Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2000 / Pacific Islands Studies

Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves [459]-494. / Photocopy. / xxi, 494 leaves ; 31 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of History, 1976

Major excursions in the position of the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) and/or changes in its intensity are thought to drive tropical cyclone (TC) and precipitation variability across much of the central South Pacific. A lack of conventional sites typically used for multimillennial proxy reconstructions has limited efforts to extend observational rainfall/TC data sets and our ability to fully assess the risks posed to central Pacific islands by future changes in fresh water availability or the frequency of storm landfalls. Here we use the sedimentary record of Apu Bay, offshore the island of Tahaa, French Polynesia, to explore the relationship between SPCZ position/intensity and tropical cyclone overwash, resolved at decadal time scales, since 3200years B.P. Changes in orbital precession and Pacific sea surface temperatures best explain evidence for a coordinated pattern of rainfall variability at Tahaa and across the Pacific over the late Holocene. Our companion record of tropical cyclone activity from Tahaa suggests major storm activity was higher between 2600-1500years B.P., when decadal scale SPCZ variability may also have been stronger. A transition to lower storm frequency and a shift or expansion of the SPCZ toward French Polynesia around 1000years B.P. may have prompted Polynesian migration into the central Pacific.

Thesis (B.A.Hons. 1971) from the Dept. of History, University of Adelaide.

Thesis (B.A.Hons.1973) - Dept. of History, University of Adelaide.

"Literatur": p. 200-203. / "Werke von Hans Nevermann": p. 219.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-138). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Images of Oceania and Polynesia have traditionally been exoticised and romanticised by Western representations of a "paradise" populated by primitive natives with grass skirts and ukuleles. However, the movement towards political independence in the 1960s and 1970s has seen the emergence of a corpus of indigenous representations that depict and portray the real situation. These indigenous representations speak of subjugation and moreover testify to the debilitating effects colonialism has on cultural identities. The geographical area covered by this thesis is Western Polynesia, specifically the Pacific Island nations of Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa and is concerned with literary representations. The thesis examines significant developments and trends in the creative writing of indigenous and migrant writers in these three countries of Western Polynesia: Western Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, seeing these literary representations from within as a writing out of multi-faceted aspects of the shifting identities of Pacific peoples in a post-colonial world. The introduction focuses on the historical colonial/post-colonial context of Western Polynesian writing and the socio-political imperatives for change which have had an impact on these writers and the texts they have produced. It also discusses the literary and anthropological representation of these Islanders from the 'outside', from the perspective of a European hegemonic self, forming the 'orientalist' stereotypes against which the initial texts written by the Pacific's colonised 'others' in the early 1970's reacted so strongly. Chapter One sets out the conceptual framework within which these texts will be discussed and analysed, beginning with indigenous and local concepts which indigenous and migrant Pacific Islanders use to connect and accommodate different 'ways of seeing' this representative body of literature, then moving on to other theorists concerned with literary representation and post-coloniality. Chapters Two to Nine explore the writing of these three countries, beginning with the fiction of Albert Wendt, one of the major writers from Western Polynesia who has an established regional and international literary reputation, and then progressing to focus on other selected representative writers of the three countries, including those in the early stages of attempting publication. The thesis concludes by discussing the texts from all three countries and tying them together in the various thematic strands of cultural clash, the widening of borders, the quest for self-definition and national identity in the contemporary Pacific, reiterating major points and examining possible future directions in Western Polynesian writing. The study takes an interdisciplinary approach to the critical analysis of Western Polynesian literature, maintaining the importance of seeing them as important forms of cultural communication in post-colonial contexts, as literary representations from the inside, writing out of a cultural consciousness which values the various 'pasts' of Polynesia as definitive 'maps' which provide the grids and bridges which Pacific Islanders in this part of Oceania can utilise to mediate their experiences and articulate their identities, to fit the widening boundaries of the Pacific into a post-colonial global context.

This thesis presents a material-centered characterization of 120 geologic samples from four fine-grained basalt quarries on the Samoan Island of Tutuila. Previous unsuccessful attempts at definitive Tutuilan quarry differentiation have utilized x-ray fluorescence (XRF). In this study, clear differentiation of each analyzed quarry was achieved using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Biplots of canonical discriminant function scores for the INAA data illustrate clear separation based on the variation in chemical composition between each quarry. The samples analyzed not only define quarry separation, but also provide the "core group" for a preliminary baseline necessary for future artifact-centered provenance studies. Inclusion of these "core group" samples in the baseline was confirmed by stepwise discriminant analysis. These findings suggest the ability to determine quarry of origin on the island of Tutuila, which can elucidate the importance of individual Tutuilan quarries in the export and exchange of fine-grained basalts.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1984 / Pacific Islands Studies