who, with his sustained exploration of traditional Bellonese culture, awakened my interest in this society. His enthusiasm has been contagious and his professional elegance has been incentive and stimulating. Torben Monberg has made extensive and careful comments on many topics in this book. One could hardly wish for a better 8
colleague and friend. In my study of the Bellonese culture, I have also became acquainted with other colleagues, each of whom worked on different aspects of this society. Each of them has been incredibly helpful and open, and they all found pleasure in sharing their knowledge instead of keeping it to themselves. This is also the case with professor of linguistics, Dr.phil.h.c. Samuel H. Elbert from the University of Hawai'i, whose extensive knowledge of Polynesian languages, and especially Bellonese, I have continually been able to draw upon. It was Dr. Elbert, who urged me untiringly to continue working with the Bellonese language and who with great patience, read through and commented upon both the Bellonese texts and the English translations of the oral narratives in Part 2. The Danish geographer, Professor Sofus Christiansen helped me, time and time again, to unravel the facts in connection with Bellonese subsistence activities and placed various map materials at my disposal. Zoologist Dr. Torben Wolff helped answer questions on matters of the island's geology. I am also deeply grateful to Hanne Saito Monberg, who for many years worked with census data from Bellona. With the enthusiasm and patience that characterize her, Hanne Saito Monberg helped identify many of the people appearing in the collection of the oral narratives and provided excellent advice to improve the book. I cannot adequately express my gratitude to my colleague and friend, Dr. Melvin Lyon, who so willingly and unconditionally has commented stylistically on the manuscript. I would also like to mention a number of other people who gave their valuable assistance at different phases in the making of this book; Irene Ammitzb0ll, Johan Asplund, Britta Bakka, Malene Djursaa, Elvi Henriksen, Kirsten Landorf, Claus Ljungstmm, Nancy Lyon, Sven M0rch, Torsten Ingemann Nielsen, Kristian Paludan, Jens Poulsen, Strange Ross, Birgitte Steensballe and Julie Charlotte Wenckens-Madsen. The manuscript was translated from Danish into English by Deborah Shields, who put great effort into this difficult task. Much too often it seems to go unnoticed what a great amount of work librarians put into finding literature which is difficult to obtain. With a professional flair, Lene Seedorf, librarian at the Psychological Laboratory, managed to procure books and articles from all over the world. Even the most difficult tasks did not cause her to give up; instead, she considered it a challenge to solve them. The manuscript was typed with great care bY' Kirsten Bmste. Although typing the many Bellonese texts was not the most exciting work, she carried out the task with good humor. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Susanne Willerup, for many years of encouragemen!. Her profpund insight into the nooks and crannies of the human psyche and her warmth have helped me through many crises in the preparation of this book. I feel a great indebtedness to all those who have been so willing to help, no matter what their role.
9
Abbreviations
A
The letter 'A' succeeded by a number refers to the text number in the publication Animal Stories by Kuschel, 1975 (i.e. A 12 means animal story 12. A 12:2 means animal story 12, verse 2).
cJ.
is an abbreviation for 'classificatory'.
F
The letter 'F' succeeded by a number refers to the text number in the forthcoming publication of Daniel Tuhanuku's stories (i.e. F 5 means fighting story 5. F 5: I means fighting story 5, verse 1).
NA
The letters 'NA, NF, NR, and NT' succeeded by a number refer to the notes following the narratives termed 'A', 'F', 'R' or IT' (i.e. NR 17 means notes to R 17).
NF
NR
NT R
The letter 'R' succeeded by a number refers to the text number in the present publication Vengeance is Their Reply (i.e. R 132 means raid story 132. R 132:7 means raid story 132, verse 7).
T
The letter 'T' succeeded by a number refers to the text number in the publication From the Two Canoes by Elbert and Monberg, 1965 (i.e. T 16 means tale 16. T 16:1 means tale 16, verse I).
[ J Words in brackets within translations or texts are the author's insertions for grammatical or comprehensive clarity.
()
10
Words in parentheses in translalions or texts are the author's insertions to amplify or specify the immediately preceding word.
Contents
PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABBREVIATIONS CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ........................•.•................. l.l The scope of the study ...............................•...... 1.2 Feud, a concept with many meanings 1.3 Methodological approach ...............•.•................. 1.3.1 Informants .....................................•.... 1.3.2 The general interview situation ....................•.... 1.3.3 The specific interview situation: Recording the oral traditions 1.3.4 Assessment of the oral traditions 1.3.5 Assessment of the genealogical data 1.3.6 Assessment of numbers and quantities 1.4 Language, orthography, and problems of translation 2. MIGRATION AND CULTURAL CONTACT 3. THE BELLONESE WAY OF LIFE 3.1 Physical environment and subsistence economy 3.2 Social organization ..............................•.......... 3.2.1 Clan 3.2.2 Subclan 3.2.3 Lineage .........•................................... 3.2.4 Household ....................•.•...•................ 3.2.5 Marriage .........................•.•................ 3.2.6 Affines , 3.2.7 Mother's brother and sister's son 3.3 Social stratification 3.3.1 High-status men 3.3.2 Commoners 3.3.3 Low-status persons 3.3.4 Statu~ rivalry 3.4 Religion 3.4.1 Sorcery ...................•.......................... 3.5 Population .....................•.•.•...................... 3.6 Residential pattern ............•.•..............•.•.•....... 3.7 Land tenure
7 8 10 II 15 15 16 25 26 31 32 36 39 41 43 47 53 53 56 56 59 61 63 65 66 67 68 69 75 76 77 77 84 89 91 96 II
3.7.1 Causes of land disputes 4. DISPUTES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT 4.1 Courses of land disputes .............................•..... 4.2 Courses of marital disputes 5. BELLONESE ATTACK 5.1 Assembling a raiding group ............•.................... 5.2 Rituals 5.3 Tricks and treachery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 5.4 Lookouts 5.5 Dedication of the weapons to the supernaturals 5.6 Omens ............................................•..... 5.7 Scenes of action 5.8 Attack 5.9 The victims and their fate 5.10 Post-raid actions 5.11 Internment of the victims 5.12 The role of women in armed conflicts 5.13 Weapons 5.13.1 Typesofweapons 5.13.2 Manufacturing of weapons 5.13.3 Beware of human bones 6. PEACE IS BUT A DECEPTION 7. GENERATIONS OF BLOODSHED 7.1 The prevalence of raiding 7.2 The prevalence of homicides 7.3 Causes of attacks 7.3.1 Vengeance and countervengeance 7.3.2 Infringement upon or negligent treatment against the property of others 7.3.2.1 Theft 7.3.2.2 Fighting over land 7.3.2.3 Destruction of property 7.3.2.4 Usurpation of title to fruit trees 7.3.3 Violation of the social esteem of alter 7.3.3.1 Adultery : 7.3.4 Individually inherent conditions ...........•........... 7.4 Raidings and the progression of blood feuds 7.4.1 Inter-island raids 7.4.1.1 Blood feud 1 7.4,1.2 Blood feud 2 7.4.1.3 Blood feud 3 7.4.1.4 Blood feud 4 7.4.2 Inter-clan raids 7.4.2.1 Blood feud 5 7.4.2.2 Blood feud 6 7.4.3 Intra-clan raids 12
98 102 105 107 III III 114 116 117 117 118 118 119 121 122 130 134 135 138 138 139 144 152 152 154 157 158 160 160 162 163 164 164 166 167 169 170 171 173 174 176 177 179 191 192
7.4.3.1 Blood feud 7 7.4.3.2 Blood feud 8 .......•.•.•.•............•...... 7.4.3.3 Blood feud 9 7.4.4 Intra.lineage raids 8. SOME PROCESSES UNDERLYING AND MAINTAINING THE BELLONESE BLOOD FEUDS 8.1 Feuding: A rule-governed behavior 8.2 The origin of killing 8.3 Underlying causes of Bellonese bloodshed 8.4 Processes maintaining blood feuds 8.5 Difficulties in controlling emerging conflicts 8.6 'Thou shalt not kill' APPENDIX A: THE BELLONESE WEAPON ARSENAL DANISH RESUME REFERENCES .........................................•.... AUTHOR INDEX .........•..........•..................•.... SUBJECT INDEX .........•.................................. PLATE I ..........................•......................... PLATE II .....•............................................. PLATE III ........................•.........................
194 207 209 220 221 221 224 224 228 231 232 236 261 269 277 279 290 291 292
13
1. Introduction
Many of the early visitors to Bellona Island were surprised how heavily the natives were armed. On the basis of their brief stay on the island, they were unable to know that the traditional Bellonese society was characterized by constant social unrest with frequent killings among its members. No Bellonese individual could, at any time, feel entirely secure from attack. While fishing, gardening, or even during the performance of rituals at the temples, one could be exposed to a sneak at lack .
1.1 Thescopeojthe study. The present publication consists of an analysis of 195 known homicides which took place during the last 500 to 600 years on Bellona Island, a tiny Polynesian Outlier in the Solomon Islands. It aims at describing and analyzing the conditions which generated and maintained generations of bloodshed. A special attempt will be made to deduce the rules underlying the blood feuds that harassed the island for generations. The analysis starts with the first killings at the time of the initial arrival of immigrants to the island and ends with the homicides taking place in 1938. This was the year in which the SeventhDay Adventists (SDA) and the South Sea Evangelical Mission (SSEM) came to Bellona. While the arrival of the Christian missions caused a sharp reduction in bloodshed, it also marked the commencement of a systematic extirpation oftraditional Bellonese culture. The present analysis is restricted to homicides and attempted homicides. Other conflicts are dealt with at a more general level (Chapter 4). Today, as most of the island's old men, the bearers of the unwritten wisdom of Bellonese culture, have gone to their heavenly abodes, only fragmentary knowledge of traditional culture can be found among the younger generation. To enable future generations on Bellona to gain insight into their cultural history, ail ofthe oral narratives pertinent to;bloodshed are reproduced in extenso. They are presented in the vernacular language with an English translation in Part 2 of this book. Just how important such knowledge of cultural roots is to a generation's perception of its own identity is conveyed very clearly and precisely by H.E. Maude in his book Slavers in Paradise in which he writes, "Only through a knowledge of their history can the islanders of today become fully conscious of their regional identity, and thus guard themselves against the piecemeal of cultural annihilation which threatens them in the present century ... "(Maude,1981:xxii). [n addition to a desire to retain as much as possible of the material pertaining to a rapidly disappearing culture, my intention in publishing the primary data in 15
extenso is also to fill in an apparent gap in the literature on blood feuds. Most publications lack actual historical accounts of the details of blood feuds from start to finish. Typically only fragmented accounts are given, either in the form of descriptions of one or two killings out of an apparently much larger sequence (Karsten, 1923; Stirling, 1960; Boehm, 1984) or as very condensed versions of three or four feud sequences (Boehm, 1984; Frauenstadt, 1881; Hasluck, 1954; Knudsen, 1985; Wallace-Hadrill, 1958-59). Such fragmented descriptions make it extremely difficult to follow and understand the actual processes in a given feud and subsequently to determine the precise underlying, behavioral pattern. The apparent reasons for these fragmented descriptions seem to be that, at the time when the data were collected, detailed information was no longer available. Peters, who studied the blood feuds among the Bedouins of Cyrenaica, describes it in the following way, 'It was most difficult to get the Bedouin to give accounts of homicides other than those which had occurred during the past fifty years or so, but they invariably claimed that the origin was earlier than this, although they were wholly unaware of the identity of the earlier victims' (Peters, 1967:268; see also Boehm, 1984:137-9; Knudsen,1985:79). In sharp contrast to this situation, the present Bellonese material is much more detailed. No less than nine individual blood feuds are described from their inception to their conclusion. To give some idea of the depth of this material, it should be mentioned that the longest of these feud descriptions includes 29 different encounters. Thus by publishing the Bellonese material in its entirety, I want to make the primary data available to other scientists who, from other theoretical starting points, would like to reanalyze it or use it in comparative studies. Such studies are often difficult to accomplish as the material published is not always sufficiently detailed. Just how meaningful reanalyses can be is shown very clearly by Gluckman's revision of his own study The Judicial Process among the Barotse ofNorthern Rhodesia. While he originally "used each case as an isolated incident coming before a court', twenty years later he had discovered that 'each case was obviously but an incident in a long process of social relations, with its roots deep in the past. ... " (Gluckman, 1967:xvi). Only by being more generous with our empirical data will it become possible for other researchers to undertake the necessary reanalyses and thereby, hopefully, attain a better understanding of complicated social phenomena.
1.2 Feud, a concept with many meanings. A brief comment on the term 'feud' is called for. Judging by the use various authors have made of this term, it seems to be just as ambiguous and loaded with extraneous meaning as 'aggression' (Barnett, 1979; Nettleship, 1975; van der Dennen, 1980), 'conflict'(Aubert, 1963; Nettleship', 1975), 'violence' (Nettleship, 1975; van der Dennen, 1980), and 'war' (Nettl~ship, 1975; van der Dennen, 1981). Reading through the extensive literature on feuds and blood feuds one can really agree with Black-Michaud's statement that the use of the term feud 'yields a bewildering variety of interpretations ranging from individual acts of lethal retaliation for homicide, injury orinsult, to repeated acts of full scale aggression between large ethnic groups whose adult male population may number several 16
thousand strong' (Black-Michaud, 1980: 1). Not only is the term 'feud' used concerning the involvement of various political groups in acts of homicide or fighting, but also, at times, as if it were synonymous with terms such as 'vengeance killing', 'vendetta', and 'war'. An extreme example of the terminological confusion can be found in Knudsen (1985), who has analyzed the Corsican vendetta. She refers to the various killings, in the same article, as 'blood feud', 'vendetta', 'war', 'private war' I and 'family war'. It should be interesting to see
an analysis of the term vendetta in order to know whether it is synonymous with feud, as suggested by Boehm (1984:218) or whether it is synonymous with vengeance killing, i.e. an act performed by individuals terminating the conflict, as suggested by Peters (1980:xiii). In their book Tribes without Rulers, Middleton and Tait (1958:19) write that it is difficult to distinguish between different types of violence such as 'warfare, feud, blood-vengeance, fighting or vendetta'. Nevertheless, the authors make a distinction between 'feud' and 'warfare'. Feud is said to refer to "fighting between people as groups, usually undertaken as response to an offence, the groups being in such a relationship that although they fight they both accept the obligation to bring the fighting to a close by peaceful settlement, there being machinery to achieve this conclusion" (Middleton and Tait, 1958:20). In contrast the term 'warfare' is used by Middleton and Tait to imply the absence of both the duty to retaliate and the possibility of arbitration. The difference between 'warfare' and 'feud' is not quite, as Middleton and Tait suggest, a question of the presence or absence of the duty to retaliate, or the simple presence of the possibility of arbitration. 11 is rather a question of the structural composition of the parties in conflict. Without going more closely into the extensive discussion about the term 'war' (see Nettleship, 1975) there seems to be growing consensus that one of the most important distinctions between the terms 'war' and 'feud' is that the former occurs between, and the latter within, political entities (Otterbein, 1970:3). How difficult it actually is to make such a distinction between 'war' and 'feud' appears clearly in Meggitt's reflections covering the conceptualization of the fighting between two subclans which are 'components of a wider polity, the clan'. For, assoon as hostilities begin, the two formersubclans begin to regard themselves as politically autonomous groups with the status of clans (Meggitt, 1977:10-11). Another problem with the delineation of feuds from other types of violence is that some researchers occasionally use the term 'feud' as if it were synonymous with 'vengeance killing' as for example Beattie (1972: 150). Some, in fact, go so far as to maintain that blood feuds are based on some kind of scorekeeping as to the exact number of killings (Boehm 1984: 194). One of the first anthropologists to emphasize this particular aspect was Nadel, who writes, 'In Heiban it (homicid~) entails blood feud, which is carried on until exact revenge has been achieved; a man must be killed for a man, a woman for a woman; even
in their age the two victims must be as closely matched as possible. The duty to avenge the death devolves, not on an individual, but on the whole clan' (Nadel, 1947: 151). The essential point in Nadel's view, is the demand for exactness in retaliation, together with the presence of group solidarity and group liability. 17
Even if the latter factors are considered as necessary basic conditions of the development of a feud (see Barth, 1953:73), the demand for exact vengeance appears to be much too narrow. According to this view, as soon as both parties accept that the score is even, which can happen immediately after the first vengeance killing, then all hostilities should cease. This situation, however, is clearly different from the situation where the demand for retaliation is not based on achieving an 'even score', but where each killing must be revenged regardless of
whether it is the first, second or 25th killing. After a vengeance killing the political balance of power seldom changes very much. Such a change might occur in a society where the killings can go on for such a long time that one of the involved parties approaches, or is subject to, annihilation. Another view than Nadel's is that of Bohannan, who thinks that 'Feud occurs when the principle of self-help gets out of hand' (Bohannan, 1963:290). As already proposed by Pospisil (1968:389) this viewpoint implies 'that if an injury is redressed through violence and the self-redress is final and more or less accepted by the other party, such violence does not merit the term' feud' .' That a feud can surge back and forth between the involved groups for several generations does not necessarily mean that the society itself is in a process of dissolution. As will be shown later, feuding is very much rule-governed. How then should the term (blood) feud be understood? Several opinions exist, but the most essential aspects of the discussion about what characterizes
a feud are the following: (a) the duration of the acts of violence, (b) the nature of the acts of violence, (c) group solidarity and group liability, (d) the (im)possibility of ceasing hostilities, and (e) the structural characteristics of the fighting groups. These factors deserve individual consideration:
raj The duration of the acts of violence. According to Pospisil's (1968) and Koch's (1976) definitions of 'feud', there must be a sequence of at least three violent acts. Otterbein and Otterbein (1965) settle for two: they define a feud as 'blood revenge following a homicide'. The last mentioned definition is insufficient, since the second killing simply constitutes a vengeance killing. In the present study, a feud comprises at least three successive killings or homicide attempts. In order to differentiate between a feud and 'serial killings'. an additional criterion must be that these acts of violence as seen over a longer period of time reflect a pattern of alternating attacks between the parties involved. In other words, there must be an instigative act of violence on group B carried out
by group A, an act of revenge on group A by group B, and a countervengeance attack on group B carried out by group A. Thus a pattern of violence consisting of, for example. an attack by group A followed by two or more attacks on group A by group B is ,not enough to be considered a feud; it would be an example of serial killings. Only a retrospective diachronic analysis can determine whether or not a feud exists, since in some cases hostilities between the antagonistic groups lie fallow
for many years before the act of countervengeance takes place. Thus there is one example on Bellona of a feud (Feud I, [7.4. I. I]) which rested for nearly 225 years before a counterattack was staged; this counterattack justifies the classi18
fication of the sequence of killings as a feud. A general description which simply emphasizes that the violent acts are to be 'lengthy' or 'protracted' is unacceptable, as the length of time between acts of violence is not crucial. (b) The nature of the acts of violence. Different opinions exist as to the nature of the acts of violence involved in a feud. Pospisil (1968) talks about 'acts ofviolence, usually involving killings', and Koch (1976) speaks of 'hostility with violence'. When talking about feuds I think it is acceptable to have a broad category called acts of violence, but when the talk is about blood feud the nature of the acts of violence should, naturally, be limited to attacks, successful or not, with the intent to kill one or more members of the enemy group. (c) Group solidarity and group liability. Before a number of alternating killings can take place, there must be a group of people who are ready to defend themselves against, or retaliate after, an attack on one of the group's members. This is called group solidarity, or, as Radcliffe-Brown phrased it 'collective solidarity' (Radcliffe-Brown, 1933:204). As indicated by several authors, group solidarity is closely connected with group liability. Retaliation is not directed towards just anyone. Depending on the society, the act of vengeance or countervengeance will be directed towards, for example, the slayer himself or his agnatic kin. (d) The (im)possibility of ceasing hostilities. While many authors do not deal with the question of whether or not feuds can be brought to an end, BlackMichaud takes the position 'that feuds are by definition eternal' (BlackMichaud, 1980: 16). Black-Michaud says that feuds can be brought to a temporary end, but 'The peace that ensues is, however, never permanent as long as the two parties continue to have male progeny and live within striking distance of each other, but not close enough for uninterrupted hostilities to make the conduct of normal daily life impossible (ibid., p.86). Some feuds will, as BlackMichaud points out, be brought to an end temporarily; one group may have lost a great deal of its men or be unable to reproduce itself sufficiently, in which case a retaliatory attack would be tantamount to suicide. Thus the previously mentioned feud on Bellona was suspended for nearly 225 years because an earlier raid had reduced the clan to one family. Black-Michaud's view 'that feuds are by definition eternal' is, in its categorical form, untenable if one considers a society to be a dynamic organism whose members can at any time intervene in their own existence and thereby change it (see Chapter 8). This can happen if, for example, previously antagonistic groups become affines through marriage and decide to end what might be centuries of fighting. Black-Michaud's point of view is only tenabl~ if one perceives the organization of the society as being static. (e) The structural characteristics of the fighting group. In an attempt to differentiate between feuds and war. more and more importance is attached to the view that feuds occur between discrete groups within a political or cultural
19
entity, whereas war occurs between different political or cultural entities. Divale (l973:xix) speaks of groups in a rather broad sense, "Feuding is organized violence that occurs within the 'group' as opposed to warfare which occurs be-
tween 'groups'. The term 'group' varies widely according to different societies and their level of cultural evolution. In Australia, the collection of families forming the band would be the group, whereas in Amazonia the one or two segmentary lineages that form villages would be the group. Fighting within the group would be termed feuding, whereas fighting between different villages would be termed warfare." According to Koch (1976), hostilities must occur 'between corporate groups (lineages, clans, villages, etc.) which are distinct segments of a wider political entity'. Heider (1970:100) regards 'conflict between men of different confederations of the same alliance' as feud, whereas 'conflict
between members of different alliances' is war. Pospisil (1968:392) states that acts of violence or killings must be 'committed by members of two groups related to each other by superimposed political-structural features (often involving the existence of an overall political authority) .... ' All of these views contend that the groups must be related to each other and be a part of one and the same whole. If one accepts Pospisil's view that there must be 'an overall political authority' one rules out the possibility that feuds can occur in politically uncentralized societies like the Bellonese, which is made up of a number of autonomous groups (lineages, subclans, clans; Isee Section 3.2)), existing independently of any formal overall authority. The consequence of this would be that all killings occurring in uncentralized societies like the Bellonese would have to be categorized by the vague term 'self-redress'. This would amount to doing the ethnographic context an injustice, since killing sequences did occur ofwhich the initial homicide was conditional on the demand for vengeance and, in due course, for countervengeance. The crucial factor must be whether acts ofviolence occur between groups which on the one hand perceive themselves as being discrete and autonomous in relation to each other and on the other hand also feel themselves as parts of a distinct ethno-linguistic group. To summarize my viewpoint: in the present book the term blood feud covers a number, of at least three alternating killings or homicide attempts occurring between members of discrete, autonomous groups (lineages, subclans or clans) who perceive themselves as parts of a shared ethno-linguistic entity, and where the members of each of the antagonistic groups act on the basis of a perceived group membership. A blood feud can be brought to an end, either temporarily or permanently, depending on changes in the power structure of the society or due to the active, voluntary decisions of the individual member. Whether a blood feud is brought to a temporary or permanent end can only be determined through a diachron analysis. Writing within the evolutionary tradition Richard Thurnwald states that "Among primitive peoples the obligation of blood vengeance does not seem to be the matter of social distinction that it has become among more advanced tribes of shepherds and husbandmen" (Thurnwald, 1930:599). Thurnwald regards the absence of blood feuds among hunter-gatherers as partially due to the fact that, in these societies, there is no accumulation of goods. Furthermore, 20
such societies do not contain a very centralized political organization, which can involve them in wars for the sake of material gain. Thurnwald's view is correct
in the sense that among hunter-gatherers there is generally a low frequency of violent solutions to conflicts. This is true for the bush people in the Kalahari desert, (Marshall,1961), Pygmies in the Huri forest (Turnbull, 1961, 1968, 1984), as well as among other hunter-gatherers (Diamond, 1971 :chapter 13). Thurnwald's argumentation for the absence of blood feuds among hunter-gatherers is, however, not valid, since the existence of blood feuds is not necessarily dependent upon 'economic amends'. nor upon the political development of a so-
ciety. As it will appear from the present study, the economic aspect plays a minor role, not only as a course, but also as a maintaining factor of blood feuds. Likewise, Otterbein and Otterbein (1965) have demonstrated that blood feuds appear not only in politically uncentralized societies but also in politically centralized societies.
A writer like Gopeevie reduces blood feuds to a mere biological problem. In his article 'Die albanesische Blutrache' he begins by claiming that 'Dem Menschen ist das Rachegeflihl angeboren' (Gopeevie, 1881 :71). No further reason for this biological reductionism is given. Probably this is due to his writing in the prevailing scientific spirit of his time, when human -aggressiveness' was gene-
rally thought to be genetically determined (cf. McDougall, 11908J 1917). Gopeevic believed, furthermore, that blood vengeance could only be controlled through the agency of a potential political leader (a viewpoint also found in the writings of Freud [1932]1964). At the beginning of this century, the Finnish philosopher and anthropologist Edward Westermarck stated that blood feuds were a psychological phenomenon. The developmental history of human beings could, in this sense, only be understood through knowledge of people's mental processes. For this reason, Westermarck reached the conclusion that blood feuds are determined solely by people's emotion of revenge. This clearly appears in a discussion between Westermarck and Rivers, in which the former asked, 'How can you explain the blood-feud except by revenge?' (Rivers, 1926:8). In other words, Westermarck thought that only by the study of this vengeful feeling, regarded as an individual-psychological phenomenon, could one obtain insight into the social structure of the blood feuds. In his criticism of Westermarek's mentalistic interpretation, Rivers, in 1926, posed the rhetorical question, 'How can you explain revenge without a knowledge of the blood'feud? How can you explain the workings of the human mind without a knowledge of the social setting which must have played so great a part in determining the sentiments and opinions of mankind?' (Rivers, 1926: II). For Rivers there was no doubt: blood feuds constitute a social phenomenon and must be studied and analyzed as such. By taking this viewpoint that social phenomena cannot be reduced to and understood from a purely individual-psychological angle, Rivers is in close agreement with Durkheim on this point (cf. Durkheim, [1895J 1982). Leaps in level of analysis such as Westermarck's have, unfortunately, marred some of the traditional psychological and psychoanalytical studies of human conflict (McDougall, 1917; Freud, [1915J 1949; Freud, [1932J 1964; Dollard, Miller, Doob, Mowrer, and 21
Sears, [1939J 1969) as well as certain areas of human ethology (Lorenz, 1963; Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1979). For a critique of these leaps in level of analysis see Asch, 1952:ch. 16; Israel, 1972:95-105; 1973:86-89; Kim, 1976; Moscovici, 1972. A fundamental change in the understanding of blood feuds came in 1940 with the appearance of Evans-Pritchard's book The Nuer. In this work, EvansPritchard emphasizes that blood feuds are socio-structural phenomena. This development put a definitive stop to the earlier biologically and psychologically reductionistic viewpoints. Evans-Pritchard's conception is already apparent in his distinction between 'feud' and 'blood-feud'. While the former term is said to have a 'broad and slightly vague usage', the latter term includes 'the relations between the kin on both sides in a situation of homicide' (Evans-Pritchard, [1940] 1968: 150). With this distinction Evans-Pritchard underlines as the most important condition that killings which occur in a blood-feuding society involve the kinsmen of both the slayer and the slain. After a killing, the relationship between the two contending parties will be characterized by mutual fear, hate, threats and alternating homicides, concurrently with a reduction in general social interaction. By emphasizing this feature that blood feuds constitute a form of relationship between the antagonistic parties, Evans-Pritchard similarly accentuated that blood feuds are a social phenomenon, and not a relationship between single individuals. Since then, this viewpoint has also been emphasized by other anthropologists (Beattie, 1972:149; Black-Michaud, 1980:24-25; Boehm, 1984:196-197). Peters, who studied the blood feuds among the Bedouins, summarizes it this way, ' ... feud is a set of relationships between two tribal groups which are characterized by hostility whenever two or more of their members meet' (Peters, 1967:262). According to Evans-Pritchard the basis of the origins and development of blood feuds must be found in the structure of society. In a classical segmentary system as among the Nuer, opposition arises between the different segments. When a man is killed, it is not only his agnates who must take revenge, but also his close affines and men who live in the neighborhood of the victim. In this way 'whole sections are left in a state of hostility towards one another. .. ' (EvansPritchard, 1968: 159). As early as 1908 Simmel presented the viewpoint that a society cannot tolerate the occurrence of continuous, mutual killings within all of its segments (Simmel, [1908J 1964:65). Simmel's theoretical reflections are supported by EvansPritchard's empirical investigations. The latter found, for instance, that continuing bloodshed cannot appear between or within groups which are economically dependent upon each other or between whom many affinal relationships are found. Should homicide occur within or between such cooperative groups, the enmities will rapidly be brought to an end by the payment of compensation. A similar situation' was found by Peters among the Bedouins. Peters is critical about the explanatory value of the lineage model. After a comprehensive and profound analysis of the Bedouins of Cyrenaica, Peters found that the Bedouin's own conception of whom they cooperated with, and whom they warred against was in general agreement with the lineage model. Superficially this appeared to be correct. However, he found many exceptions to 22
the common folk model, since not only the ecological system and the trade connections, but also the affinal relationships prevented certain groups within a tribal section from engaging in acts of hostilities towards other sections. Through his penetrating analysis, Peters convincingly demonstrated that the "lineage model neither covers several important areas of social relationships nor enables an accurate prediction of events to be made" (Peters, 1967:261). As will be shown in the present analysis, the lineage model does not hold for the Bellonese society either. Lineages, subclans, or clans hardly ever participate as single groups in an attack against another segment of the society. Various authors have asserted that blood feuds originate in societies without a central political authority which can maintain control and take action against emerging connicts (Beattie, 1972: 149; Evans-Pritchard, 1968: 151; Hoebel, 1195411974:330; Middleton and Tait, 1958: 19; Thurnwald, 1930:598). That the absence of a central political authority does not necessarily lead to the presence of blood feuds is illustrated by the many hunter-gatherers' societies. In addition, Dentan's investigations of the Semai-people (Dentan, 1968) and Colson's study of the Plateau Tonga Society (Colson, 1953) show that in many uncentralized societies there are other ways in which conflicts can be solved without continuing bloodshed. It has also been demonstrated that blood feuds can occur in a society with a politically centralized power structure, which is clearly illustrated by Hasluck's study of blood feuds in Albania (Hasluck, 1954) and Boehm's study of the Montenegrins in Jugoslavia (Boehm, 1984). A more systematic investigation of the role which centralized political hierarchies play in relation to the appearance of feuds has been presented by Otterbein and Otterbein. Their study was based on 50 societies included in the Human Relations Area Files and the Ethnographic Atlas. The authors found that the degree ofpoIitical complexity within a society did not determine whether or not feuds occurred. If, however, one combines the political complexity of a society with the presence or absence of feuds and/or wars, a marked differentiation becomes apparent, 'Not only is there a strong relationship between war and the absence of feuding in high level societies, but in low level societies war and feuding are positively correlated' (Otterbein and Otterbein, 1965: 1478). This means that societies with a centralized political authority can take measures against internal unrest if at the same time they are warring against other political units, whereas societies with an uncentralized political power structure cannot do so. In 1960, when van Velzen and van Wetering undertook an investigation concerning the degree to which there were specific societal conditions which encouraged, or discouraged the development of conflicts in non-industrialized societies, the background for their investigation was the discussion which Colson (1953), Gluckman ([1955J 1973), and Murphy (1957) had raised with their assumption that cross'cutting ties ensure peace. This approach has become known as the divided loyalties theory. The basic idea behind this viewpoint is that in a society with cross-cutting ties of kinship and affinity, and where people live in close interaction with their neighbors, protracted connicts, especially those resulting in bloodshed, are perilous and must be brought to an end. Although Gluckman does not believe that 'divided loyalties and interests will always
23
prevent a dispute arising, or prevent social dislocation and change' (1973:25), he is, however, of the opinion that a societal structure which promotes divided loyalties provides the setting for 'the peace in the feud'. The conflicting loyalties theory has been criticized from various quarters. Some believe that it is much 100 broad and vague 10 explain the complex interactions between individuals (Peters, 1967:272). Similarly, Koch (1974: 168) believes that cross-cutting ties of allegiance have only a modifying influence on a conflict if 'people share vital interests both with neighbours of their local community and with members of dispersed kin groups.' van Velzen and van Wetering put Murphy's hypothesis "that matrilocal societies must repress open aggression in order to insure cohesion and continuity' to the test (Murphy, 1957: 1033). They set themselves the task "to trace the connection between matrilocality and peacefulness within the society and to discover which factor, inherent in matrilocality, determines the presence or absence of peacefulness" (van Velzen and van Wetering, 1960: 171). After a comparative analysis of 50 societies, half of which had a matrilocal settlement system and the other half a patrilocal one, they concluded that 'matrilocality is an adequate condition for peacefulness' (1960:192). But the authors did not stop there. In keeping with the second aim of their study, they reached the conclusion that what characterized most of the matrilocal societies was the absence of power groups, that is, 'a group which resorts to aggression when the interests of one of its members are threatened' (1960 179). The basis of such power groups, they found, were fraternal interest groups. This led to their second conclusion, 'that the absence of fraternal interest groups is an adequate condition for peacefulness' (1960: 194). Inspired by van Velzen and van Wetering's study, Otterbein and Otterbein (1965) analyzed the relationship between the occurrence of fraternal interest groups (indexed by patrilocality) and feuds. They found that 'societies with fraternal interest groups are more likely to have feuding than societies without fraternal interest groups' (Otterbein and Otterbein, 1965:1473). A closer look at the Otterbeins' data shows that out of25 patrilocal societies, feuding was absent in 10 societies. In other words, patrilocality by itself is not a sufficient premise forthe occurrence of blood feuds. Likewise,it should be remembered that where fraternal interest groups engaged in feuding exist, all members of these groups do not always combine forces in an attack. They can shift their internal composition or they can enter into an alliance with other individuals or groups. To think of power groups as being or forming static, permanent entities would be a mistake. A perusal through the literature of blood feuds demonstrates with clarity the lack of a comprehensive theory. However, today we have come a great deal further towards an understanding of blood feuds than with the evolutionistic, biological and mentalistic explanations. Similarly, Peters' penetrating analysis has shown that a simple, mechanical lineage model cannot explain larger parts of the actual social behavior. Of importance for the further development of theoretical models is a more profound analysis, based upon comprehensive empirical material, which can explicate and reveal the actual pattern of feuding. I
24
Blood feuds are rule-governed. They are not expressions of uncontrolled, impulsive behavioral acts, nor are they expressions of barbaric, customary practices, as the historian Wallace-Hadrill (1958-59) sees them. Finally, they do not originate, as Bohannan (1963:290) suggested, 'when the principle of self-help gets out of hand.' Blood feuds can generally be seen as series of mutually dependant processes, in which the violent actions of one group elicit and even necessitate the reactions of another group. This process follows a set of rules (norms), which will, however, not always be followed in a mindless, mechanistic manner. Strategic considerations can break the pattern, and new rules be devel-
oped in the course of time. Tracing the pattern that governed generations of feuding on Bellona Island, the present analysis aims at contributing to an understanding of these processes. 1.3. Methodological approach. In its initial phase, a study of a totally foreign culture can remind one of putting together a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with an unknown number of pieces whose forms change according to their position in relation to other pieces. A seemingly well-defined gestalt in the beginning can later prove to be part of a much more complicated whole. Something which at one point is regarded as a figure can - just as we know from studies in the psychology of perception (Rubin, 1921) - suddenly appear as background. One of the difficulties for the professional observer in a strange society is to develop the ability to push aside, sufficiently, the cultural visor through which he normally sees the world, so that he can perceive and understand the world as the people he is studying do. This step, to go from a kind of aspect-blindness to becoming aspect sighted (in Wittgenstein's terminology; Wittgenstein, 1968:213-214), can probably never be fully realized. All one can hope for is to come as close as possible to an understanding of the cognitive and social processes which form the basis ofthe actions of others. The attempt itself can, however, never be anything but an asymptotical approach. There is a further problem in perceptualizing the actual events with which the present work is concerned. Raiding activities stopped almost completely after the introduction of Christianity in 1938. Thus observation of actual incidents has not been possible. The analysis of what generated and maintained the bloodshed on Bellona is based on the informants' recollections as to what they themselves have experienced and what their contemporaries have told them. For this reason, too, examples of reconstructing lost knowledge as well as examples of selective memory will be discussed in the present chapter. For example different perceptions of the same sequence of events were noted by members of different clans in relation to certain subjects, whereas a considerable degree of similarity was found in others. Although there are surprising similarities in the accounts of incidents which occurred several centuries ago , there is - as long as we have only oral traditions
to work with - no guarantee that they reflect reality as it appeared at that time. The only thing one can say is that the data collected reflect the social reality which the Bellone5O acted upon. The material was gathered during a total of 18 months spent on Bellona in 25
1968, 1971, 1972, 1977, and 1983. New information was recorded and previously collected data were checked during the visit to Denmark of two Bellonese in 1979 and 1982, respectively. Furthermore, I have received additional information from my main informants by way of correspondence. During my first stay on Bellona I had to work through an interpreter, since I had not had the opportunity to acquaint myself with Polynesian languages before my arrival. I quickly realized, however, that communication via a third person caused serious problems. Not only did much important information get lost in the process, but the interviews became long and tedious because no direct or spontaneous communication would occur between the interviewer and the in-
terviewee. Still worse was the fact that much information about the islanders' social reality, as reflected in their linguistic categorization remained undiscovered when one worked with an interpreter or used a lingua-franca (pidgin English). Without knowledge of the scope of expression in a language, one is unable to put questions culturally relevant to the informants. What use is it to ask the Bellonese what symbolic meaning a yellow color has when they neither have the concept 'yellow' or 'color' nor assign colors any symbolic meanings? Realizing
this close relationship between language and culture, I attempted to learn enough Bellonese on the basis of the primary material collected so that afterwards I could conduct my interviews in the informants' own tongue.
1.3. I In/ormants. A number of methodological books published during the last few decades in the areas of social anthropology and social psychology contain detailed explanations of the criteria to be used in choosing one's informants (Henige, 1982; Lindzey and Aronson, 1968:VoI.2; Naroll and Cohen, 1973; Spradley, 1979). These are ideal criteria which can be difficult to comply with in practice. The most obvious problem on Bellona was that only a few men had sufficient knowledge of the dramatic events taking place on the island generations ago. Moreover, some potential informants were reluctant to speak of the bloodshed because it still remained a sensitive problem to them. We know from many years of data collection on Bellona that accounts may vary greatly from narrator to narrator, as not all Belloneseare equally interested in or have the same skills in depicting either what they themselves have experienced or what their forefathers have told them. A study of From the Two Canoes (Elbert and Monberg, 1965) and Animal Stories (Kuschel, 1975[alJ which contain several informants' renditions of the same event, effectively demonstrates this point. In T 136(A), an account of the killing of a man by the name of Puipuihenua from the Nuku'angoha lineage, one will note that it does not contain nearly as many details as the accounts given by Taupongi of the Tongomainge lineage (T 136 [BJ; T 136 [Cj and by Daniel Tuhanuku of the Tongaba lineage (Tuhan~ku, 1971: 160). The narrator of variation A, a grandchild of the man killed, has no special reputation on the island of being able to tell traditional stories, whereas the two latter informants are recognized as skillful storytellers. The criteria of a 'good' storyteller vary from culture to culture and depend upon the subject being stUdied. In the present situation my minimum requirement was that the narrator had a detailed knowledge ofthe subject, and was able 26
to describe and discuss it in a coherent manner. If a researcher is not conscious of the fact that there are great individual differences in narrative abilities, he can easily risk coming home with data giving a distorted picture of a society's stock of knowledge. The second criterion of selection concerns the clan membership of the informant. Representatives from each of the two existing clans and preferably from as many lineages within each clan as possible is required. This criterion is not only to be seen in the light of general scientific insistence on the collection of comprehensive data. It must be specifically stressed because the Bellonese themselves consider only the members of each lineage and clan capable of explaining what they believe really happened within their own particular descent group. This is very clearly pointed out in Monberg's article 'Informants Fire Back: A Micro-Study in Anthropological Methods' (1975), in which he relates in an open and unreserved manner, unusual for anthropologists, how the Bellonese reacted to the publication of the 236 texts on their traditional culture contained in the book From the Two Calloes (1965). Bellonese 'criticism focuses on the selection of the texts' (Monberg, 1975:221), because representatives from the central and eastern districts of the island claim that the book contains too many accounts from western district informants. The local critics would have preferred a book in which' ...each lineage gives an account of its own traditions' (ibid., p. 220), and in which 'each district should tell their own stories .. .' (ibid., p. 221). This preference is founded in the fact that 'oral traditions still serve as a legal base when land disputes are to be settled. They also constitute the guidelines and background for present-day animosities in a variety of types of behavior' (ibid., p. 221). Reference to incidents humiliating to other lineages, clans or districts and accusations of less laudable exploits, the so-called 'bad stories', are frequently the cause of vehement discussions and enmities: Bellonese from different patrilineal descent groups seldom share the same views on these matters. Thus it is characteristic that two informants belonging to different clans gave divergent accounts of what happened after the high-status person Ngaakei from the island's center district was killed. The western district narrator related that Ngaakei's body was mutilated in a most brutal manner: his killers fastened a rope around the corpse's neck and dragged the body along the main path as if it were just another monitor lizard. They urinated on the body and cut off the ears before burying it in the village in which Ngaakei had lived. Moreover, they later dug up the body in order to make the bones into spearheads and necklaces (R 9). The informant from the central district, however, maintained that Ngaakei's killers carried the body along the main path, buried it in the village and, as a mark of their great respect, placed the roof of a nearby temple over the grave. This informant also claimed that another man, a low-status person, had been killed at the same tiine as Ngaakei, and that the object of mutilation had been the body of the former (Tuhanuku, 1971 :44). While members of Bellona's western district maintained that their version represents 'reality', the members ofthe island's central district claimed that it is a vile perversion of 'reality'. Other differences of opinion exist between the two groups. According to Taupongi and others from the western district, the Taupongi clan survived the great 27
blood bath perpetrated upon them by attackers from neighboring Rennell Island 18 generations ago, because a man by the name of Sokoa and his wife managed to flee and then multiply (R 5). In a version from the central district, however, the Taupongi clan was completely wiped out by the Rennellese attack, and the surviving Sokoa belonged to the now extinct Ngoha clan. Therefore, the people who today claim membership of the Taupongi clan are not, according to the central district version, genuine descendants ofthe Taupongi clan, but members of the Ngoha clan. Since Sokoa's children married each other and all their descendants thus were the result of incestuous relations, they dropped their affiliation to the Ngoha clan and instead glossed it over with the name of the Taupongi clan (T 140). There are also different views among members of the island's eastern district and those of the central and western districts. One of the major controversies here is whether Ngaimono (Mataki'ubea lineage, generation 14; see Table III) was a legitimate son of Mu'akitangata or whether he was illegitimate (Tuhanuku, 1981/82: 15). To this day, these kinds of contending views give rise to conflicts on the island and make it difficult for the researcher to decide which of these contradictory opinions he should regard as most trustworthy. As long as the researcher has no other sources on which to base his judgment, he must settle for recording and treating these contradictory accounts as they are and treat them for what they are: expressions of different groups' views. The differing traditions provide the framework within which the groups evaluate and act in relation to one another. The third criterion of selection of informants stems from a debate during the past few years in social anthropology and other social sciences as to whether the women of a particular society possess information of which the men have no knowledge (Sosne, 1979). It was not possible to satisfy the requirement of an equal number of male and female informants. This was partly because the women are very reserved and feel slightly uncomfortable expressing themselves in front of a male stranger, and partly because the planning and execution of raids specifically was a matter for men, something of which women had no more than a sporadic knowledge. Formal interviews were made with three women only, and these conversations changed rapidly to discussions of more general conditions on the island, such as the bringing-up of children. An attempt to mention all the people who in the course of time have contributed information would be a nearly itnpossible task, because from whom does one actually receive information? Is it only the persons formally interviewed, is it those who during an evening's informal conversation put one on the trail of a phenomenon, or is it the people who tell about things which, until much later, cannot be integrated into a larger context? The Bellone5O that I have interviewed the most and wlth whom I have often had informal conversation are listed below. As shown in Fig.l, only a few men from Matangi, the eastern district of the island, served as informants. This is due to the great slaughter which took place during a raid on them in 1936 (R 145). The main Matangi informant was Tongaka Ngepetuha. He was always friendly and very cooperative and it was he who 28
first told about the great massacre in 1936 which cost many of his kinsmen their lives. Unfortunately, in 1977 Tongaka Ngepetuha was very sick and weak, so I did not want to put too great a strain on him. During my short two-month stay on Bellona in 1983, I did, however, have a chance to go through the collection of stories with him to see if he had any conflicting views. No further stories were collected from Tongaka Ngepetuha in 1983. Taupongi clan
Baiabe (Sauhakapoi) Heman Haikiu (Sauhakapoi) Lia Tengetai* (Tongomainge) Sanga'eha (Sauhakapoi) Sengeika Tepuke (Matabaingei) Tamua Naiham (Matabaingei) Toomasi Taupongi (Tongomainge) Temoa Sa'atai (Tongomainge) Tepai (Matabaingei) Tepaikea (Tongomainge) Ungamasi* (Tongomainge)
Kaitu'u clan Ghongau subclan
Matangi subclan
Daniel Tuhanuku (Tongaba) Hakangaungea (Baitanga) Jason Ngiusanga (Tongaba) Joshua Kaipua (Ghongau) Kabahingo* (Nuku'angoha) Sa'engeika (Ngikobaka) Takiika (Nuku'angoha) Tapuika (Sa'apai) Tauniu (Baitanga) Teikangongo (Ngikobaka) Tekiuniu (Nuku'angoha) Topue (Hangekumi) Thia Bongoika (Ngikobaka)
Kumingau (Tehakapaia) Tongaka Ngepetuha (Tehakapaia)
Fig. J. Bellonese informant grouped according to membership in clan and subclan. Lineage affilia-
tion given in parentheses. An asterisk following a personal nome indicotes a female in jormant. ~
4
From Ghongau, the island's central district, it was primarily Daniel Tuhanuku who had an immense knowledge of his clan's exploits. During my stay in 1977, I was forced to give up working with him because some of his relatives, working in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, had told him that he
29
was not allowed to contribute to the collection of data unless he was paid for it. Since I never paid my informants as a matter of principle, instead presenting them with gifts upon my departure, I was forced to decline his offer to work for money. My action was based on the assumption that, once one enters a payment-far-information situation, one risks in the worst possible case that some people will be tempted to volunteer information possibly concocted for the occasion. It was a totally different situation during my stay in 1983, when Daniel Tuhanuku again placed his vast knowledge at my disposal. He also placed at my disposal five large volumes in which he had recorded much of Bellona's cultural history. The notebooks contain more than 600 hand-written pages. One 183-page volume is dedicated exclusively to killings. The other volumes include some killings, but contain mostly genealogical information. These notebooks, together with the notebooks which Tuhanuku sent to Torben Monberg in 1972, and which the latter kindly placed at my disposal, constitute an important supplement to my own collection of data. The areas where Tuhanuku's information differ significantly from the information I have collected, will either be discussed and included in the course ofthe analysis itself, or appear as notes to their respective accounts in Part 2. Eighteen accounts of killings not found in the material collected appear in Tuhanuku's notebooks. They are not included here as most of them are very rudimentary in form and as I have not had the chance to discuss them with Tuhanuku. Publication of the entire collection of accounts of killing found in Tuhanuku's notebooks will be ventured at a later point in time. For a more detailed description of Tuhanuku as an informant see Elbert and Monberg (1965:50) and Kuschel (1975[a]:25). I made use of the other informants from the Ghongau district mainly in collecting data on religion and kinship. Either their knowledge of the killings was not very significant, or those who might possess this knowledge did not want to pass it on. My main informants from the western part of the island, where members of the Taupongi clan live, were Temoa Puangongo, Sengeika Tepuke and Toomasi Taupongi. Temoa, who in 1977 was about 75 years old, did not relate many of the stories himself, but he was one of the sources from which his son, Taupongi, has drawn a great deal of his knowledge. Temoa was often to be found near my hut and was always helpful and obliging when complicated matters needed explanations. One of the things that characterized Temoa was the remarkable amount of genealogical knowledge he possessed and his willingness to tell about the less flattering incidents in whiSh his own clan had been involved. For a more detailed description of Temoa as an informant see Elbert and Monberg (1965:46-47), Kuschel (1975[aJ:24-25) and Monberg (1966:20). Sengeika Tepuke, my host during my last four stays on Bellona, was only six years old when Christianity was introduced on the island. He was very interested in the oral traditions and has been told a great deal by both his father and his father-in-law, Temoa Puangongo. Sengeika Tepuke related many stories from the past. It was necessary to omit most of these in this collection, as space does not permit repetition. For a more detailed description of Sengeika Tepuke as an informant and host, see Kuschel (1975[a]:22-23). 30
The most central person with respect to charting the dramatic events throughout the ages on the island was Taupongi. Although he was only about ten years old when Christianity was introduced in 1938, he possessed an exceptional knowledge of Bellonese traditional culture. In the course of time he has been in close contact with members of the older generation who have readily satisfied his thirst for knowledge. In addition to his great knowledge of bygone culture, Taupongi is also characterized by the fact that he never attempted to give pseudo-explanations of circumstances of which he had an insufficient knowledge. He preferred referring one to other persons with an in-depth knowledge of the subject. For a more detailed characterization of Taupongi as an informant, see Elbert and Monberg (1965:43-44), Kuschel (l975[a]:23-24), and Monberg (1966:19-20).
1.3.2. The general interview situation. My original intention was to carry out group interviews in order to reveal any possible differences in individual opin-
ions as to the causes of the strife which existed for generations in Bellonese society. There were several reasons why I quickly abandoned this tactic. In the first place, an extremely well-trained ear for language is necessary to identify what is said when many people speak all at once. More over, a group of several individuals can easily contain brothers-in-law or siblings of the opposite sex. If this is the case, it is imperative that all participants observe a maximum of propriety in their use of language. Since in the beginning a stranger lacks a comprehensive knowledge of the kinship relations of the participants, he can easily risk putting himself and the others in an awkward position by asking questions which should not be asked in a group containing siblings and brothers-in-law. Another practical reason for dropping group interviews was the many social conflicts smoldering beneath an apparently calm surface. In studies of social conflicts, one would think that precisely this kind of group interview would prove quite suitable for revealing these conflicts, but as the two following examples will show, nothing productive came of it. In one case, I carried out a group interview on the traditional taboos of the island. The interview took place in a cheerful and friendly atmosphere until I asked one of the participants about the taboos connected with the role of a priest-chief. He answered in great detail, perhaps slightly verbosely, and finished by talking about the heavy burden the taboos were when one held this religious position. lt felt so heavy, he said, ihat he sometimes felt like screaming. At this point he was interrupted by one of the island's most prominent religious leaders who dryly remarked that this person did not scream because the taboos were such a burden, but because he was crazy. It is probably unnecessary to say that the mood changed abruptly and that everyone was anxiously watching to see what would happen next. Many left the scene, and I could just as well have turned off the tape recorder at once instead of hoping optimistically for a change in the social climate. At another point I interviewed two older men to hear their views on sorcery
and its effects. Asked if they believed it was effective, one man answered in the affirmative, but, he added, sorcery didn't always work. He concluded that the 31
presence of the second man testified to this fact, since back in the old days he had tried to kill this man with magic several times. No sooner had these words been said than the second man grabbed his club and moved a few meters away. He was really upset, as if this more than 30-year-old attempt could still have effects. These two informants were asked no more questions on that day. In spite of how scientifically productive it can be to watch several informants discuss their various views on the same phenomenon, I was finally forced to discontinue the group interviews because they all too often resulted in unpleasant situations. Group interviews also had the unfortunate effect that the informants refrained from discussing various controversial subjects. As a result of these experiences, I ended up switching to single person interviews or interviews of two or three persons whom [ knew got along well with each other, respected each other and were not brothers-in-law. Before [ actually went througb with an interview, a few informants and I would thrash out the entire range of problems in an informal manner, so as to elicit as many key concepts as possible. In order to optimize communication across cultural borders it is necessary for the researcher and the informants to have a common code on which to base their work. The more exact and precise the questions, the less the possibility of faulty communication and the greater the informant's readiness to communicate freely on his own conditions. As Cannell and Kahn (1968:543) formulated it, "The respondent needs to know what constitutes successful completion of his task; he needs to know the concepts and frames of reference implied by the questions." I always began the actual interview sessions with an informal conversation in
which I tried to explain which specific areas I was interested in learning about. Such discussions proved expedient in counteracting any insecurity that the informants might feel and in increasing their self-confidence. I also explained that I would be recording the conversation on tape, and let it be understood that they could have the tape recorder turned off at any time, should they wish to say anything confidential. For the same reason, the tape recorder was placed so that the informants themselves could see when it was turned on and when they could say something 'off the record'. Some informants made use of the offer; others were indifferent. The interviews took the form of open-ended questions, rather than closed questions. This technique has the adv~ntage of/etting the informants formulate their answers in a manner consistent 'with their own cognitive manner of self-
expression. This procedure also makes it possible to follow up the answers with supplementary questions, thus gaining an insight into how the topic under scrutiny might possibly be related to other conditions in the Bellonese social reality. Connections which I otherwise, due to my own culturally determined manner of comprehension,' would be unable to grasp. An attempt to understand another culture in the light of prefabricated closed questions is like seeing the world through the slits in a knight's visor.
/.3.3. The specijic interview situation: Recording the oral traditions. A systematic collection of oral traditions concerning fighting on Bellona was not start-
32
ed until 1977 . I knew from earlier visits that this was a very sensitive subject and that I should exercise great caution. As long as I confined myself to old conflicts and killings of people whose male descendants were dead, there would be no problems. But difficulties arose when we approached present times. There were, however, two things which proved to be crucial to the successful completion of the entire project. The first thing happened more than two months after my arrival when one evening I was talking with some people about the causes of the many conflicts on the island. According to several of the men, the general cause of disagreement was disputes about land. As this did not quite fit in with what I had learned up to that point about the cultural history of Bellona, I went into a lengthy discussion about the subject. I mentioned among other things specific cases in which someone had been killed for completely different reasons. After some time with arguments flying back and forth in a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere, Taupongi asked for some paper and a pencil. While the rest of us continued our discussion, Taupongi sat down and in deep concentration began to jot down what he could remember of killings and the causes behind them. A few days later, Taupongi came back with a number of scraps of paper with a list of 154 killings specifying who killed whom and why (see Fig. 2). Inspired by the discussion a few days before, Taupongi had become interested in clearing up exactly who and what had caused all those killings. Taupongi had both searched his own mind and questioned other people, so the list he brought to me was the result of his local anthropological studies as well as his own knowledge. Taupongi and I started recording on September 28, 1977. There had been no ships from Guadalcanal since my arrival, so I had only a few cassette tapes left and had to take down the narratives using an old typewriter I had brought with me. My initial concern that this procedure would result in a dampening of the spontaneity so characteristic of Bellonese narrative style proved unfounded in this case. This was partly due to Taupongi's ability to match his flow of talk to my typing speed and partly due to the fact that my knowledge of the language at that point was so advanced that [only had to interrupt a few times to request certain Bellonese words to be repeated. Taupongi came every morning between six and seven o'clock. We drank a cup of coffee together, ate dry Navy biscuits with a little canned cheese and soon afterwards Taupongi was ready to narrate. These sessions varied from two to six hours in length. We started with the oldest of killings, which had taken place 20 generations before Taupongi was born. After each account, [ read aloud what I had written and Taupongi would correct and perhaps offer a few supplementary pieces of information or change a word or two to more precise ones than those he had used in his narration. Most of the time Taupongi and I worked by ourselves, but sometimes various men would drop by in the course of the morning. On these occasions, Taupongi would sometimes continue narFating as though no one were there; at other times he would break off his narrative to ask about a few details. When he was finished, the others might start a discussion among themselves or with Taupongi. This rarely resulted in new information. Mostly it was Thupongi who was asked to elaborate on circumstances in connection with the sequence of events of which the men present had no knowledge. This provided illuminating glimpses of the way in
33
which the Bellonese transmit and discuss oral narratives among themselves. After Taupongi had left around midday to go about his daily routine, 1 would make a preliminary translation of the texts so that Taupongi or other Bellonese could clear up any possible ambiguities in them if they happened to stop by my hut later in the afternoon or evening. Occasionally these conversations would give rise to a discussion abollt a number of details in connection with the sociopolitical situation on the island at the time the killings had taken place. We worked intensively like this for several weeks, and when at last we approached the subject of the great massacre which took place in Bellona's eastern district, Matangi, around 1936, Taupongi became evasive. To this very day the Bellonese are reluctant to speak about it. This massacre, never having been revenged, still evokes strong emotional responses. It was here that the Matangi district narrator, Tongaka Ngepetuha, came to the rescue. He agreed to tell about this notorious battle in which his father and MZS were among those killed. While Ngepetuha recounted what had happened, something he himself had been a part of, he became so moved from time to time that we had to break off narration until he regained composure. News of what Tongaka had done spread with lightning speed to the entire island, and everyone thought that if someone had to tell the story, Tongaka should be the one to do it first. Taupongi came a few days later and related his version of what had happened (R 145). It is probab"ly the most extensive and complicated account in the entire collection of material. An explanation of the kinship connections alone, between the people involved in the story, took several days. Taupongi's list of homicides was modified along the way; killings related solely to events on neighboring Rennellisiand were deleted. They lay outside my field of interest. On the other hand, Taupongi added a few killings to his list as they occurred to him. The last killing on Bellona to date took place on November 8, 1977, a few days after the completion of a hectic and concentrated data collection phase. Since this analysis is exclusively devoted to the killings which took place before contact with the rest of the world was established in 1938, this incident is not included here. A few narratives have since been added: Taupongi sent some of them to me in Copenhagen, and a few more were told by both Taupongi and Daniel Thhanuku during my 1983 stay on Bellona. The collection comprises a total of I~O narratives, all of which are reproduced in Part 2. Of these, Taupongi recounted 139, Daniel Tuhanuku 6, Sengeika Tepuke 3, and Temoa and Tekiuniu I each. The total number of oral traditions dealing with bloodshed includes four narratives which Taupongi and Daniel Tuhanuku told to Monberg some years before and which are published in Eiben and Monberg (1965:1'66:38-58; T 126; T 134; T 136 [CD. These narratives are reproduced here by permission of Elbert and Monberg. Taupongi and Daniel Tuhanuku did not think that there was any reason to retell these four narratives as they had nothing to add. The paramount dominance of Taupongi's narratives in the present collection has given the material a distinct bias: it is a part of Bellonese cultural history as 34
Fig. 2. Excerptfrom Taupongi's notes. The BeJlonese text reads asfollows: People kiffed in ancient times and people kiffed recemly. I. Tingo!tano (Re) waslickled to death byyOllng menfrom tlte Iltocfan, Ibecausehe! urinat· ed ill a It'aterltole at Allanga beaclt. 2. Puka (Re), Hu'aillgupe's son, killed by lito? 3. Iho, Taupongi flan (Be), killed by Hu'aingupe. Re,'enge of the killing of his son Puka. 4. Ngaake; (GIJ) killed by lllpaukiu, but first Ngaake; killed n,paukiu's son. 5. Hakatu'ukill and Binanga (Ma) killed by MII'akitangata because IMu'akitangata] wanted to become jamous for Idestroying] the settlement of refuge in Matabaingei. 6. Tongonga (HIl'oingupe clan) killed by Hakatu'likiu (Ma) who wanted to revenge Ithe killing oJl 1110 and other people from Ngango [districtJ. who were annihilated by HII'aingupe.
35
seen chiefly through the eyes of a single person. Moreover, since the narrator is a member of one of the two existing clans, and members of different clans do not always have the same conception of events, the narratives published here cannot
claim to represent the general view of the islanders. A more delicately shaded picture will not appear until the publication ofTuhanuku's narratives, but one will still not be able to say that the description is complete, for it is now, unfortunately, too late to collect data seen from the third district's, Matangi's point of view. The 1936 massacre caused many men to take their knowledge with them in the grave before having had the possibility to pass it on to the next generation. For this reason, the present primary data cannat be used by Solomon Islands' public authorities as a basis of legal decisions.
1.3.4. Assessment of the oral traditions. The authenticity of oral traditions has been discussed for years. The debate has at times been very emotional, and resulted in categorical statements such as that of Robert H. Lowie, made in 1915, "... I cannot attach to oral traditions any historical value whatsoever under any conditions whatsoever" (Lowie, 1915:598). According to Henige (1982:21) one could find similar negative points of view in print as late as 1963. A radical change in attitude and a more professional and appropriate discussion of the historical value of oral traditions emerged after the publication of Vansina's classic study Oral Tradition (1965). In both this book, and in a number of other analyses following in its wake, historians and anthropologists have turned their attention to the internal conditions of oral traditions (Henige, 1982; Hudson, 1973; Mercer, 1979; Spear, 1981; Vansina, 1971:chapter 2). One of Vansina's suggestions is to look at the transmission, function, morphology and formal structure of the oral traditions. Vansina attaches great importance to comparing existing variations
of the same sequence of events, as "comparison of testimonies will establish their degree of reliability' '(Vansina, 1965:120). Source-critical analyses based on the lines laid down by Vansina have not yet been made of the oral traditions of Bellona. Such formal analyses are desirable but lie outside the intended boundaries of this study. As the following will show, however, this does not imply an uncritical acceptance of Bellonese oral traditions as being accurate historical recordings of actual events. Before we go on to an assessment of the oral traditions, let's take a look at how oral traditions were passed on from one generation to the next.
Transmission of Bellona's oral traditions could take place at any time and any place. The Bellonese have a genuine interest in their own history, and whenever adults get together, they tell stories about old or new incidents. There are no formally appointed storytellers, although some are recognized as being better than others. Training in .iral ability took place informally, anywhere and at any time. However, it was most common for children and young people to congregate around their elders in the evenings and listen to their stories. This could hardly be avoided due to the limited size of the settlements, and due to the fact that parents and children preferred to stay close together for the ever-present fear of possible attacks on their settlement. There would almost always be someone 36
awake in the settlement and thus telling stories. Particularly older people could go on memorizing for hours. Sengeika Tepuke told the following about this learning situation, "When we slept in our homesteads and wanted some grownups to teach us stories, we would ask for them. We would say, 'Teach me a story!' The adult would tell the story he knew. The adult would then listen while the child repeated the story. If the story was incorrect, the adult would say, 'It's incorrect!' Then the story would be repeated. If the story was correct, the adult would say, 'It's correct! Then the child would go and look for other children to tell the story to:' Sometimes children were awakened in the middle of the night so that they would not get accustomed to sleeping too soundly. This could be dangerous if enemies were stealing into the settlement. To keep the children awake, adults told them stories and afterwards asked them to repeat them. At the start, children were told stories about things which were part of their everyday life, i.e. stories about the behavior and specific characteristics of animals (Kuschel, 1975[a]:chapter 10). As they grew up, they were told of the exploits of their lineage and clan. When the conversation turned to episodes which had brought dishonor upon their own relatives, it ended with the boys being directly exhorted to revenge the occurrence. One informant remembered his father saying, "Your grandfather was killed by that person, but [the killing) hasn't been revenged, so you have to avenge [it]:' And the informant added, "[They) would keep on talking about it, until the day arrived when [the young man) decided to kill. [He] left and killed:' In this way each new generation was encouraged to take vengeance for any acts perpetrated on his kinsmen which had not yet been avenged (see also NR 53:3). As is evidem from the above description, great importance was attached to the child giving a correct rendition of what it had been told. This, however, does not mean that the narrative itself is historically correct: as we have already seen by examples, there are areas in which the narrators of the two existing clans differ in their interpretations of a given sequence of events. This is especially the case when the narrators have different interests to defend. In the case of oral traditions which can pertain to events many generations back, it is not surprising that some data have been lost, reconstructed, or distorted in the course of time. Some examples of the loss of information can be seen by comparing the accounts of killings which occurred in the first few generations (R 3, R 4) with those taking place during the lifetime of the informant (R 145). The early narratives are often factual and pallid in form and content, whereas the most recent killings are described with an overwhelming richness of detail and told in a powerful style of language. Recollections of earlier incidents are also selective. Meaningless or regularly occurring incidents are quickly forgotten and left out of ordinary oral traditions. Exceptional circumstances are primarily the ones remembered. This can also be seen from the fact that the majority of narratives published so far deal with male activities. The role of women is generally played down in the patrilineal Bellonese social system. An example which illustrates this can be found in an analysis of funerals. It has been possible to identify 926 persons and their burial places over the past 24 generations. Of these persons, 65.8070 were men and 34.2% women. Moreover, a look at Fig. 3 37
below will show that no women from before generation seven were remem-
bered. Because loss of information occurs, it is also difficult to decide whether the relatively low number of raids during (he first II generations (see Fig. 37) indicates that the Bellonese were less bellicose at that time, or whether this is because some raids have been forgotten. 140
~---,--....,.-----r---.---.,
120
100
+ MALES
o FEMALES
'"
...J
« ;;
...'"0
'" ::; '":> UJ
60
z
40
5
10
15
20
GENERATION Fig. 3. Remembered and identified males (N=l509j andfemales (N=317j buried per generation.
There is one specific case of lost information being reconstructed by means of mediums (see Section 1.3.5). The greatest uncertainty in evaluating oral traditions lies in the possibility of cognitive distortion. Here it is crucial to know which purposes and functions the narratives have. Divergent views are not equally significant in all forms of oral traditions: conflicting opinions as to content are few in the case of non contro-
versial animal stories, stories about the quasi-mythological aboriginal people, the hili, and tales of the culture hero Mautikitiki. The same applies to stories dealing with agricultural traditions (Sofus Christiansen, personal communi38
cation). Narratives, whose function it is to legitimate rights to land or natural resources, or which pertain to actions that are offensive to oneself, one's family, lineage or clan and can threaten one's reputation - these narratives are more often subject to reinterpretation than those dealing with non-controversial topics. The Bellonese do not find it surprising that there is general agreement in some areas of the island's cultural history whereas opinions differ in other areas. One informant expressed it in the following way, "This is what [the attitude] is like towards stories on Bellona: There are some [narratives] which are compatible and there are others which are incompatible?' (Konei no noho a Mungiki ki no laulupu'a e hakatu'u mai ngaa 'oso: E iai kongaa no'a 'anga lasl: e fai kongaa mango laki no'a of.)
As mentioned earlier, instead of feeling uncertain about how to choose between these divergent interpretations, one ought to take them as an expression of what they are: differing interpretations of the same situation arising from divergent and contrasting interests. (See also Firth [1961] for an evaluation of the oral traditions of Tikopia.) As far as evaluation of narratives dealing with Bellonese raid activities is concerned, there is a remarkable coherence of content. The most noticeable variation is in the treatment of Ngaakei's body (see NR 9). There are also some minor differences of opinion as to names and clan affiliations of a few men in the attacking group. None of these differences are of a kind that casts doubt upon the value of the general narrative. Whether or not they reflect reality as it was then is something which cannot be determined today, since there are practically no ancient written sources which can be compared with the oral traditions. The only written description which can be used as a comparison comes from 1893, from the British captain and blackbirder William T. Wawn's account of his travels: The Soulh Sea Islanders and Ihe Queensland Labour Trade. The book was reprinted in 1973, and in it Wawn tells about a Bellonese man who, after a lengthy stay in Queensland, returned to his home island in 1881. A comparison of Wawn's description and the Bellonese' remembrance of the 100-year-old event shows that, "the two accounts are strikingly similar, yet the same events are looked at differently as they are seen and related by persons of two cultures" (Kuschel and Monberg, 1977:90). Although Bellonese oral traditions can be somewhat limited in their value as historical source material seen from a Western academic point of view, still, even with their sporadic knowledge gaps; reconstructions and sporadic contradictory content, they make up the social reality which forms the basis of much of what the Bellonese do. It is the knowledge handed down from older generations which serves as the basis of present-day interaction with one's contemporaries. Sahlins (1981) calls it 'historical practice', and it is this reality, on which the present descripfion and analysis is based. To disclaim 'historical practice', because in some areas it may not live up to the Western academic requirements of reliability and validity, would be to render oneself guilty of an inadmissible form of ethnocentrism.
1.3.5 Assessment oflhe genealogical dolo. The collection and analysis of genea39
logical data with which to construct a chronological diagram, enabling one to place the various events in relation to each other in time, is a dominant feature
in the works of both historians and social anthropologists. There can be innumerable uncertainties and sources of error in a piece of work like this. Genealogical trees can be used as a means of showing sequences in a chronological or-
der, but they can also be used, "as weapons for preserving or subverting the present", as Henige (1982:97) phrases it. Another major problem is whether either telescoping or extension of the genealogies has occurred. As discussed in Chapter 2, there is a I470-year temporal discrepancy between the earliest archaeological findings and the oral traditions concerning the arrival of the Bellone5O on the island. By 1938 certain lineages had reached generations 24, although the majority of the lineages belonged to generations 2101' 22. Within each of the two surviving clans there are members able to recall the names of their ancestors from the time when the first immigrants arrived on the island to the present. However, the earliest generations could not avoid falling prey to what Mercer (1979:145) calls 'structural amnesia'. The names of the ancestors of generations 2 and 3 of the Taupongi clan" ... were long forgotten, but believed revealed by a medium two or three generations ago" (Monberg, 1966:103; see also T 141:12). Exactly which medium produced this revelation is, for inexplicable reasons, no longer remembered today. The members of the Kaitu'u clan, likewise, remember but few of their ancestors in the first eight generations, and in the Taupongi clan only a few ancestors in the first ten are recalled. Much of this information may have been lost as a result of the great loss of men in connection with the extensive killings within each of these clans. When one reads in Monberg (1966: 103) that one of the key informants, Taupongi, considered ancestors from the first ten generations 35 being Hpeople between human beings and deities". one could im-
mediately draw the conclusion that perhaps 'semi-gods' were added to the clans' genealogies to make a direct line of descent from the first immigrants possible. But this does not seem to be the case: their personal names are noticeably different from the names of gods in general. Taupongi elaborated upon his 20-yearold statement in 1983, saying that he had no doubts as to their human origins. They were not some kind of mystical creatures. What astonished him was the unbelievable strength these people had. As Taupongi explained, "[their] strength ('ao) was not [like) the strength of people today, but [like] the strength of gods. They were strong, lifted heavY objects and smashed large stones." The apparent loss of a great deal of information about the first 8-10 generations indicates that data from this period should be treated with extra caution. There is another area subject to a great deal of uncertainty: the genealogical data concerning the clans which have died out. With the death of the last men, a great deal of genealogical and other information has been lost forever. At times one will see members of still-existing lineages discussing whether or not a lineage descended from a line of first-born sons or not. Such discussions about the social status of a lineage, however, are never discussions as to whether or not
these ancestors really existed. Apart from the areas of uncertainty mentioned here, informants' statements 40
about other genealogical matters show an internal consistency. This applies to information from different informants as well as information coming from the same informant once and then again after an interval of many years. If one com-
pares the genealogical data collected independently of data concerning killings with the chronological sequences of the reported killings, it becomes apparent that there is also a convincing coherence here.
1.3.6 Assessment ojnumbers and quantities. A prominent characteristic of the traditional Bellonese culture is the manner in which quantities are indicated. When a high-status person held a feast, the amounts of food to be offered to the gods and to be distributed among the guests were carefully calculated. The Bellonese system of counting is a highly developed one which makes it possible for them to count in hundreds and thousands. This system is based on 15 different categories. The category used depends upon what is to be counted. Different number categories are used for large or small fish, bananas, yams, taro roots, round or flat objects, canoes, or spears (see Elbert, Kuschel, Taupongi, 1981:18-19). Some caution must be shown when large quantities or amounts are stated, as much prestige is connected with large amounts and numbers. In one concrete
example, a man energetically fighting for his reputation on the island had according to several eyewitnesses' account harvested 700 pairs of yams (yams are always counted in pairs), which after making the traditional offering to the gods he joyfully distributed. The song, however, which he later composed himself in commemoration of the event tells that he offered and distributed 7,000 pairs of yams. In another example, "Tangohange plaited sennit. [When] the canoe was finished the length of the sennit was 1,000 fathoms." When one considers what an enormous and time-consuming job it is to roll hibiscus bark by hand and then braid it into ropes, one begins to have one's doubts as to the alleged length of the rope. The narrator of the story, Jason Ngiusanga, has his own doubts: after narrating the story, he added parenthetically "maybe it'S wrong" (Ngiusanga, 1972). When numbers go up into the hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousands, one can, as Bateson (1979:50) did, ask, "Should the various instances in which number is exhibited be regarded as instances of gestalt, of counted number, or of mere quantity?" This question cannot be answered unequivocally. On the one hand, the Bellonese have, as discussed above, a highly developed system of counting which enables them to perceive and treat large quantities as digital units, numbers. On the other hand, where exceptionally large amounts are involved it can be an example of an estimation, Le. a quantification. Such a quantification would in these cases certainly not be rounded down, seeing that there is a great deal of pr~stige connected with large amounts. In evaluating the validity oflarge numbers, it is essential to consider them in relation to the ecological conditions prevailing on the island at that time. If, for example, a man is supposed to have offered 10,000 coconuts at a time when there were few coconut trees on the island, then it would be advisable to regard this statement of quantity as an idealized quantification. 41
Within the range of numbers from I to 10, the Bellonese prefer some numbers to others. They emphasize that uneven numbers give greater prestige than even numbers, with the exception of the number 10. An analysis based on quantities within this range found in From rhe Two Canoes, Animal Srories and the raid stories published here supports this. The following frequency of distribution manifested itself: Numbers
-" ~
.D
:
-
..
"
te
Matallgi district: Ngibauika Kumingau
..,
-
who merely hoarded things for himself and his family would immediately be stigmatized as a miser. It was the distribution, not the accumulation, of wealth that was important. To achieve social recognition, a man had to produce more than others and be generous at the same time. Thus he could hold feasts and make large ritual offerings to gods and ancestors. He could invite many people to these feasts, both kinsmen, relatives and friends. In generously distributing his crops, not only did he demonstrate his economic power, he also consolidated his relationships with agnatic kin and affines, and with other groups whose friendship was important to him. An industrious, efficient and generous man could attract the attention of the entire island, and several of his exceptional feasts might then become part of Bellona's oral traditions, handed down from generation to generation. To this day, Daniel Tuhanuku remembers many details of feasts held by the men of the Kaitu'u clan, where hundreds of coconuts and bananas, thousands of yams and many rows of puddings were presented. Some of the incidents took place several hundred years ago and have, among other things, given rise to the creation of new personal names such as Haangaihenua (lit., 'Land-Feeder'), and Tesaukiu (lit., 'Divine Gift of 10,000 Coconuts'; for further examples see Elbert, Kuschel, Taupongi, 1981:Appendix I; and Kuschel, 1988). In order to achieve social recognition, a man should, in addition to being active and generous, also have a positive attitude towards his kinsmen and relatives. He was expected to assist them with advice and guidance and to place manpower from his settlement at their disposal. In other words, he was expected to 'take care of [other people]' (kumu napengea) and by his own efforts contribute to increasing the subsistence production of the island, as well as being an inspiration to others by setting a good example. However, the achievements of a hakahua were not one-sided. They worked both ways, in that the people he helped also placed their manpower at his disposal; just as the people he invited to his feasts, and to which he gave crops, would also invite him to their feasts. Holding ritual feasts not only strengthened a man's social relations with his contemporaries. Extensive offerings were also a confirmation of his fertile relations with the religious sphere. A hakahua always assumed the role of the highest-ranking religious leader, the tunihenua, at some point or other. This did not, in itself, add to his social status, since according to Monberg (I 966) most of the men who owned land in 1938 eit!)er already had, or were in the process of taking over, this temporary religious position. As far as personality was concerned, a hakahua had to know and practice the art of self-control. He could not be hot-tempered, and he had to refrain from the use of insulting language in the presence of others. He could not let envy, a widespread Bellonese:illness', blind his judgement. The art of self-control was also necessary in dealing with women to whom he was not married. He could not allow himselfto be tempted by them if he did not want to jeopardize his reputation as a great hakahua. A hakahua's manner was surrounded with dignity. This is very beautifully described by Northcote Deck, a missionary from The South Sea Evangelical Mission who visited Rennell in September 1909. He wrote, "Gently fanned by 72
the breeze, came silently, majestically, a fleet of these great unwieldy sailing barges. In the foremost came the great chief, great in body, great in power, shading his eyes with a fan. They had come from the far end of the lake (on Rennell), where the news of the white man had spread in the night. In impressive silence the great man landed, and there was a dignity about him, very arresting. A giant in stature, his face was still the compelling feature" (Deck, 1945:42). In physical appearance, a high-status man resembled all other men. He was dressed in the same way, lived in the same kind of dwelling, although he would occasionally build a house which was larger than ordinary houses and featured curved rafters instead of straight ones. He had the same diet as other landowners, but was always careful not to eat improper food, even in times of famine. A hakahua's leftovers were not sacred and therefore not untouchable for others, as they were on many other Polynesian islands. In social interaction with a hakahua, everyone showed a great deal of respect. One could not, for example, approach him in the same way one would approach non-high-status persons. He was always addressed by name, most often an honorific one. It was extremely insulting to address a hakahua by merely saying, "Mail" ('Hi, there!') as one could to others. Should a high-status person ask another person to do something for him, it would be resented if the latter were to react by pursing his lips or wrinkling his nostrils. This meant that he did not really feel like complying with the request and was perceived as contempt or disrespect. Dignity in language and behavior manifested themselves significantly in situations where a hakahua was involved. If two men met, and one or both of them had high status, a formal manner of speaking was used in which both parties degraded themselves to each other and praised each other's skills and ancestry. An analysis of the cognitive and social functions of these verbal formulae appears in Monberg (1980). When an exceptional hakahuadied, one could sometimes observe certain natural phenomena (mana) which the Bellonese related to his demise. Seemingly endless tropical lightning could light up the sky without it raining; there could be a storm, or the evening sky could turn an overwhelming crimson color. If something like this happens the Bellonese speak of it as 'the power of the hakahua' (Ie langanga a Ie hakahua). When describing men of high social status in a society with no centralized political authority, English-speaking authors use multifarious expressions such as 'men of knowledge' (Koch, 1974: 54); 'men of substance' (Meggitt, 1977: 162); 'men of standing' (Hallpike, 1977:138); 'leaders [that] have influence rather than power' (Heider, 1970:8); 'headmen' (Pospisil, 1967:32); or of 'managers' (Scheffler, 1965:180). These varying descriptions suggest that the English language lacks a specific term to indicate that a man in certain situations can as-
sume a social position of great influence which is not formalized. The title hakahua was first attached to a man after an evaluation of his long continued efforts. On the face of it, one could be lured into labelling a highstatus person on Bellona 'a man of respect', with 'respect' used in its original
meaning 'to look back in time'. The problem with using the term 'respect' is that it represents one of the most vaguely defined concepts in the social sciences. It 73
does not, for example, indicate what type of power, or potential for power, 'a man of respect' commands.
Elbert and Monberg (1965:1 1) write, "The word hakahua means to exercise authority, to act, to own, and to do as one pleases." In his book The Religion ofBellona Island, Monberg (1966:29) elaborates upon this point of view by stating explicitly, "There was no central authority on Bellona, no high chief or chiefs of the type found in a number of Polynesian communities." I agree with Elbert and Monberg that the Bellonese term hakahua is best translated as 'authority'. The only problem is that authority is usually closely connected with the exercise of power. It is therefore necessary to specify the circumstances under which the hakahua can exercise this power, over whom he can exercise it, and what means he has at his disposal to do so. In this connection it might be profitable to look at the classification of different kinds of authority put forward by Wrong (1979). He bases his classification on "the varying motivations for obeying." Wrong differentiates between the following five kinds of authority: (I) Coercive authority; (2) authority by inducement; (3) legitimate authority; (4) competent authority; and (5) personal authority. A hakahua had no formal power, even when dealing with individuals in the lowest social stratum of the society, the fatherless men and women who had not been adopted. Should a hakahua be too unreasonable in his demands on low-status persons, they were free to leave him. They could then either seek a position with other men or move to Rennell Island. 'Coercive authority' could only be used on a minority of the islanders, namely those belonging to the low-status group. They could be set to any kind of work. Should they complain or refuse to do some task, the threat of being driven out of the settlement or physically punished, perhaps killed, would often persuade them to change their minds. There are a few examples in Bellona's oral traditions of situations in which a low-status person had to pay with his life for not having shown proper respect for a high-status person (R 99, R II 7, R 132). Except for low-status persons, a hakahua could never order others to do anything for him. A landowner was completely his own master in deciding whether or not, and for whom, he wished to do something. This was attributable to two facts: (I) there was no job specialization, I.e. each landowner was in principle independent of the others and (2) in order to gain access to land, a man had to have a kinship relation to a patrilineal descent group which assigned the land to him. ; The powers of a hakahua were first and foremost based upon 'authority by inducement', 'competent authority' and 'personal authority'. If a landowner placed his labor, competence and loyalty at the disposal of a hakahua, it was because he saw that it was to his own advantage to do so: cooperation was based upon a principle'of reciprocity. If a landowner only possessed a few ecological resources, he could turn to a hakahua he had helped and ask for assistance. He could request permission to borrow some of the hakahua's land, fell some ofms trees to build canoes, or I in a crisis, ask for protection or an attack upon his enemies. A hakahua would never directly ask anyone other than low-status persons to
74
do something for him. He would, while others listened, say that he intended to work in his garden the next day, and that the garden was located in this or that area. This was an indirect request that the others came and helped. It is called 'to speak indirectly' (ngea hakabaaongo). As soon as the word was out, all those whom the hakahua had previously assisted, or to whom he had shown his generosity, would repay him by placing their labor at his disposal. Thus they showed him the respect he was entitled to by virtue of his social position. This form of exercised authority corresponds to what Wrong calls 'authority of inducement' . Often a hakahua had developed a great deal of expertise in one or more skills, such as gardening, fishing, building canoes or dancing. He might also have developed a special skill as a ritual leader. Thus other people would go to a hakahua seeking advice and guidance in the area in which he was an expert. Men from all levels of social status could seek this expertise, even other high-status men. This kind of authority corresponds to Wrong's 'competent authority'. As discussed earlier, a man's individual characteristics played an important part in his achieving of social status. By his generosity, by working hard, by controlling his temper and by being just, a man could surround himself with such an air of authority that others sent him gifts, came to him and helped him on a purely voluntary basis. This also applied to people from all status groups, including other high-status men. The authority which had its source in a man's personal appearance and behavior and which corresponds to Wrong's 'personal authority' - was valued very highly on Bellona. It was also the most fragile of all the forms of authority, but nonetheless very effective as long as it was respected. Personal authority was most frequently the object of criticism from those who would rather see themselves or others in the role of hakahua. In general, one could say that a hakahua's authority was primarily respected within his own family, just as the authority of other landowners was within theirs. He was also respected within his own lineage because of his knowledge, skills and activity. In certain situations, his words and decisions would also have some influence upon others within his subclan or clan. It was, however, very seldom that men from various subclans respected a decision made by a hakahua from another subclan. I have only been able to record one example of this, and in that case there were very strong affinal relations between the parties concerned. The absolute boundary for the authority of a hakahua was within the limits of the clan. No one would ever dream of, much less expect, that the words of a hakalllla from one clan could ever have any effect on men from other clans.
3.3.2 Commoners. The term for commoners is matu'a. It used to mean two different things: (I) an age and development term for men and women approximately 20-45 years old, and (2) a term used to describe an independent male landowner. There Were 61 in the latter category in 1938 (including 12 hakalllla). To achieve the molu'a status, it was crucial that a man owned one or more lots of land upon which he could cultivate his own crops. As a land owner he was completely politically independent and also more or less self-sufficient as far as subsistence was concerned. Depending on where his lots ofland were located, he might lack access to fruit trees or trees used in building canoes or houses. In the 75
vast majority of cases he would be able to obtain permission to fell trees for canoes or houses from his agnatic kin, his mother's brother or his affines. The activities of a matu'a were the same as those of a hakahua. As mentioned earlier, there was no specialization of work. All the matu'a 's displays of activity were simply on a lower level. His authority was limited to his own settlement, and also over any low-status persons who might be attached to him. If a man, due to physical defects or misfortune in life (e.g. clubfoot, facial defects, loss of relatively many sons) did not quite live up to the level of activity befitting a matu'a, he was called a matu'a ta'ane. This term was slightly deprecatory but also contained a kind of heartfelt compassion (ta'ea). There was a kind of understanding and recognition of his situation, ratherthan a direct condemnation, implied in the term. By contrast a landowner who because of laziness or general bad behavior did not live up to what could be expected of him would vindictively be placed on a level with low-status persons and labelled 'a kind of person' (te hange pengea). 3.3.3 Low-status persons. At the bottom of the social hierarchy is the group of people called te hange pengea (lit., 'kind of person'). In 1938 there were 21 of
these on the island, 14 of whom were male. The Bellonese differentiated between (I) those born out of wedlock (tama tausu'u) and (2) household servants (nguam). Also used are synonyms such as 'light person' (pengea ma'ama'a) or 'useless person' (tangani pengea). The latter group included both fatherless persons and persons born of married parents. Characteristic of persons born of married parents but still referred to as 'household servants' was that they were either weak, lazy, or physically or mentally handicapped. A complimentary term for these persons was 'people standing behind' (pengea i tu'a). In confrontations, however, they would be referred to with such derogatory terms as '[rotten] trunk' (tino), 'digging stick' (koso), or 'working stiff' (siusiu). The line drawn between persons born out of wedlock and household servants was far from unequivocal. For this reason, these two groups will be dealt with below as one category. It was important for a child born out of wedlock that it be adopted later. This would give the child agnatic affiliations and make it possible for the child to inherit land, thereby also making it possible for the child to achieve a social position as matu'a. Such a person would, however, never completely shake off his conditions of birth. Words like 'bastard' (malubu) would inevitably be yelled at him or her in quarrels. To lack any genealogical connection with a patrilineal descent group was tantamount to occupying an utterly insignificant position in the social hierarchy. Low-status persons led a miserable life. They were the only ones who could be directly ordered to'do something. Since they rarely owned land - and if they did, their lots were small, insignificant and most often worthless - they were completely dependent upon others. Sometimes they were taken in by their mother's brother's household and sometimes they lived with a high-status man or a commoner who needed the labor. In spite of the fact that they worked hard without complaining, they were only given the most wretched food. In periods offamine
76
they were a very vulnerable group, which is why they would often be forced to steal. Should a low-status person venture objection to the task to which he or she was assigned, he/she would immediately be reminded of his/her humble social position. Their social activities were quite limited, as visiting others without having been invited was frowned upon. Neither did they have the same sexual opportunities as others did, since it was stigmatizing for a commoner or a highstatus person to be discovered in an amorous situation with them. As a consequence of their social position, some remained unmarried, something which was otherwise rare among members of the other two strata.
A note of caution: The above exposition of social stratification on Bellona is based entirely upon how Bellonese men perceived the situation. Asked if women could assume positions of high-status persons, the men replied with a firm and resolute "No'''. And if one asked whether women had any influence upon the decision process, the emphatic and terse answer was, uWomen [are] women!"
(Na haahine na haahine!). This, however, cannot disguise the fact that women can, and actually have, played an important role in Bellonese social life. As recent years' research has shown - for instance, a study of the Shi kingdom in Zaire made by Sosne, a woman scientist (Sosne, 1979) - women often have a significant amount of influence upon the decisions men make. To uncover fully these facets of Bellonese life, however, it will be necessary for a female social scientist to do the field work. 3.3.4 Status rivalry. Status rivalry is unavoidable in a stratified society which tolerates social mobility without having clearly fixed criteria for the allowance of movement from one stratum to another. Most cases of status rivalry occurred in situations where a man, envious of his older brother, tried to contend for precedence with him and win the title for himself. The easiest way to do this was to accuse the older brother oflaziness and lack of courage and initiative. Formally, and in practice, there was nothing to prevent two brothers from both becoming high-status men by virtue of their personal efforts, and there are concrete examples of this. Problems most often arose when a father's land was distributed unequally or when a brother's ambitions were greater than his achievements. Another type of status rivalry could appear when an adopted son, because of his skills, was given more land than the family's biological sons. The cultural history of the Bellonese contains several example of struggles for hakahua rank. In most cases, the disputes resulted in an endless chain of quarrels and malice. More rarely, the envy escalated to hostility, ending with a homicide (R 110). 3.4 Religion. On traditional Bellona, religion governed and controlled a considerable part of daily life. Conditions such as pregnancy. birth, subsistence activities (canoe building, fishing, horticulture, etc.), fighting, welfare and other phenomena can only be understood when they are seen in connection with the religious ideas which lie behind them. Just as a motorist needs a road map to find his bearings in a foreign country, a social scientist must have an overall view of a society's religious topography in order to realize how the seemingly 77
distinct ways of acting and thinking are mutually connected. The religion of the Bellonese was marked by an active and lively interaction between the secular and the sacred, where people and gods were mutually though asymmetrically - dependent upon each other. Ifpeople fulfilled their duties towards the gods by performing rituals, making offerings and, on the whole, by not breaking too many taboos, in return they expected success in their diverse activities. If the gods and ancestors lived up to these expectations, rituals were performed or songs were composed in their honor, something the gods were thought to value highly (how human!). Likewise, if the gods did not comply with the wishes of their worshippers in a satisfactory way, they were made the objects of verbal attacks in which the people proclaimed their dissatisfaction. One of my informants, a respected leader of rituals, once scolded one of the gods for being weak and unimportant, because the god had not provided him with a son. He even stopped performing rituals to this god for a time and only began again after urgent requests by his kinsmen. In another case a man humiliated his god by flinging the terrifying curse in his teeth, "Shit! Lie with your ancestor!" (Poi! Ta'o au sa 'amaatu 'a!). An example of a god being rejected forever can be found in T 155, when a man became so outraged by the conduct of the goddess Sikingimoemoe that he began to worship her brother, the god Tehainga'atua, instead. A well-written, full guide to an understanding of the Bellonese religion can be found in Torben Monberg's book: The Religion ofBellona Island (1966). I will therefore give only a short resume here and point out those aspects of the Bellonese religion which are necessary for an understanding of the socio-religious area connected with fighting. The Bellonese themselves distinguished semantically between people (pengea) and supernaturals ('atua), and this conceptual distinction will also be used in what follows. In the traditional religion, there were seven different categories of supernaturals: sky gods, district gods, unworshipped gods, ancestors (worshipped and unworshipped), culture heroes, and hiti (for the latter see Chapter 2.). Until more data are available about the hitithey will be classified among the supernaturals.
Supcrnatura!s worshipped Gods
Sky gods ('atua ngongi)
,
District gods ·(,aitu; ngasuenga)
Supernatura!s not worshipped Ancestors
Worshipped ancestors
Annihilated ancestors
(sa'amaalu'a)
(pengea maangi)
Others Culture heroes (kakul)
Aborigines of Rennell & Bellona (hUi)
Fig. 12. Classification ojsuperna/llrals (from Monberg, 1966: Fig. 4).
78
Gods
Harmful gods ('opai)
The origin of the universe and the creation of mankind held little interest for the native population. There are only a few more or less fragmentary stories about how culture heroes including the famous Mautikitiki, about whom there are stories throughout Polynesia (Luomala, 1949), created such heavenly bodies as the moon and some stars, and how certain animals got their colors, appear-
ance, and characteristic behavior (Elbert and Monberg, 1965; KuscheI1975[a». All that is told about human origin concerns only the origin of certain anatomic peculiarities such as their flexible joints, the female vagina and clitoris, and the emergence of certain forms of behavior such as the killing of agnates and close relatives (T 31 [A]; see also Monberg, 1966:Chapter 8). To what extent this sporadic knowledge about their own origin is due to genuine disinterest or has been lost in their long migration, cannot be ascertained today. For the native people, their own island and the neighboring island of Rennell were the centre of the world. It was surrounded by the firmament in which were the stars. (The Bellonese believed that the stars were fixed in the sky.) They found their bearings by the stars for planting, fishing, and sailing. Out on the horizon where sky and sea meet, the gods had their dwellings, and in a dark place under the earth the gods and ancestors moved about. Here, also, was the place where the 'souls' of annihilated ancestors accumulated, that is the 'souls' of those ancestors who were no longer worshipped. Oral traditions on the gods' dwelling places and their doings are few in number and the subject does not seem to interest the population greatly. The hili played no real part in daily life. Only very simple rituals were performed for them, before going out fishing, because it was believed that hili had power to keep the fish away. As hiti always appeared in twos, and they liked to play with each other, the fishermen sometimes made little puzzles (Fig. 13) of interlaced leaves, constructed in such a way that the leaves could not easily be separated from each other. He laid this puzzle on the path down to the water in the hope that when the hili saw it, they would be so absorbed in solving the problem that they would not hinder his fishing.
Fig. 13. Puzzle (Ioghongi) to distract the hili.
79
Among the gods and ancestors a clear-cut distinction was made between those who were worshipped and those who were not. Those who were worshipped could be partly controlled through rituals, whereas a person had absolutely no power over the supernaturals who were not worshipped. Fortunately for the Bellonese, the activities of the supernaturals nOl worshipped were partly governed and controlled by the more powerful gods who were worshipped. The annihilated ancestors who were not worshipped (that is, those who belonged to extinct clans; those who belonged to the first seven generations of the Kaitu'u clan and the first ten generations of the Taupongi clan; all unimportant persons; women; and the ancestors who by a specific ritual had been 'wiped out') were completely harmless, since they ceased to function after their extermination. More dangerous were the harmful 'apai. They were the essence of evil and were made responsible for everything which could not rationally be attributed to the anger or displeasure of the gods or ancestors who were worshipped. 'Apai lived mainly in the impenetrable virgin forest, at the coast or in graves. From a Western outlook, it could be said that 'apai were made the scapegoats for misfortunes that could not otherwise be explained. The gods who were worshipped (the sky gods and district gods) were "anthropomorphic, anthroposocial (being able to perceive what man was doing and to communicate with man), and anthropopsychic (because relations with them were conducted as though they had mentalities like those of human members of the society)" (Manberg, 1966:36). They dressed like the Bellonese when they were going to a party but the gods' clothing was finer than that of the native population. In their heavenly dwellings, the gods had food which was the same as that known on Bellona, but in much larger quantity. The gods were not omnipotent, as it is believed of the Christian God. Now and again, advantage was taken of this on the island. Social conflicts also occurred in the heavenly dwellings (T 17[B], T 19). In Canoes there are several examples of how the sky god Tehainga'atua and the district god Tehu'aingabenga fought and played mischievous tricks on each other and, in some cases, killed some of the gods not worshipped (T 14, T 18, T 21, T 22, T 23). Since it was the gods who were worshipped, who fought and conquered the gods who were not worshipped ('apal), Monberg thinks that these tales work as "psychological tranquilizers, assuring man that the evil gods are conquered by the ones whom they: chose as their protectors" (Monberg, 1965:52). As the gods were created in the image of the Bellonese. they also had to suffer from the Bellonese disease: jealous. One of the informants, Takiika from the Nuku'angoha lineage was once the victim ofTehainga'atua'sjeaiousy. This god perceived that Takiika's offerings to Tehu'aingabenga were larger than those made to him, so he grew jealousy and made Takiika ill for a long time. Only after a medium had disclosed the reason for the illness and the ritual state of affairs had once more been put right, did Takiika recover. (See also R 40, where the goddess Sikingimoemoe was jealous of a man's fine appearance and therefore inflicted heavy wounds upon him. Other examples of the gods' jealousy are found in T 25 and T 167.) 80
Even before the immigrants had arrived on the island, they had chosen their most important sky- and district gods (see Fig. 14 and T 66: 10-14). Clan Kaitu'u clan Taupongi clan Tongo clan Ngoha clan Nikatemono clan Sau clan Puka clan Tanga clan
Sky gods
District gods
Tehainga'atua
Tehu'aingabenga Ekeitehua Hu'aitekongo Ekeitehua Tehu'aingabenga Baabenga Tehu'aingabenga Tepou
Tehainga'atua
Tehainga'atua Tehainga'atua Tehainga'atua
Tehainga'atua Sikingimoemoe (q) Nguatupu'a (q) and Tepoutu'uingangi Fig. /4. Principal sky- and district gods.
It is remarkable that the Bellonese, who put so much weight on individual, discriminating features, not only chose the same sky god in six out of the eight clans, but that both the Taupongi and Ngoha clans as well as the Kaitu'u and Nikatemono clans had identical sky- and district gods. The latter two clans' choice of the same gods is particularly surprising because the Nikatemono clan together with the Taupongi, Tongo, Ngoha, Sau, Puka, and Tanga clans formed the group called The Seven Original Clans and which was in opposition to the Kai-
tu'u clan.
The sky gods, according to Monberg, were related to nature, whereas the district gods were connected with cultural affairs. The sky gods had control over fish and garden produce, therefore offerings to them consisted of raw, uncooked food. They were violent by nature and sometimes unpredictable, even towards their own worshippers (R 40, R 79). As the highest ranking gods in the Bellonese world of supernaturals, they were in possession of great sacred strength (tapu), which made them particularly dangerous. Every person who came into contact with the power of the sky gods outside the formal ritual relationships was at a great disadvantage. The story goes that a man named Hakatingitango from the Taupongi clan got lost one day and came very close to the two stones which stand in Ngabenga. These stones were considered to be the incarnation of the two sky gods, Nguatupu'a and Tepoutu'uingangi. Hakatingitango saw that the black volcanic stone which was Nguatupu'a's incarnation, was overturned. He reerected the stone and cleared the area immediately around it. Shortly afterwards, he became ill and when he was out fishing one day, he disappeared. The same'evening, all the western part of the sky was lit up by large red clouds - a sign of the gods' particular appreciation of and respect for someone recently deceased. As the mediums later disclosed, Nguatupu'a was so grateful for Hakatingitango's reerection ofthe stone, that she welcomed him on his arrival at the heavenly dwellings by pressing her nose against his hair. The message of this tale is simple: Any contact with the power of the sky gods, what81
everthe reason, is fatal, if it does not occur through the established formal channels - the rites. People could in certain situations make deliberate use of this dangerous tap". This happened during the performance of specific rituals which were called kllba, in which an enemy's life was brought into contact with the tapll of the sky gods. These rituals will be subjected to further treatment below. During periods of great social unrest the most important function of the sky gods was to assist the fighters, to localize, and kill their enemies (R 21, R 42, R 106, R 110, R 117, R 146), and althe same time to protect the attackers against injuries. The otherwise dreaded goddess, Sikingimoemoe, let an aerial root grow down from a rocky coastal ledge, up which her worshippers could climb to safety from their killers (R 39). In R 55, the goddess Nguatupu'a and her brother helped a man from the Tanga clan to find the body of his murdered wife (see also RIO, and R 116). The district gods were of a more pro-social and altruistic nature. They protected people from evil gods, provided them with offspring, and acted as a means of communication between people and the sky gods. They were closely connected with the social organization, which is why, in keeping with the increasing segmentation of Bellonese society, more and more district gods emerged to take care of the different paternal lines' special interest. When the Kaitu'u clan divided, two new district gods were instituted, one for each subclan. As each of these two subclans gradually broke up into various lineages, each one of these also recognized a specific district god. Even though more and more gods were added, the previous ones were not neglected. It is interesting that this supplementation of new district gods happened in the 15th-16th generation, during which raiding began seriously on Bellona (see Fig. 37). Society, at this point, was in a violent inner upheaval which led to social reorganization. While the different immigrant clans and the first generations thereafter still worshipped the same district gods, as a result of the increased social unrest, each subclan and lineage (with a few exceptions) instituted new districtgods. This could indicate that the Bellonese upon their arrival on the island, considered themselves a more or less uniform group with a common cultural background and ideology. With an increasing escalation of hostilities among the various social groups, the feeling of mutual connection changed in the direction of a feeling of incoherence. The antagonistic groups began to regard themselves as separate entities, that now had to create their own social identity and take care of their own protection. Because the district gods were primarily pro-social, no appeal could be made to them for help in performing kllba rituals. This would be incompatible with their role as protectors. For example see R 119, where the district gods from Rennell and Bellona met to agree that none of their worshippers should be killed during a planned Rennellese attack on the Bellonese. Why, despite the care of the district gods, there were so many raids with accompanying manslaughter, does not seem to have interested the Bellonese particularly. Their opinions on this are very vague. Ancestors were an important link in the interaction between the religious and
82
the sacred sphere. They acted as messengers between the gods and the people. In addition to this function, ancestors were also important in protecting the settlement and its inhabitants. But in contrast to the district gods, the ancestors' interests were, to a higher degree, connected with their agnatic kin, to ensure the continued existence of the lineage. If an ancestor did not fulfill his duties, he would immediately be deprived of further offerings and another more powerful ancestor would be approached instead. Such a replacement could have fatal consequences for the deposed ancestor, because with the lack of offerings, he fell into disgrace with the gods and was literally 'wiped out' (Monberg, 1966:Chapter 10). While a person was still alive, he could predict what he would do when he had entered the ranks of ancestors. These prophecies (tangl) could either consist of the person in question providing named persons with many offsprings and crops, or the prophecy could consist of the promise of a revenge killing instigated from the underworld. A prophecy like this is found in R 45, where Taupongi of the Hangekumi lineage predicted that after his death he would take vengeance on a named kinsman, because he took part in an attack upon him. As the story goes, the kinsman met his fate on the way from Rennellto Bellona. Taupongi traveled in a canoe and, on meeting his kinsman, lifted his outrigger up into the air, so that the canoe overturned and the crew drowned. Bellonese were scared of predictions like these (R 14:2). The oral traditions, rich on examples with fatal endings, had a strong reinforcing effect on the pDwer of the predictiDns. Premonitions with nD visible result would easily be fDrgotten. Newly killed men cDuld be extremely dangerous to their killers. After arriving at the gods' homesteads, they cDuld sDlicit the gods to kill their enemies who might still be on the battleground. Puipuihenua's request to let his classificatory brother, Mangakenga, be killed is but Dne of the many examples (NR 114:2; see also NR 145:33). The BellDnese attributed the Dccurrence of unexpected Dr exceptiDnal incidents to the interventiDn Df supernatural beings. It could be a question of such a simple affair as falling from a coconut tree and becoming sick (R 40), to more complicated cases such as a man's unmotivated and unplanned murder of a close relative (R 145), as well as miraculous survival after an attack (R 10). The BellDnese learned from mediums which supernatural beings had intervened in events. Usually men of high sDcial standing acted as mediums, but these could alsD be WDmen (Tuhanuku, 1972:197). There was a certain prestige CDnnected with being a medium and their utterances therefore gave rise on occasion to violent discussions Df whether the person in question really did have such PDwers Dr was simply crazy ('unguhia). The strength of the mediums lay, among other things, in their being able tD alter the stigmatizing nature of an event, through their explanation (one could almost say 'evaluation') of a certain incident, so that responsibility for the action was placed upon the supernaturals instead Df the perSDn (R 145, R 149). Only district gDds and ancestors cDuld speak through the mediums. If Dne of the sky gods did so, the medium would go mad. The great rituals, with the sacrifices involved, and the following distribution oflarge amDunts Df fODd to the participants had both a religious and a sDcial significance. Through the ritual and the offerings, the people recognized and con83
firmed the efforlS of the gods and ancestors. By inviting agnates and affines to the ritual and by giving them the larger share of the offerings, the ritual served to confirm social relationships. By watching whom a man invited to his rituals, particularly the great harvest ritual, one could form a clear picture of the hosts' social relationships. If someone wanted to humiliate one of his guests in public, he could simply invite him to the harvest ritual and consciously ignore him at the distribution. Such an insult was rarely ignored, as can be seen in all its horror in R 113.
3.4.1 Sorcery. In the previous discussion of the gods, it was briefly mentioned that, in the traditional Bellonese culture, there were ways of behavior in which the sacred power of the gods could be intentionally used. This happened during the performance of certain rituals called kuba. Kuba is the collective term for incidents in which one person brings another person's life into danger and which, taken to its furthest conclusion, can cause the other person's death. Both men and women could perform kuba, but each in their own way. However, before we proceed to a more detailed account ofthe procedure, it is necessary to pause for a moment to consider the Bellonese concept of human nature. People had a physical body (tina) and a 'soul' (ma'ungl), which is translated by Monberg (1966:35) as "the life principle" of a person. Ma'ungi is the life force found in all living organisms and which made them grow. It was the essence of all development. At the beginning of a person's life, his mo'ungi was still very weak, and therefore children needed particular protection when in contact with religious affairs. There was no qualitative difference between children's and adults' ma'ungi, the difference was purely quantitative. A person's ma'ungi could travel far and wide. If someone's ma'!lngi left the body for a long time, that person was in a critical situation, becoming weak and possibly dying. This was dramatically described by a Bellonese woman. She wanted to marry a man called Moa from Rennell, but her sister prevented it. Angry and humiliated at this misplaced intervention, Moa performed an act of kuba when he returned to Rennell, upon which the gods retained the sister's ma'!lngi. What happened afterwards was described by the woman in this way: 1. My sister was sick for a long time, until one day when we stayed together my sister Tesimo suddenly wept. My sister wept until my father and my mother came and asked why she was crying?
1. Manga masaki ai te ta'okete o'oku a masaki. masaki. masaki aOllo mango mal i teengaa 'oso manga nollo'oki ma/ou aano manga mangepe Ie
ta'okete o'oku a Tesimo. Manga mangepe Ie to'okete o'okuaano O'll a Ie {amanG o'oku ma Ie tinana oJoku 0 ha-
kaanu kinoi po ko io e mangepe i Ie ao?
2. [Tesimo said] that while she was lying down, her mo'ung; was brought back. [They] asked how it happened? She answered
84
2. Ko ia {eka ilw 10'0 mai Ie mo'llngi. Hakaanu kina;. e hai alU po ee ao? Hai alll, ko ia Ie to'o 'anga e no 'afuo Ie ma-
'ungi a mango nollo, mango lIe'e tau
that after the gods had taken
manalU, manga (ellgaa lena seJw i Mu-
away her ma'ungi she went on
ngaba rna MlIngiki nei.
living unaware of what was going on, both during her stay on Rennell and on Bellona.
3. She had no clear thoughts until the time when she slept and fin her dreams] saw her brother Moa (who is a different man than the Moa who performed the kllba) who had died earlier, worshipping their gods. (The god) Te'aiwahe, our district god, went off [with Moal until he, my brother,
3. Ka ko ia he'e fau manalu Gono nimao Ie 'oso e moe ia 0 kite j te hanD a tonG lungo'one no male a Moo, 0 SOngi aano ki no 'aluG ong%ll. Kakabe
Te 'ailllahe, Ie 'ailll amaloll, a lango
aano kite ia Ie ma 'ung; 0 Tesimo, Ie la'okele o'okll i Ie laplI e hoi rona ;ngoa ko Ma/ango'a.
found Tesimo's ma'ling; at the laplI place called Matanga'a.
4. [The god] gave it back to his worshipper [my brother] who had died earlier, and he brought Tesima's ma'ung; back and reinserted it. And in this way her ma'llngi was brought back and that's why she wept. In this way my older sister survived.
4. Ma Ie 10'0 mai e ia a 'abange ki Ie kainanga o'ona a Ie fungo'one 0 ma-
ngo noko mate, 0 to'o mal e ia Ie ma'llngi 0 Tesimo a hakaeke hoki e ia. Ma Ie kongaa no noho e 10'0 mai Ie
mo'ung; 0 mange mangepe. Kongaa no noho e ma'lIngi IlOki ai Ie la'okele o'okll.
The ma'lIngi changed through life. It became stronger from childhood to adulthood. At death, the ma'lIngi and the body's substance were separated. Some people asserted that it was not the ma'lIngi that left the body, but something which is called te 'ala (lit., 'the shadow'). Whether this 'ala was a separate 'force' which existed in the living person, side by side with the ma'lIngi, and led an inactive, dormant existence until death, or whether the ma'lIngi at death was transformed into 'ala is a question that evokes varying opinions among the native population. The problem seems to be more interesting for researchers than for the Bellonese themselves, since whenever the Bellonese talked spontaneously about what went on in the underworld, they apparently used the concepts ma'lIngi and 'ala at random. As the more intricate matters involved in the performance of kllba will be treated in a forthcoming publication only the main features will be mentioned here. There were different ways of performing kllba, dependent on whether verbal formulae were used or not, and whether an object was used to symbolize the victim. A rough division appears in Fig. 15. As can be seen from Fig. 15 the verbal formulae were the most important for the performance of kuba, a fact which, according to Firth (1970: 132), is the case throughout Oceania. The only exception to this is the kuba which was practiced 85
Kl/ba form
incl. object
excl. object
incl. verbal formulae
kl/ba hakatino; peekau; koi 'oso; ngangingongi
Kl/ba ingoa; hakangea 'atl/a; ko; 'oso;
ngangingangi kuba during the ngangl/enga hano ritual
excl. verbal formulae
Fig. 15. Different kllba forms.
during the very infrequent, but very sacred, nganguenga hano ritual. At a given moment in the course of this ritual, the men proceeded along the main path. Since all the gods, both those worshipped and those not, were assembled on the island during the entire ritual, it was forbidden to speak or to glance at any of the settlements. If this was done, the attention of the gods would be turned towards those who lived in the settlement and this would have serious consequences. The use of an object to represent the person against whom kuba was performed, was of minor importance. It depended upon the performer of kuba. He could use it or not. The object could be a small figure, plaited from coconut leaves, a so; yam, in which four small twigs were stuck, or just a stone wrapped in leaves. Such objects were called hakatino (lit., 'produced figure'). A more elaborale example is found in the small miniature canoes (peekal/) which were put in the water to sail to the gods' dwelling places. These miniature canoes, in contrast to ordinary canoes, were equipped with a roof and under this a little wooden figure was placed, representing the enemy (Fig. 16). The figures were put in contact with the dangerous sky gods by being placed against pillars in the temples dedicated to the sky gods or by being thrown into taboo areas. But whatever was done the actions were accompanied by verbal formulae. These were the same as tho~e used when kuba was performed without hakatino. The verbal formulae were more or less fixed and usually contained (a) a dedication of the person's ma'ungito a named god; (b) a reason for the performance of the action; and (c) a formulation of the desired sanctions. The following actual formula will illustrate this (the real name of the person has been changed).
86
Fig. 16. Peekau. a sorcery·canoe pUI10 sea.
This, Tehainga'atua and your sister, is the ma'ungi of Tebengi whom I wanted to marry, but who went to Rennell. Let her be afflicted with all kinds of sickness so that she may die.
Teenei Tehainga'alua ma lou luha/rine Ie ma'ungi 0 Tebengi, ku hai kau pipiki 'ia ma Ie hanD ki Mungaba. Tuku alu kinai ko ba'i langaa masaki ke ne mate ai.
87
~
~
"'" U '00
"
'" u .0
"
UJ
~ u
~
"
Co
~
g
:I/0G40-,
J.VMr.o
