Acknowledging Pacific history

The Pacific Ocean is a really big place, so in this article we’re only talking about one part of the Pacific. We’ll focus on Oceania—which includes island groups known as Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and some parts of Australasia. Much of this region was populated by humans as many as 40,000 years ago! You may have seen a representation of this process in Disney’s Moana. The film depicts the historical movement of Polynesian peoples. It shows Moana navigating by the stars via technologies Pacific peoples pioneered over thousands of years of seafaring.

However, Oceania and the peoples of the Pacific were often left out of world history textbooks written in the US until about 1999. Then, two historians, both teaching at the University of Hawaii, wrote Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past.¹ They knew that Hawaiians historically were part of a Pacific community that played a significant role in the human past. Their book became a bestseller, changing the way this region has been studied ever since.

Human geography of the Pacific, c. 1200

Oceania was settled by humans over a long period beginning 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Scholars debate whether this first wave of migrations was intentional or unintentional. New studies have shown that unintentional crossings—journeys where ships went off course or had no intended destination in the first place—were unlikely. Therefore, it’s possible that early humans intentionally island-hopped from southeast Asia to the coast of New Guinea using early sailing technologies. Once there, people developed sophisticated agricultural techniques. They built densely-populated communities.

Some people then crossed the straits that separate New Guinea from Australia. Those who settled in Australia encountered new environments, including widespread arid (dry) zones. Few plant or animal species in Australia could be domesticated, but the continent did have some large animals that could be hunted. Most communities in Australia became expert hunters and gatherers.

People in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and the south Pacific developed technologies that allowed them to travel deeper into the Pacific Ocean. The most important of these innovations allowed them to read wind and ocean currents and to build large, sail-driven canoes. With these technologies, they gradually populated the outermost islands of Oceania.

These communities formed three large groups. Each was made up of peoples who were geographically spread out, but still related to each other by culture and language. These groups each covered areas of the planet larger than most continents. The first was the Melanesian group, which made up the densely-populated region of New Guinea and a large number of closely-packed islands from New Guinea to Fiji. North of Melanesia were the Micronesian group, who were more spread out, based on islands including the Mariana and Majōl (Marshall) chains. To the east, Polynesian people gradually populated very far-flung islands. Larger communities were formed in the Hawaiian chain and in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The Māori people spoke (and still speak) a Polynesian language.

Organizing communities and states

From 1200 to 1450 CE, Oceania was inhabited by culturally linked communities. The distances between many Polynesian islands meant that many societies were somewhat isolated, but there is evidence of ongoing trade. Other regions, like those in Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and New Guinea, built large communities. They needed complex political and social organizations to manage a large population.

People in most communities in this region belonged to family groups, where a lot of decisions were made. In a number of societies, families were organized into bigger units such as clans and states. Australian Aboriginal peoples developed an elaborate system of kinship, which helped to determine marriage and family relations and to establish societal rules for behavior. For the most part, Aboriginal society was egalitarian in terms of leadership potential, but only for men. There were few established political hierarchies such as chiefs or kings. Hierarchies seemed to be mostly contained to religious or spiritual matters, or those that related to the Dreaming. The Dreaming is the spiritual philosophy of the Aboriginal peoples. It encompasses their history of the universe, the Earth, the present, and the future.

The Māori society of Aotearoa migrated from neighboring islands. By the mid- to late-thirteenth century CE, they began dividing the land amongst several states or iwis. These were composed of a number of whanau, meaning families. Each state had several important chiefs, rangatira and ariki, who came together in a collective decision- making group. Still, as everywhere in the world, there was conflict both within and between the different Māori states.

The Hawaiian Islands were also settled by Polynesian migrants, with the first arrivals dated to about 300 CE. Continued migrations from the Tahitian islands took place from the ninth century CE. Hawaiian society resembled that of Aotearoa in many ways. Organized into a series of small kingdoms, the extended family, the village, and the clan were usually the most important political institutions. Both Hawaiian and Māori societies lacked written languages, but each had rich oral histories. Their oral tradition told of the legendary founding of the islands. Polynesians also brought with them farming knowledge as well as their shipbuilding and navigation techniques.

Gender relations varied among these communities. Women in Polynesian societies may have been closer to full equality with men than any other part of the world. They could be very independent, and women whose families held royal or chiefly positions could inherit authority. This was less true in other societies of the Pacific. But the most important aspect of gender roles in this region was the complementary relationship of men and women. In general, people believed that men and women each had their own spheres of influence, and that both were needed for a family or community to be successful. As in many parts of the world, some Pacific societies had (and continue to have) their own fundamental conceptions of gender. For example, Samoan society saw more than two genders. The third gender, known as fa’afafine, are biologically male but fulfill roles that are historically seen as being more feminine.

Ideas about culture and politics were broadly shared because the people of Oceania traded with each other across vast distances. Some peoples of Oceania traded goods from 1,000 or more miles away. Trading connections helped communities to keep up to date with new technology.

A world apart?

Generally, Oceania is treated as separate from other parts of the world before the modern era, but this may not be true. Many of the people who settled Pacific regions remained in contact with the Asian societies from which many of them originated. But there is also evidence of links to other regions.

For example, the language of the people of the large island of Madagascar, off the coast of East Africa, is about half African in origin. Half of it is Southeast Asian with strong relationships to Polynesian languages. However, this may not be proof of sustained interaction, but of a common origin in Southeast Asia.

In another example, DNA evidence from the Marquesas and other islands suggests that migrants from South America may have joined Polynesians in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE. This evidence emerged only very recently. It is forcing us to reimagine a lot of what we thought we knew about the history of this region.

Should we now think of the Pacific—even as early as 1200—as a great zone of interaction and exchange? It’s probably still too early for a final analysis. But it’s clear we can no longer rest on our older narratives that dismissed or ignored this global zone.

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1 Jerry Bentley and Herbert Zeigler, later joined by Heather Streets-Salter.