What are the key characteristics of Tikopia?
Tikopia is a small high island, the peak of an old volcano, with the original crater forming a small lake. The island is 3 miles long and 2 miles wide with sandy flat lands to the south and fertile volcanic soil around the mountain ridge.
How did Tikopia control population?
Whereupon the islanders reached a collective decision to slaughter all pigs. Population control is a key element in the island’s stability. Over the millennia, infanticide, abortion, coital control, suicide and conflict have been the means of keeping the population level at about 1200 people.
Is Tikopia a country?
Tikopia is a high island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It forms a part of the Melanesian nation state of Solomon Islands but is culturally Polynesian.
What ocean is Polynesia located in?
central Pacific Ocean
Polynesia encompasses a huge triangular area of the east-central Pacific Ocean. The triangle has its apex at the Hawaiian Islands in the north and its base angles at New Zealand (Aotearoa) in the west and Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the east.
How did Pigs affect the island of Tikopia?
Because pigs were detrimental to the orchard system on the island, their removal led to increased stability. However, pigs were used in religious rituals, so “the positive effects were thus environmental, the negative, cultural.” (Kirch & Yen, pp 358,1982).
What is Melanesian culture?
The cultural orientations of many Melanesian peoples were shaped by a warrior ethic—an ethos of bravery, violence, vengeance, and honour—and by religious imperatives that promoted aggression. Large-scale armed confrontations between warriors were common in parts of New Guinea and some parts of island Melanesia.
What is Polynesian religion?
Religion of Polynesian culture. Polynesian belief systems emphasized animism, a perspective in which all things, animate and inanimate, were believed to be endowed to a greater or lesser degree with sacred supernatural power.
Why are Melanesian people blonde?
The Melanesian people have a native TYRP1 gene which is partly responsible for the blond hair and melanin, and is totally distinct to that of Caucasians as it doesn’t exist in their genes. It is a recessive gene and is more common in children than in adults, with hair tending to darken as the individual matures.
What is Tikopia culture?
Tikopians have developed rituals and figurative constructions related to their fishing practices. Unlike the rapidly Westernizing society of much of the rest of Temotu Province, Tikopia society is little changed from ancient times.
Where is Tikopia Island?
It is in the southeast of the Solomons, at 168 ° 50 ′ E and 12 ° 18 ′ S. Historically, until the mid-1950s, the Tikopia people occupied only this island. But then, stimulated by the pressure of the population on the food supply and by a desire for Experience of the outside world, Tikopia people began to settle in groups elsewhere in the Solomons.
Is Tikopia a Polynesian language?
Linguistic Affiliation. The Tikopia are Polynesian in Language and culture, their language being assigned to a Western Polynesian grouping. But from neighboring peoples they have acquired some Melanesian loan words as well as other cultural items. Tikopia has no dialects.
What is the climate like in Tikopia?
All Tikopia live in a tropical climate, with alternating trade-wind and monsoon seasons; during the latter their homes are subject to periodic hurricanes (tropical cyclones). Demography. About half a century ago Tikopia had a dense population, about 300 persons per square kilometer.