Studies in Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology, Volume 21. New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2017. xiv, 375 pp. (Tables, figures, maps.) US$34.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-78533-320-0.
This book builds on almost half a century of familiarity with the northern kula region of southeastern Papua New Guinea. Based on intensive and repeated fieldwork since the 1970s, mostly on Woodlark Island (Muyuw), the author presents a fascinating collection of rich data. This publication will certainly be appreciated by anyone who is interested in the use of trees, the construction of canoes, and the ecology of this island region. The monograph combines insights of natural and social science, demonstrating the complexities and benefits of crossing academic boundaries. Its illustrations are online at https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/Trees_Knots__Outriggers/introduction/.
For over twenty years, the author has studied the flora through the islanders’ concepts, comparing their principles with botanists’ views and his own perspectives and experiences. Without the trusting expertise of his long-time friends and informants, frequently acknowledged throughout this book, such a wealth of information would have been impossible to accumulate. A canoe journey in which the author participated in 2002 fittingly opens this book.
Chapter 1 demonstrates how trees and gardens are connected, trees being “a property of a category of land, the land in turn understood by its trees” (39). The author identifies how certain trees contribute either “sweet” or “bitter” additives to the soil. According to the islanders, these substances affect the growth of root crops and the chapter examines the variation across the region from Kiriwina to the Nasikwabu Islands and attempts to find definite answers with the help of biochemistry. Fallow regimes and the use of various trees and other plants to improve harvests are practiced differently, so the author is sceptical, wondering if he is being taught principles of magic rather than horticultural experience (55). The section on biochemical evidence (62–73) seems to indicate that variants are too complex (e.g., soil, water, fallow type, trees, crops, and weather) to allow for generalizing conclusions. This agrees with his informants’ experiences and local principles.
Chapter 2 sets out to highlight certain trees that are significant for the islanders. Building on a large collection of samples that must have required an incredible amount of hiking and tracking, the ecological patches and other local classifications are identified with the help of informants while at the same time scientific methods are tested. The latter causes some dissonance with local guides who, for example, “found it ludicrous asking for identification by a single leaf” (87). The bulk of this chapter describes the habitats and botanic characteristics of a number of trees clustered by local principles, and their variation within the region, building on data of ca. 500 generic taxa (108). Some of the trees’ medical properties, gender analogies, and other uses are briefly mentioned (e.g., 97, 104, 105), but these are likely only a small portion of the local knowledge on these plants. In sum, Muyuw Islanders “operate with models about what specific plants are,” and these models are built on “ideas about forms” and their “experiences with given parts” (107). Rather than striving for “hierarchized relations seen in the Western analytical system,” they focus on the “singularities of specific forms” (109). The form of a tree, with its base and top, structures reality as in other Austronesian societies (113), including the geographical interpretation of the island of Muyuw itself (as shown on map 2.1, p. 116).
Chapter 3 presents various landscapes and their typical trees, the variety of soils and irrigation, human effects through logging, mining, gardening, and burning, and how distinctive patches are linked to the past. Trees shape the “social structures” (124) are linked to the Creator’s orders (125) and are metaphorically connected to the spatial history of clans (128). Due to the cultural and geographical complexities, variation in practice and principles is significant, but some guiding structures include the emergency supply of food from Muyuw to the West (131) based on—as well as motivating—affinal and kula exchange relationships (132). Sago orchards are described as a “dense network of social facts realized in biological form” (139–153) in which the “form of this tree is an experience of time” (153).
Chapter 4 highlights the interdisciplinary method in which the anthropologist acts as a mediator between local and scientific knowledge. The genus Calophyllum is used as an example, showing how it is used as a marker of time, for building canoes, as part of the ecosystem, as provider of protein, and as an element of transition. While the botanist specialist sometimes disagreed with his evidence (213), and the locals often found it boring to prove what they already knew (221), the author nevertheless persevered.
Chapter 5 describes vines and knots as the processes of intertwining strings and attaching objects. The botany and potential underlying principles of gender (e.g., 257, 261) of forty-four locally used tying materials is enriched by detailed analysis of how the strings are used for canoe building, fishing nets, sails, and string figures. “Movement is the point” for string figures, and this section describes beautifully how the figures are a way to perform stories in motion (283–291), a “kind of magical geometry” (292).
Chapter 6 explores the “mathematical expression” of large canoes and how trees are part of the shaping of cultural and technological variation. It argues that this form of canoe is the “formula, the organized reasoning” (298). The data presented in this chapter is very detailed and dense, reaching the conclusion that boats, places, people, and kula valuables are “bundled together in the structures these boats entail and realize” (342), “as motion is built into the boats to facilitate contradictory dynamics, so are social relationships coordinated with respect to complementary divergences” (343).
To me, the book’s key value is its deep ethnography, as I am not trained to understand the biochemical analyses or the full meaning of fractals. I am weary of its structuralist equations, but others may find them enlightening. To a reader with no knowledge of the vernacular, the large amount of Muyuw words (for plants, places, patches, persons, stars, and categories) complicates the understanding at times. A glossary would have been an easy fix since the index does not cover all the terms and provides only page numbers. Omission to italicize all vernacular caused me to pause and wonder, and others may be confused by the inconsistent spelling of Gawa Island (the Muyuw term Gaw appears a few times). Apart from these minor issues, this book is a major contribution to the regional, ecological, and material culture literature.
Susanne Kuehling
University of Regina, Regina, Canada
pp. 213-215