Abstract:
The Polynesian atoll of Tongareva, in the northern Cook Islands, has been inhabited since the thirteenth century or earlier. It became known to the West in 1788, and was administered by New Zealand from 1901 to 1965, but appears to have been virtually ignored by European historians and anthropologists. A recent history of the group, for example, does not even mention it; and over fifty years have now elapsed since the only ethnographic monograph on the society was published, in the course of which a substantial body of relevant manuscripts has come to light.
The following study endeavours to fill these gaps, drawing on contemporary oral traditions as well as published and unpublished accounts by eyewitnesses. It has two major aims: to reconstruct the basic principles of pre-contact social organization; and to identify the objects, practices and causes of warfare. In order to provide a context for this material, summaries of the island's history and ecology are included, together with discussions of various theoretical issues that arise. The result -- which, if nothing else, is a synthesis of all the available data -- may be described as an "ethnohistory" or a "historical ethnography" of ancient Tongareva.