essay
Abortion and depopulation on a Pacific Island
Health, culture, and community ; case studies of public reactions to health programs • New York • Published In 1955 • Pages: 211-235
By: Schneider, David Murray.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
The author was one of four anthropologists who spent nine months on Yap during 1947-1948 to study the problem of depopulation. The work was sponsored by Harvard University and the National Research Council. This particular paper concentrates on the problem of abortion on Yap and its relation to the allocation of responsibility and prestige in the society. Up to the age of about thirty, Yap men and women are still considered to be 'youths' whose chief occupation is to engage in intricate love affairs. This period of protracted youth is related to the fact that Yap is a stratified society where positions of prestige, responsibility and high rank, few in number as they are, are reserved for members of the older generation. Thus, freed of the responsibilities thrust upon men and women in other societies shortly after physiological maturity, young men and women on Yap can afford to preoccupy themselves with love making, which makes the long wait for status and prestige, coming as it does with full adulthood, more tolerable. The author believes that this preoccupation with love affairs has a significant bearing on the practice of abortion on Yap as well as on the possible prevalence of venereal infection. The author concludes his paper with a proposed program of birth control to eliminate the necessity for abortion.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Conception
- Abortion and infanticide
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Yapese
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Micronesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 1965
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1947-1948
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1947-1948
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia
- NotesAdditional notes
- David M. Schneider
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 235)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 55010583
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Yapese (Micronesian people)/Yap (Micronesia)