Micronesian material culture presentations
Material culture is the area of the most loss and presentations are some of the most challenging for the students. As I often say to the students, I could drop any one of them into a major city and they would not stand out - their clothing would not mark them as being different. But if I dropped them into the Micronesia of 200 years ago, they would definitely stand out. Whether clothing, transportation, housing, tattoos, tools, or implements, material culture is the area of the greatest change.
The stalk is then turned to signify that the king has been invited to the funeral.
The issue of how a young woman could "recognize" a particular love stick was addressed in 2014 by a Chuukese student who said that a young man would have two sticks. A smaller one that is in their hair, and a larger one they actually used at night.
A few years before that a student from Faichuuk also presented the Chuukese love stick, which she spelled "nipwepweiaa". Although no longer in use, she alleged that young men would make their own love stick and openly display the stick by day so women could come to know his love stick pattern. That night, he would stick the nipwepweiaa through the wall of her thatch hut and snag her hair. She could feel the stick and know what boy was on the other end. If she wanted to meet that boy, she could pull on the stick to let the boy know he can come in. Otherwise she pushed the stick back through the wall to indicate that she was not interested.
In the fall of 2005 another student also presented the Chuukese love stick. She referred to the stick as a fenai and noted that open display did not occur. This may be a dialectical and regional practice differences in the lagoon. The student also noted that the girl would slip out, rather than the boy coming in. This makes more sense given the mortal danger of being caught in the girl's home.
At one point another student from Chuuk suggested that young men would carry their love stick during the day and upon chance meetings with a girl would let her see or even touch the stick so she would know the pattern.
With the advent of cement walled homes, this world has been completely lost and now the nipwepweiaa is a trinket sold only to tourists. This is but a small part of what is a huge sea change in dating and mate finding practices across Micronesia. Young people who can afford cell phones now text message each other to set up a secret rendezvous.
The nipwepwe almost seems to symbolize the changing social structures surrounding mate selection in Micronesia.
Pelinda presented the once upon a time use of dihng, Cordyline fruticosa, as a brassiere. In Pohnpeian the word for brassiere is sispando. This derives from the Japanese word chichibando or chibusabando which literally means breast band. The suffix on the Japanese word, and the Pohnpei variant, both appear to be cognates of some sort to either suspender or band as in elastic band.
Herna presented the Kosraean tok, both the more common wooden carved tok and the rather rare carved basalt stone tok, seen on the left above. The left tok belongs to Jeffrey Tilfas.
The tok is used to pound fafa, a Kosraean dish, once reserved to royalty.
Saya explained the importance of the Japanese signature stamp. The stamp she is holding is the family name stamp. These were carved of wood at one time and are still used in Japan as signatures.
Lashana presented on the many uses of the coconut in both food and material culture.
Felsida and Blossom covered the Pohnpeian urohs en Pohnpei.
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