Women of Tikopia

Abstract

This thesis is based on 18 months fieldwork in 1979-80 in the Solomon Islands. The study was carried out among the Tikopia people both on their home island and in the settlement of Nukukaisi in Makira. The central focus of this study is an analysis of the women of Tikopia from several perspectives. First they are examined in time: the women of Professor Raymond Firth's study of 1929 are contrasted with women 50 years on. Next they are described in different geographical settings - the home island and the settlement. Special attention is paid to two categories of women: the fafine taka 'unmarried women' and the fafine avanga 'married women'. These two groups stand in strong contrast with one another. The unmarried women have considerable social and sexual freedom. However, their structural position in society is undergoing some redefinition as they are required to replace in the domestic workforce their brothers who have migrated as wage labourers to other parts of the Solomons. The departure of the young men has caused some demographic imbalance among the young and their absence decreases opportunities of marriage for the young women. No other career is available to young women as they do not leave Tikopia for schooling or work as their brothers do. By contrast, the married women, to whom marriage ostensibly brings social maturity, are the most tightly controlled section of the population, being responsible to the patriline into which they have married. The social and symbolic elements of gender relations in Tikopia are therefore examined through the lives of these two groups of women. A further concern which underlies this work are the developments in theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of gender by anthropologists, with special reference to their application in the Pacific area.