Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2009
In this chapter I intend to bring together and develop issues relating to social order, power and taboo that have been raised in the previous two chapters, in an attempt to explain the religious volatility that has characterized Tanna over the past one and a half centuries. Although, of necessity, I will be discussing institutions that are specific to Tanna, my overall intention is to point to social processes which were shared with other Melanesian societies, in preparation for dealing with the central topic of this book: the pre-contact disappearance of kava from a number of places in Melanesia.
Traditional social organization
Several writers have discussed Tannese social organization (Guiart 1956a; Brunton 1979, 1981a; Lindstrom 1981a, 1985; Bonnemaison 1985a, 1985b; Wilkinson 1979; Adams 1977, 1984, 1987; Bastin 1981). The most comprehensive treatment to date is the one given by Lindstrom. He describes a segmentary system with six levels of social grouping. At the lowest level of inclusiveness is the household and then, in ascending order, the name set, the yimwayim side, the yimwayim/village, the place, and the moiety. While I would not dispute his statements about the household, which typically consists of a married couple and their natural and adopted children, there are important shortcomings in his discussion of the other levels and these need to be considered.
It is misleading to present the relationship between the different groups as different levels of a segmentary structure.
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