Margaret Jolly - Women of the Place: Kastom, Colonialism and Gender in Vanuatu

Women of the Place

Studies in Anthropology and History

Margaret Jolly

Women of the Place

Kastom, colonialism and gender in Vanuatu

COPYRIGHT 1994 BY

Harwood Academic Publishers GmbH, Poststrasse 22,
7000 Chur, Switzerland. All rights reserved.

HARWOOD ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

DESIGNED BY

FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY

For my father Kenneth, and in memory of my mother Hazel

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Plates

T here are many people I have to thank for bringing this project to fruition. My first debt is to my doctoral supervisor Professor Michael Allen who suggested Vanuatu as an exciting place to pursue research, and who has been consistently interested and supportive of my work. From the start David Walsh and in recent years Darrel Tryon rescued me from my state of linguistic innocence. I thank Keith Woodward in Port Vila for his insights and the benefit of his extensive knowledge, Steve Pinch and Barry Weightman (and his late wife Lesley) of the British Agricultural Service, for friendship and a place to stay during my trips to Santo and Malakula respectively. For hospitality and help on Tanna, I would like to thank Gordon Norris and Liz Tong, Bob and Jan Gregory and on Malo the Heddricks. I must also thank the Catholic Mission for providing a mail service, transport and hospitality at several stations when I travelled on the St. Joseph. In particular I must thank the sisters and the priests at Baie Barrier. I am especially grateful to Pere Tony ver Braeken, the resident priest throughout most of my fieldwork. Although we were separated by the tensions beteen Christian and kastom adherence, Tony showed a tremendous interest and sensitivity to Sa traditions, in the best syncretist style of Elie Tattevin (see below). Baie Barrier was on occasion a haven of European culture for me Haydn and Heinnekens to soothe the soul.

Back in Sydney, the intellectual company of Mary Patterson, Ron Brunton and Bud Jackson also working on Vanuatu made a critical difference. At Macquarie Gill Bottomley, Ian Bedford, Clare Burton, Annette Hamilton, Nick Modjeska, Caroline Ralston, Bob Norton and the late Chandra Jawayardena have all been stimulating colleagues. I must also thank the Commonwealth Postgraduate Research Awards, Sydney University, the Carlyle Greenwell Bequest funds, Macquarie University and the ARC for materially supporting field and archival research.

In the revision of this work into a book, I am indebted especially to Nicholas Thomas who urged me that it was worth doing, and has continually provided intellectual stimulation and domestic care. I also thank Annegret Schemberg for bibliographical help and Paula Austin at Harwood Press for her excellent editing. I am also grateful to the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University for the time and resoures to complete this and several other recent projects.