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Polynesian Cultures in Perspective is an in-depth look at the different regional cultures of the large number of Polynesian islands and countries, with an emphasis on current culture. The young reader is presented with an overview of a variety of regional cultures that developed historically and analyzes how the cultural History shapes the Polynesian region s current culture. The book is written in a lively and interesting style and contains the Polynesian region s languages, foods, music/dance, art/literature, religions, holidays, lifestyle, and most importantly contemporary culture in the country today. The book has been developed to address many of the Common Core specific goals, higher level thinking skills, and progressive learning strategies from informational texts for middle grade and junior high level students.
Filling a significant gap in the cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary literature within the field of Pasifika (Polynesian) and Maori identities and mental health, this volume focuses on bridging mental health related research and practice within the indigenous communities of the South Pacific. Much of the content reflects both differences from and relationships with the dominant Western theories and practices so often unsuccessfully applied with these groups. The contributors represent both experienced researchers and practitioners and address topics such as research examining traditional and emerging Pasifika identities; contemporary research and practice in working with Pasifika youth and adolescents; culturally-appropriate approaches for working with Pasifika adults; and practices in supervision that have been developed by Maori and Pasifika practitioners. Chapters include practice scenarios, research reports, analyses of topical issues, and discussions about the appropriateness of applying Western theory in other cultural contexts. As Pasifika cultures are still primarily oral cultures, the works of several leading Maori and Pasifika poets that give voice to the changing identities and contemporary challenges within Pacific communities are also included.
A blend of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Simon Winchester’s Pacific, a thrilling intellectual detective story that looks deep into the past to uncover who first settled the islands of the remote Pacific, where they came from, how they got there, and how we know. For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history. How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonize these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? This conundrum, which came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins, emerged in the eighteenth century as one of the great geographical mysteries of mankind. For Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these ancient navigators. In Sea People, Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists, and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years. A masterful mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People combines the thrill of exploration with the drama of discovery in a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world. Sea People includes an 8-page photo insert, illustrations throughout, and 2 endpaper maps.
With more than one hundred illustrations--most in full color--this volume offers a stimulating and insightful account of two dynamic artistic cultures, traditions that have had a considerable impact on modern western art through the influence of artists such as Gauguin. After an introduction to Polynesian and Micronesian art separately, the book focuses on the artistic types, styles, and concepts shared by the two island groups, thereby placing each in its wider cultural context. From the textiles of Tonga to the canoes of Tahiti, Adrienne Kaeppler sheds light on religious and sacred rituals and objects, carving, architecture, tattooing, and much more.
Barkcloth or tapa, a cloth made from the inner bark of trees, was widely used in place of woven cloth in the Pacific islands until the 19th century. A ubiquitous material, it was integral to the lives of islanders and used for clothing, furnishings and ritual artefacts. Material Approaches to Polynesian Barkcloth takes a new approach to the study of the history of this region through its barkcloth heritage, focusing on the plants themselves and surviving objects in historic collections. This object-focused approach has filled gaps in our understanding of the production and use of this material through an investigation of this unique fabric's physical properties, transformation during manufacture and the regional history of its development in the 18th and 19th centuries.The book is the outcome of a research project which focused on three important collections of barkcloth at The Hunterian, University of Glasgow; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. It also looks more widely at the value of barkcloth artefacts in museum collections for enhancing both contemporary practice and a wider appreciation of this remarkable fabric. The contributors include academics, curators, conservators and makers of barkcloth from Oceania and beyond, in an interdisciplinary study which draws together insights from object-based and textual reseach, fieldwork and tapa making, and information on the plants used to make fibres and colourants.This book will be of interest to tapa makers, museum professionals including curators and conservators; academics and students in the fields of anthropology, museum studies and conservation; museum visitors and anyone interested in finding out more about barkcloth.
A historical overview and thematic examination of Polynesia (especially New Zealand and its outlying islands), 900-1600.
A first study from an archaeological perspective of the elaborate systems of Polynesian chiefdoms presents an original account of the processes of cultural change and evolution over three millennia.
From their earliest encounters with Indigenous Pacific Islanders, white Europeans and Americans asserted an identification with the racial origins of Polynesians, declaring them to be racially almost white and speculating that they were of Mediterranean or Aryan descent. In Possessing Polynesians Maile Arvin analyzes this racializing history within the context of settler colonialism across Polynesia, especially in Hawai‘i. Arvin argues that a logic of possession through whiteness animates settler colonialism, by which both Polynesia (the place) and Polynesians (the people) become exotic, feminized belongings of whiteness. Seeing whiteness as indigenous to Polynesia provided white settlers with the justification needed to claim Polynesian lands and resources. Understood as possessions, Polynesians were and continue to be denied the privileges of whiteness. Yet Polynesians have long contested these classifications, claims, and cultural representations, and Arvin shows how their resistance to and refusal of white settler logic have regenerated Indigenous forms of recognition.
Sports are as varied as the people who play them. We run, jump, and swim. We kick, hit, and shoot balls. We ride sleds in the snow and surf in the sea. From the Olympians of ancient Greece to today's professional athletes, from adult pickup soccer games to children's gymnastics classes, people at all levels of ability at all times and in all places have engaged in sport. What drives this phenomenon? In Sport, the neuroscientist Jay Schulkin argues that biology and culture do more than coexist when we play sports—they blend together seamlessly, propelling each other toward greater physical and intellectual achievement. To support this claim, Schulkin discusses history, literature, and art—and engages philosophical inquiry and recent behavioral research. He connects sport's basic neural requirements, including spatial and temporal awareness, inference, memory, agency, direction, competitive spirit, and endurance, to the demands of other human activities. He affirms sport's natural role as a creative evolutionary catalyst, turning the external play of sports inward and bringing insight to the diversion that defines our species. Sport, we learn, is a fundamental part of human life.