Pu taiana: signifiers of the female role in Marquesan society

Abstract

As a subject of study, pu taiana present a formidable topic, largely due to the previous scholarship of Karl von den Steinen. Von den Steinen, who studied the Marquesan material objects in European museums during the late nineteenth century, traveled to the Marquesas Islands in 1897 in order to research for his Die Marquesaner und we Kunst I from the early twentieth century. His exhaustive work with Marquesan material culture and especially pu (aiana has proved to be an integral source of information to scholars until the present day. But although von den Steinen has attempted to formally critique pu taiana and has explicated the themes that surround them, his work does not aim to evaluate the direct role that they play in the Marquesan social system. Similarly, E.S. Craighill Handy and Ralph Linton, who voyaged to the Marquesas during the Bayard Dominick Expedition from 1920 to 1921,3 have also provided thorough foundational information fur a study in Marquesan culture. Although their work lacks the specificity of von den Steinen's approach to material culture, their work does offer a more comprehensive approach to Marquesan society and its structures. More recently, Nicholas Thomas and Greg Dening have expounded upon these social structures, further meeting the area of study, just as Eric Kjellgren and Carol Ivory have provided contemporary points of view on the material culture. Combining earlier scholarship with work from contemporary scholars, along with supplementary examples from Eastern Polynesian cultures, this investigation seeks to reevaluate the function of pu taiana as a tangible visualization ofthe Marquesan female role.