Connected by the sea: Towards a regional history of the Western Caroline Islands

Journal of Pacific History

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 163-182

  D'Arcy, Paul ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0442319899     PISSN: 00223344     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00223340120075551     Document Type: Article

References (141)

1. The tenus Islanders and Island are used henceforth to refer to Pacific Islanders in general.
2. There are some notable exceptions. See Niel Gunson, 'The Tonga - Samoa connection 1777-1845', Journal of Pacific History, 25 (1990), 176-87
3. and Niel Gunson, 'Great families of Polynesia: inter-island links and marriage patterns', Journal of Pacific History, 32 (1997), 139-52.
4. This scheme is most elegantly argued in P.V. Kirch, The Evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms (Cambridge 1984), 71-216.
5. For a concise overview on the evolution of theory in Oceanic prehistory see P.V. Kirch, 'Prehistory', in Alan Howard & R. Borofsky (eds), Developments in Polynesian Ethnology (Honolulu 1989), 13-46.
6. D.L. Oliver, Ancient Tahitian Society, 3 vols (Honolulu 1974), II, 1122.
7. K.R. Howe, 'Pacific Islands history in the 1980s: new directions or monograph myopia?', Pacific Studies, 3 (1979), 81.
8. O.H.K. Spate, 'The Pacific as an artefact', in Niel Gunson (ed.), The Changing Pacific: Essays in Honour of H.E. Maude (Melbourne 1978), 34.
9. Howe, 'Pacific Islands history in the 1980s', 86-9.
10. Geoffrey Irwin, The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific (Cambridge 1992), 204.
11. I.C. Campbell, A History of the Pacific Islands (Christchurch 1989), 36.
12. Epeli Hau'ofa, 'Our sea of islands', The Contemporary Pacific, 6:1 (1994), 153-4.
13. These issues are discussed in Karen Nero, 'The End of Insularity', in Donald Denoon (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders (Cambridge 1997), 441.
14. In particular, see Francis X. Hezel, The First Taint of Civilization: A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-Colonial Days, 1521-1885 (Honolulu 1983).
15. See William A. Lessa, 'The Place of Ulithi in the Yap empire', Human Organization, 9 (1950), 16-18;
16. idem, 'Myth and blackmail in the Western Carolines', Journal of the Polynesian Society, 65 (1956), 67-74;
17. idem, Ulithi: A Micronesian Design for Living (New York 1966), 35-9;
18. William H. Alkire, An Introduction to the Peoples and Cultures of Micronesia, 2nd edn (Menlo Park 1977), 50-2;
19. idem, Coral Islanders (Arlington Heights 1978), 122-4;
20. Sherwin G. Lingenfelter, Yap: Political Leadership and Culture Change in an Island Society (Honolulu 1975), 147-53;
21. and Rosalind L. Hunter-Anderson and Yigal Go'ospan Zan, 'Demystifying the Sawei, a traditional interisland exchange system', Isla, 4 (1996), 1-45. The details about the structure and process of the sawei related in the next two paragraphs are based on the consistent analysis contained in these sources. Additional footnotes are only included when sources diverge in their details.
22. Alkire, Coral Islanders, 122, states that the sawei was an annual undertaking
23. but Lessa, 'The Place of Ulithi', 42, claims that it took place every two to three years
24. Hunter-Anderson and Zan, 'Demystifying the Sawei', 41, n.5, claim that while Ulithi maintained annual links, atolls further east participated in the sawei less frequently.
25. Both Gachpar and the contiguous village of Wonyan hosted the sawei fleet. Gachpar is the village most usually associated with the sawei, however.
26. See, e.g., Lessa, 'Myth and blackmail', 71-2;
27. Hunter-Anderson and Zan, 'Demystifying the Sawei', 4;
28. and William H Alkire, 'Technical knowledge and the evolution of political systems in the Central and Westem Caroline Islands of Micronesia', Canadian Journal of Anthropology, 1 (1980), 232.
29. Alkire, An Introduction to the Peoples and Cultures of Micronesia, 14-15.
30. Lingenfelter, Yap, 147;
31. Alkire, 'Technical knowledge', 234;
32. and A. Kramer, 'Zentralkarolinen, Part I (Lamotrek Gruppe, Oleai, Feis)', in G. Thilenius (ed.), Ergebnisse der Sudsee-Expedition 1908-1910, II, B, x, I (Hamburg 1937), 345.
33. The information about the purchase of canoes from Woleai comes from Chamisso in Otto von Kotzebue, A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Behring's Straits, in Search of a Morth-east passage, undertaken in the Years 1815, 16, 17, and 18 in the Ship Rurick, 3 vols (New York 1967), 3, 193.
34. Hunter-Anderson and Zan, 'Demysifying', 33, believe this to be the key factor behind Gachpar's hosting of the sawei fleet
35. Reilly Ridgell, Manny Ikea, and Isaoshy Uruo, 'The persistence of Central Carolinian navigation', Isla, 2 (1994), 198-9
36. On the role of gau in Yapese politics see M.L. Berg, ' Yapese politics, Yapese money and the Sawei tribute network before World War 1', Journal of Pacific History, 27 (1992), 154-6. Gau consisted of discs of Spondylus shell about three millimetres thick and one centimetre in diameter, bored through the centre, and strung along a cord (150).
37. On Yapese politics, see Lingenfelter, Yap, 153
38. and David Labby, The Demystification of Yap: Dialectics of Culture on a Micronesian Island (Chicago 1976), 106.
39. Fei were huge wheels of aragonite with holes bored in the centre, with diameters of one or more metres. The form and role of fei are discussed by Berg, 'Yapese politics', 150
40. and Inez de Beauclair, The stone money of Yap Island', Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, no.16 (1963), 153-4.
41. De Beauclair, 'The stone money', 153, notes the different quality of Palauan and Yapese aragonite
42. and Wilhelm Muller, 'Yap', in G. Thilenius (ed.), Ergebnisse der Sudsee-Expedition, 1908-1910, II: Ethnographie:B: Mikronesien, 2, ii (Hamburg 1917), 27.
43. Alfred Tetens, Among the Savages of the South Seas: Memoirs of Micronesia, 1862-1868, trans. Florence Mann Spoehr (Stanford 1958), 10, noted that Yapese greatly feared Palauans.
44. Hu liter-Anderson and Zan, 'Demystifying', 11-12, 39
45. Andrew Cheyne. Journal of a Voyage to the Islands of the Western Pacific in the Brigantine 'Acis' A. Cheyne Commander, log I 28/11/63 -14/12/64 &. 10/2/65 - 6/2/66 (hereinafter 'Acis') (Dorothy Shineberg generously lent me her MS copy of the log);
46. Franz Hernsheim, Sudsee-Erinnerungen, 1875-1880 (Berlin 1884), 19-20;
47. and Father Salesius, Die Karolinen-Insel Jap, MS (Berlin c. 1907), 96-7.
48. The reference to the Ulithian navigational influence comes from Muller, 'Yap', 287
49. Others detected a withering of Yapese seafaring in the 19th century, and a corresponding increased reliance on their (i.e. Gagil's) low island 'children' to fulfil their seafaring requirements. For example, see Lessa, Ulithi, 47
50. and William Lessa, 'The Portuguese discovery of the Isles of Sequeira', Micronesica, 11 (1975), 64-5.
51. George Keate, An Account of the Pelew Islands, situated in the Western Part of the Pacific Ocean, composed from the journals and communications of Captain Henry Wilson, and some of his officers, who. in August 1783. were there shipwrecked, in the Antelope. A Packet belonging to the Honorable East India Company, 2nd edn (London 1788), 24-5.
52. Richard J. Parmentier, The Sacred Remains: Myth, History, and Polity in Belau (Chicago 1987) 42-6, 187-91 .
53. See also Rev. John Pearce Hockin, A Supplement to the Account of the Pelew Islands (London 1803), 54, on the reception of beachcombers at Koror.
54. On the development of Malakal as a roadstead for European shipping, see Dorothy Shineberg (ed.), The Trading Voyages of Andrew Cheyne 1841-1844 (Canberra 1971), 232, 324.
55. Cheyne, 'Acis', 1862, 9 Sept. 1862, noted that Woodin was aiming Ngerard to resist Koror.
56. See also Karl Semper, The Palau Islands in the Pacific Ocean, ed. Robert Craig, trans. Mark Berg (Guam 1982), 30-1.
57. E.g., see Cheyne, 'Acis', 31 Mar., 4, 8 Apr., 4, 12, 16 May, 3, 9 June 1864.
58. Parmentier, The Sacred Remains, 191.
59. Tetens, Among the Savages, 103.
60. Semper, The Patau Islands, 289-90, 292:
61. An outbreak of influenza in Tomil is described in Cheyne, 'Acis' 28 Mar, and 5 Apr. 1864.
62. See William A. Lessa, 'An evaluation of early descriptions of Carolinian culture', Ethnohistory, 9 (1962), 338;
63. and Hezel, The First Taint, 82-108, especially 99ff.
64. Harold J. Wiens, Atoll environment and ecology (New Haven 1962), 29-30
65. and David Lewis, The Voyaging Stars: Secrets of the Pacific Island Navigators (Sydney 1978), 166.
66. Frederic Lutke, Voyage autour du monde executé par ordre de sa Majesté l'Empereur Nichola s Ier, 3 vols (Paris 1835-1836), II, 340.
67. David Lewis, We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific (Canberra 1973), 227;
68. and Lutke, Voyage, II, 339-40.
69. Ridgell et al., 'The persistence of Central Carolinian navigation', 202.
70. Jeffrey C. Marck, 'Micronesian dialects and the overnight voyage', Journal of the Polynesian Society, 95 (1986), 254-5. Ifalik is the modern rendering of Ifaluk.
71. William H. Alkire, Lamotrek Atoll and Inter-Island, Socioeconomic Ties (LJrbana 1965), 124-5;
72. and Glynn Barratt, Carolinian Contacts with the Islands of the Marianas: The European Record (Saipan 1988), 6-7.
73. Alkire, Lamotrek, 125. Indigenous Carolinian sea-lanes are depicted in Map 2.
74. H. Damm, P. Hambruch and E. Sarfert, 'Inseln urn Truk (Polowat, Hok, Satowal)', in G. Thilenius (ed.), Ergebnisse der Sudsee-Expedition 1908-1910, vol. II, B, VI, ii (Hamburg 1935), 159ff.
75. William A Lessa, More tales from Ulithi Atoll: A Content Analysis (Berkeley 1980), 42-3.
76. Alkire, Lamotrek, 29, 154 refers to the clan as the Mongalifach clan.
77. Edwin G. Burrows & Melford E. Spiro, An Atoll Culture: Ethnography of Ifaluk in the Central Carolines, 2nd edn (New Haven 1957), 131.
78. and Damm et al., 'Inseln um Truk', 43, 80.
79. On the trade with Woleai for canoes, see Chamisso in Kotzebue, A Voyage, III, 192-3.
80. The trade in tobacco from Fais is discussed in Hunter-Anderson and Zan, 'Demystifying', 7;
81. Lessa, More Tales, 38-9;
82. Lessa, 'Carolinian culture', 372:
83. and Kramer, 'Zentralkarolinen', 345. Kramer also discusses the sources of belts (322).
84. Kadu accompanied the Kotzebue expedition on a return voyage to the north Pacific from the Marshall Islands where he had been caught at sea in a storm. Woleai's external contacts and trade partners are outlined by Ghamisso in Kotzebue, A Voyage, III, 97, 196
85. Those of Ifalik are discussed in Burrows and Spiro, An Atoll Culture, 174-5
86. and those of Satawal in Damn et al., 'Inseln um Truk', 37-41, 55.
87. Damm et al., 'Inseln um Truk", 55-6, 82, 107, 155-8, 185
88. Thomas Gladwin, East is a Big Bird; Navigation and Logic on Puluwat Atoll (Cambridge, Mass. 1970), 37-9, 43, 62-3.
89. Lutke, Voyage, III, 144-5.
90. The tendency to play down the prevalence of conflict in this region is outlined in Laura Betzig and Santus Wichimai, 'A not so perfect peace: a history of conflict on Ifaluk', Oceania, 61 (1991), 240.
91. William H. Alkire, 'Central Carolinian oral narratives: indigenous migration theories and principles of order and rank', Pacific Studies, 7 (1984), 1-14, especially 4-7.
92. Berg, "Y'apese politics', 159, suggests that the wars of Ifalik against its neighbours related in these traditions may refer to historical events in the 16th and 17th centuries when Yapese families moved into the area in an attempt to gain control of sources of gau.
93. Betzig and Wichiinai, 'A not so perfect peace', 241, 244, 250.
94. See also Takashy Chipen (comp.), Ueuon Chuk: A Resource of Oral Legends, 'Traditions and History of Truk, 2 vols (Saipan 1979), 209.
95. Gladwin, East is a Big Bird, 16.
96. Chamisso in Kotzehue, A Voyage, III, 111 - 12
97. and Kotzebue, A Voyage, II, 240-1.
98. These numbers are in Document No. 1, AHN, Codices: 1727, 1787, 1828 ff.60-61 [Population], held in the Spanish Documents Collection, MARC, Guam, reproduced in Marjorie G. Driver and Omaira Brumal-Perry (eds), Carolinians in the Mariana Islands in the 1800s (Guam 1996), 2.
99. Information on these drift voyagers comes from Don A. Farrell, History of the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan 1991), 194
100. and Barratt, Carolinian Contacts, 20. Farrell's information came from a Carolinian historian on Saipan, Dr Benusto Kaipat. These traditions are particularly valuable as much of the archive relating to Carolinian traditions was destroyed in a fire in the CNMI Archive on Saipan
101. (Scott Russell, Division of Historical Preservation, CNMI, Saipan, pers comm.).
102. Luis de Ibanez y Garcia, The History of the Marianas, with Navigational Data, and of the Caroline, and, the Palau Islands From the Time of their Discovery by Magellan in 1521 to the Present, trans. and annotated by Marjorie G. Driver (Guam 1992), 171-2.
103. citing Louis de Freycinet, Voyage autour de monde ... executé sur les corvettes de SM. l'Uranie et la Physicienne, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819, et 1820, 5 vols (Paris 1825-44), II:2, Historique (1829), 84.
104. Farrell, History of the Northern. Mariana Islands, 193;
105. de Beauclair, 'The stone money', 152, n.2;
106. and V.M. Golovin, Around the World on the Kamchatka, 1817-1819, trans. Ella L. Wiswell (Honolulu 1979), 231.
107. Mutau-uol is rendered as Metawal Wool, 'the sea route to the north', in Farrell, History of the Northern Mariana Islands, 192.
108. Two canoes came in May 1787, and four in 1788. According to Kaipat, Lamotrek, Satawal, Elato, and Woleai each contributed one canoe to the 1788 fleet led by Luito. Luito is rendered Luwito in Farrell, History of the Northern Mariana Islands. However, Rogers names the expedition's leader as Arlegui: Robert F. Rogers, Destiny's Landfall: A History of Guam (Honolulu 1995), 85.
109. Rogers, Destiny's Landfall, 89.
110. Later in the century, F.W. Christian recorded that the fleet consisted of 18 to 20 canoes (F.W. Christian, The Caroline Islands: Travel in the Sea of Little Lands (London 1967), 20).
111. J. Arago, Narrative of a Voyage Around the World (New York 1971), Pt 2, 10-11.
112. R. P. Lesson, Voyage autour du monde entrepris par ordre du gouvernement sur la corvette 'La Coquille', 4 vols (Bruxelles 1839), II, 122.
113. Due mainly to the cessation of Spain's galleon trade from Acapulco to Manila and return in 1815; whalers visited the area from the 1830s.
114. Louis de Freycinet, Voyage, II, 460-1.
115. F.H. von Kittlitz, Denkwurdigkeiten einer Reise nach dem russischen Amerika, nach Mikronesien und durch Kamtschatka, 2 vols (Gotha 1858)
116. cited in Amanda A. Morgan, 'Mystery in the Eye of the Beholder: Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Western Caroline Islands with a Special Focus on Yap, 1525-1886', MA thesis, University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu 1994), 67.
117. Farrell, History of thr Northern Mariana Islands, 198. Faillelon is sometimes rendered as Failuulol.
118. Arago, Narrative of a Voyage, Part.2, 12;
119. Adelbert von Chamisso, Werke, Bd.1: Reise um die Welt mit der Romanoffischen Entdeckungs-Expedition in den Jahren 1815-18 ... : tagebuch. Bd. 11 : Bemerkungen und Anisichten (Leipzig 1836), II, 187
120. and Scott Russell, From Arabwal to Ashes. A Brief History of Garapan Village: 1818 to 1945 (Saipan 1984), 13.
121. Chamisso, Werke, II, 187
122. Arago, Narrative of a Voyage, II, 12:
123. Russell, Arabwal to Ashes, 11.
124. Farrell, Histoiy of the Northern Mariana Islands, 201.
125. Scott Russell, 'Roots of the Falawasch', MS paper held in the Micronesian Area Research Center Library, Guam, n.d., 1.
126. D. Parker Wilson, Log of the Gypsy, kept by D. Parker Wilson, ship's surgeon, 23 Oct. 1839-19 Mar. 1843
127. Canberra, Australian National University, Division of Pacific and Asian History, Records Room, M198, entry for 30 Aug. 1840, cited in Hezel, The Fust Taint, 106-7.
128. Don Eugenio Sanchez v Zayas, 'The Mariana Islands: The Caroline Islanders', The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle, 35:1 (1866), no. 5, 253-66 (Saypan), 260-1, 264-5.
129. Driver and Brunal-Perry, Carolinians in the Northern Mariana Islands, 292.
130. Saipan's relative isolation from the European world is commented on in Zayas, 'The Mariana Islands', 365
131. Driver and Bru rial-Perry, Carolinians, 62-4, produce Spanish records of payments for inter-island transport services rendered by Falawasch in the 1850s.
132. Document No. 3, PNA, Marianas, Bundle 5(1), Expediente, 3, ff. 1-6, 1839-40, Settlements, letter dated 1 July 1839 held in the Spanish Documents Collection of the MARC, Guam, reproduced in Driver and Brunal-Perry, Carolinians, 6-7.
133. Document No. 4, PNA, Marianas-2, Bundle 25, Memorias, Perez, f. 29a, 1849, Settlements, held in the Spanish Documents Collection, MARC, Guam, reproduced in Driver and Brunal-Perry, Carolinians, 12-13.
134. Alexander Spoehr, Saipan: The Ethnology of a War-Devastated Island, Fieldiana: Anthropology, vol. 41 (Chicago 1954), 71
135. citing Diccionario Geografico Estadistico de las Filipinos Historko 1851 (Madrid 1851).
136. Anice to Ibanez del Carmen et al., Chronicle of the Mariana Islands, trans. Marjorie G. Driver (Guam 1976), 20-1.
137. Government documents relating to the granting of a lease to Johnston to set up enterprises in the northern islands are reproduced in Driver and Brunal-Perry, Carolinians, 95ff. (Document No.16, PNA Marianas, Bundle 33, Expediente 72, ff. 1-39, 1877, Economic Development, Spanish Documents Collection, MARC).
138. Ibanez del Carmen, Chronicle, 64.
139. Georg Fritz, The Chamorro: A History and Ethnography of the Marianas, ed. Scott Russell, trans. Elfriede Craddock (Saipan 1984), 18.
140. Lewis, Voyaging Stars, 93.
141. Hau'ofa, 'Our sea of islands', 155.