Standards of Living Among Native Peoples of the Pacific

THE living standards of the 122,000,000 people to Pacific dependencies can be looked at from two points of view. There is that of the administrators, missionaries, or other representatives of the dominant nations. Almost invariably, they see the indigenous folk as primitive, backward, or even inherently lower. Many native customs are thought useless, wasteful, harmful, unhygienic, or heathen. Such representatives of the larger world have been keen to uplift the native, to improve his standard of life in terms of civilized comforts and customs. Over against this, there is the point of view of the native. Only in exceptional cases would he subscribe to the scale of worth applied by the alien; he has his own values. Yardsticks such as money income, creased trousers, plumbing, bookshelves, automobiles, and the thirty-hour week have only a limited appeal. Economic security may, for the native, be bound up with feudalism or family communalism and, along with sickness and health, be in the hands of the gods. Elaborate clothing may chafe unpleasantly. Leisure is usually his in abundance already. The things really worth while are dictated, rather, by his own ancestral usages, customary laws and religious beliefs, even though these may nowadays be somewhat modified through new influences. Thus a native may count his importance and happiness in terms of owning ceremonial objects more or less worthless in the eyes of the alien, or giving feasts that leave him and his kin all but starving, or exercising powers and privileges that go with traditional rank, or (in earlier days at least) having enemy heads to his credit. His values lie here. In a real, if broad, sense, they are his standards of living. From his standpoint he may-and often does-judge the individualistic, efficient, dominating or philanthropic alien as

Geography · Political science · Standard of living · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law

• Remaindered Life of Citizen-Man, Medium of Democracy

  Open Access•Neferti X M Tadiar•Tōnan Ajia Kenkyū/Tonan ajia kenkyu•2011

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