Feinberg Richard. Oral Traditions of Anuta: A Polynesian Outlier in the Solomon Islands

Oxford University Press, 1998. — x, 294 pages. — (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics). — ISBN: 0-19-510683-0.Anuta is a small Polynesian community in the eastern Solomon Islands that has had minimal contact with outside cultural forces. Even at the end of the twentieth century, it remains one of the most traditional and isolated islands in the insular Pacific. In Oral Traditions of Anuta, Richard Feinberg offers a telling collection of Anutan historical narratives, including indigenous texts and English translations. This rich, thorough assemblage is the result of a collaborative project between Feinberg and a large cross-section of the Anutan community that developed over a period of twenty-five years.The volume's emphasis is ethnographic, consisting of a number of texts as related by the island's most respected experts in matters of traditional history. Feinberg's annotations, which arm the reader with essential ethnographic and historical contexts, clarify important linguistic and cultural issues that arise from the stories. The texts themselves have important implications for the relationship of oral tradition to history and symbolic structures, and afford new evidence pertinent to Polynesian language sub-grouping. Further, they provide insight into a number of Anutan customs and preoccupations, while also suggesting certain widespread Polynesian practices dating back to the pre-contact and early contact periods.Motikitiki the Trickster and the Creation of Anuta
Peopling the Island
Early Invasions Are Repulsed
Pu Raatu Goes to War in Tonga
The Chiefly Brethren's First Battle
Extermination of Anuta's Population and the Origin of the Four 'Clans'
War with Tikopia
Beginnings of the House of Pangatau
Adventures of Pu Rotomua
Love and War: Relations with Rotuma
Creation of a Second Chief and an Invasion from Tuvalu
The Warrior Friends: Pu Nevaneva and Pu Tokerau
Contacts of the Early European Period
The Dawn of a New Era