Nature, Culture, and History: The "Knowing" of Oceania

131 Pages·2000·0.515 MB·English

by  K R Howe

Nature,Culture,and History

Nature, Culture,
and History
The “Knowing” of Oceania
K. R. Howe
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu
© 2000 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
00 01 02 03 04 05 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Howe, K. R.
Nature, culture, and history : the “knowing” of Oceania / K. R. Howe.
p. cm.
Rev. and extended versions of the three lectures presented at
Massey University, Palmerston North and Albany campuses, in 1997,
as the “Macmillan Brown lectures,” organized by the Macmillan Brown
Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: Introduction — Nature as culture —
Culture as nature — History as culture.
ISBN0–8248–2286–2 (cloth : alk. paper) —
ISBN0–8248–2329–X (paper : alk. paper)
1. Oceania. I. Title: “Knowing” of Oceania. II. Title.
DU17.H69 2000
995—dc21 99–087297
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free
paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Council on Library Resources.
Book design by Kenneth Miyamoto
Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
For Robin Fisher
(il miglior fabbro)
who led us into the cold

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Nature as Culture 5
Chapter 2 Culture as Nature 31
Chapter 3 History as Culture 58
Notes 87
Bibliography 103
Index 117
vii

Preface
This study has its origins in 1994 when, thanks to Robin
Fisher and the University of Northern British Columbia, my
family and I spent some time in central British Columbia,
Canada. Having never been beyond a temperate or tropical
zone before, I found living in temperatures typically of minus
30 degrees centigrade an exciting novelty. I was surprised to
find that it was relatively easy to live “normally” in the cold,
something that many northern cultures have of course been
doing successfully for many thousands of years. I read about
the development of modern Canadian cultural characteristics
and the pervasive influence of a vast, cold landscape. It soon
dawned on me that the Canadian “wilderness” and the “cold”
were as much ideas as some sort of physical actuality. This led
me to questions about, and a huge literature on, the influence
of the environment on human personality and culture more
generally, and, conversely, the way in which human societies
represented the natural world. In the light of this, I thought
again about Western responses to “my” temperate and tropical
part of the world—Oceania.
This research was given a jolt by a postcard from Robert
Hoskins and finally shape and purpose when I was invited by
the Board of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at
the University of Canterbury to present the Macmillan Brown
Lectures. I thank the board very much for this honor. The three
chapters in this book are revised and extended versions of those
ix
x Preface
three lectures, presented at Massey University’s Palmerston
North and Albany campuses in 1997.
At Massey University I am indebted to Robert Hoskins and
David Thomson for their helpful comments. I also thank many
friends and colleagues for the organization and support for the
Macmillan Brown Lectures, and in particular Glynnis Cropp,
Peter Lineham, and John Muirhead. I also thank Massey Uni-
versity for a Research Fellowship and the Australian National
University for aVisiting Fellowship, both in1998,which enabled
preparation of the lectures for publication. At the ANU I
received very kind support from Donald Denoon, Brij Lal, and
Hank Nelson. Anonymous readers’ reports from University of
Hawai‘i Press are also greatly appreciated. I am grateful to Nigel
Brown for permission to use his wonderful painting, which is so
redolent of many of the themes of this book, on the cover.
Above all, I am grateful to Robin Fisher, Mary-Ellen Kelm,
and the University of Northern British Columbia for an experi-
ence of a lifetime.