The People of the Sea: Environment, Identity, and History in Oceania (review)

Abstract

Paul D'Arcy, The People of Sea: Environment, Identity, and History in Oceania. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, March, 2006, 292 pp. The Ocean is, according to Epeli Hau'ofa, a Sea of Islands, a large world of lanes connecting This powerful image, drawn to counter dominant Western view of islands as isolated, nonviable economies, has so far gone unchallenged. In this book, a Historian explores world in eve of Western contact in period between 1770 until 1870. It focuses on Pacific Islanders' varied relationships with as evolving processes during a crucial transitional era (1), when maritime practices changed as new technologies and power relations emerged. Its regional focus on remote privileges Micronesia (especially Central Carolines) and Polynesia. In five main chapters, cultural spaces within Remote Oceania are examined as aspects of islanders' relations with sea. This novel approach can indeed help to gain a better understanding of identity and history. D'Arcy attempts to overcome D'Urvillean classification of into Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia that has been challenged by Historian Bronwen Douglas and others (8 fn). By choosing Remote Oceania as his field of study, he follows Archaeologist Roger Green and consequently excludes Near Oceania (Melanesia without Vanuatu and New Caledonia). Nevertheless, as book covers variety of Oceanic environmental systems and points out interrelation of islanders and ecosystems, it should hold up for most of maritime Oceania. Marine ecosystems are in constant flux and offer opportunities and challenges of uncertainty. El Nino/La Nina effects on climate as well as regional disasters have affected Oceanic life. D'Arcy proposes that dynamics of marine ecosystems are part of islanders' view of their seascape (13, 178). The different ecosystems (coral reefs, lagoons, and mangrove swamps) and their dynamics correspond with cultural representations of marine environment. D'Arcy reviews these ecosystems and postulates that the dominates lives and consciousness of inhabitants...as nowhere else on earth (26). The immediacy of is reflected in islanders' way of life, in their settlement patterns and diet as well as in everyday activities, swimming and diving skills and-perhaps-in physical features such as bulkiness of bodies or enhanced skills of long-distance vision (33,134). The features prominently in cosmology (40). In fact, high frequency of destructive typhoons, tsunamis, droughts and volcano eruptions strongly supports argument that islanders lived in an uncertain world that required them rather frequently to escape from famine by travel (35). With exception of isolated Rapanui (Easter) Island, pre-colonial Oceania was indeed a sea of islands. Canoe travel included long-distance voyages and inter-island exchange systems, as D'Arcy points out. He devotes a chapter to various kinds of resources and objects of value that passed hands between different ecosystems and changes that occurred in period under study. Kin relations between islands provided further reasons for travel, as feasts activated wider networks. Further reasons for canoe voyaging included need to find an appropriate spouse, male competition, and pure enjoyment of voyaging and socializing (54). Resettlement, migratory journeys and hope to discover an uninhabited island were Oceanic answers to natural disasters, epidemics and conflicts, as by 1770, the was still a of opportunity (60). While ocean provided routes, there were hardly any communal paths on land. Cargo was shipped rather than carried, due to lack of wheel and beasts of burden in area at this time (65). The risks of travel were outweighed by benefits and balanced by detailed knowledge and experience of navigators. …