Namoluk Beyond the Reef: The Transformation of a Micronesian Community (review)

This book by Mac Marshall seeks to explore the effects of regional and international migration on a small community on the atoll of Namoluk, in Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia. The atoll has eight matrilineal clans, the original members of which immigrated to Namoluk from ten other nearby islands: seven in the Mortlocks, two in Chuuk Lagoon, and Polowat Atoll. "This diversity of background is typical of Carolinian atoll communities and is hardly unique to Namoluk" (135).

While Marshall describes the highlights of Namoluk history, its settlement, discovery by Europeans, and colonization (first by Spain, and then Germany, Japan, and finally the United States), as well as its geography, kinship system, and social structure, his main interest is social change, especially that brought about by migratory movements.

Migration is a major catalyst of social change in any society, and Marshall shows this quite clearly inthe lives of the Namoluk people. Before European discovery they frequently visited each other across vast ocean spaces, a feat made possible by their deep knowledge of navigation using the sun, moon, stars, wind, and wave direction.

Later, the Namoluk people's knowledge of other people expanded when theGerman colonizersemployed them on the phosphate mines at Nauru and Angaur, in the Palau Islands, after 1908. The Japanese followed suit when they also used Namoluk workers at the Angaur and Fais phosphate mines, as well as in the construction of military infrastructure: airfields, bomb shelters, roads, and gun emplacements.

It was also during the Japanese colonial period that the first group of Namoluk students left their island to attend schools in the other islands such as in Oneop in the Mortlocks, and Tonowas in Chuuk Lagoon. Still such migration did not extend to distant places, and for the most part the locations, cultures, languages, and people remained familiar.

After the United States took over in 1945, the Namoluk people began to travel further afield. At first, it was only a trickle. In 1969, for instance, when Marshall began his fieldwork in Namoluk, only four of the island's people lived outside the US Trust Territory: two in Guam, and one each in Oregon and Honolulu.

The initial movement was to Weene, the main urban center in Chuuk State, where initial opportunities for advanced education and employment abounded. In 1969, Marshall says, four main factors encouraged people to migrate to Weene: education, employment, entertainment, and excitement. These "pull factors" he refers to as the"four E's." He adds: "Unlike the slow, repetitive day-to-day life back home, Weene had automobiles, motorboats, jet aircraft landing several times a week, and huge freighters and oil tankers tying up at the main wharf" (34).

But there was more to it than the four E's. The people of Namoluk also relied on the district center at Weene for the other necessities of life, including health care services, radio news, mail, shipping, a market for copra, and a stream of material goods.

From the 1970s,on, migration accelerated to the other US territories such as Guam and Saipan, Hawai'i, and the US Mainland, thanks largely to increased educational opportunities the US government offered Micronesians, and also to the effect of the Compact of Free Association between the new Federated States of Micronesia and the United States, effective 3 November 1986. Under this new compact, Micronesians could enter, live, and work freely in any US territory orstate. Needless to say, many Micronesians, including the Namoluk people, took advantage of these opportunities to further their educational and employment prospects. By 2001 more than a quarter of Namoluk's population lived in the United States and its territories.

Today, the people of Namoluk are dispersed throughout the Micronesian islands and the United States, taking an active part...