Palauan studies

In December 2017, the Pacific Island nation of Palau changed its immigration policy in a globally unprecedented way. As of that month, tourist visas are only issued to visitors who upon entry sign the Palau Pledge, an eco-statement stamped into their passports. The pledge addresses the “children of Palau,” whose islands the inbound visitors personally commit to protecting as they take the pledge. To prepare inbound visitors prior to their arrival for this unusual visa procedure, and to get their message across more strongly, the campaign has also created a video spot, The Giant. This highly acclaimed clip is required inflight viewing for all inbound visitors to Palau. The clip begins with a traditional chesols. The lyrics of the recitation attribute ownership of the (Palauan) land exclusively to the water and the rocks. This chesols is used here to evoke a sense of deep connectedness with the land: an old, oceanic wisdom viscerally connected with the islands themselves, inscribed into traditional Palauan value structures and customs but apparently overrun by the speed and inequalities of both a long and burdensome colonial history and a present carrying the legacy of that history.
Exploring the nature of this wisdom, in this article, I take a closer look at the traditional performing arts in Palau as “sound knowledge.” I analyze chesols, a type of recitation, as a mode of knowledge that is substantive in nature and at the same time distinct to the qualities and affordance of its medium, i.e. sound. I pursue this idea by, first, conceptually exploring the notion of sound knowledge as a resource for Pacific Island cultures and loosely situating it within recent debates in phenomenology, the theory of knowledge as well as music studies. Following this, I will return to The Giant, PLP’s inflight video, looking at what can be gained from the idea that music offers a resource that may be key to survival in the complex environmental predicament of Palau, and by extension, Micronesia. What do Palauan musical practices know about sustainable ecologies and how do they know it? How does music-making make this knowledge operable and, consequentially, how do humans mobilize on this knowledge in coping with their changing life-world through music? Addressing these questions, I take a closer look at the musical genre employed in The Giant, chesols. In closing, I adumbrate the implications of the notion of sound knowledge for a Palau seeking to ensure its future livelihood.

"The position of Chamorro and Palauan in the Austronesian family tree: evidence from verb morphosyntax". In Wouk, F. and Ross, M. editors, The history and typology of western Austronesian voice systems. PL-518:405-436. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 2002.

The draft paper as at 24th April which is updated from the draft made for the oral presentation session (5th April 2017 does not contain any references and text errors needed corrections). The paper is still being worked on with more sections being added with some aspect areas clarified in more detail. Others are being reviewed. Due to the closure of the Parliament in the UK early for the snap elections, the text is still unfinished and will be resumed for the new Parliament session with no end date set yet. The document is best viewed by a download to Microsoft Word as web browsers tend to muddle the layout. Please note that the ice sheet mass balance changes occur mainly in nearby Iceland, Jan Mayen and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge rather than Greenland itself. (High viscous, low nucleation events pushing very cool, effusive, almost 'solid' lava incursions vertically up like the Mascarene volcanism of Mauritius are rare anomalies from a misaligned hotspot influencing further afield - and therefore far less likely.)

The word list summarizes the results of the fieldwork that took place in July 2018. Example phrases served as a basis of the word list accompany each word. The obtained data mostly are confirmed with information from other sources that are not numerous unfortunately. All of the items are accompanied with the regular IPA transcriptions. Context phrases are given with consideration to informant's pronunciation. Next allophones are in free variation: [ts] ~ [tʂ], [u] ~ [ʉ] in all positions, and [ow] ~ [ɞw] in diphthong ou. Each first one of them was chosen to use further. The phonemic status of [ae], which appears in three words at least, is uncertain. Since this sound appears to be in free variation with [ɛ:] in verb hakene 'to see', I may assume that [ae] is an allophone of [ɛ:]. Other words containing [ae] were used once only (as uruteh 'all of them') or did not demonstrate the variation (as per 'dry'). Spelling inconsistencies in the context phrases are related to active phonological processes, that is:-fronting of low vowels between any high vowels;-presence or omitting of furtive vowels;-lengthening of vowels in the words where furtive vowel is omitted, and-ablaut processes under influence of omiited furtive vowels. Abbreviations: PAn = Proto-Austronesian PCk = Proto-Chuukic PCMc = Proto-Central Micronesian PMc = Proto-Micronesian PMP = Proto-Malayo-Polynesian POc = Proto-Oceanic PPC = Proto-Pohnpeic-Chuukic PWMc = Proto-Western Micronesian

This paper investigates the morphological mechanisms used in loanword adaptation in Palauan, an Austronesian language spoken in the Republic of Palau, a small Western Pacific Island nation located seven degrees north of the equator. On the grounds of this data I have come to the conclusion that loanword adaptation using Palauan inflectional patterns had only taken place in the short period at the end of the 19th century into the early 20th century. Since then, the inflectional adaptation mechanism has given place to a different mechanism of borrowing in which synthetic loanword adaptation has fewer elements of native Palauan inflectional morphology.

Abstract Human skeletal remains have been discovered from a variety of contexts in the Palauan archipelago of western Micronesia. These include caves, rockshelters, earthen mounds, stone platforms, midden burials, crypts, sarcophagi, and historic period gravesites. Recent excavation of a prehistoric cemetery in a rockshelter on Orrak Island dating from ca 1000 BC–AD 200, combined with nearly contemporaneous surface finds in caves on both Orrak and other nearby islands, shed light on the earliest known burial practices in Palau. ...

Maclay's Palauan word list was published in Russian for the first time in 1951. Another revised edition came out in 1993. Both published versions, however, contained some mistakes, and, therefore, the document was considered inaccurate. This paper deals with the original manuscript and presents its content in a new perspective with a particular focus on Palauan phonology. As the result of comparison with similar documents, Maclay's word list shares several common features with other old word lists concerning the record of Palauan sounds and demonstrates some features of modern Palauan phonology.

ABSTRACI-Ardlaeological excavation at two limestom, quarries in the Rock Islands of Palau, Mk: ronesia, yielded e\[tensiw shellfish assemblages. Both sites were inhabited by Islanders dUring the last several hundred years while they quarried limestone deposits for stooe money disk production, but there are considerable differences inthe preservation and types of sheUfish recovered.

Notes. The word list summarizes the results of the fieldwork that took place in July 2018. Example phrases served as a basis of the word list accompany each word. The obtained data mostly are confirmed with information from other sources that are not numerous unfortunately. All of the items are accompanied with the regular IPA transcriptions.

Human skeletal remains have been discovered from a variety of contexts in the Palauan archipelago of western Micronesia. These include caves, rockshelters, earthen mounds, stone platforms, midden burials, crypts, sarcophagi, and historic period gravesites. Recent excavation of a prehistoric cemetery in a rockshelter on Orrak Island dating from ca 1000 BC–AD 200, combined with nearly contemporaneous surface finds in caves on both Orrak and other nearby islands, shed light on the earliest known burial practices in Palau. ...

The Pacific Islands were the last major geographic region settled by humans. The physical remains of these settlers, who probably arrived within the last 4500 years, are rare. At the Chelechol ra Orrak site in the Palau archipelago of Micronesia, the discovery of a cemetery dating to near 3000 BP presents an opportunity to examine what portends to be a large sample of the earliest peoples to inhabit the western Pacific. This report is intended as an introduction to the human skeletal remains recovered to date and a preliminary analysis of the skeletal biology and paleopathology. Although quite fragmentary, analysis reveals a mortuary sample that includes neonates through aged adults and a pathology profile with examples of degenerative joint disease, porotic hyperostosis, and spondylolysis. Though in the early stages of investigation, the cemetery at Chelechol ra Orrak has great potential to aid our understanding of the biological relationships and health of the early inhabitants of Palau.