Tikopia Essay

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Tikopia of Melanesia Crystal Avey ANT101 Sashur Henninger August 22, 2011 Tikopia of Melanesia “The name "Tikopia" given to a small island in the Solomon group is also applied by the inhabitants to themselves” (Firth, Countries and their Cultures, 2011). Tikopia being a small island, only has a population of around 1,000 and is located in the Pacific Ocean. The Tikopia clans have their own way of doing things, they are primarily agriculturalists. There are several aspects of the Tikopia culture such as sickness and healing, beliefs and values, gender relations, social organization and economic organizations. “In this state of isolation from the outer world, in a home of great natural beauty, adequate in the staple of materials for a simple but comfortable existence, the Tikopia have shared their life” (Firth, 2004, p. 30). Tikopia is a little, isolated, high island, primarily an extinct volcano with fringing coral reef, rising to a peak of 350 meters but extending only 4.6 square kilometers (Firth, Countries and their Cultures, 2011). In early years Tikopia people occupied only this island, but later some Tikopia people settled in other places in the Solomon’s. “They have survived, even thrived, on their tiny island, with a population at any one moment of about 1,000 people, for the best part of 3,000 years” (Beech, 2009, p. 68). The Tikopian are distributed into 21 villages located along the coastline. The Tikopian population grew a lot from the years of 1929 to 1953, and they traditionally subsisted by fishing and collecting and horticulture. There was a lack of animals on the island so hunting wasn’t really practiced; the bulk of their diet comes from fruits, vegetable and root crops, both wild and cultivated (Beech, 2009). Their major crops ranged from breadfruit, yams and coconuts to bananas (Swanson). The men of Tikopia are the ones who did most the

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