Anthropos: Anthropos, 99.2004

Anthropos, 99.2004

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711752

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510222436589

Titel:: Anthropos, 99.2004

Erscheinungsjahr:: 2004

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 99, 2004, Heft 2

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenartikel

Titel:: Strategic Murders. Social Drama in Tonga's Chiefly System (Western Polynesia)

Sonstige Person:: Grijp, Paul van der

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Anthropos 99.2004: 535-550 Strategic Murders Social Drama in Tonga’s Chiefly System (Western Polynesia) Paul van der Grijp Abstract. - This article deals with a chain of social dramas typical of an important part of the civil war in Tonga (Western Polynesia), a period of decline of the paramount chieftainship which was a continuation and intensification of an already existing competition between the Tongan chiefs. Here, this competition and the resulting social dramas - with distant parallels in Hawaiian history - are conceived as rather cyclical than unusual states of warfare. The major research questions of this article are: How was the disintegration of the Tongan system of paramount chieftainship brought about? and: What Were its implications? In analyzing a selection of historical ethnography from a political anthropological point of view, the metaphor of social drama, adapted from Victor Turner, will be used as an analytical tool. [Polynesia, Tonga, chiefs, war, murder, social drama, political anthropology] Paul van der Grijp is director of the Department of Ethnology at the Université de Provence (Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme, Aix-en-Provence) and researcher of the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur T Océanie (Mai son Asie Pacifique, Marseille). At the Université de Provence, he is in charge of teaching History and Theories of Anthro- pology, Economic and Political Anthropology, and Oceania Studies. His major research interests concern past and present e conomic and political situations in Western Polynesia (Tonga, Tallis, Futuna, Samoa, Rotuma). Recent publications include Selling is Poverty, Buying a Shame. Representations of Work, Effective Leadership, and Market Failures on Wallis” (Ocea nia 2002) and “Between Gifts and Commodities. Commercial Enterprise and the Trader’s Dilemma on Wallis” (The Contem porary Pacific 2003). the night of 21 to 22 April 1799, during a funeral ritual on Tonga’s main island Tongatapu, a high chief was murdered. The funeral, a reburial °f the Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua Toafunaki, offered an e *cellent opportunity because on such occasions notwithstanding their mutual rivalry many chiefs from the numerous Tongan islands were gathered together in a mourning mood over several days. The murder was unexpected. One chief with his warriors lay in wait outside the house of the sleeping victim, whilst the instigator went inside. He wanted his victim to know to whom he owed his death and, therefore, first slapped him with the flat of his hand in the face. The victim woke up, and his murderer shouted: “It’s me, Tupouniua, who is beating you!”, and then smashed his skull with a war club. The victim’s brusquely awakened companions had not the slightest chance of fleeing from the house. Outside, they were confronted with the heavily armed accomplices. This story derives from the young British sailor William Mariner (Martin 1981:71), who was a survivor of a capture by the Tongans of his ship, the Port-au-Prince, and subsequent mas sacres. Mariner lived in Tonga between 1806 and 1810. On his return to England, he had his ex periences recorded by the London physician John Martin, who published them in 1817. It is no eyewitness account of the murder, but Mariner was particularly well informed, among others by his adopted father, the accomplice to the murder. Ac cording to historical anthropology (Bott 1982: 9), the murder marked the “ferocious local wars” from the early 1780s until 1852. During the first part of the war, a period of decline of the paramount chieftainship which lasted till 1826, at least one- fourth of the population died on one of the many battlefields or in the accompanying famines (Wood

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