Book Reviews

[...]Part 1 of the book, which deals with Balinese canoes, also provides information on canoe ceremonies, in addition to data of a technical and nautical nature. According to Homell, this canoe type, which is still in use in Micronesia and Fiji, evolved from the double outrigger boat as an adaptation to a different environment, i.e., an ocean which, in spite of its name, is far from quiet and is vastly different from the calm waters of the 'Indonesian Mediterranean'. The western Highlands, with their heavy non-seasonal rains and fertile swamp areas, were already marked by an overproduction of taro and pigs, and an exchange system in which pigs were exchanged for political patronage, women, labour, prestige and power long before the introduction of the sweet potato. Because the sweet potato, like taro; flourished much better in the western Highlands than in the eastern Highlands, overproduction increased, as did the production of pigs. According to his own findings, Feil states that 'Bigmen should . . . be seen as geographically specific, indeed as historically specific too, for it is only in those societies where intensive agriculture and linked pig production are 572 ' Boekbesprekingen ancient and most developed that they are most clearly an evidence' (p. 94, my italics; compare also pp. 98/99).