Society and Culture
Anuta has a human population of about 300. The island has two noporanga, or "dwelling places", each with a traditional chief. Mua, meaning "front", is the eastern and main village, and Muri, meaning "back" is the western village. Due to its small land area, Anuta has one of the highest population densities in the world, equaling that of Bangladesh.
Historically, some of its inhabitants have used the small island of Fatutaka, about 37 miles (60 km) to the southeast, as a supplemental agricultural location. Unlike the majority of the population of the Solomon Islands who are Melanesian, the islanders of Anuta are Polynesian, and their language, also named Anuta, is a Samoic language branch of the Polynesian language. A 200-word word-list is available at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database.
Read more about this topic: Anuta
Famous quotes containing the words society and, society and/or culture:
“The Settlement ... is an experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems which are engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city. It insists that these problems are not confined to any one portion of the city. It is an attempt to relieve, at the same time, the overaccumulation at one end of society and the destitution at the other ...”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“In a town-meeting, the great secret of political science was uncovered, and the problem solved, how to give every individual his fair weight in the government, without any disorder from numbers. In a town-meeting, the roots of society were reached. Here the rich gave counsel, but the poor also; and moreover, the just and the unjust.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)