Beautiful Geography: The Pictorial Maps of Ruth Taylor White

This paper explores the career of Ruth Taylor White, an American cartographic illustrator who published a significant number of pictorial maps from the 1920s into the 1940s. Taylor White’s ‘cartographs’ (as she called them) were characterized by her signature bobble-headed cartoon characters who romped through colourful, attractive landscapes. These visually rich and highly narrative maps simultaneously strove for accuracy and engaged in profound stereotyping with regard to culture, race, gender and class. They reveal not only the aesthetic and conceptual preferences of their maker but also the cultural biases of their middle-class, white American audience.     

Reflections on North American Pacific Coast prehistory

The Pacific Coast of North America was occupied by many distinctive groups of coastal hunter-gatherers at the times of early contacts with Europeans. Despite significant cultural diversity, Pacific Coast peoples shared lifeways oriented toward generally similar marine, nearshore, littoral, and estuarine habitats. In this paper, we examine some major issues that guide much of the archaeology done along the Pacific Coast, then discuss some of the theoretical and methodological problems that limit the efficacy of archaeological reconstructions. Most archaeological research conducted on North America's Pacific Coast has been oriented toward the search for the origins and development of a variety of cultural patterns. A comparative review of California and Northwest Coast sequences provides interesting parallels and discrepancies in the approaches taken in studying some of the major issues in Pacific Coast prehistory.     

Investigating Human Migration and Horse‐Trading in Yelang (夜郎) Through Strontium Isotope Analysis of Skeletons from Zhougshui Sites,South‐West China (1300 bc – ad 25)

Yelang (夜郎), a mysterious state located in the south‐western area of early China and dating from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age (1300 bc – ad 25), is a cultural interactive junction between the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau and the Yangtze River Basin. The Zhongshui Basin in Weining County, Guizhou Province, was one of the important distribution areas of the Yelang civilization. This area, which includes sites at Jigongshan (鸡公山; 1300 – 800 bc ), Hongyingpan (红营盘; 700 – 400 bc ) and Yinzitan (银子坛; 400 bc – ad 25), has provided a very integrated chronology, spanning from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age in the eastern Yunnan – western Guizhou area. To investigate human migration and horse‐trading at these Yelang sites, we conducted a strontium isotopic analysis on the teeth enamel of humans and horses unearthed from these three sites. The results indicated the following: (1) people at the earlier sites (Jigongshan and Hongyingpan) were all indigenous, whereas in the Yinzitan cemetery, there was a more immigrant population, and all the people who were buried in an upper limb flexed supine position were non‐local; and (2) most of the horses found at the Jigongshan and Yinzitan sites show different provenances, probably related to the famous Dian (滇) and Zuo (筰) horses recorded in historical documents, providing more clues for further study on horse‐trading in South‐West China during the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.     

Why Does the Cook Islands Still Need Overseas Aid?

The Cook Islands Government spends more than 40 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Its tax revenue is capped at 25 per cent of GDP under a 1998 austerity package agreed with its creditors New Zealand, Nauru and the Asian Development Bank. Non-tax revenue is 5 per cent of GDP, and external aid fills the resulting gap. This recently renewed reliance on aid contrasts sharply with the strong performance of the economy’s private sector, driven by a booming tourism industry, which has pushed the balance of payments into a huge surplus and raises important questions about the allocation of the gains from growth.     

Much Lost,Little Gained? Contemporary Trade Agreements in the Pacific Islands

At the close of the 20th century, it was increasingly clear that Pacific Island countries would struggle to remain competitive in international commodity and merchandise trade. As governments worldwide embraced free trade, many Island exporters looked set to be displaced by more efficient producers elsewhere. Island policymakers also faced pressure from more powerful states to renegotiate trading arrangements to bring them into alignment with the rules of the World Trade Organization. This article explains how Pacific Island countries responded to the overlapping challenges of globalization. It considers strategies pursued by Island states in negotiations with the European Union (EU), and with Australia and New Zealand. In both cases, Pacific Islands pressed for agreements that would take account of their unique trading circumstances, and arrangements that would allow more Pacific Islanders to work abroad. After nearly two decades of talks, however, final results proved disappointing. A proposed regional Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU was essentially abandoned, and a regional trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand was concluded without the signature of Fiji or Papua New Guinea – the two largest Pacific Island economies. Ultimately, contemporary trade agreements in the Pacific achieved little to ameliorate the competitive disadvantages Pacific Island states face participating in international trade.     

On Skin and Bone: Samoan Coconut Oil in Indigenous Practice

ABSTRACT

International promotional material on coconut oil commonly references its centuries of use as a beauty and health aid by Pacific Islanders. However, this gesture towards Indigenous Pacific use of coconut oil is rarely accompanied by substantive information. This paper explores the topical application of coconut oil in three Indigenous Samoan practices: fofō, or massage by taulāsea and other forms of customary healers or medical attendants; samaga, the anointing with coconut oil of the newly inked pe‘a or malu to mark the completion of these customary tattoos; and liutofaga, the ritual ‘washing’ of the bones of a deceased relative with coconut oil prior to reinterment. This paper argues that there are interrelated practical, medicinal, and spiritual dimensions to Samoan uses of coconut oil, and that these are usefully understood through reference to Samoan conceptions of sociospatial relationship, or vā.     

Breadfruit Fermentation in Pohnpei,Micronesia: Site Formation,Archaeological Visibility,and Interpretive Strategies

Fermentation is a common method of processing and preserving breadfruit throughout the Pacific Islands. While these pits are often reported in the archaeological record, they can pose some interpretive challenges. This paper presents an analysis of probable archaeological breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg) fermentation pits on Temwen Island, Pohnpei, Micronesia. Using the existing ethnographic record as a guide, I present archaeological and paleoethnobotanical criteria for identifying fermentation features. Architectural and stratigraphic analyses from four excavated pits match ethnographic expectations. Phytolith analysis shows some concurrence in terms of taxonomic data, but is more useful for indicating disturbance specific to building activities. Based on the distribution and size of pits present in the survey area, I suggest that breadfruit fermentation took place as primarily a household level (rather than community level) activity during the late prehistoric and early historic period in Pohnpei.     

Woman's Work in the Service of Empire: Lady Margaret Field (1905–94) from School Teacher to Governor's Wife

The presence of single and also of married British women in overseas colonies, especially those employed by or married to men in the Colonial Service in the later colonial period, has been the subject of scholarly enquiry. Their lives, roles and values and their distinctive contribution, if any, to the development of empire and of its ending have been debated. Their gendered roles were usually subordinate in a masculine culture of empire, and especially as wives they are commonly regarded as marginalised. The archived records left by Lady Margaret Field reveal her commitment as a single woman to a colonial mission and her sense of achievement as a school teacher and educational administrator, while also acknowledging the independence and career satisfactions she subsequently lost when she married a senior Colonial Service officer who rose to be a governor. But it is also apparent that, though incorporated and subordinate as a governor's wife to her husband's career, she was not marginalised to a separate sphere. As is evident from this case study, governors’ wives had important and demanding political duties, and such responsibilities need to be acknowledged.     

Heritage transactions at the Festival of Pacific Arts

The Festival of Pacific Arts, hosted by a different Pacific Island state once every four years, is a prime site for the reproduction of the global discourse on heritage. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at the festival, this paper focuses on how the concept of heritage is employed at the festival as both an instrument of statecraft and a tool for the assertion of grass-roots political and economic agency. We conclude that heritage in the context of the festival is a form of cultural practice involving relationships of power and inequality, expressed in transactions of ownership and value transformations that have become over determined by economic logic and the concept of property.     

Money,Manipulation and Misunderstanding on Manus Island

The treatment of asylum seekers at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has attracted much international attention, but there has been little analysis of its local and transnational impact. This article investigates the repercussions for the communities on Manus Island, on domestic affairs in PNG, and on the relationship between PNG and Australia. Overall, it concludes that the costs arising from the money, manipulation and misunderstanding generated by the centre seem likely to outweigh the purported benefits, particularly for Manusians and other ordinary Papua New Guineans.