The Population of Tikopia, 1929 and 1952

Abstract

Population data collected during an anthropological expedition to the Pacific Island of Tikopia in 1952-3 are compared with similar data collected in 1929, supplemented by the somewhat inadequate censuses of 1933 and 1944. The analysis throws some light on questions relevant to an anthropological study and is illustrative of the value of population statistics to such studies. Data on births and deaths, as well as population by sex, age and marital status were collected for 1929 and 1952 and the analysis provides the basis for the discussion of such phenomena as the practice of infanticide, the significant excess of males at various ages, variations in mortality and in proportions married and the effect on births and deaths of a period of famine prior to 1942. Daths exceeded births in 1952 but the average number of still living children per married woman shows a fall only for incomplete families, the result primarily of excessive child mortality and possible infanticide immediately prior to 1952. This may indicate that Tikopia is nearing the Malthusian limit of its population capacity. Some suggestions are made concerning the demographic information which an anthropologist might reasonably seek for such a population.

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