ANUTA: Polynesian Lifeways for the Twenty-First Century

4. Domestic Life

93 Chapter 4 Domestic Life Patongia: The Elementary Domestic Unit Human beings differ from other animals in that we have a lengthy period of infant and childhood dependency. During the early years of life, a child cannot fend for itself; therefore, it must be fed, educated, and protected by older children and adults. Different communities arrange for such nurturance in a variety of ways, but every community must find some way to perform these tasks. The result is what anthropologists call domestic or household organization, or what most Americans term “the family.” The typical American vision of the family is rather narrow by world standards. The “proper” family—as pictured, for example, by politicians who bemoan the loss of so-called family values—is what anthropologists refer to as the nuclear family: a group consisting of a married couple and their unmarried children living together under the same roof. Nuclear families can be recognized in most communities , but they are not always central units of social organization. On Anuta, as in many communities outside of the Western world, the elementary domestic and socioeconomic unit extends well beyond the nuclear family, typically including certain uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, and often a variety of more distant kin. 94 Chapter 4 Anutans term their smallest discrete socioeconomic unit the patongia or pare. This unit may be loosely described as a ‘patrilateral extended family.’ I will gloss it as the ‘household’ on the basis of the intense sharing and cooperation that membership requires. Such a translation must be qualified, however, with the observation that members of the same patongia may occupy a number of dwellings dispersed throughout the island’s village area. A more accurate, if cumbersome , translation is the ‘elementary domestic unit.’ Children typically become members of their fathers’ patongia, but several other means of gaining membership exist as well. When a woman marries, she joins her husband’s household. An adopted child gains membership in both the natural and the adoptive parents’ households. Every Tikopian paito (‘lineage’) (see Firth 1963[1936], 1954, 1957) has a special relationship with one or more Anutan patongia . Unmarried Tikopian immigrants automatically join the households of their tauranga (see chapter 3). A Tikopian man who marries an Anutan woman may either join his wife’s domestic unit or bring his wife to join that of his tauranga. A Tikopian woman who marries an Anutan man and settles on Anuta normally becomes part of her husband’s rather than her tauranga’s domestic unit. Non-Tikopian immigrants lack a preexisting relationship akin to the tauranga bond. Instead, they establish a tau toa (‘friend’) relationship (cf. Firth 1967:108–15) with someone on the island, through which they are incorporated into one or another of the indigenous domestic units. Ultimately, the patongia’s composition must be understood in light of its cultural definition: it is that group which shares a common food basket at island-wide distributions. Such distributions occur at community feasts, when a canoe returns from a successful fishing expedition, and on a number of other occasions. In short, Anutans conceptualize the patongia in terms of economic rather than genealogical criteria. In 1972–73, there were nineteen households on Anuta, varying in size from two to twenty persons. The nineteen households, broken down by ‘clan’ affiliation (see chapter 6) and listed according to their leaders’ names and numerical size, are listed in table 4.1. In 2000, despite a doubling of Anuta’s population, the number of patongia had only increased by two to a total of 21. It is rare for all members of an Anutan household to live under a single roof. They may reside on opposite ends of the island, or even on different islands altogether. All Anutans living in Tikopia, Honiara , and the Russell Islands are considered to be members of one or another patongia regardless of whether they are expected ever to return home. The sole exception is women who have married men Domestic Life 95 from other islands and are living overseas. These women have married out of their natal households, and, as their husbands are not members of the Anutan community, they do not gain membership in new ones by virtue of their marriages. Should such a woman return, she would have the option of being reincorporated, along with her husband and children, into her original household. Alternatively, if her husband is from Tikopia, she might affiliate...