National Identity and the Problem of Kastom in Vanuatu

Vanuatu's transformation into a predominantly Christian country entailed the loss of much traditional culture and the devaluation of the pre-contact era. In the 1970s the growing independence movement used kastom as a rallying cry to evoke a distinctive non-European national identity. In promoting unity and solidarity, the movement's leaders promulgated kastom on a safe ideological plane, avoiding any definition or differentiation of the concept, whereas the populace attempted to interpret kastom pragmatically. This led to confusion and difficulties because kastom is so ambiguous; its capacity to unite at one level is offset a t others by its political utility in defining difference and in marking boundaries. For Christians, a major problem has been to reconcile the new positive view of kastom with long- entrenched negative attitudes. For the nation-builders, the challenge has been to uphold the virtues of kustorn-within-Christianity while avoiding as much as possible its inclusion in legal codes or in structures and strategies associated with Vanuatu's functioning as a Pacific republic.     

Leftamap Kastom: The Political History of Tradition on Tanna,Vanuatu

The history of evaluation and definition of kastom on Tanna exemplifies its utility in attempts to reformulate social groups by reworking group charter myths, and its manipulation in political events by rival organizations seeking a customary legitimacy. On Tanna, where political prestige and authority depend heavily on the control and communication of knowledge, kastom knowledge as political capital enjoys enhanced status following the rehabilitation of kastom at the national level. Pro-kastom groups on Tanna, such as the John Frum cultists, have benefited from this positive evaluation of kastom, but some anomalies and sources of conflict remain in the fusion of kastom with Christianity and modernism. People argue over their respective domains and the fields of their application. Alternate definitions and uses of kastom invoke disunity and political competition at the local level, in contrast to national emphases on kastom as symbol of political unity and shared identity.     

Kastom,Christianity and the First Ancestor of the Kwara'ae of Malaita

The Kwara'ae of Malaita, now mainly Christian and enmeshed in the cash economy, invoke an ideology of kastom, reconciling biblical and ancestral origins, validating land claims, and legitimizing as traditional postcolonial political hierarchies built on the old ritual svstem. The political uses of kastom ideology in contemporary Kwara'ae, and their historical roots, are explored.     

Kastom and Anticolonialism on Malaita: “Culture” as Political Symbol

Most Melanesians invoking ideologies of kastom have, in becoming Christianized and partly Westernized, hearkened back to ways now lost or abandoned. But the Kwaio of Malaita are preoccupied with kastom, while traditional religion, social organization and exchange still prevail. Why and how? The Kwaio are compared with Kwara'ae and other Malaita peoples concerned with kastom - many Christianized, others clinging to old ways.     

Melanesian Kastom and Its Transformations

Editorial Board Note: In 2006, the Discipline Group of Anthropology and Sociology at The University of Western Australia hosted a symposium, ‘Anthropology in the West: 1956–2006’, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the then Department of Anthropology by the late Ronald Berndt and his wife, Catherine, whose contributions to anthropology were a major focus of the symposium. Symposium participants also documented contributions made by UWA staff and students from Anthropology and Sociology within and beyond Australian social science. A notable theoretical focus on kastom in the work of Robert Tonkinson, who in 1984 succeeded Professor Berndt in the Departmental Chair, was the topic of Lamont Lindstrom's paper, published here in a fuller, revised and fully refereed version. We intend to publish further papers from the symposium in later issues of Anthropological Forum.

If Ronald and Catherine Berndt are ancestral spirits haunting Anthropology and Sociology at The University of Western Australia some 50 years after the founding of the Department of Anthropology, their student, Bob Tonkinson, still happily with us, is their intellectual descendant and institutional heir. As in the case of the Berndts, issues relating to social change, religion and values, and, in particular, the politics of tradition have loomed large in Tonkinson's career. I trace, in this retrospective essay, the rise to prominence of an anthropology of Melanesian tradition and, more specifically, Tonkinson's contribution, notably his analyses of tradition's ‘symbiotic’ relations with Christianity, its identity functions, its local versus its national significance, and its relations with evolving anthropological theories of culture in a shrinking world. Tonkinson's Vanuatu research, which began among Ambrym Island emigrants, has spanned, over the past forty years or so, many notable transformations: from New Hebrides to Vanuatu; from modernisation theory to world systems and globalisation; and from tradition to kastom.     

Provincialising Lakatoro: Orienting sociality through a state institution in Vanuatu

Focusing on Lakatoro, a provincial centre in Vanuatu, this article explores the ways in which a state institution may allow kastom‐based sociality to proceed for the local population. Rather than considering kastom and the state as necessarily separate, it is demonstrated that the institutions of the state can provide the objective forms needed for kastom to exist in urban space. The article discusses three ways in which this happened—through a staff handbook, daily prayer meetings, and a court case—arguing that ‘the province’s’ polyvalence provided a means by which Lakatoro could be experienced as a place. And that this, in turn, provided a way in which the local population could understand the town to be imbued with appropriate sociality, as measured by kastom.     

Reflecting on Loss in Papua New Guinea

This article takes up the conundrum of conducting anthropological fieldwork with people who claim that they have ‘lost their culture,’ as is the case with Suau people in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. But rather than claiming culture loss as a process of dispossession, Suau claim it as a consequence of their own attempts to engage with colonial interests. Suau appear to have responded to missionization and their close proximity to the colonial-era capital by jettisoning many of the practices characteristic of Massim societies, now identified as ‘kastom.’ The rejection of kastom in order to facilitate their relations with Europeans during colonialism, followed by the mourning for kastom after independence, both invite consideration of a kind of reflexivity that requires action based on the presumed perspective of another.     

Bird conservation and biodiversity research in Mexico: status and priorities

Mexico has a megadiverse avifauna that includes many endemic elements, as well as rich sets of species ranging farther north or farther south in the Americas. This avifauna, nonetheless, has suffered considerable losses as a consequence of long‐term, intensive human activity across the landscape. We review what is known about the Mexican avifauna, specifically its diversity and endemism, and how that knowledge has and has not turned into effective conservation measures to assure the long‐term integrity of the avifauna.     

Going to ‘Pentecost’: how to study Pentecostalism – in Melanesia,for example

In this article, I question regional context as primary context in anthropological analyses. I argue that the idea of historical continuity in a geographical locality/region might prevent us from understanding not only radical change, but also more gradually emerging social patterns that connect the ethnography to very different kinds of histories and places. Concretely, I focus on the global Charismatic and Pentecostal movements, and as an experiment, I ask whether it is possible to go to ‘Pentecost’, instead of going to Melanesia. With ‘going to Pentecost’ as a heuristic device, I suggest it is possible to overcome methodological challenges in the study of global religious movements. In this article, I thus trace the practices and articulations of my interlocutors as part of a wider Pentecostal universe. I show how notions of seeing, borders, separations, and protection are crucial in ‘Pentecost’, and I connect this to key Christian ideas and values.     

成土母质和种植制度对土壤pH和交换性铝的影响

研究了我国南方 3种不同成土母质发育的酸性自然土壤的 p H与交换性铝含量状况和种植不同作物后它们的变化。研究结果表明 ,自然土壤的 p H平均值大小顺序为雷州半岛地区玄武岩发育砖红壤≤粤中花岗岩发育赤红壤 <粤北石灰岩发育红壤 ,土壤交换性铝含量的平均值的大小顺序为粤北石灰岩发育红壤 <雷州半岛地区玄武岩发育砖红壤 <粤中花岗岩发育赤红壤。种植茶树将使这 3种土壤的 p H显著降低 ,交换性铝的含量则将不同程度升高 ,最为明显的是种茶后石灰岩发育的茶园土的 p H在这 3种土壤中变为最低 ,交换性铝数量的增加幅度最大。种植水稻将提高土壤的 p H和交换性铝的含量。轮作花生后土壤的 p H也将上升 ,但受施用石灰的影响土壤交换性铝的含量将降低     

Spouses and Siblings in Sa Stories1

Earlier functionalist and structuralist approaches treat myths as texts rather than as stories told by people speaking in specific and variable contexts. An analysis of variations in the telling of two Sa stories from South Pentecost, Vanuatu, suggests that myths are not so much collective charters or manifestations of a deep unconscious structure of the mind but are stories which might be more biographically and historically situated.     

The anatomy of the hypocotyls of Ceriops Arnott (Rhizophoraceae), Recent and fossil

Fragments of the hypocotyls of the fossil Ceriops cantiensis Chandler from the Lower Tertiary of southern England and the living Ceriops tagal (Perr.) C.B. Rob. and Ceriops decandra (Griff.) Ding How have been examined by SEM. The living material has also been studied by light microscopy. Great similarity has been revealed between homologous tissues of the Recent and fossil material: the palisade-like epidermis; a two-zoned cortex composed of an outer region of compact collenchymatous tissue and an inner region of aerenchyma; phloem fibres; a large number of small vascular bundles, only some of which have xylem; few xylem elements; similarity of xylem elements; pith region of roundish to shortly oblong cells forming long, bead-like rows in longitudinal view. Evidence is also presented of similarity between Recent and fossil starch grains.     

The Invention of Convention

The traditional past of the people of South-West Bay, Malekula, featured a great deal of cultural borrowing. Like most Christians in Vanuatu, their negative attitude to a 'pagan' past has been changed into one of positive interest by the recent national emphasis on kastorn. Their older perception of kastorn as commodity - knowledge, rituals, objects, etc. to be bought, sold or exchanged at will - has been supplemented by the more wide- spread notion of kastom as a stable body of traditions, unshared as well as shared. The validatory potential of kastorn is being realized as people re-evaluate and reinvent their past, exploiting lacunae in customary knowledge by imaginative citation of the written ethnographic word. Contemporary needs are apparently more effectively satisfied by reference to fixed truths rather than to fluid and dynamic representations of culture.     

Cell-based biosensors based on light-addressable potentiometric sensors for single cell monitoring

Cell-based biosensors incorporate cells as sensing elements that convert changes in immediate environment to signals for processing. This paper reports an investigation on light-addressable potentiometric sensor (LAPS) to be used as a possible cell-base biosensor that will enable us to monitor extracellular action potential of single living cell under stimulant. In order to modify chip surface and immobilize cells, we coat a layer of poly-L-ornithine and laminin on surface of LAPS chip on which rat cortical cells are grown well. When 10 microg/ml acetylcholine solution is administrated, the light pointer is focused on a single neuronal cell and the extracellular action potential of the targeted cell is recorded with cell-based biosensor based on LAPS. The results demonstrate that this kind of biosensor has potential to monitor electrophysiology of living cell non-invasive for a long term, and to evaluate drugs primarily.     

Centaurea prolongi and C. crocata in Portugal: an old confusion

Centaurea crocata , described in 1984 from the Serra de Monchique in the Algarve (S Portugal), has a long history of confusion with C. prolongi from S Spain. From the study of herbarium specimens and of living plants, authors conclude that all previous Portuguese citations of C. prolongi belong actually to C. crocata . However, authors' studies confirm the real presence of C. prolongi in some relictic localities in the limestones of the extreme south of the Algarve. A morphologic comparison between the two species is performed and authors suggest for C. crocata a hypothetical hybrid origin between C. prolongi and a species of sect. Chamaecyanus .     

The characteristics and possible origin of the bryoflora of the southern flank of the East Himalayas

In the south-east and south Xizang, in cluding Medog, Zayü some western separate valleys Yadong, Kama near Zentang in Dinggye, Boqu near Zham in Nyalam and Gyirong, a mild climate prevails because of the very high mountains and the very deep valleys. According to our preliminary survey, 4/5 of the genera and 7/10 of the species, i.e. approximately representing all families and genera of the tropical and subtropical bryofliora of Xizang, are restricted to these localities below the altitude of 2,300 meters. It almost agrees with the previous presumption that the Tsangpo gorge is the line of connection between two paleoeontinents—Laurasia and Gondwana. Moreover, the bryoflora of these localities, besides the Indo-Malasian elements and East Asian elements as the main components, has at least about 40 genera in common with south America, Australia and Africa. According to the historical phytogeographical point of view, the distribution range of centain genera is formed through a period of long historical development. The same is true for the area of different species, although they are found in widely separate areas right now, yet they might have once a continuous distribution in certain historical age. The Indian plate collided against the eastern part of Laurasia and afterwards the Australasian plate moved to the north. All these might have dispersed the Gondwana elements as far as to the southeastern part of Xizang. It is very interesting to note that of the 32 genera of bryophytes endemic to East Asia, 13 have recently been found in the southeast and south Xizang and also in the neighbouring regions, i.e. Yunnan, Sichuan, where there are many genera being in common with southeast and south Xizang and also highly concentrated in distribution. This may suggest that the Himalayas, being the highest and youngest mountain range, have changed the atmospheric circulation, and have created a new ecological condition between tropical and frigid zones, which have given the distribution of the newly formed genera a suitable circumstance to survive. It may be presumed that the region covering counties Medog, Zayü, Yadong etc. in southeastern and southern parts of the Himalayas is a new center of distribution of bryophytes under the influence of the up-heaval of the Himalayas.     

Paths of Relationship,Spirals of Exchange: Imag(in)ing North Pentecost Kinship

In Stone Men of Malekula: Vao (1942), a text that was published more than twenty‐five years after he carried out long‐term fieldwork in Vanuatu, John Layard introduced a new technique for rendering kinship data in diagrammatic form. Inspired in part by Gregory Bateson, his ‘circular technique’ was derived from diagrams drawn up according to the genealogical method, and was designed to overcome certain structural problems identified within these. One important implication of the ‘circular technique’ that is not made explicit in Layard's analysis is a resonance with many of the idioms and metaphors that ni‐Vanuatu evoke in talking about relationships of exchange and kinship. Where processes of birth, death, marriage and exchange are conceptualised in terms of a broad flow of departures and returns across discernible trajectories, images incorporating circles and spirals are utilised as key metaphors for understanding social relationships through space and time. Focusing on the Raga‐speaking district of North Pentecost, Vanuatu, this article explores such idioms while presenting a revision of Layard's circular technique.     

广东大瑶山维管植物区系的基本特征

广东大瑶山地处南岭山脉南部的中亚热带地区, 25°11'18"N, 113°13'02"E,有野生维管植物1411种(含变种),隶属于194科701属。其中蕨类植物132种,所占比例较大,表明植物区系起源古老。区系表征科与植被优势科为壳斗科、山茶科、樟科、木兰科、金缕梅科、桑科、紫金牛科、山矾科等,说明该地域是华夏植物区系的重要组成部分。种子植物属的分布区类型中泛热带分布占优势,同时热带、温带区系成分均有不同程度地侵入,区系成分复杂,充分体现出其原始古老的自然性与植物种类的多样性。     

广东肇庆石灰岩植物区系的基本特征

肇庆石灰岩共有维管植物９１科２２６属３０３种。经过对种子植物、蕨类植物地理成分分析和与邻近植物区系比较,表明肇庆石灰岩植物区系服从植物地理分带规律,以热带－亚热带分布成分为主体,表现出明显的南亚热带南缘植物区系性质;同时显示出岩溶基质特点;与紧邻的土山植物区系具有完全迥异的表征科。区系区划上属于华南植物区,位于粤中亚区与粤西－桂中亚区的汇合点     

Marine macroalgal biodiversity hotspots: why is there high species richness and endemism in southern Australian marine benthic flora?

The southern Australian marine macroalgal flora has the highest levels of species richness and endemism of any regional macroalgal flora in the world. Analyses of species composition and distributions for the southern Australian flora have identified four different floristic elements, namely the southern Australian endemic element, the widely distributed temperate element, the tropical element and a cold water element. Within the southern Australian endemic element, four species distribution patterns are apparent, thought to largely result from the Jurassic to Oligocene fragmentation of East Gondwana, the subsequent migration of Tethyan ancestors from the west Australian coast and the later invasion of high latitude Pacific species. Climatic deterioration from the late Eocene to the present is thought responsible for the replacement of the previous tropical south coast flora by an endemic temperate flora which has subsequently diversified in response to fluctuating environmental conditions, abundant rocky substrata and substantial habitat heterogeneity. High levels of endemism are attributed to Australia's long isolation and maintained, as is the high species richness, by the lack of recent mass extinction events. The warm water Leeuwin Current has had profound influence in the region since the Eocene, flowing to disperse macroalgal species onto the south coast as well as ameliorating the local environment. It is now evident that the high species richness and endemism we now observe in the southern Australian marine macroalgal flora can be attributed to a complex interaction of biogeographical, ecological and phylogenetic processes over the last 160 million years.