Social Stratification and Cultural Evolution in Polynesia

Abstract

General Statement. From Polynesian data it seems possible to reconstruct some main processes by which a social structure based upon lineages and upon graded hereditary rank may develop into a new type characterized by a political-territorial system and by social stratification. Since these social changes are obviously basic, we may expect to find that they influence the entire course of Polynesian cultural evolution to a profound degree. The conclusions that are drawn in this paper refer only to Polynesia. However, the type of social structure in which these evolutionary changes seem to have occurred has a wide distribution in Oceania and elsewhere, so that the specific hypotheses advanced here may be tested by further comparative study. My primary hypothesis is that Polynesian society rests upon an inherently dynamic type of lineage structure. Changes in this lineage structure provoke adaptations in the culture as a whole, and these, in turn, act upon the lineage structure. The entire process, complex as it is, follows a patterned