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Cook Islands (cook + island)
Selected AbstractsMortuary patterns in burial caves on Mangaia, Cook IslandsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 3 2003S. C. Antón Abstract The behavioural, cultural, and political implications of archaeological human remains in non-mortuary, possibly culinary, contexts requires that we understand the range of mortuary practices in a particular region. Although several rockshelter sites on Mangaia, Cook Islands have yielded burned, fragmentary human bones in earth ovens that seem to support archaeological models and ethnohistoric accounts of ritual sacrifice and cannibalism, the absence of data on the range of Mangaian mortuary patterns obscures these interpretations. We describe burial patterns based on 40 above-ground interments representing at least 92 individuals in caves of Mangaia, Cook Islands, in order to begin to develop an island-wide perspective on mortuary patterns. Sampling both pre- and post-European contact sites we found that multiple interments dominate probable pre-contact burials (73%, 19 of 26) and single interments dominate post-contact contexts (80%, eight of ten burials), probably reflecting the influence of Christianity on mortuary ritual. Subadults were more frequent in all post-contact contexts suggesting alternative burial places, probably church cemeteries, for adults. Burial cave remains are broadly consistent with ethnohistoric accounts of interment in caves, however, they also illustrate additional burial practices and differences between time periods, such as primary body position and the role of multiple-individual interments, which are not discussed ethnohistorically. The mortuary practices in Mangaian burial caves differ from burials associated with marae and seem completely unrelated to the presence of highly fragmentary and burnt human remains in pre-contact rockshelter middens elsewhere on the island. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Did ciguatera prompt the late Holocene Polynesian voyages of discovery?JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 8 2009Teina Rongo Abstract The famous Polynesian voyages characterized an intensive network of cultural exchange and colonization that was particularly active from ad 1000 to 1450. But, why would large groups of people leave their homelands to voyage into the unknown? Oceanic voyages are risky, albeit less so today than in the past. Landfalls were not guaranteed improvements over ports of departure. Taking the Cook Islands as an example, we ask whether harmful algal blooms that result in ciguatera fish poisoning in humans prompted past and present emigration pulses of peoples from within Polynesia. We take a multipronged approach to examine our hypothesis, involving: (1) archaeological evidence, (2) ciguatera fish poisoning reports since the 1940s, and (3) climate and temperature oscillations using palaeodatasets. The archaeological records of fish bones and hooks show abrupt changes in fishing practices in post- ad 1450 records. Sudden dietary shifts are not linked to overfishing, but may be a sign of ciguatera fish poisoning and adjustment of fishing preference. While fishes form the staple diet of Polynesians, such poisoning renders fishes unusable. We show that ciguatera fish poisoning events coincide with Pacific Decadal Oscillations and suggest that the celebrated Polynesian voyages across the Pacific Ocean may not have been random episodes of discovery to colonize new lands, but rather voyages of necessity. A modern analogue (in the 1990s) was the shift towards processed foods in the Cook Islands during ciguatera fish poisoning events, and mass emigration of islanders to New Zealand and Australia. [source] Geographical history of the central-western Pacific black fly subgenus Inseliellum (Diptera: Simuliidae: Simulium) based on a reconstructed phylogeny of the species, hot-spot archipelagoes and hydrological considerationsJOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 9 2001Douglas A. Craig Aim With six new species of subgenus Inseliellum Rubtsov recently described, a revised reconstructed phylogeny based on morphology is required. Geological history of islands where Inseliellum occurs, plus a cladistic analysis and hydrological considerations, provide the basis for a reconstructed geographical history of the species. Location Inseliellum is widely distributed and occurs in Micronesia, Cook Islands and Polynesia. A single specimen is known from Tonga Islands. Methods Maximum parsimony criteria using PAUP*, plus cytological information, were used to arrive at a preferred phylogenic reconstruction. Island ages of the hot spot archipelagoes involved are well known. The phylogeny was then compared with the palaeogeology. Information on evolution of running water habitats as islands age was incorporated into the biogeography. Results Cladistic analysis of forty of the forty-eight known Inseliellum species with Simulium (Nevermannia) neornatipes Dumbleton from New Caledonia and S. (Hebridosimulium) laciniatum Edwards from Fiji as outgroups, shows basal species and clades to be on widely separated older islands. In the Society Islands basal species are widely spread. Derived species, with morphological adaptations to deal with specialized habitats, are on younger islands (e.g. Tahiti), where a major species radiation has taken place. The reconstructed phylogeny indicates dispersal back to older islands, with minor subsequent species radiation. Main conclusions Palaeogeological evidence provides a basis for postulating that Inseliellum entered the western Pacific area some 20 Ma, with the possibility that it rafted eastwards on proto-Tonga Islands to the edge of southern-central Pacific. Older Cook Islands were present at that time. Movement into the Marquesas Islands was not earlier than 6 Ma and into the Society Islands perhaps 8,10 Ma. Basal species with generalized habitat requirements would have found suitable habitats (inferred from hydrological postulates) on leaves in the original, small shaded streams. With erosion and valley development, in particular on Tahiti, species radiated into specialized habitats such as cascades. Rich seston and high velocity probably drove reduction of filtering fans in some clades. With collapse of the caldera and formation of large rivers at c. 0.9 Ma, S. exasperans Craig and S. tahitiense Edwards adapted to deep, swiftly flowing water, all indicative that specialized habitat availability drove species radiation in Inseliellum. In the Society Islands, dispersal of derived species back to the oldest western islands was not possible because erosion has removed suitable habitats. [source] Four new species of Rhodophyceae from Fiji, Polynesia and Vanuatu, South PacificPHYCOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2009Antoine D. R. N'Yeurt SUMMARY Four new species of Rhodophyceae are described from the South Pacific, with type localities in Fiji, French Polynesia and Vanuatu. Chondria bullata from the Tuamotus (French Polynesia), Vanuatu, Palmerston Atoll (Cook Islands) and Fiji is unique owing to its non-constricted axes with markedly protruding, bubble-like cortical cells. Halymenia nukuhivensis, from the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, is distinguished from others in the genus by its dichotomous, papery blades issued from a strap-shaped basal region, and the equal proportion of anti-clinal, periclinal and oblique filaments in its medullary layer. Jania articulata, so far known only from the Tuamotus in French Polynesia and Manihiki in the Northern Cook Islands, superficially resembles the genus Amphiroa with its articulated branches with numerous genicula between successive dichotomies, and its large axis diameter. Meristotheca peltata from the Fiji Islands is unique among the genus by its distinctly peltate, erect habit. The recent high number of newly described species from the South Pacific region emphasizes the need for more in-depth surveys, particularly in deeper outer reef slope habitats, which remain for the most part unexplored and could yield particularly interesting new taxa or distributional records. [source] Neoliberalism, Mobility and Cook Islands Men in TransitTHE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2008Kalissa Alexeyeff From the 1990s, neoliberalism has been vigorously promoted by aid agencies operating in the Cook Islands. The solution to the country's economic problems has been sought in the privatisation of government assets and services and the development of free-market principles. Social Impact Assessment reports of these reforms have included information on their effect on women and children under the heading of ,gender'; men, however, are notably absent as a category of analysis. Building on recent work about men, masculinities and development, this paper begins to address this imbalance by examining how Cook Islands men have been effected by, and how they react to, neoliberalism in a series of gender specific ways. In particular, it explores the relationship between masculinity, class, status, and migration. [source] Pacific flows: The fluidity of remittances in the Cook IslandsASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 1 2006Evelyn Marsters Abstract: This paper contributes political and cultural-economy perspectives to the critique of the MIRAB model 20 years on. In it, we celebrate the politically grounded reading by MIRAB analysts of development in the small island nations of the Pacific and their attention to both the empirical and the structural in their treatment of the economies of these countries. We address aspects, however, of one of the common critiques of MIRAB analyses: their failure to capture accurately the nature of small island socio-cultural economies. We focus on the workings of remittance systems on two of the Cook Islands, Mauke and Manihiki, as the basis for a more thorough critique. We argue that rather than living economically and nationally determined lives, Cook Islanders live in rich networks of flows of goods, people, labour and meaning that the MIRAB model does not fully capture. The microeconomics of the transnational kin or household unit and the remittance decision are deeply embedded in such networks. These networks generate their own, temporary constellations of responsibility, economy and decision-making, which may or may not materialise at any point as household economy. We consider some of the consequences of a network view for MIRAB analyses and for development in small island nations. [source] Biogeographic anomaly or human introduction: a cryptogenic population of tree skink (Reptilia: Squamata) from the Cook Islands, OceaniaBIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, Issue 2 2010ALISON M. HAMILTON Archaeological and molecular data have revealed that the present day faunas of many island groups in Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia are not representative of the biodiversity generated within this region on an evolutionary timescale. Erroneous inferences regarding the mechanisms of speciation and the significance of long distance dispersal in shaping the present diversity of these island systems have resulted from this incomplete diversity and distributional data. The lizard fauna east of Samoa has been suggested to derive entirely from human-mediated introductions, a distribution congruent with biogeographic patterns for other Pacific species. Distinguishing between introduced populations and those that result from natural colonization events is difficult, although molecular data provide a useful means for elucidating population history and identifying the likely sources of introductions. We use molecular data (1726 bp of mitochondrial DNA and 286 bp of nuclear DNA) to evaluate a population of arboreal lizards from the Cook Islands and to determine whether this arboreal skink population is the sole endemic component of the lizard fauna east of Samoa or the result of human-mediated introduction. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 100, 318,328. [source] Public sector refraction and spectacle dispensing in low-resource countries of the Western PacificCLINICAL & EXPERIMENTAL OPHTHALMOLOGY, Issue 4 2008Jacqueline Ramke Abstract Background:, Given that uncorrected refractive error is a frequent cause of vision impairment, and that there is a high unmet need for spectacles, an appraisal of public sector arrangements for the correction of refractive error was conducted in eight Pacific Island countries. Methods:, Mixed methods (questionnaire and semi-structured interviews) were used to collect information from eye care personnel (from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu) attending a regional eye health workshop in 2005. Results:, Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu had Vision 2020 eye care plans that included refraction services, but not spectacle provision. There was wide variation in public sector spectacle dispensing services, but, except in Samoa, ready-made spectacles and a full cost recovery pricing strategy were the mainstay. There were no systems for the registration of personnel, nor guidelines for clinical or systems management. The refraction staff to population ratio varied considerably. Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu had the best coverage by services, either fixed or outreach. Most services had little promotional activity or community engagement. Conclusions:, To be successful, it would seem that public sector refraction services should answer a real and perceived need, fit within prevailing policy and legislation, value, train, retain and equip employees, be well managed, be accessible and affordable, be responsive to consumers, and provide ongoing good quality outcomes. To this end, a checklist to aid the initiation and maintenance of refraction and spectacle systems in low-resource countries has been constructed. [source] | |||||||||||||