Transforming Mortuary Rituals in “Christian” Oceania: Post-Mission Cemeteries from Aniwa, Vanuatu

Authors

Keywords:

Christian missions, mortuary ritual, archaeological graves, cemeteries, Aniwa Island, Vanuatu

Abstract

Extensive cemeteries from Aniwa Island, Vanuatu, provide evidence for historical transformations in ritual practice among Christian islanders that continue through the present day. These cemeteries contain novel grave forms, including many lined with coral and mortar upright slabs that were not present on the island traditionally. The graves largely post-date European missionary presence on the island. They represent an indigenous adaptation of introduced forms and materials that occurred decades after the conversion of Aniwans to Christianity in the 1860s. Local evidence indicates that the graves are primarily a marker of attachment to kinship and place beginning in the period when the population stabilised and began to rebound after the major nineteenth-century population collapse.

Author Biographies

James L. Flexner, University of Sydney

James L. Flexner is Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology and Heritage at the University of Sydney. His primary interests are the long-term transformation of Pacific Island landscapes and colonial encounters in the region. James has been leading archaeological fieldwork in southern Vanuatu since 2011, focusing on mission landscapes dating from the 1840s and indigenous settlement during the last 1,000 years. His book An Archaeology of Early Christianity in Vanuatu was published by ANU Press in 2016, and in 2019 he co-edited Archaeologies of Island Melanesia with Mathieu Leclerc, which was also published by ANU Press.

Brianna Muir, The Australian National University

Brianna Muir graduated from The Australian National University with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in 2019. Her thesis examined mortuary ritual and social differentiation at the Vietnamese site of Con Co Ngua, and was awarded the Peter May Prize. Her primary research interests include investigations of identity, agency and personhood in the past, and how these factors may have affected and shaped a person’s lived experiences. Additionally, she is passionate about science communication and community archaeology, and the ways in which professionals working within historical disciplines can better interact and communicate with the public at large.

Stuart Bedford, The Australian National University

Stuart Bedford is a Fellow at The Australian National University and Associate with the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena. He has had the privilege of being involved in archaeological research in the Republic of Vanuatu for 25 years, covering initial colonisation 3,000 years ago to the historic period. His current projects revolve around ceremonial architecture, post-Lapita transformations, Polynesian Outliers and natural catastrophes. His latest substantial publication is Debating Lapita: Distribution, Chronology, Society and Subsistence, co-edited with Matthew Spriggs and published by ANU Press in 2019. He was awarded a Vanuatu Service Medal (VSM) in 2011.

Frédérique Valentin, Centre national de la recherche scientifique

Frédérique Valentin is a Senior Researcher in Oceanic archaeology at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (UMR 7041, MSH Mondes, Nanterre) in France. She specialises in funerary archaeology and biological anthropology. Her work focuses on the human populations and societies of the Pacific. She has worked in the field and in laboratories in many archipelagos of Oceania, such as Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Tonga and Sāmoa. The main focuses of her publications are burial archaeology and funerary practices as well as morphology, genetics and dietary behaviours. In 2016, she co-edited Spatial Dynamics in Oceania / La pratique de l’espace en Océanie, with Guillaume Molle, which was published by the Société préhistorique française.

Denise Elena, Vanuatu Cultural Centre

Denise Elena is an Aniwa Islander and the island’s sole female fieldworker of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, a voluntary position she has held for more than 20 years. She is a senior leader in the Imale community. She is a passionate advocate for Aniwan culture and performed at the Vanuatu National Arts Festival held on the island of Malakula in July 2019.

David Samoria, Vanuatu Cultural Centre

David Samoria is an Aniwa Islander and a senior chief of Imasa Village. He has been a fieldworker with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre for almost 20 years, only retiring recently due to ill health. A number of members of his extended family are buried in the cemeteries surrounding the Aniwan church.

front cover JPS September 2020

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Published

2020-09-29

Issue

Vol. 129 No. 3 (2020): September 2020

Section

Articles

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