Like many island populations, that of the Cook Islands is characterized by considerable instability as illustrated by the 1981 census results. As the rate and direction of population change varies from island to island, generalizations across the nation as a whole are difficult. For example, while some of the northern atolls experienced population decline during the latest intercensal period, most had their popultion increase in 1981. All the southern islands declined during the 1976-81 period at annual rates varying from 0.6% to 3.2%. The explanation for these patterns of change lies primarily in the different rates and direction of external migration on each island, as Cook Islanders are exempt from immigration regulations to New Zealand and Australia. In recent years, women have formed a majority of the total emigration stream, affecting the sex ratio which increased from 105 in 1976 to 107 in 1981.
“emigration has reduced the average growth rate in the population from a potential 3.2% to an actual rate of -0.6% over the 1966-76 period. The population has declined by 5.9% over the same period and some islands have dropped by as much as 55%. No evidence was found to indicate that migration has improved the dependency burden or the sex ratio. While the effects of migration vary from island to island, the overall effect on the ‘development’ of the Cook Islands has been negative.
When European contact was first made in the late 18th century the southern islands had thriving populations. Rarotonga supported about 8000. However, European diseases virtually wiped out the pure Rarotongans in the mid-19th century and reduced their number to fewer than 2000. Since then, periodic additions of outer islanders have built Rarotonga’s population back to about 9000. The total population of all the islands is about 18,000. There are believed to be a further 37,000 Cook Islanders living in New Zealand and Australia.
The dominant religion of Polynesia and the Cook Islands is Christianity. The missionaries arrived in 1821 and quickly uprooted the old animistic worship of tribal gods and idols. Their success was much quicker than in the Marquesas and Society Islands. The London Missionary Society focussed its early efforts on the Society Islands. Ex-ironmonger John Williams hit on the idea of using converted Polynesians to spread the gospel to the islands to the west.Avarua CICC church He sent two Raiateans to Aitutaki in 1821 and others followed shortly after to Mitiaro, Mangaia, Mauke and Atiu.
Finally, Rarotonga fell to the new beliefs. The islanders probably identified the missionaries as bringers of all the material benefits they saw as being part of European civilisation. Nonetheless, it is curious that they became such quick and eager converts. The missionaries faced the hostility of European sailors and traders but pressed on with their task of wiping out cannibalism, infanticide and idol worship. Missionaries are responsible for many negative aspects of life in Polynesia but without them there would have been no schools and no written form of the Rarotongan language.
These churches still maintain a strong grip on the life of the average Cook Islander. Any politician seeking the popular vote is well-advised to put in plenty of church “time”. Church membership is essential for those who wish to exercise power or to influence the community.
Today the Cook Islands use three languages: Maori, English and Pukapukan. The latter originated in western Polynesia and has links with the tongues of Samoa, Tokelau and Niue. Pukapukan is claimed to be the oldest language in the Cook Islands according to a New Zealand scholar and researcher, Dr Mary Salisbury, who worked hard with Pukapukans to translate the Bible into their language.
The Maori used by the people of the Cooks has six dialects. They are: Rakahanga/Manihiki, Penrhyn, Mangaia, Rarotonga, Aitutaki and Atiu/Mauke/Mitiaro. Pukapukan is spoken in Pukapuka and Nassau. The people of Palmerston speak English in the accents of Victorian Gloucestershire. This is because Palmerston was uninhabited until 1862 when a Gloucester man, William Masters, settled there with his three Polynesian wives and stayed till he died in 1899. His hegemony was taken over by one of his sons until 1956 when it was passed on to a grandson. Nearly all the islanders are named Marsters someone having added an ‘r’ to the original name.
Most southern group Cook Islanders are able to communicate with those from the far-flung northern atolls. There has also been a considerable influx of people from the outer islands into Rarotonga in search of opportunities and this has resulted in greater homogeneity of language.
Although fun-loving and friendly, Cook Islanders, like Tahitians and other Polynesians, are a conservative and generally religious people who cleave to their customary way of life and culture. They do not fit the ill-founded Western myth that they are loose-living hedonists of easy morals. The early missionaries stamped their indelible print on these islands in the 19th century.
Individuality between islands is the hallmark of the culture of the Cook Islands and reflects their varied sources of ancient migration as well as the vast distances between 15 tiny islands scattered over a section of the central South Pacific Ocean as big as the Indian sub-continent.
However, there are some common threads. All the islands employed a chiefly system based on traditional legends of migration and settlement. These stories enshrined the power of the chiefs as inheritors of what might be termed an “heroic” culture.
From time to time theories have been advanced that Polynesian culture before European contact was similar to that of the heroic period of Greece, that is, pre-dating Homer around 1200 BC. Some of these parallels include the concept of ‘mana’, kinship, feasting and the giving of food, attitudes towards women and the lack of individualism.
The Polynesian hero, or free man, acquired ‘mana’, loosely translated as ‘power’ and ‘prestige’ by the deeds he accomplished. He was measured by his deeds achieved on a purely personal basis. His main attachment was to his own kin or clan. The obligations inside this framework far outweighed any notion of social conscience or nationalism. This was a close parallel to the archaic Greeks, termed by Homer ‘Achaians’. Neither the Achaian nor the archetypal Polynesian free man or ‘hero’ had a word describing his immediate nuclear family. Also, neither had a word for ‘love’ as modern western civilisation understands it. Food and the giving of it features strongly in both cultures.
Western notions of the importance of the individual are completely alien to Polynesians as indeed they would have been to the Achaians. Polynesians see themselves as members of a race, a people, a party or some other general group in much the same way as many primitive societies do.
Allegiance to chiefs was a fundamental of Polynesian culture. The chiefs’ titles and other authoritative positions were passed down primarily through the senior male line. However, land rights were inherited via the mother’s line. Chiefs were responsible for war leadership, carrying out important discussions with other groups or clans, land allocation, disputes settlement and intercession with the gods.
One of the most significant functions of a chief was to organise and pay for feasts. A chief, or indeed, any man, was judged by his ability and willingness to bestow gifts and to throw big parties. Much of the detail of these cultural structures was lost when the missionaries began making inroads into the native religion in 1823 and afterwards.
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Source link : https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/oceania/ck-people.htm
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Publish date : 2018-11-21 03:00:00
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