Tikopia

Tikopia, a Polynesian community near the eastern border of the Solomon Islands, is arguably the most thoroughly documented small-scale society in the ethnographic record. That documentation exists primarily as a result of investigations by Sir Raymond Firth in 1928–29, 1952,1966, and 1973. Based on those four field visits, he published nine full-length books and countless articles. In addition to Firth's path-breaking research, studies of varying length have been conducted by social anthropologists James Spillius, Torben Monberg, Eric Larson, and Judith Macdonald; ethnobotanist Douglas Yen; and archaeologist Patrick Kirch.

Tikopia is a “Polynesian outlier,” meaning that its people are linguistically, culturally, and physically Polynesian, although their home lies outside of what we normally think of as the Polynesian heartland—a vast triangle bounded by Hawai'i in the north,Rapanui (Easter Island) in the east, and Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the west. It is located at 12° 18' S by 168° 48' E. Tikopia's climate is tropical. Its yearly calendar is divided into two seasons, generally termed the “trade-wind” and “monsoon” seasons (in Tikopian, te tonga and te raki, respectively). The trade-wind season, running from somewhere in April to October, is characterized by strong breezes blowing constantly from the southeast. It is relatively cool and tends to be the drier of the two seasons. The monsoon season is characterized by unstable weather. Blazing sun is interspersed with torrential rains, and extended periods of calm are interrupted by violent storms.

The island is approximately three miles from northeast to southwest and1.5 miles from southeast to northwest. It is of volcanic origin and rises to a maximum altitude of about 1,200 feet. Tikopia's nearest neighbor is Anuta, 70 miles to the northeast, which it resembles in language and culture. To the west, its nearest neighbors are the Melanesian islands of Vanikoro, Utupua, and Ndenö, the Polynesian island of Taumako, and the Reef Islands with their mixture of Polynesian and non-Austronesian speakers. Tikopia's population at the time of Firth's initial study was around 1,270. Owing to substantial out-migration since the 1950s, the current resident population is only slightly larger, but there are now large Tikopian settlements on Vanikoro, Makira, Guadalcanal, and in the Russell Islands.