Status Rivalry and Cultural Evolution in Polynesia 1

CULTURAL evolution, to rephrase Maitland's classic remark, will be history or nothing. If it is to be history, its proper focus is the culture area, or to be more precise, the comparative study of culture areas. A culture area comprises historically related societies each showing significant variations from a common area pattern. In these variations-their nature, origin, and direction-are revealed the basic processes of cultural development in the area, that is, its cultural evolution. It is from a comparison of culture areas rather than from the comparative study of historically unrelated societies that the more general and more meaningful laws of development may emerge. Boas (1896) was the first to suggest such a comparative procedure as a way to avoid the pitfalls into which the old comparative method had led the nineteenthcentury evolutionists. For a number of reasons, Polynesia is a particularly suitable area for sutch a comparative study.2 Since the area was populated rather late, perhaps within the last 3,000 years (Spoehr 1952), its underlying historical unity is still abundantly clear-even linguistic variations are relatively minor (Elbert 1953). At the same time, Polynesian cultures vary in a continuous series from the "simple" atoll societies of Ontong Java and Pukapuka to the highly organized "feudal" kingdoms of Hawaii. These variations suggest an evolutionary sequence, which is borne out by evidence from tribal historical traditions (presumably reliable for comparatively recent events) and from other sources. The present paper takes as its starting point the dominant values of Polynesian culture, those involving concern with social status. Polynesian society is founded upon social inequality and, despite an aristocratic doctrine of hereditary rank, permits its members to compete for position, for prestige, and for power. In one way or another, then, the history of every Polynesian society has been affected by status rivalry, and under the proper conditions the effects of this rivalry have been felt in every vital center of the culture. Rivalry raises issues and provokes conflicts that can never be fully resolved. It promotes a sequence of culture changes that take their character and direction in part from the momentum of status rivalry itself and in part from the particular physical and cultural setting of each island. Thus, the differing ecologies of atolls and high islands, variations in population density, varieties of subsistence techniques, levels of economic productivity, systems of property relations, the role of migrations and military conquests, diffusion, and, finally, the specific historical "accidents" that occur in wars, migrations, and contests for power-all influence and are in turn influenced by the dominant motive of status rivalry. Many facets of culture, on the other hand, are only barely