THE CHANGING STRUCTURE OF A MICRONESIAN SOCIETY

O of the most signi~cantsocial phenomena of the past century has been the impact of the larger society on local cultures. The urbanization of rural life, the secularization of sacred structures, the acculturation of minority groups, the moderni~ingof primitive peoples are but different manifestations of the same social process. This process is modifying not only surface relationships but also the entire organization of community life; native ways of living, traditional patterns of social inter-action, and preexisting systems of values are reoriented.. While we now know the characteristic features of this transition, and can even forecast its successive stages, we are exceedingly limited in our skill.in directing it as a social program. Nevertheless, American war activities make it imperative that this direction be exercised over the islands of the Pacific. The writer, as a Naval Military Government officer, recently spent six months in the Palau group of Caroline Islands in charge of the population of Angaur. In order to develop effective techniques for the administration of Angaur, a systematic study was made of its past and more recent social order. During the course of a hundred years, Spanish, Germans, and Japanese in sequence endeavored to reshape the social contours of Palau. Now the United States is continuing that historic process.