An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia: Culture and Tradition (review)

An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia: Culture and Tradition, by Paul Sillitoe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-521-58186-9, cloth; ISBN 0-521-58836-7, paper; xxiii + 254 pages, maps, figures, photographs, tables, index, chapter bibliographies. Cloth, US$59.95; paper, US$19.95.

The Melanesian region has long provided popular images in the West of primitive peoples. Paul Sillitoe uses his field research in New Guinea as a launching pad for an introductory text for the anthropology of Melanesia and a general overview of ideas about the region. Although Melanesian cultures were never static, he asserts that many modes of being can still be discerned from the period before the rapid and dramatic changes produced through contemporary globalization. Consequently, his work documents the beliefs and practices that sustain kastom, not as an exercise in primitive essentialism but as part of contemporary peoples' search for sociocultural identities in a rapidly changing lived environment. Unfortunately, because Sillitoe concentrates primarily on New Guinea, the text's conceptual and geographic reach is limited. The work would also have benefited from a broader ethnographic base that clarified the transformations taking place in both local communities and contemporary anthropological thought.

Sillitoe uses the notion of "ethnographic fact" coupled with a revisionist critical perspective to shape the empirical evidence gathered by various anthropologists. Each chapter is presented in the "ethnographic present tense," not to express timeless backwardness, but as a snapshot of the community at a particular historical moment. The chapters are structured to examine topics such as objects and their exchange, agriculture and correlated social relations, nonhierarchic power relations, beliefs about ancestors, and practices perceived as magic, witchcraft, or religion. One society is used to illustrate each topic, even though it may be an element of a number of the region's societies.

The first chapter introduces Melanesia as a geographic region, details the racial variation and integration that "resists tidy-minded regional classifications" of the people (7), and describes the linguistic differences between districts. Sillitoe then focuses on how food is acquired in the Fly estuary, relating a broad topic to the specifics that can be learned by studying a particular region. He portrays the complexity of peoples' knowledge in relation to plants, animal life, and geographic locality. Photographs of people engaged in daily tasks using natural products add a lively humanity to his descriptions. Food acquisition is then linked to and compared with the more sedentary occupation of swidden agriculture in the Bismarck Range, enabling Sillitoe to illuminate the ways that environment interrelates with culture, and to detail how gardens and pigs are given economic and ritual importance.

In chapter 4 the Admiralty Islands situate a discussion of socialization, child-rearing, and gender relations and accentuate the most disturbing aspect of the book. Although introductory in nature the "ethnographic facts" presented reinforce masculine perceptions of male-female relations and women's putative inferiority. Many of the suggested readings seemed outdated, and could have benefited from the appraisal of gender relations in which Sillitoe engages in chapter 9. Indeed, throughout the work a more radical evaluation of the descriptions that are presented as "factual" evidence would have strengthened the explanatory power of many of the portrayals.

Sillitoe's theoretical discussion of formalism and substantivism is problematic in that it exemplifies his reliance on Western dualistic modes of thinking while introducing descriptions of exchange cycles and practices in chapter 5. The intricacies of the kula, and debates about its role in trade in the Massim Archipelago, are elucidated. A primary focus on male kula exchange rather than a balanced debate about the relations and differences between women's lisala dabu and male trade reflects the weakness in anthropological literature produced by many male scholars when addressing women's work cross-culturally. For although Sillitoe refers to Annette Weiner's Women of Value, Men of Renown (1976), he does not reflect her insights.

Deepening his analysis of...