Collapse_ How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond [181]
Of traditional Tikopia’s seven methods of population regulation, the simplest was contraception by coitus interruptus. Another method was abortion, induced by pressing on the belly, or placing hot stones on the belly, of a pregnant woman near term. Alternatively, infanticide was carried out by burying alive, smothering, or turning a newborn infant on its face. Younger sons of families poor in land remained celibate, and many among the resulting surplus of marriageable women also remained celibate rather than enter into polygamous marriages. (Celibacy on Tikopia means not having children, and does not preclude having sex by coitus interruptus and then resorting to abortion or infanticide if necessary.) Still another method was suicide, of which there were seven known cases by hanging (six men and one woman) and 12 (all of them women) by swimming out to sea between 1929 and 1952. Much commoner than such explicit suicide was “virtual suicide” by setting out on dangerous overseas voyages, which claimed the lives of 81 men and three women between 1929 and 1952. Such sea voyaging accounted for more than one-third of all deaths of young bachelors. Whether sea voyaging constituted virtual suicide or just reckless behavior on the part of young men undoubtedly varied from case to case, but the bleak prospects of younger sons in poor families on a crowded island during a famine were probably often a consideration. For instance, Firth learned in 1929 that a Tikopian man named Pa Nukumara, the younger brother of a chief still alive then, had gone to sea with two of his own sons during a severe drought and famine, with the express intent of dying quickly, instead of slowly starving to death on shore.
The seventh method of population regulation was not operating during Firth’s visits but was reported to him by oral traditions. Sometime in the 1600s or early 1700s, to judge by accounts of the number of elapsed generations since the events, Tikopia’s former large saltwater bay became converted into the current brackish lake by the closing-off of a sandbar across its mouth. That resulted in the death of the bay’s former rich shellfish beds and a drastic decrease in its fish populations, hence in starvation for the Nga Ariki clan living on that part of Tikopia at that time. The clan reacted to acquire more land and coastline for itself by attacking and exterminating the Nga Ravenga clan. A generation or two later, the Nga Ariki also attacked the remaining Nga Faea clan, who fled the island in canoes (thereby committing virtual suicide) rather than await their deaths by murder on land. These oral memories are confirmed by archaeological evidence of the bay’s closing and of the village sites.
Most of these seven methods for keeping Tikopia’s population constant have disappeared or declined under European influence during the 20th century. The British colonial government of the Solomons forbade sea voyaging and warfare, while Christian missions preached against abortion, infanticide, and suicide. As a result, Tikopia’s population grew from its 1929 level of 1,278 people to 1,753 people by 1952, when two destructive cyclones within the span of 13 months destroyed half of Tikopia’s crops and caused widespread famine. The British Solomon Islands’ colonial government responded to the immediate crisis by sending food, and then dealt with the long-term problem by permitting or encouraging Tikopians to relieve their overpopulation by resettling onto less populated Solomon islands. Today, Tikopia’s chiefs limit