The potters of Espiritu Santo : A socio-historical study of survival and loss of tradition

Abstract

This dissertation looks at the traditional pottery of the Cumberland Peninsula on the island of Espiritu Santo in the context of its relationships with its makers, their history, traditional institutions and contact experiences, and also with other pottery in Vanuatu, in particular, the different pottery made further south on the same coast, that of the people of Wusi. The relationship between potteries is a persistent theme, starting with an attempt to trace their inheritance from the Lapita pottery believed to be made by the first colonisers of the region, and going on to compare the two technologies with each other and other ethnographically known potteries in Oceania. With doubt remaining about their precise relationship, the roles of contact history and cultural practice in the environments of the two areas are looked at to account for first an enhancement and then a decline of pottery making on the Cumberland Peninsula, while the comparative environmental harshness of the Wusi area has, in similar cultural and historic conditions, actually acted to help preserve pottery making there.