The Social and Political Systems of Central Polynesia, Volume 1

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The University Press, 1924 - 983 pages
 

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Page 161 - Tooitonga as if actually existing in his full rank, with all the public honours of religious estimation ; but it will be recollected, that, before Mr Mariner's departure from...
Page 46 - ... anything without formally consulting all concerned. Were he to persist in attempting to do otherwise, they would take his title from him, and give it to another. The members of a family can thus take the title from their head, and heads of families can unite and take the title from their chief, and give it to his brother, or uncle, or some other member of the chief family, who, they think, will act more in accordance with their wishes.
Page 374 - So far as their tribes can be said to have a political constitution, it is a democrary, or rather an oligarchy of old and influential men, who meet in council, and decide on all measures of importance, to the practical exclusion of the younger men. Their deliberative assembly answers to the senate of later times. The elders who in Australia thus meet and direct the affairs of their tribe appear to be for the most part the head men of their respective totem groups — and while they have certainly...
Page 250 - Group consists of seven inhabited islets Each is supposed to be the body, or outward form, to which a spirit, bearing a distinct name. located in Avaiki, belongs".
Page 343 - mataqali " is composed of the descendants of a mataveitathini, or band of brothers, from each of whom is descended a minor division called a yavusa, and each yavusa may be again sub-divided into a number of vuvale, consisting of brothers with their families, who inhabit either the same house, or adjoining houses. That is to say, a number of vuvale make up a yavusa, a number of yavusa make up a mataqali, and a number of mataqali make up a koro. The people of a koro are theoretically of common descent,...
Page 374 - Turner, p. 267 was Singano, from whom came Kava and Vasefanua, from whom came Pi'o and Tevaka (both originally belonging to Fakaofo), the only two families bearing rank as chiefs1. Turner says the government of Fakaofo was monarchical, and the king, tui-Tokelau was high-priest as well. There were three families from which the king was selected, and they always chose an aged man, because, they said, a young man was a bad ruler. Their great god was Tui Tokelau, or king of Tokelau2. According to Bird,...
Page 378 - Funafuti is the island from which the bulk of our information has been obtained, and it discloses a system of alternating succession to the throne. Newell says the people were descended from five clans, all of Samoan origin4. According to Turner, the kingship alternated in four or five leading families, and when one king died another was chosen by the family next in turn5. Hedley was told that a system had long prevailed on the island of government by a king and subordinate chief, the latter succeeding...
Page 18 - India and the shores of the Persian Gulf; that, when other traces here fail, yet the language points farther north, to the Aryan stock in its earlier days, long before the Vedic irruption in India; and that for long ages the Polynesian family was the recipient of a Cushite civilisation, and to such an extent as almost entirely to obscure its own consciousness of parentage and kindred to the Aryan stock.
Page 41 - ... other all over the group, is proof positive that there must have long existed there some system of government. A good deal of order was maintained by the union of two things, viz. civil power and superstitious fear. I. As to the first of these, their government had, and still has, more of the patriarchal and democratic in it, than of the monarchical. Take a village, containing a population, say, of three to five hundred, and there will probably be found there from ten to twenty titled heads of...
Page 319 - Melville, p. 25. off any straggler or make descent on inmates of some sequestered habitation1. According to Baessler the valleys were once thickly populated; each was inhabited by a special clan, having a chief at its head, and at constant feud with its neighbours on the right and left2. Von Schleinitz says that not only were the islands independent among themselves, but the individual groups (Stdmme) on the different islands were independent3. Jardin says that in Nukuhiva and the other islands each...

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