Open Hospitality towards Other Traditional Leaders: Receiving Guests under Chiefly Authority in Pohnpei, Micronesia

抄録

This paper focuses on a welcoming ceremony for traditional leaders from all over Micronesia, held on Pohnpei Island, one area of the Federated States of Micronesia. Many persons of varied status attended the ceremony, including other traditional leaders. The main questions addressed below follow. How do the hosts show abundant deference to the participants of different status or rank in order not to degrade their status or rank? To what extent was the ceremonial committee aware of the potential risk of disgracing other attendees during their encounter? Why did one chieftess get angry in the presence of other traditional leaders? In this article, I examine the relationship between Pohnpeian hospitality and the increasing intercultural encounters among traditional leaders from the contemporary Pacific Islands. The committee was concerned not to degrade the status of either nahnmwarki (the paramount chiefs of Pohnpei) or kahlap (people regarded by Pohnpeians as equivalent in rank to nahnmwarki). Based on the identification of the kahlap and the status of each guest, the committee was able to honor the kahlap as well as the nahnmwarki by extending the logic of the Pohnpeian chiefly system and the ranking of titles. Moreover, several ceremonial procedures effectively conveyed complex messages about hierarchy and equality among participants. In this way, the extension of Pohnpeian hospitality towards traditional leaders has been transformed by intercultural encounters in contemporary Micronesia. In these situations, acts of hospitality toward traditional leaders from within and beyond Pohnpei Island have become difficult and problematic. I conclude that one of the challenges of Pohnpeian hospitality is to manage host-guest relationships by showing proper deference towards those to be honored not just in traditional contexts, but in the context of an expanded Micronesia.