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CHAPTER 8 Gregorius Neonbasu

Anthropology and Oral Traditions in the Melanesian World

Melanesia: An Oceanic Perspective
The historical study of an area is not always complete and perfect. Data acquired from a
certain time has always emerged from the thoughts of someone or some people, which
can never be disassociated from their personal experience. According to Fox (2003),
the writing of history has never been completed at a specific time. There will always be
new thoughts and reflections as well as new research, on both the history that has been
presented earlier and recently presented in specific time and space.

Oceania: A Very Short Introduction
In the period of the history of the Pacific Region, there is a stretch of time in the perspective
of anthropology regarding the appearance of Oceania under the discussion topic of
Melanesia. In early historical reflections on the emergence of Melanesia, the term Oceania
was broader than the term Pacific Ocean, which conventionally includes five areas: (1) The
Australian Continent (2) Melanesia: Papua New Guinea and Fiji, (3) Micronesia: Marianas,
Caroline, Marshall and Gilbert Islands, (4) Polynesia: Hawaii, Tahiti, Easter Islands, and
New Zealand, and (5) Eastern Indonesia: East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, Indonesian Papua
and East Timor.
However, in the perspective of history as told by experts in the area of language
development, this pattern of distribution is insufficient because it does not include the
socio-cultural realities. In the existing perspective of language (ethno-linguistics), it is only
the Austronesian language that covers the entire region of Southeast Asia, Madagascar,
Taiwan (Formosa), Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and New Zealand.
Indonesia is among the countries with the largest population diversity, bigger than that in
the Pacific region as a whole (Clark, 1977).

Oceanic Historiography
The previous chapters show the dynamics of understanding of history that mostly refer to
the findings in the 19 century by British, Dutch, and French sailors. The term Melanesia
th

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