Contenu du sommaire

The author develops the hypothesis which he proposed in 1982, as a result of his analysis of the traditional forms of power existing among the Baruya living in Papua New Guinea. According to this hypothesis, the Big-men and other Great-men found in New Guinea, such as masters of initiations, great warrior», shamans, etc. represent various types of societies corresponding to specific forms of kinship, of control of people and of circulation of wealth. In that view, Big-men would be found in societies in which marriage implies bridewealth, and where wealth accumulated in order to be redistributed at the occasion of highly competitive intertribal exchanges. The other types of Great-men, masters of male initiations, shamans, great warriors, etc. would be the personifications of power, where marriage implies mainly the direct exchange of women, and where intensive male initiations exist and competitive exchanges do not. The author tries to imagine the social processes through which Great-men societies could have transformed themselves historically into Big-men societies. He demonstrates that in fact, Big-men are found in societies where there is no competitive exchange, so that the question of the origin of the Big-men has to be investigated again. Then, he extends his comparison to societies with chiefs, like the Mekeo, the Trobriand, or with ranks like in Vanuatu.

The present-day distribution of polished stone blades and their hafts in the central zone of Irian Jaya, the western and Indonesian part of New Guinea, is studied. Starting from an established fact, a frontier clearly separating an axe area from an adze area, the authors describe the main quarries (Yeleme, Tagi, Mumyeme), the methods of manufacturing axe and adze blades, their mode of diffusion and their integration in the social and economic context of the Moni, Yali and Mek. By tracing diffusion routes, hypotheses are developed about the functioning of the axe-adze frontier, and an ecological model is proposed based on equilibrium between stone blade length and the state of the man- transformed environment.

Plantation development in Samoa until the outbreak of the First World War was overwhelmingly dominated by the Hamburg firm of J. C. Godeffroy & Sohn and their commercial successor, the DHPG. Far from being a triumph of free enterprise capitalism, the company's Samoan plantations were only successful because the directors in Berlin and the managers on-the-spot so assiduously and successfully courted state support. During the 1860s and 1870s the local company manager doubled as the German consul, and operated in the absence of any regulations covering the imported labour force. Even when protective legislation was introduced between 1882 and 1884 the material conditions of labourers on the DHPG's plantations deteriorated. Since the DHPG plantations constituted Germany's sole political claim to Samoa, a succession of German consuls (by now a post for a career diplomat) functioned as the official arm of the firm and they worked to ensure its survival in the face of critical labour shortages and severe profitability constraints. Consular co-operation involved easing the company's labour crisis, minimising its labour costs and by endorsing a system of harsh discipline, and was reinforced by the company directors lobbying their political and personal contacts in the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office, and sometimes even the Chancellor himself. Even after the hoisting of the German flag over the western islands of Samoa in 1900, official policy continued in the DHPG's favour. Annexation was followed by an influx of smaller cacao and rubber plantation companies and individual planters who languished while the DHPG prospered in the circumstances of privileged access to New Guinea labour. Other planters had to employ expensive Chinese labour, and they attributed their problems to Governor Wilhelm Soif s partiality towards the DHPG. But Solf survived their attacks and the status quo continued, in part because he was supported the company which dominated German Samoa and which wielded most influence in Berlin, the DHPG. The paper concludes by suggesting that although the DHPG grew up under the shelter of massive state and government support and was harsh in its treatment of labourers, parallels are to be found in the British Pacific. Depending on wider political and economic circumstances, the British labour trade could display all the abuses of its German counterpart.

Tablet Mamari contains the only text the general meaning of which is known beyond reasonable doubt : a lunar calendar identified by Barthel (1958 243). Having discovered it Barthel did not to analyse it further than proposing specific for its component glyphs. Krupa (1971) " to interpret it as a coherent poetical text ". This calendar is examined and matched to night lists recorded by Englert, Métraux and Thomson, and to the times of the risings and settings the moon, its apparent size, its phases, motion distance from the earth during the period by Thomson's observations. Some conclusions drawn with a high level of certainty which to somewhat speculative but nevertheless interpretations of some glyphs. Strong evidence adduced that the calendar contains not only a count, but prescriptions for observing and, presumably, recording the appearance of the moon at times during the month so as to keep the night accurate and to predict when a particular required 29 or 30 days and where extra days were be inserted : before the full moon, before the moon, or both before the full moon and before new moon.

The discovery, in Futuna, of a fossilized taro pondfield dating from 785-1035 A.D. contributes further knowledge to the development of the domestication of plants in the Pacific. Particuliar circumstances of sedimentation allowed for the examination of taro holes and of a drainage system. These horticultural formations, which are similar to the water-logged pondfields cultivated to this day, have been around for centuries.

Un like those chiefs appointed by the colonial Government and known as luluai, native catechists in Papua New-Guinea have failed to attract professional attention from anthropologists and historians alike. However, because they were instrumental in social and cultural change and behaved as go-betweens with Melanesians and Europeans, they deserve due consideration. Thanks to many interviews in the field and to archives documents the lives and endeavours of the first three catechists among the Maenge of New Britain have been reconstructed. Despite official statements to the contrary the Roman Catholic mission seems to have been as venturesome as the Wesleyans in giving these catechists a free hand. Actually there was no alternative as they had to spend in the field several years by themselves before any European missionary could join them. As a result, conversion was to be mainly a Melanesian enterprise, Christian teaching a local translation of concepts and metaphors, and individual careers of mission boys imitations of those of big men. Indulging neither in submission nor in revolt, they succeeded in opening up a third way which ultimately led to the new system of Local Government Councils.