Полинезия халықтарының мәдениеті

Culture of the indigenous people of the Polynesian islands

Polynesian culture is the culture of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. The development of Polynesian culture is typically divided into four different historical eras:
Exploration and settlement (c. 1800 BC – c. AD 700)
Development in isolation (c. 700 – 1595)
European encounter and colonization until World War II (1595–1946)
Post World War II period

Maternal mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests that Polynesians, including Samoans, Tongans, Niueans, Cook Islanders, Tahitians, Hawaiians, Marquesans and Māori, are genetically linked to indigenous peoples of parts of Maritime Southeast Asia including those of Taiwanese aborigines. This DNA evidence is supported by linguistic and archeological evidence. Recent studies into paternal Y chromosome analysis shows that Polynesians are also genetically linked to peoples of Melanesia. Between about 2000 and 1000 BC speakers of Austronesian languages spread through Maritime South East Asia – almost certainly starting out from Taiwan – into the edges of western Micronesia and on into Melanesia. In the archaeological record there are well defined traces of this expansion which allow the path it took to be followed and dated with a degree of certainty. In the mid 2nd millennium BC a distinctive culture appeared suddenly in north west Melanesia, in the Bismarck Archipelago, the chain of islands forming a great arc from New Britain to the Admiralty Islands. This culture, known as Lapita, stands out in the Melanesian archeological record, with its large permanent villages on beach terraces along the coasts. Particularly characteristic of the Lapita culture is the making of pottery, including a great many vessels of varied shapes, some distinguished by fine patterns and motifs pressed into the clay. Within a mere three or four centuries between about 1300 and 900 BC, the Lapita culture spread 6000 km further to the east from the Bismarck Archipelago, until it reached as far as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. In this region, the distinctive Polynesian culture developed, where Melanesian men would marry into the Lapita culture. Polynesians would not move further east for another 1,000 years. The Proto Polynesians who find their origins in Maritime Southeast Asia were an adventurous seafaring people with highly developed navigation skills. They perfected their seafaring and boat craft techniques as each successive generations "island hopped", starting from the island of Taiwan through the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos and west to the Marianas, finally dispersing throughout the Pacific Ocean. They colonised previously unsettled islands by making very long canoe voyages, in some cases against the prevailing winds and tides. Polynesian navigators steered by the sun and the stars, and by careful observations of cloud reflections and bird flight patterns, were able to determine the existence and location of islands. The name given to a star or constellation taken as a mark to steer by was kaweinga. The discovery of new islands and island groups was by means of entire small villages called vanua or "banwa" setting sail on great single and double hulled canoes. Archaeological evidence indicates that by about 1280 AD, these voyagers had settled the vast Polynesian triangle with its northern corner at Hawaii, the eastern corner at Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and lastly the southern corner in New Zealand. There have been suggestions that Polynesian voyagers reached the South American mainland. Carbon dating of chicken bones found by Chilean archaeologists on the Arauco Peninsula in south central Chile was thought to date from between 1321 and 1407 AD. This initial report suggested a Polynesian pre Columbian origin. However, a later report looking at the same specimens concluded:

A published, apparently pre Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia. The cultivation before western exploration by many Polynesian cultures of the sweet potato, a South American plant, is also evidence for contact. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon dated in the Cook Islands to 1000 AD, and current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia around 700 AD, possibly by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back, and spread across Polynesia to Hawaii and New Zealand from there.

While the early Polynesians were skilled navigators, most evidence indicates that their primary exploratory motivation was to ease the demands of burgeoning populations. Polynesian mythology does not speak of explorers bent on conquest of new territories, but rather of heroic discoverers of new lands for the benefit of those who voyaged with them. While further influxes of immigrants from other Polynesian islands sometimes augmented the growth and development of the local population, for the most part, each island or island group's culture developed in isolation. There was no widespread inter island group communication, nor is there much indication during this period of any interest in such communications, at least not for economic reasons. However, almost all these isolated colonies originating from Maritime Southeast Asia still retained the strong influence of their ancestral culture. These are very obvious in social hierarchies, language, and technology which point to a common source with the Dayaks, Tao, Ifugao, and Bajau. During the period following complete settlement of Polynesia, each local population developed politically in diverse ways, from fully developed kingdoms in some islands and island groups, to constantly warring tribes or extended family groups between various sections of islands, or in some cases, even within the same valleys on various islands. While it is likely that population pressures caused tensions between various groups, the primary force that seems to have driven unity or division among tribes and family groups is geophysical: on low islands, where communications are essentially unimpeded, there does not appear to have developed any widely observable incidence of conflict. Meanwhile, on most volcanic islands, there were, historically, warring groups inhabiting various districts, usually delimited primarily by mountain ridges, with carefully drawn lowland boundaries. Early on, however, many such islands developed a united social and political structure, usually under the leadership of a strong monarch. An example is the Marquesas Islands, which, unlike other high island groups in Polynesia, are not surrounded by fringing coral reefs, and consequently have no low coastal plains. Every valley in the Marquesas is accessible to other valleys only via boat, or by traveling over steep mountain ridges.

The Polynesian Hula dance originates in Austronesian culture and is culturally similar to the types of dance that are known throughout similar linguistic cultures such as in Bali. Other dances of Polynesia include: Fakanau, Fakaseasea, Haka, Maulu'ulu, Taualuga, Titi torea, meke and Ura.