Small Island, Big Mission: Landscapes of Presbyterianism in Aniwa, Vanuatu

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "In Small Islands Forgotten: Insular Historical Archaeologies of a Globalizing World", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In November 1866, following a failed attempt at establishing a mission on the neighbouring island of Tanna five years earlier, the Presbyterian missionary John G. Paton landed on the small coral atoll of Aniwa. The inhabitants of this Polynesian Outlier in Southern Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides) installed the newcomers in the sacred ground of the sea snake god Tagaro at a place called Imarae. The subsequent “conversion” of Aniwa’s population presents a microcosm for colonial-era cultural change in Island Melanesia. Against a backdrop of population decline, shifting settlement patterns, and incursion of mass-produced consumer goods, Aniwan people incorporated Christianity into their existing universe, encapsulated by the pidgin term kastom. After European missionaries departed over the course of the 1880s-1900s, Aniwans continued to adapt and integrate the fabric of missionary materials into their everyday lives, as well as innovating their own traditions to maintain relationships with land and with atua (ancestors).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In Small Islands Forgotten: Insular Historical Archaeologies of a Globalizing World   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow