Competing circuits in the Vava'u social economy

Abstract

The social economy of the Vava'u Islands in northern Tonga combines an older gift circuit of production and distribution with a strengthening commodity circuit. Asymmetrical transfer of gifts is an integral part of the Tongan system of stratification by Estate where lords, churches and people possess different jural rights. The commodity economy requires greater use of the net product to create and sustain production. This thesis examines the relationship between gift and commodity, systems of stratification, and production and distribution in the specific local and historical conditions of Pangai village and the Vava'u Group. The conservative economy of 1938 is described in the Beaglehole ethnography of Pangai and is the baseline for analysis of changes up to 1983 when the author concluded his field work. Lords possess estates of land by rights of conquest and inheritance. Gifts by tenants to solicit land recognise the realities of fieflord possession and are premised on reciprocity for provision of smallholdings. As lords attempt to use fief rights to gain convertible assets, money has replaced valuables as solicitary gifts. Generalized rights to use the land of friends and kin overcame inequalities in landholding among tenants during the pre-war period. As land takes on new values, use-right narrows to agnates and affines. This demise of use-right can create a truly landless category in Vava'u villages. Yet full capitalist-proletariat class structure has not developed in the villages. Diversity of labour and income is the norm and people move into alternative niches created by commodity circulation. The village economy is experiencing stress as people try to participate in the commoditization process. However, presentations of valuables continue to support ritual exchanges at visits and life-cycle ceremonies centred around the seat of the monarch. These transactions reinforce status and identity and reveal a logic of reciprocity between strata and of reproduction through gift exchange.