book chapter
The South Seas -- yesterday and today: cultural change among the Tongans and an attempt to interpret this development
A. Limbach • Braunschweig • Published In 1955 • Pages: HRAF Ms.: 1, 518 leaves [Original: 1-331, 352-359 ]
By: Koch, Gerd, Schütze, Frieda.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This source represents the results of the author's fieldwork in the Tongan Archipelago from October 1951 to June 1952, during which tome he visited five Tongan settlements on the small islands of Nomuka, Lifuka, and 'Uiha on the larger island of Vava'u and in the 'capital city' of Nuku'alofa. Culture, as defined by the author, is '…everything that man brings forth in the struggle with his environment and his fellowmen, that is to say economy, technology, as well as society and the 'spiritual aspects' (namely religion, art, knowledge)' (p. 5). The changes brought about in these elements of 'culture' through European influences dating from the early contact period to ca. 1952 is the dominant theme of this source, and is given particular attention in the first part of this work. Here the effects of culture contact are discussed in terms of the Tongans themselves (e.g., health care, diseases, care of the body, clothing and adornment, etc.), their social order (marriage and the family), village life (settlement and community structure, social stratification), political structure, economic life (dwellings, nutrition, copra production, handicrafts, division of labor, transportation, money), religion, fine arts and games, and the general attitude of the Tongans themselves to cultural change. In the second part of the work a more general discussion is presented on cultural change in terms of comparable changes in other societies--Samoa, Fijians, and the Buganda of Africa. From these comparisons the author concludes that the cultural changes that have taken place in Tongan society as the result of European contacts are not necessarily unique to Tonga alone, but as a matter of fact, seem to have affected all three societies in comparison in a very similar manner. The concluding section of the original work dealing the general problems of cultural change among primitive people as the result of European influence, pages 332-251, has not been translated for the files.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Descriptive somatology
- Social personality
- Morbidity
- Acculturation and culture contact
- Sociocultural trends
- Domesticated animals
- Agriculture
- Diet
- Mats and basketry
- Felted and other non-interworked fabrics
- Personal grooming
- Body alterations
- Dwellings
- Real property
- Mutual aid
- Status, role, and prestige
- Classes
- Household
- Art
- Nuptials
- Chief executive
- External relations
- Missions
- Ethnosociology
- Education
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Tongans
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2006
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Polynesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- book chapter
- 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.
- 4: Excellent Secondary 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; 1978
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1951-1952
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1770s-1951
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Islands of Nomuka, Lifuka, 'Uiha, and Tongatapu, Tonga
- NotesAdditional notes
- Gerd Koch
- Translation of [Südsee gestern und heute; der Kulturwandel bei den Tonganern und der Versuch einer Deutung dieser Entwicklung]
- The original German text is not included
- Translated fron the German for the Human Relations Area Files by Frieda Schütze in 1978
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 498-504)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 57034004
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Tongans