ASAO Studies in Pacific Anthropology, v. 5. New York: Berghahn Books, 2014. viii, 160 pp. (Figures, map.) US$85.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-78238-413-7.
Jeffrey Sissons, who has written widely about historical change in the Pacific, turns his attention in this volume to the chiefly embrace of Jehova in the islands of Tahiti, the Cooks, and Hawai‘i. In all cases, conversion yielded striking results: the populations became Christian, ritual was altered, and the nature of paramount leadership was transformed. Chiefs became leaders of centralized kingdoms. Sissons is correct and justified in calling these events an iconoclasm.
Sissons’ argument is logically presented. He introduces the thesis of the book in the first chapters, detailing both his theoretical orientation and the importance of the seasonality of rituals for the maintenance of Polynesian chieftainships. Such seasonality was important in order to reinforce the nature of chiefly power and to cement loyalty throughout all levels of a stratified society. Seasonal rituals were totalizing and central, directed by chiefs and priests and followed by commoners. Before the coming of Christianity, the year was divided into two ritual seasons: the first, Pleiades Above (designating the place of the constellation in the skies of the Southern hemisphere) in which opposites came together, god images were destroyed, and sacrifices occurred all marking communitas; in the second half of the cycle, Pleiades Below, hierarchy was reasserted, chiefly buildings were (re)constructed, ceremonial spaces were purified, and god images were rewrapped. In short, seasonality demonstrated the tearing down and reconstruction of the cultural order according to the state of the heavens. The cycle was led by priests and chiefs and followed by commoners. While there were variations among the island groups, the pattern revealed by Sissons remained substantially similar throughout the Eastern and Central Pacific.
Sissons, who acknowledges his debt to Sahlins’ analysis of Hawai‘i, suggests the expression “rituopraxis” in place of Sahlins’ “mythopraxis.” This seems superfluous, given the substantial overlap of myth and ritual. It is true that Sissons’ argument builds largely on ritual practices, but these are intricately combined with mythological implications. This is however a minor quibble in a well researched, creative, and insightful study.
Sissons has carefully and scrupulously examined missionary records, reading the diaries and letters of missionaries, who witnessed massive cultural transformations. Conversion was neither uniform nor global. Sissons allows the reader to see the different faces of the London Missionary Society as he carefully describes the political ambitions of chiefs and the determination of missionaries. Sissons’ attention to particular island contexts permits us to see heroic history in action.
In the case of Tahiti, Pomare’s conversion to Christianity, assisted by both his priests as well as the missionaries from the London Missionary Society, worked clearly to his political advantage. Once conversion was complete, chiefly power was consolidated and stratification was institutionalized. By orchestrating the sacrifice of the Tahitian god Oro at the appropriate point in the ritual cycle, Pomare established Jehova as the source of concentrated political and religious power. Centralized political structures headed by Pomare, were now celebrated, as seasonality was abandoned and hierarchy remained the chief’s permanent prerogative. Religious iconoclasm led to political transformation, as political leadership was restructured and reimagined.
The universe had been recreated once again, but the terms were now different. New majestic buildings dedicated to Jehova, the baptism of the royal family, and new laws that were written and enforced by Pomare, all supplanted any previous indicia of communitas, replacing them with indisputable hierarchy. Tahitians now understood Pomare’s power to be bestowed by Jehova; loyalty to the royal personage characterized the centralized, regal kingdom that emerged.
The transition from communitas to hierarchy had its parallel in the unwrapping and rewrapping of god images. Pomare, in concert with his priests and LMS missionaries, abolished attention to the binding of god figures and replaced these wrapped images literally and metaphorically with bound books. Sissons points out, following Adrienne Kaeppler, that it is binding and wrapping that create sacred bundles. Such bound volumes, numerous but containing only one god, contributed to an understanding of hierarchy, as disparate social entities are linked together. Majestic buildings, bound entities signifying simultaneously stratification and connection, and newly codified laws all generated a hierarchical, totalizing, and centralizing social order that transformed chiefly mana into the power of kings.
Sissons has written a carefully organized, very well researched study of religious and political transformation. This book is suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and anyone with an interest in Pacific history. The author leads the reader carefully through the complexities of his argument, an argument that moves through time and space in Polynesia. Sissons commands a great deal of historical and ethnographic knowledge of the Pacific. It is entirely to his credit that he is able to communicate this so lucidly. In putting all the pieces together, Sissons is truly innovative, noticing and detailing relationships that were not previously evident. Tracing the shift from seasonality to hierarchy throughout the Eastern and Central Pacific, Sissons provides us with a unified view of the transformation of chiefs into kings in Polynesia. By concentrating on individuals, Sissons permits us to view, and to understand, heroic history. As chiefdoms become kingdoms, as chiefly establishments yielded to regal edifices, religious changes promoted iconoclastic political shifts. Sissons has documented these processes very well indeed.
Karen Sinclair
Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, USA
pp. 955-957