Melanesian Names
The Melanesian NamesOn the trail of the Melanesian person: Emotion and Relationships in Lihir - Susan R. Hemer
"By analysing the daily lives of Lihirians in Papua New Guinea, this volume examines what it means to be Lihirians. Feelings are an omnipresent part of Lihir's world. Feelings are motivation, reaction and comment about the state of oneself and others; in a nutshell, feelings are an inherent part of relationships and people in Lihir.
Going beyond encyclopaedic analysis, Hemer points out that "the pronounced emphasis on the semantic of emotions in human Anthropology was at the cost of the impersonated practices of emotions that were evident in Lihir".
Story of the Melanesian Society - William Halse Rivers
William Halse Rivers (1864-1922) was a pioneering doctor, shrink and early 20th c., particularly recalled for his work on the mental disturbances caused by the First World War. This 1914 two-volume work presents his theories of the spread of civilization in the Southwest Pacific.
It is of value to anyone interested in the histories of the Pacific or anthropological world.
Clan
Melanesians arrived in New Caledonia about 4000 years ago and perhaps 6000 years ago. Later, it came to a mixture with groups from the middle Pacific: Tonga, Fiji, Wallis and Futuna. The Melanesian inhabitants had a long tradition and a well-established cultural heritage when the Europeans explored New Caledonia.
Colonization transformed the indigenous territories and partially ruined their culture organisation. It is the basis of the organisation. His name is a landmark of the great case with his long statue ("flèche faîtière") at the top, which represents the original ancestors in style.
Familylines are connected with a name of a cluster, a region, ancestry and a story. To this day, the names of families and associated line names allow the hybrid descendants of the families to be recognised as full members and Kanak. Mainly the group is made up of 5 generation old families, grandfathers, dads, brethren, sons, grandchildren.
Mythical, it is created by an forefather, of whom it is divided into so many different branches that they were at its origins brethren. The hierarchical organization of a line. If a man from this line of cadets does not change to the older line of another class, he cannot claim to be head of the group. In other words, the Clans are organised in knowledge and forces that are all combined to guarantee the continuation of the clansrepresentation.
It was a lively calender and justified the good relation of his class to the powers of the universes (A. Bensa). There is a wide area of the river Clans, spread out and subdivided according to the line, historical and different features of the country (water, cereals, vegetation, wildlife, shrimp, etc.). There is a mythic aspect to it, the house is from the soil, the soil is feminine and mum.
Clan are grouped into states. Every nation had ten or several dozen civilizations that lived together without a federation and centralised state. However, a state had a hierarchical organisation and strong ties resulting from the trade of wives, goods and presents. Especially the clan were kept together by marriage covenants and the ceremonial obligation to share wives.
This has the consequence that the parent relationships are highly complicated. Nevertheless, the Kanak know very well how to localize themselves between the theoretical fixation of the masculine line and the females who are the moving element from one group to another. Coercive resettlement of the population during the colonisation has further extended the network of civilizations from one end of the island to the other.
Every state has a dominating tongue that serves as a powerful liaison between the warriors. This number of lands shows how split Melanesian societies were. In fact, the high cabin ("Grande Case") was often very high, the cluster icon and its centre. This was a conically formed edifice placed on a round hill of soil, which was another landmark of the group.
As a rule, the uppermost statue symbolised the original ancestors of the group. The low round cabins of the ladies were on each side. There are still many long rows of cabins along the long crest of the Grande Terre mountain range (but not in the barren ultra-basic rocky areas), if you look at the shape of the soils.
However, they were the basic connecting element between the land of the tribe and the basis of relations between the two. Matrimonies were organised in a systematic way, with wives from one class arriving to get married in the other. This gave them the prerogative to move around free from one town to another even in tense relationships between the families.
Females used to live with their kids in small round cabins on each side of the Clanhütte. Colonisation has shifted and decreased the territory of the classes. It is a tribe, a collegiate administrative entity, which has overshadowed the tradition of cluster organisation. Through the nomination of tribal chieftains with roles and authority in accordance with EU approaches, the collegiate government has changed the essence of the chieftain's tradition.
After the establishment of the church mission and the colonisation, the organisation of the villages no longer has a connection to the past. Contemporary living has penetrated the Melanesian context (dependence on currency, occupation, modern living, power, television, telephone, automobiles, consumers' needs, buying food that replaces conventional production).
State-of-the-art organisation with municipalities and counties overlaps with the conventional organisation and has a greater impact. It replaces conventional powers with the benefit of being attainable through a participatory democracy. Conventional regulations and the laws of France govern together. Conventional marriages are no longer acceptable. Wives are free to elect their spouses outside the Clanland or from other localities ("Europeans", Polynesians, etc.).
Spouses get rid of the influence and rule of the family. Her home becomes her own and allows her man and woman to coexist more closely, while they were divided in the tradition nal way of being. In many cases, standard "coutume" rituals still take place, but rarely have their previous functions, which consisted in strengthening the bonds of unity of the classes.
It also becomes a symbol to Europeans and other foreigners to commemorate the alleged Melanesian territory as the first settler. However, the Kanak civilization, the Lineage and the Agrarian Organisation are still powerful characteristics of the Kanak Societies. Despite the impact of the Melanesian culture and the impact of the formal English culture, most Melanesian tongues are still in use.
This shows the Melanesian devotion to their civilization and their past opposition to the collonial state. "Yesterday's and Today's Canaque Clans " von E.Métais in "La New Caledonia, occupation de l'espace et peuplement" Sammlung "Iles et Archipels", 1986. New Caledonia Atlas, Ortsom 1981 with especially A. Bensa, (CNRS, Università ParisV) "Clans autochthonous: situatio precoloniale" and J.C. Rivierre (CNRS) " linguistique".