A comparative analysis of a traditional western Polynesian tupua at Swains Island, American Samoa.

Summary

In 2013 an archaeological survey was conducted on Swains Island, American Samoa, a remote atoll in western Polynesian. This paper presents a comparative analysis of a traditional Polynesian religious structure known as a tupua that was identified and documented during the survey. The tupua is a unique structure when compared to other religious structures that have been described in the archaeological and ethnohistorical literature. However, analysis shows that individual structural features are similar to other religious structures in western and eastern Polynesian. Accounts of traditional voyaging to Swain Island support the idea of interaction between Swains Island and the islands of western Polynesian and eastern Polynesia and raise questions as to the influences on, and the development of, the design of this religious structure, and others in the region.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage