Focusing on the era of "first encounters" in Polynesia, this book provides a fresh look at some of the early contacts between indigenous people and the captains and crew of European ships. The case studies chosen enable comparison of New Zealand Māori–European transactions with similar Pacific ones. The book examines the conflict situations that arose and the reasons for physical violence, highlighting the roles of honour, mana, and agency. Drawing on a range of archival materials, sailor and missionary journals, as well as indigenous narratives, Wilkes applies an analytical method typically used for examining much more recent conflict. She compares different ways of "seeing" and "knowing" the world and reflects on the reasons for poor decision-making amongst all the social actors involved. The evidence presented in the book strongly suggests that preventing violence – promoting and negotiating peace – happens most effectively when mana and honour are acknowledged between parties.

This Element considers patterns of violent behaviour among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands while their vast region has been undergoing religious change, overwhelmingly toward Christianity. Major topics researched are religion-based violent reactions to early intruders (including missionaries); new religious movements resisting unwanted interference (including 'cargo cults'); anti-colonial rebellions inspired by spiritual impetuses both indigenous and introduced; and the persistence of traditional modes of violence (tribal fighting, sorcery and tough punishments) adapted to altered conditions.

This book focuses on how visual records – mainly on film or video – can provide data for research and presents a variety of visual projects drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in Indonesia. Karl Heider argues for the expansion of visual anthropology - or anthropology with a camera - beyond descriptive ethnographic film into actual use of the camera as a research tool. The chapters explore several ways in which camera-generated materials can complement and support what anthropologists already do in their research. Heider includes samples from fieldwork in Indonesia conducted over a number of years, particularly in New Guinea and Sumatra with groups including the Dani and Minangkabau. His studies combine visual and psychological anthropology and provides insight into the analysis of emotions in particular. Intended to inspire new approaches to the ethnographic enterprise, the book is valuable for scholars of visual anthropology and Southeast Asia.

Through an ethnographically based study of local communicative practices in the Pacific atoll society of Tokelau, the book adds to our understanding of how systems of governance are constituted by minute acts of social interaction, and are informed by our conceptions of the nature of sociality. It combines a social anthropological approach to postcolonial studies in which local and trans-national communicative practices related to governance and conflict management are analysed as different language games. The book offers an experience-near approach to local modes of conflict management and patterns of leadership, and documents how micro-level communicative practices have an impact on macro-political processes.

Development in Polynesian Ethnology assesses the current state of anthropological research in Polynesia by examining the debates and issues that shape the discipline today. What have anthropologists achieved? What concerns now dominate discussion? Where is Polynesian anthropology headed? In a series of provocative and original essays, leading scholars examine prehistory, social organization, socialization and character development, mana and tapu, chieftainship, art and aesthetics, and early contact. Together these essays show how history, anthropology, and archaeology have combined to give a broad understanding of Polynesian societies developing over time--how they represent a blend of modernity and tradition, continuity and change. This book is both an introduction to Polynesia for interested students and a thought-provoking synthesis for scholars charting new directions and posing possibilities for future research. Scholars outside Polynesian studies will find the perspectives it offers important and its comprehensive bibliography an invaluable resource.

This book explores the first encounters between Samoans and Europeans up to the arrival of the missionaries, using all available sources for the years 1722 to the 1830s, paying special attention to the first encounter on land with the Laperouse expedition. Many of the sources used are French, and some of difficult accessibility, and thus they have not previously been thoroughly examined by historians. Adding some Polynesian comparisons from beyond Samoa, and reconsidering the so-called 'Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate' about the fate of Captain Cook, 'First Contacts' in Polynesia advances a hypothesis about the contemporary interpretations made by the Polynesians of the nature of the Europeans, and about the actions that the Polynesians devised for this encounter: wrapping Europeans up in 'cloth' and presenting 'young girls' for 'sexual contact'. It also discusses how we can go back two centuries and attempt to reconstitute, even if only partially, the point of view of those who had to discover for themselves these Europeans whom they call 'Papalagi'. The book also contributes an additional dimension to the much-touted 'Mead-Freeman debate' which bears on the rules and values regulating adolescent sexuality in 'Samoan culture'. Scholars have long considered the pre-missionary times as a period in which freedom in sexuality for adolescents predominated. It appears now that this erroneous view emerged from a deep misinterpretation of Laperouse's and Dumont d'Urville's narratives.