Settlement patterns and housing
There were ancient “cities” in Micronesia, two of which survive as archaeological remains. One is the archaeological site of Nanmadol, on Pohnpei. It comprises some 100 artificial islands, separated by shallow canals and covering one-third of a square mile (including water). The islands were used for royal, priestly, and noble residences and for rituals; scholars believe that the total population may have been several hundred to 1,000 people. The construction of Nanmadol may have begun as early as the 7th century ad, and it continued until the 16th century. A similar site on the islet of Lelu in Kosrae was constructed between ad 1200 and 1400. During its heyday, from about 1400 to 1800, the king and high chiefs resided at the site. This royal city and feudal capital, which included more than 100 walled compounds, covered the entire lowland area of Lelu Island, and the remnants of the site continue to cover about one-third of the island. Lelu’s warriors were powerful enough to invade and conquer Nanmadol in the 17th century.
These impressive sites, however, do not reflect the experience of the average Micronesian. Most lived in dispersed extended-family homesteads. On atolls, the inhabitants generally preferred the lagoon side of the larger islands for ease in launching canoes and for protection from cyclones. On the high islands, people also wanted access to lagoons, although easily defensible sites were sometimes preferred, such as the tops of steep cleared slopes.
A typical Micronesian community had one or more meetinghouses. These served as social gathering places and as places to plan community affairs. The number and elaborateness of the meetinghouses were greatest in Palau and Yap. In Palau, Yap, and the western atolls, meetinghouses were used mostly by men, while farther east, women and children also entered them freely much of the time. Canoe houses were another important form of building throughout Micronesia. Those big enough to store the larger canoes were on the scale of meetinghouses and often were used as such in some areas. Small buildings for the isolation of menstruating women were common in the western Carolines, and they continued to be used in Yap until well into the 20th century.
Houses in most areas were built on slightly raised platforms; these were made of coral rock and gravel on the low islands and volcanic rock and dirt on the high islands. They generally had thatched roofs, low eaves, and poor ventilation. The smoke from a small hearth may have been used to control mosquitoes, although plaited mosquito-resistant sleeping bags were also used at times.
Traditional forms of house construction provided good protection against heavy rainstorms. Some of the houses in the Marianas appear to have been constructed on stone pillars. The so-called latte stones of this area—paired rows of large stone pillars with capstones—are thought to have been the foundations of raised houses. Latte stones can be quite tall: the quarries in which they were fashioned indicate that some were 20 feet (6 metres) tall or more, although more-typical examples are less than 15 feet (4.5 metres) in height. Because latte sites are relatively few when compared with the estimated population at the time of their construction, experts have conjectured that the stone foundations may have been used exclusively by chiefs or other wealthy people. Other houses may have been built on wooden piles that have since disappeared.
Kinship and marriage
Before European contact, the majority of Micronesians lived in some form of extended family group. In most areas the organization of these groups probably had considerable flexibility. Some newlywed couples lived with the husband’s family and others with the wife’s relatives, as the major determinants in the choice of residence were the relative availability of agricultural land and the need for additional labourers on one or the other side of the family. Descent was traced through matrilineage in most of Micronesia. While residence with the wife’s family was thus widely held as the ideal, exceptions were frequently allowed in practice, and children often had rights to use land on their paternal grandmother’s side. In Yap, on the other hand, patrilocal residence and patrilineal inheritance of land were considered ideal.
Matrilineages were traditionally exogamous—members did not marry within the same lineage. While matrilineage membership was considered basically unalterable in some communities, actual practices probably allowed some flexibility. If a lineage grew too large, it tended to split into two parts, one of which would adopt a new name; the two parts would from that time forward be considered different lineages for the purposes of exogamy. If outsiders moved into a community, they would often be taken into an existing lineage as honorary or fictive members and would be expected to observe the lineage’s rules of exogamy.
Marriage in Micronesia varied in formality. In Palau and Yap, marriages were marked by formal payments from the groom’s family to the bride’s. In the area from the central Carolinian atolls to the Marshalls, marital relationships were usually rather loose and informal, although people of high rank may have had public ceremonies with some exchange of wealth. In this area considerable premarital and extramarital sex was traditionally expected. Marriage for ordinary people consisted simply of openly living together and being spoken of by the community as spouses. Apparently, there was more formality to marriage and more control of premarital sex in the Gilberts. Polygyny, a form of marriage in which wives share a husband, was generally permitted to some extent in Micronesian societies, although it was not very common. It was most likely to involve high-ranking men and was sometimes restricted to chiefs.
Birth order has traditionally been widely important in Micronesian societies. The eldest child typically represents the family or lineage in public, is expected to inherit any lineal political offices, and directs the use of lineage or family lands. Younger siblings generally exhibit formal respect to older siblings. Brother-sister avoidance relationships are well developed in parts of Micronesia, perhaps most strongly in the central Carolines from Chuuk through the atolls to the west. In this area sisters and brothers were traditionally expected to avoid speaking to one another, and a sister was expected to crouch in her brother’s presence and to show respect in other ways. In Pohnpei a similar relationship existed between a sister whose next older sibling was a brother, but it did not extend with the same force to relationships between other siblings.
As in other parts of Oceania, people often adopted the children of their relatives. The practice was useful in many ways: it provided a home for children who were orphaned or born out of wedlock; and it was a way of relieving young adults of the chores of child care while providing older people with children to do minor work for them, a way of ensuring more-equitable distribution of land rights, and a way of providing heirs who could be taught specialized knowledge when a natural heir was unavailable or unsatisfactory.