Pangai, village in Tonga

Beaglehole, Ernest; Beaglehole, Pearl

Book

Pangai, village in Tonga

The Polynesian Society • 18 • Published In 1941 • Pages: iii-iv, 3-145, [1]

By: Beaglehole, Ernest, Beaglehole, Pearl.

Abstract
During the summer of 1938-1939 -- in the South Temperate Zone summer begins on December 21 -- the author and his wife visited the Tonga Islands for a two months' period, of which seven weeks were spent in the commoner village of Pangai, Vava'u, on the island of Pangaimotu. This monograph is the result of their field efforts in that village, which they believe '… is fairly typical of other commoner villages where there is no high chief or noble in residence and where there is about the same measure of isolation that characterizes Pangai' (p. 4). An important point that the author tries to make is that despite years of contact with European culture, Pangai culture has been very successful at adapting '… to the strains and tensions thus engendered' (p. 4) in the process of acculturation, and even though new cultural elements have been introduced into Tongan society, pre-contact cultural elements have not been extinguished, but instead the two -- old and new -- have blended in a reasonably harmonious fashion to create the type of culture observed by the Beagleholes in the village of Pangai. The source is divided into eight major divisions dealing with the geography and people of Pangai village, their economic life, social life, life cycle, and to somewhat of a lesser degree to their practice of medicine, kava drinking, crime, and religion. The conclusions at the end of the source, pages 135-141, present much data on various aspects of acculturation and socio-cultural trends in Tongan society.

Acculturation and culture contact

Felted and other non-interworked fabrics

Recreational and non-therapeutic drugs

Dwellings

Real property

Division of labor by gender

Daily routine