Chapter 5 Current Situation
5.5 Contribution and Prospect
Structuralism focuses on the relation among these elements in the structure and uses the diachronic and synchronic method to analyze the history or the event. It is influenced by information theory and mathematics deeply, and tries to apply the scientific method for interpreting and accounting the order and the sequence. Leiv-Strauss is a famous scholar in the Structuralism, and then there are other scholars to use the method and the concept of Structuralism to study the society, such as Marcel Mauss, Edward Evans-Pritchard, Meyer Fortes, Rodney Needham and Edmund Leach in Britain, Marshall Sahlins in the United Stated. The Structuralism is popular to apply in many fields, for example, linguistics, art, architecture, mathematics, psychology and so on. In the linguistics, there was a theory of
“sign, signifier and signified” by Ferdinand de Saussure; In the art, they have the scientific skill and systematical method to depict the human nature in art works. In the architecture, it disregards the human emotional element in the building and creates the geometrical building in the order; In the mathematics, it uses the number and abstract algebra to describe the structure and the operation; In the psychology, it uses the basic element to interpret the complicate phenomenon. However, in cultural study, it is to analyze the social and cultural fact as the structure and then to understand the meaning of element in the position of network, which is usually to discuss the social members in the kinship and the social group or organization.
In this thesis, it is to use structuralism to present the concept of mask in Ambrym island.
From the ritual, kinship and language as the element in the structure, it delineates the interaction and the relation to show the mask as a material object to symbolize the ancestral spirit or a face to greet the ancestor. Finally, it clarifies the position and the role of mask in the Ambrym society and these relative relations in the social structure for a clear outline.
92
In Mask study, masks can have functions of symbolic mutilation, substitute faces, cultural signs, ingenious expression, magic and power, mystic assumption, communal symbols, courier of myths, shape-shifting faces, somatic metamorphosis, dramatic apparitions, masking the other face. Mask in Ambrym has a meaning of a symbolic mutilation as the ancestor, a substitute face as a face to greet the ancestor and secure in the ceremony, a cultural signs as their ceremony, dance, and concept, an ingenious expression to show the intelligence of owner for the social activities and the prestige, a magic and power as a taboo for women, a mystic assumption as to greet the new yam, a communal symbol as the tradition and the historical process, and a somatic metamorphosis as the rebirth and the ancestral spirit.
Mask in Ambrym is different from the mask in New Caledonia which is a death of man rank and at the same times, different from the mask of Indian in Northwest America which is based on the myth and revives a myth in the world. Besides, it is distinguishable that a mask as a power of symbol for Indian is on the myth and for Ambrym is on the custom story.
Hence, in the thesis, it manifests the mask with these functions in Ambrym as an example in Anthropology. It gives the following topics explanations: the grade system, the exchange about pig and mask, the meaning of ritual and ceremony, the kinship for ancestral spirit, the custom story, and the taboo. These make the context clear and show the cultural concept in Ambrym. In addition, it assists to understand the Tamate society and material objects of mask in Melanesia. On the other hand, it provides the whole study of mask in Ambrym for the comparison of mask study in the world.
In Vanuatu study, there are many different aspects to study Vanuatu, for example, the politics and the social form as Michael Allen(1981), the issue of women and gender as Margaret Jolly(1994), the art study as Joël Bonnemaison(1996), the discussion of the space concept of the British colonial period as Margaret Critchlow Rodman(2001) the discussion about the politics and the history in the Condominium period as Brian J. Bresnihan and Keith
93
Woodward (2002), archaeological study as Stuart Bedford (2006) and so on. These researches and references concentrate on the discussion of the tradition, the politics, the personhood in the colonial period and the primitive and antique situation for writing the social fact and form.
In the recent years, the study focuses on the globalization, the change of economy and politics, the impact between the tradition and the current, the dialogue of the past aspects and the now situation in the anthropology as the above of a text in Recent Research. In the contemporary, Vanuatu goes toward the modern and developing nation, in the economic and politic levels, there are some adoptions to adapt the change. In the Pacific, the two powerful nations, China and United States America, will seek to an alliance in the trade and the military with the monetary assistance. Then, the Vanuatu government can face the change and the challenge in this trend and the tradition of the leadership will be changed. One is to preserve and maintain the core value of tradition; other is to adjust the new situation in the world to posit the national position and the strategy. So, the recent researches have many attentions to the change, the impact, and the conflict in the cultural and social study.
For the mask study in this thesis, masks are deemed as the cultural heritage and the traditional material objects by the Vanuatu government. There are many policies and laws to preserve this material object. After the independence, Vanuatu people are processing the kastom movement and appreciate on the traditional value as the national basis. The mask is an important material object on the context, the history, the tradition. Though material objects which related to the tradition disappear in some time by the effect of the Christianity but the Vanuatu Government is to make some policies for reviving the kastom and to concrete the national basis. The composition about masks in this thesis is to strengthen the kastom delineation and the depiction, and describes the traditional value and the core concept to form the Ambrym society. Hence, this thesis in the Vanuatu Study is to increase the explanation about material objects which are involved in the kastom for the less related reference now.
94
In Melanesia study, Vanuatu sits on the cross region between Solomon island and New Caledonia, which has a value history and culture worth studying, and in the academic, it is a important status of Vanuatu study because the British and French government administrated communally this country which was a flexible and alterative region at that time. So, Vanuatu study has abundant history and humanity phenomenon to show a special relation among inlanders British government and the French government. Melanesia study in the tradition and the past is mainly to write down and to record the living type, the social form, and the special exchanging mode of resident (Jacques Barrau 1958; A.P Elkin 1976; Jerry W. Leach and Edmund Leach 1983) and besides, there are for an exhibition in the museum to display a different, exotic or heretical culture or a primitive society in the West world. In the 1990’s, it starts to mention the movement of cargo cult and the colonial effect, and the change in the postcolonial period which is related to the cultural change, the challenge for the tradition, the Identity and the Ethnicity.( Jocelyn Linnekin and Lin Poyer 1990; Lamont Lindstrom 1993;
Roberts J. Foster 1997; Holger Jeben 2004) After building the nation, the world of modernization and westernization comes into these initial countries and the currency and money system to exchange, at the same time, is used in the operation of nation. The change brings into the conflict for the traditional society and living type. (David Akin and Joel Robbins 1999) The anthropologists appreciate on the changes and strive to study these themes. In the Papu New Guinea, there are many scholars to study about history, politics and folk tales. (Sean Dorney 2000; Thomas H. Slone 2001) In Solomon islands, there are some studies about art, commerce about traditional material objects, Christianity and cultural change. ( Jari Kupiainen 2000; William H. Davenport 2005; Michael W. Scott 2007) In New Caledonia, there are some researches about the relation with France, ritual and ceremony, and so on. (Alice Bullar 2000; Denis Monnerie 2005)
In Vanuatu study, the kastom movement is an important theme and this thesis adds some
95
texts to mention about the kastom content and the concept in the social structure. It extends the related reference to make this theme more entire.
In the future, the chiefs perceive the language is a cultural basis and custom, and worry about the loss of original languages in every island, Vanuatu. Then the related authority and Vanuatu Cutural Center implement a series of policy to preserve original and local language.
The primary goal is to make these languages to become an important part in the custom or kastom. That is a crucial how the policies raise the content of custom, kastom and concrete the meaning of kastom. These languages preserve more traditional knowledge and the explanation about living type in the past. The use of this policy can be deemed as the renaissance of tradition which assists to observe the reaction of global challenge in every level for Vanuatu government and people.
In the recent years, the Vanuatu government begins to discuss the export trade about traditional plant, kava plant. That is a prior action to reflect on the attitude of the traditional thing and the commerce. It is a light point to observe that the Vanuatu government gets the balance between the tradition and the trade, and solves the traditional thing into the science of the West world. This traditional plant, kava has a cultural meaning in the tradition which is a material objects to seek the peace but in the science of the West world, the plant has a medical effect. The event can show whether the kastom status is changing or adjusting, and it exists the influence for other traditional objects, including masks.
In the global trend, these inlands in Vanuatu do not separate from the outside world, and a phenomenon is not an independent event but a complex. These islands exist the interaction among each other, for example, the relation among Malekula island, Ambrym island, and Pentecost island, even Epi and Efate island. So, it is a developable theme about the cultural and social interaction in inter-cross islands, even inter-cross regions or countries. That can be added more various conditions into the Vanuatu study and leads the related study complete
96
and whole.
97
References Akin, David and Joel Robbins
1999 Money and modernity :state and local currencies in Melanesia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Barrau, Jacques
1958 Subsistence agriculture in Melanesia. Honolulu: The Museum Bender, Barbara
2006 Place and Landscape. In Handbook of Material Culture, eds. Christopher Tilley and Webb Keane, Pp.303-314. London: Sage Publications.
Bolton, Lissant
2003 Unfolding the Moon: Enacting Women’s Kastom in Vanuatu. Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press.
Bonnemaison, Joel
1986 [1994] Canoe and Tree, translated by Josee Penot-Demetry. US: University of Hawaii Press.
Bullar, Alice
2000 Exile to paradise : savagery and civilization in Paris and the South Pacific, 1790-1900. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Campbell, Joseph
1960 The Historical Development of Mythology. In Myth and Mythmaking, ed. Henry Murry, Pp.19-45. New York: George Braziller.
Connell, John
1985 Migration, Employment and Development in the South Pacific. Country Report No.
20 Vanuatu. New Caledonia: South Pacific Commission.
Davenport, William H.
2005 Santa Cruz Island figure sculpture and its social and ritual contexts. Philadelphia :
98
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Day, Lynda Rose
1988 The Female Chiefs of the Mende, 1885-1977: Tracing the Evolution of an Indigenous Political Institution. Ph.D. thesis. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Deacon, Bernard
1927 The Regulation of Marriage in Ambrym. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 57:325-342.
Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari
1987 [1980] A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Mineapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dorney, Sean
2000 Papua New Guinea : people, politics, and history since 1975. Sydney : ABC Books.
Douglas, Bronwen.
1979 Rank, Power, Authority: A Reassessment of Traditional Leadership in South Pacific Societies. The Journal of Pacific History, 14(1): 2-27.
Dubinskas, Frank A.
1976 “Everywoman” and the "Super" Woman: An Investigation of the Sowo, Spirit of the Mende Women's Secret Society, Sande: The Relation of Her Form as an Ideological Construction to its Bases in the Social and Economic Position of Women.
(Unpublished manuscript) Edson, Gary
2005 Masks and Masking: Faces of Tradition and Belief Worldwide. London: McFarland
& Company.
Elkin, A. P.
1976 Social anthropology in Melanesia : a review of research. Westport, Conn.:
99
Greenwood Press.
Eriksen, Annelin
2009 New Life: Pentecostalism as social critique in Vanuatu. Ethnos, 74: 175-198.
2012 The Pastor and the Prophetess and Analysis of Gender and Christianity in Vanuatu.
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,18: 103-122.
Foster, Roberts J.
1995 Nation Making: Emergent Identities in Postcolonial Melanesia. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Geismar, Haiy
2008 Copyright in context: Carvings, Carvers, and Commodities in Vanuatu. American Ethnologist, 32(3):437459.
2009 Moving images: John Layard, fieldwork and photography on Malekula since 1914.
Adelaide : Crawford House Publishing Australia.
Guiart, Jean
1950 L'après-guerre à Ambrym (Nouvelles-Hébrides). In: Journal de la Société des océanistes. Tome 6. Pp. 238-241.
1956 Systems de Parent6 et Organisation Matrimoniale a Ambrym. Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes, 12:301-326.
Harrisson, T. H.
1937 Savage Civilisation. London: Victor Gollancz.
Hess, Sabine C.
2009 Person and place : ideas, ideals and the practice of sociality on Vanua Lava, Vanuatu.
New York : Berghahn Books.
Marshall, A. J.
1937 The Black Musketeers: The Work and Adventures of a Scientist on a South Sea
100
Island at War and in Peace. London: William Heinemann.
Hatab, L. J.
1990 Myth and Philosophy: A Contest of Truths. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Henaff, Marcel
1998 Claude Levi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology. translated by Mary Baker. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Huizinga, Johan
1955 Homo Ludens. Boston: Beacon Press.
Jacobson, Claire
1963 Translator’s Preface. In Structural Anthropology, Pp. viiii-xvi. New York: Basic Books.
Jebens, Holger
2004 Cargo, cult, and culture critique. Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press.
Jonaits, Aldona
1991 Chiefly Feasts: The Enduring Kwakiutl Potlatch. London and Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Kafir, Sidney L.
1988 West African Masks and Cultural System. Annals, vol. 126. Tervuren: Musee Royal de l’Afrique Centrale.
Keane, Webb
2006 Part III: Subjects and Objects. In Handbook of Material Culture, eds. Christopher Tilley and Webb Keane, Pp.197-202. London: Sage Publications.
Kupiainen, Jari
2000 Tradition, trade and woodcarving in Solomon Islands. Denmark : Intervention Press.
Lamb, R.
101
1905 Saints and Savages. London.
Layard, John W.
1942 Stone Men of Malekula: The Small Island of Vao. London: Chatto & Windus.
Leach, Jerry W. and Edmund Leach
1983 The Kula : new perspectives on Massim exchange. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press.
Levi-Strauss, Claude
1963 Structural Anthropology. translated by Claire Jacobson. New York: Basic Books.
1969 [1964] The Raw and the Cooked. Vol. 1 of Mythologiques. Tran John and Doreen Weightman. New York: Harper and Row.
1975(1982) The Way of the Masks. (translated by Sylvia Modelski). Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Lindstrom, Lamont
1990 Big Men as Ancestors: Inspiration and Copyrights on Tanna (Vanuatu), Ethnology, 29(4):313-326.
1993 Cargo Cult: Strange Stories of Desire from Melanesia and Beyond. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press.
1997 Chief in Vanuatu Today. In Chief Today: Traditional Pacific Leadership and the Postcolonial State, eds Geoffrey M. White and Lamont Lindstrom, Pp.211-228.
California: Stanford University Press.
Lini, Walter
1980 Beyond Pandemonium: From the New Hebrides to Vanuatu. Wellington:Asia Pacific Books.
Linnekin, Jocelyn and Lin Poyer
1990 Cultural Identity and Ethnicity in the Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
102
LiPuma, Edward
2000 Encompassing Others: The Magic of Modernity In Melanesia. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
MacClancy, J.
1980 To Kill a Bird with Two Stone: A Short History of Vanuatu. Port Vila: Vanuatu Culture Centre.
Mack, John
1994 Mask: the art of expression. London: The British Museum Press.
Malinowski, B.
1944 A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
McKesson, John A.
1990 In Search of the Origins of the New Caledonian Mask. In Art and Identity in Oceania, eds. A. Hanson and L. Hanson, Pp. 84-92. Bathurst: Crawford House Press.
Mile, William F. S.
1998 Bridging Mental Boundaries in a Postcolonial Microcosm: Identity and Development in Vanuatu. Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press.
Monnerie, Denis
2005 La parole de notre maison : discours et cérémonies kanak aujourd'hui (Nouvelle-Calédonie). Paris : CNRS Editions.
Muller, K.
1970 A Rum Dance in North Ambrym. Unpublished manuscript.
Palmer, J.
1996 Need and Functions: the Terms of a Debate. In Design and Aesthetics, eds. J. Palmer and M. Dodson, Pp. 110-122. London and New York: Routledge.
103
Paton, W. F.
1954 The Language and Life of Ambrym. Ph.D. thesis. Department of Linguistics, Melbourne University.
1979 Customs of Ambrym. Pacific Linguistics, Series D, No. 22. Canberra: Australian National University.
Patterson, Mary
1976 Kinship, marriage and ritual in North Ambrym. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Anthropology Department, University of Sydney.
1981 Slings and Arrows: Ritual of Status Acquisition In North Ambrym. In Vanuatu:
Politics, Economics and Ritual in Island Melanesia, eds. Michael Allen, Pp. 189-215.
Australia: Academic Press.
Rio, Knut
2010 Handling Sorcery in a State System of Law: Magic, Violence and Kastom in Vanuatu.
Oceania, 80:182-197.
River, W.
1914 The History of Melanesian Society, Volume II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rodman, W. L.
1982 Gaps, Bridges and Levels of Law: Middlemen as Mediators in a Vanuatu Society. In Rodman and Counts 1982:69-95.
Rose, Roger G.
1990 The Masked Tamate of Vanikoro. In Art and Identity in Oceania, eds. A. Hanson and L. Hanson, Pp. 111-128. Bathurst: Crawford House Press.
Rousseau, Benedicta
2012 "Vot Long Stret Man": Personality, Policy, and the Election of Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu 2008. The Contemporary Pacific, 24(1): 98-118.
Rumey, Alan
104
2001 Tracks, Traces, and Links to Land in Aboriginal Australia, New Guinea, and Beyond.
In Emplaced Myth: Space Narrative, and Knowledge in Aboriginal Australia and Papua New Guinea, eds. Alan Rumsey and James Weiner, Pp. 19-42. Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press.
Sahlins, M. D.
1963 Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-Man, Chief: Political types in Melanesia and Polynesia.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5(3): 285-303.
Scheffler, H. W.
1970 Ambrym Revisited: A Preliminary Report. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 26:52-66.
Scott, Michael W.
2007 The severed snake : matrilineages, making place, and a Melanesian Christianity in southeast Solomon Islands. Durham: Carolina Academic Press.
Seligman, B.
1927 Bilateral Descent and the Formation of Marriage Classes. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 57:349-375.
Slone, Thomas H.
2001 One thousand one Papua New Guinean nights : folktales from Wantok newspaper.
Oakland: Masalai Press.
Speiser, Felix
1912 Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific. London: The Project Gutenberg EBook.
Strathern, Andrew
1966 Despots and Directors in the New Guinea Highlands. Man, 1(3):356-367.
1971 The Rope of Moka: Big-Men and Ceremonial Exchange in Mount Hagen, New
105
Guinea. UK: Cambridge University Press Strother, Z. S.
1998 Inventing Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central Pende. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Tilley, Christopher
2006 Part I Theoretical Perspectives. In Handbook of Material Culture. eds Christopher Tilley and Webb Keane, Pp. 7-11. London: Sage Publications.
Tonkin, Elizabeth
1979 Mask and Power. Man, 14(2): 237-248 Tonkinson, Robert
1977 The Exploitation of Ambiguity: a New Hebrides case. Exiles and Migrants in Oceania, Eds. M. Lieber. Pp.269-295. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
1979 The Paradox of Permanency in a Resettled New Hebridean Community, Mass
1979 The Paradox of Permanency in a Resettled New Hebridean Community, Mass