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10 Studying the History of Spice Island Migration Through Cultural Diffusion
In New Zealand where there was a substantial land area and, as we shall see in
Part II, also high populations at the beginning of the Medieval Climatic Optimum,
one would not have expected the small number of medieval migrants that arrived in
this warm period to subvert local traditions and practices. That they did so in many
ways was due to the survival advantage of the horticultural skills and practices the
migrants brought with them from Eastern Polynesia. Their choice of agricultural
land for settlement, their clearing of this land to plant kumara and other tropical
vegetables and their storage of harvests as an insurance against starvation brought
with them such an advantage in countering famine in the Little Ice Age, the intense
cold period that followed the Medieval Climatic Optimum, that many elements of
their material culture were rapidly adopted by the indigenous peoples.
Yet even though throughout the Pacific earlier cultures may have been overlaid
by the culture or cultures of later migrants, often vestiges of the earlier cultures
or fragments of earlier traditions survive to cast light on an earlier migration
history and reflect the different origins and culture of the earlier inhabitants. Edwin
Burrows’s compilation of cultural patterns from Central [Eastern] and Western
Polynesia [1], for example, suggests a longer and more complex migration history
for New Zealand than is allowed for by archaeologists who limit New Zealand’s
history to the last 800 or 900 years and see medieval Eastern Polynesia as the only
source for genetic, technological and cultural input. It is clear from Burrows’ data
that culturally and technologically New Zealand is closer than any island in Eastern
Polynesia to Western Polynesia. Burrows’ detailed analysis places New Zealand
11th on a list of 20 Polynesian islands in sharing Western Polynesian cultural traits.
New Zealand possesses eight times the number of western cultural traits seen in the
Tuamotus, Hawaii and the Society Islands. It is only tenth on the list in its possession
of Eastern Polynesian cultural traits, having only 68% of those in Tahiti. The items
studied by Edwin Burrows are wide-ranging. They include kinship terms, musical
instruments, outrigger booms, rounded house ends, the shape of canoe hulls, lateen
sail versus spritsail, presence or absence of king-posts, direct versus indirect outrigger attachment, methods for making felt cloth, tanged versus tangless stone axes,
month names, brother–sister avoidance and so on. New Zealand stands between
the two worlds of Western and Eastern Polynesia, possibly reflecting a shared
Lapita origin with Samoa and Tonga as well as cultural acquisitions from Eastern
Polynesian migrants after about AD 1200. It has indirect outrigger attachment with
three booms, as in Tonga and Samoa, unlike the mixed attachment and two booms
found in Tahiti. In mythology it possesses ancient totemic creation myths, found in
Western Polynesia, though it also has myths that involve the purposeful creation of
man by a parentless creator, the form dominant in Eastern Polynesia.
The cultural differences between New Zealand and Eastern Polynesia shown in
the chart we have made from Burrows’ data (Fig.10.1) could be attributed to later
independent evolution in Eastern Polynesia, during the Little Ice Age, which an
isolated New Zealand did not share. But an alternative explanation is supported by
tradition: a long indigenous prehistory for Maori in New Zealand and a long history of early migrations to New Zealand from the Spice Islands, and possibly from
other Lapita colonies, prior to the arrival of medieval migrations to New Zealand
10 Studying the History of Spice Island Migration Through Cultural Diffusion
In New Zealand where there was a substantial land area and, as we shall see in
Part II, also high populations at the beginning of the Medieval Climatic Optimum,
one would not have expected the small number of medieval migrants that arrived in
this warm period to subvert local traditions and practices. That they did so in many
ways was due to the survival advantage of the horticultural skills and practices the
migrants brought with them from Eastern Polynesia. Their choice of agricultural
land for settlement, their clearing of this land to plant kumara and other tropical
vegetables and their storage of harvests as an insurance against starvation brought
with them such an advantage in countering famine in the Little Ice Age, the intense
cold period that followed the Medieval Climatic Optimum, that many elements of
their material culture were rapidly adopted by the indigenous peoples.
Yet even though throughout the Pacific earlier cultures may have been overlaid
by the culture or cultures of later migrants, often vestiges of the earlier cultures
or fragments of earlier traditions survive to cast light on an earlier migration
history and reflect the different origins and culture of the earlier inhabitants. Edwin
Burrows’s compilation of cultural patterns from Central [Eastern] and Western
Polynesia [1], for example, suggests a longer and more complex migration history
for New Zealand than is allowed for by archaeologists who limit New Zealand’s
history to the last 800 or 900 years and see medieval Eastern Polynesia as the only
source for genetic, technological and cultural input. It is clear from Burrows’ data
that culturally and technologically New Zealand is closer than any island in Eastern
Polynesia to Western Polynesia. Burrows’ detailed analysis places New Zealand
11th on a list of 20 Polynesian islands in sharing Western Polynesian cultural traits.
New Zealand possesses eight times the number of western cultural traits seen in the
Tuamotus, Hawaii and the Society Islands. It is only tenth on the list in its possession
of Eastern Polynesian cultural traits, having only 68% of those in Tahiti. The items
studied by Edwin Burrows are wide-ranging. They include kinship terms, musical
instruments, outrigger booms, rounded house ends, the shape of canoe hulls, lateen
sail versus spritsail, presence or absence of king-posts, direct versus indirect outrigger attachment, methods for making felt cloth, tanged versus tangless stone axes,
month names, brother–sister avoidance and so on. New Zealand stands between
the two worlds of Western and Eastern Polynesia, possibly reflecting a shared
Lapita origin with Samoa and Tonga as well as cultural acquisitions from Eastern
Polynesian migrants after about AD 1200. It has indirect outrigger attachment with
three booms, as in Tonga and Samoa, unlike the mixed attachment and two booms
found in Tahiti. In mythology it possesses ancient totemic creation myths, found in
Western Polynesia, though it also has myths that involve the purposeful creation of
man by a parentless creator, the form dominant in Eastern Polynesia.
The cultural differences between New Zealand and Eastern Polynesia shown in
the chart we have made from Burrows’ data (Fig.10.1) could be attributed to later
independent evolution in Eastern Polynesia, during the Little Ice Age, which an
isolated New Zealand did not share. But an alternative explanation is supported by
tradition: a long indigenous prehistory for Maori in New Zealand and a long history of early migrations to New Zealand from the Spice Islands, and possibly from
other Lapita colonies, prior to the arrival of medieval migrations to New Zealand