Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia

Abstract

With an eye to their own life goals, the native peoples of Pacific Islands unwittingly present to anthropologists a generous scientific gift: an extended series of experiments in cultural adaptation and evolutionary development. They have compressed their institutions within the confines of infertile coral atolls, expanded them on volcanic islands, created with the means history gave them cultures adapted to the deserts of Australia, the mountains and warm coasts of New Guinea, the rain forests of the Solomon Islands. From the Australian Aborigines, whose hunting and gathering existence duplicates in outline the cultural life of the later Paleolithic, to the great chiefdoms of Hawaii, where society approached the formative levels of the old Fertile Crescent civilizations, almost every general phase in the progress of primitive culture is exemplified.

Cultural macroevolution and the transmission of traits

“…Given similar ecologies and means of subsistence, Hallpike concludes that historical relationships are key to understanding cultural diversity. Sahlins 42 and Vansina 16 have made similar arguments for Melanesia-Polynesia and Central Africa, respectively. There is the possibility, however, that these historical cases were studied precisely because of the clear signal they evince.…”

Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy

“…Political freedom decreases steadily as scale increases. Slightly larger-scale societies, or what were once called "big man" societies (Sahlins 1963) have recognized leaders who usually hold relatively little actually power. Chiefdoms, which may include tens of thousands of people, are characterized by the presence of leaders who sometimes have fairly limited authority, but may in some cases hold fairly extreme political power-even sometimes including the power of life and death over subjects (Earle 1991).…”

Ancient and historic dispersals of sweet potato in Oceania

“…Although the authors do not pursue the point, this is highly significant, because it demonstrates the "big man" social institution is almost certainly less than 500 y old. The big man is an archetype of cultural anthropology (11), is characteristic of traditional highland societies in the main intermontane valleys of New Guinea (12), and is thought to have become more defined following the adoption of intensive sweet potato cultivation and pig husbandry (13). Previous cultivation in the highlands was almost certainly based on taro (Colocasia esculenta) (14).…”