Adoption and Migration from Pulap, Caroline Islands

Adoption practices in the Pacific Islands are interpreted on the basis that children are valued resources who, like other resources, are shared with kin; adoption thus serves to strengthen ties between the natural & adoptive parents. Fieldwork on Pulap, the larger islet of Pulap Atoll, reveals that adoption is frequent: of 233 children of elementary school age & below, 123 have been adopted. The basis of adoption is membership in matrilineal descent groups, & the sibling bond is considered to be the strongest tie: of 118 adoptions by Pulapese, 71 were of children by members of the father's matrilineal descent group, & 28 more represented extensions of this basic pattern. This sharing of children serves to give substance to kinship ties, which are regarded as ceasing to exist if no sharing takes place. This form of adoption maintains the kinship ties of Pulapese men residing on Moen, the administrative center of Truk State, & is consistent with the use of adoption to strengthen valued but fragile kinship ties. 22 References. W. H. Stoddard