From Mendana to Riesenfeld : Early Accounts of and Speculation on Taro Irrigation in the Asia-Pacific Area

Abstract

The earliest written account of taro irrigation in the Asia-Pacifi c area apart from early Chinese sources appears to be from Mendana’s voyage to the Solomon Islands in 1567, when irrigation systems on Guadalcanal were seen. In the intervening 400 years, before serious archaeological investigation of such systems, there was much further description and speculation regarding the history and origins of such systems. Members of Captain Cook’s expeditions in the 1770s were impressed by taro irrigation systems they saw in the Hawaiian Islands, Tahiti and New Caledonia. Early visitors to other island groups also saw taro irrigation: John Williams described the practice on Rarotonga in 1823, Wilkes recorded it in the Fijian archipelago during the US Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, and the missionary John Geddie mentioned taro irrigation in an account written soon after he settled on Aneityum Island in Vanuatu, in 1848. Such early accounts—and what they tell us about the attitudes of those who encountered irrigation systems in the Pacifi c—are the subject of this presentation.