BOOK REVIEWS 223

Pies Blong Iumi: Solomon Islands, ThePast Four Thousand Years, edited byHugh Laracy. Suva and Honiara: Uni­versity of the South Pacific, 1989. ISBN

a drunk (and died later in the day, as itturned out). Yet when I drove to SapukVillage, formerly a notorious troublespot, on that same payday evening, Ihad no fear of having to dodge rocks orthe knife thrusts of young men leapingonto the road.

Drinking continues and so doesviolence, the authors acknowledge, butwith some notable changes. Publicdrunkenness and violence occur lessfrequently, police arrests for drunkenand disorderly behavior short ofassault are more numerous, and drink­ers are far more cautious than in thepreprohibition days. While this mayseem to have driven the alcohol prob­lem from the streets into the backyard(homicides occur increasingly withinthe family or neighborhood circle), thisin itself is no small achievement. Butperhaps the greatest gain is that localpeople have successfully altered thepattern of alcohol use and in doing so,have reasserted their control over theircommunity. The significance of thismay have gone unnoticed in the contin­uing debate over prohibition if theMarshalls had not underscored it intheir valuable little book. Before judg­ments are passed on the wisdom of theMoen law or on similar attempts ofother traditional communities to"exorcise their evil spirits," SilentVoices Speak is must reading.

FRANCIS x. HEZEL, SJ

Micronesian Seminar

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982-02-0027-X, xiv + 151 pp, appen­dixes, photographs, select bibliogra­phy, index. US$12.

The book Pies Blong Iumi is importantin three ways: it represents the firstattempt by Solomon Islanders to rein­terpret, produce, and add an indige­nous perspective to their history; itcontributes to the development of liter­ature by Islanders emerging from thiscountry and the Pacific; and by usingand documenting indigenous sourcesof knowledge, it underscores the valueof the experiences and achievements ofthe people of Taem Bilo.

In the chapter entitled "Digging,"Alec Rukia presents two indigenousviews of Islander origins and examineslinguistic theories on the settlement ofthe Solomons by two distinct languagegroups (Papuan and Austronesian) thatcame from Southeast Asia between fivethousand and thirty-five hundred yearsago. He summarizes the nature, devel­opment, and findings of archaeologicalinvestigations. Remains are catego­rized into three broad "cultural com­plexes," the Lapita Cultural Complexbeing the only one that can be corre­lated with a linguistic group whoseearliest settlements go back in timesome three thousand years. The ques­tion of why Papuan speakers arepresent on Lapita sites cannot beanswered at this time since no investi­gations have been conducted on themajor islands (except Guadalcanal)where the oldest settlements are likelyto be found. The current evidence doesnot represent the earliest settlements.

In "Remembering," Jan Sanga dis­cusses how the various bodies of tradi­tional knowledge were preserved

224 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC. SPRING I99I

through their repetition and oral trans­mission. Memory is key in this process,and Sanga illustrates its importancethrough two stories, one being anaccount of the settlement of Ulawa thatnow serves as a record of the genealogyof the chiefs of that island. Memoriesof experiences andperteptibI1s ofIslanders who participated in majorevents such as laboring on Europeanplantations and the Second World Waradd an Islander perspective to existingwritten records.

In "Writing I," Joseph Waleanisiabegins with an examination of the useof European written records to recon­struct some of the past of SolomonIslands. He then traces the develop­ment of indigenous literacy, first initi­ated through missionization and laterby international labor migration.Notable achievements include the eth­nographic accounts by Geoffrey Kuperand George Bogese. The 1970S saw thebirth of indigenous newsletters thatserved asa vehicle for discussion ofimportant issues and for an intellectualdebate between the local elite and theAraikwao (white persons). The partici­pation of Islanders in documentingtheir own past is also given significanttreatment.

In "Writing II," Edward Iamae illus­trates the use of poetry as a form ofexpressive narrative for entertainmentand as a means of preserving and trans­mitting knowledge and social values inTaem Bifo. Much like the earlierguardians of kastom, contemporarypoets and other writers are seen ascommentators on political, economic,and social values.

In the chapter "Time," JosephWaleanisia discusses the concept oftime, contrasting Western examples

with some traditional ones. Unlike thereckoning of Western time, the func­tion and measurement of traditionaltime were bound up with the occur­rence of natural and supernaturalevents. Such events were used to chartimportant ceremonies and rituals, but

"these and"people's immediate needs-­and activities in turn adjusted time,giving it a flexible, unregulated, andunstructured nature. The Lisiala Cal­endar provides a view that is numericalyet cyclical, in contrast to the lineardimension of Western time.

Romano Kokonge, in his chapter"The Arts," makes the close connectionbetween the arts and the people's mun­dane activities. Valued not only fortheir aesthetic value, the visual arts hadsignificant religious, ceremonial, andsocial meanings. The performing artswere forms of entertainment, main­taining social harmony, and a meansthrough which traditions were pre­served and passed on. Art forms andthe contexts in which they were prac­ticed or performed have changed tre­mendously following Westernization.What continuity has been maintainedin some of the visual arts is mostlythrough their increasing commodifica­tion.

Lawrence Foanaota, writing on"Social Change," presents a generalizedview of the impact of modernization onvarious aspects of traditional societies-settlement patterns, religious prac­tices, population movements, andsocial organization. Amid thesechanges, continuity is maintained, forexample, through family lineage,which determines the allocation ofproperty and, most important, theinheritance of land.

In a broad discussion of religion,

BOOK REVIEWS

Father Leslie Fugui and Simeon Butuattempt to explain the nature and func­tion of traditional religion. The variousChristian affiliations are situated in thehistory of the missionization of the dif­ferent islands by the various Christiandenominations. According to theauthors, the most important contribu­tion of Christian ideology has been thepromotion of peace and national unity.

Moffat Wasuka, Toswell Kaua, andSimeon Butu discuss the traditionaleducation that was carried out in a cul­tural context immediate and meaning­ful to the lives of children as they weresocialized to become adult members oftheir societies. Western education, ini­tiated by the missions, later supervisedby the British administration, and nowthe responsibility of the Solomons gov­ernment, alienates youth from theircultures and fails to fulfill their aspira­tions. One of the notable consequencesof Western-style education has been thedevelopment of social differences man­ifest in the existence of an elite. As aninstitution through which social valuesare instilled and perpetuated, formaleducation, the authors imply, is likelyto promote such differences, especiallyin a country where education is notaccessible to all.

Sam Alasia discusses populationmovement as a feature of the islands'past that involved numbers of peoplemoving between and beyond theirislands. This traditional movementwas intensified by the internationallabor trade in the I870S and the subse­quent development of plantations.Associated with population movementare the more recent inflow of otherethnic groups and the relocation ofpockets of population due to pressureon land resources and natural disas-

225

ters. In examining this modern move­ment, Alasia focuses on the movementbetween Malaita and Honiara.

John Ipo is concerned with severalissues: traditional land tenure systems,land as the fundamental basis for sus­taining a subsistence economy, andland as an intricate link to political andsocial institutions. The establishmentof a Western export-oriented economywas necessary to support the protector­ate and was facilitated through thealienation of large tracts of land. Dis­putes between Islanders and Araikwaoplanters were often due to misunder­standings regarding land ownership.The most significant current land dis­putes have been between the peopleand the government, which facilitatesthe exploitation of natural resources bytransnational companies. There arealso contests between more kastom­minded groups and those who nowperceive land increasingly in commer­cial terms. EVidently government landdevelopment schemes have contributedto notions of individual land owner­ship.

Sam Alasia, in his second chapter,discusses the nature of the traditionalpolity and the development of Western­style politics. Colonialism, Christian­ity, and a capitalist economy resultedin the demise of many traditional polit­ical systems, and their replacement bya central government. He cites some ofthe significant indigenous politicalstruggles against the protectorate asattempts by Islanders to either asserttheir own sovereignty or to participatein the colonial political system. Prior tothe I960s, Islander participation inpolitics was nonexistent. Politicalorganization in the following decadewas a step toward attaining self-gov-

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226 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1991

ernment and the development of partypolitics. Alasia notes features of big­man politics that have been incorpo­rated into contemporary political prac­tices.

Pies Biong Iumi, like any other his­tory, is not without its flaws andbiases. Two basic questions that cometo mind are: What sort of history arewe producing? and Who is it for? Moststriking is the unbalanced compositionof the contributors. Among the four­teen writers, there is only one womanand no representative of other ethnicgroups such as the Araikwao, the Chi­nese, or the I-Kiribati. While Gua­dalcanal, Santa Catalina, Marovo,Bellona, and the Shortlands are repre­sented by one writer each, the othernine contributors are from Malaita.Consequently, although certain chap­ters use illustrations from some of theother islands, for example Kokonge'schapter on the arts, the book as awhole draws examples predominantlyfrom Malaita. It would be more correcttherefore to say that Pies Biong Iumi isa history seen through the eyes of oneofthe dominant groups, and a male­dominated one at that.

The other works in the University ofthe South Pacific history series werepublished both in English and the ver­naculars. Why was Pies Biong Iumi notpublished in Pijin as well? Who is theintended readership-foreign scholars,our educated elite, or school children?If for school children, at what stage inthe education curriculum is it intendedto be used? Publication only in Englishdrastically limits readership.

Pies Biong Iumi gives an elitist per­spective on the Solomons' past. Theemphasis on certain events and individ-

uals in the chronology, the choice ofphotographs, and the contents of thechapters all illustrate this point. It is nowonder that the Western-educatedauthors of the book are concerned withreconstructing history or preoccupiedwith the rhetoric of preserving cultures

- and traditions. 'These writers are-liketourists to the people and the past theydescribe. The people who actually livethese cultures and traditions are not atall represented.

How can we produce or create Solo­mon Islands literature within a broaderscholarship? Overall the chapters areuneven. While some are well-written,for example John Ipo's "Land andEconomy," Joseph Waleanisia's"Time," and Jan Sanga's "Remember­ing," others are either too general orunsubstantiated. As a case in point,Lawrence Foanata's chapter on socialchange would have benefited from fur­ther research. Sam Alasia makes adirect link between recent populationmovemenrand rapid populationgrowth (119). While it is true that pop­ulation pressure on land resources wasthe impetus for the relocation of cer­tain pockets of population, it is simplynot true in the case of the Solomonsthat these phenomena are exclusivelylinked. There is also the question of aregional focus in this population move­ment. Although the movement be­tween Malaita and Honiara is morevisible, it is not the most significant.The proportion of people moving inand out of Honiara (1986 census) andMakira is about the same as that forMalaita. All in all, population move­ment since the 1960s is a complex phe­nomenon and should perhaps havebeen omitted from the chapter.

BOOK REVIEWS 227

SALOME SAMOU

University ofHawaii at Manoa

Contracting Colonialism: Translationand Christian Conversion in TagalogSociety under Early Spanish Rule, byVicente L. Rafael. Ithaca and London:Cornell University Press, 1988. ISBN 0­

8°14-2065-2, xiii + 230 pp, illustra­tions, notes, bibliography, index.us$26·95·

There are also flaws in the referenc­ing style used. It is frustrating whenarchival material and other publishedworks are cited without full references.It would have been useful to haveincluded individual reference lists foreach chapter. Finally, the volumewould have been better served by morecareful editing. In this way, misspell­ings of personal names and places, andinconsistencies in grammar, could havebeen avoided.

My complimentary copy of VicenteRafael's Contracting Colonialism is agift that has already put me in great"debt." Answering more questions thanit asks, covering more theoreticaldomains than those on which itfocuses, Contracting Colonialism spillsout of the boundary of early Tagalog­Christian colonial society to establishitself as an authoritative model for anyhistorical and political inquiry intocolonialism, Christian conversion, andthe local, indigenous responses to theseprocesses.

For Rafael, who is himself a nativeTagalog speaker, the consolidation ofSpain's imperial order and Tagalogconversion in the Philippine lowlands

are best understood in terms of a seriesof translations between the agents of aCastilian Catholic regime and variousclasses of Tagalog society. To conceiveof colonialism and conversion "fromthe perspective of translation," Rafaeldirects the reader to the semantic rela­tions among the Spanish terms traduc­cion 'translation', conquista 'conquest',and conversion 'conversion'. Suchaffinities, according to Rafael, "reflectas much as they are reflected by theirhistorical configurations" in the Span­ish Imperio (x).

Rafael argues that translation's"configurations" reveal the Spanishintent and desire to identify, relocate,and reorder pagan (read Tagalog)ideas, words, and bodies back to theirpresumed positions under the hierar­chy of God's Word and Kingdom. Buttranslation also describes how variousclasses of Tagalog society (maginoo'elites,' maharlika 'commoners') soughtto appropriate external or novel thingsof value with which to guard againstthe shock or anxiety of threatening(colonial) impositions. Here transla­tion simulates conversion in the veryprocess of subjecting or submittingoneself to external, foreign systems inorder to "inoculate" oneself againsttheir possible threats. But for Spaniardand Tagalog alike, the history of colo­nialism entailed the translation orconversion-what we might call the"restructuration"-of threatening lin­guistic or political conventions intosafe spaces from which to speak andtherefore register one's involvement ina constantly shifting social world. As apredicate of colonialism and conver­sion, translation, or, as Rafael prefers,"mistranslation," denotes a political

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