Le vie dei clan

Genealogie e topogenie a Belep (Nuova Caledonia)

Abstract

For the Belema people (Belep Islands, New Caledonia) the relationship between ancestors and significant places is one of utmost importance. Personal names, patronymics and toponyms point out this relationship. Their knowledge is strategic, since it is essential to accessing land and its resources (material, symbolic and political ones). In turn, the “place” of every person and of every group in genealogies and in topography influences the possibilities and the ways of knowledge transmission. The genealogical knowledge and the topographical one are inseparable and the Belema prefer topogeny to genealogy. Topogeny, being the recitation of ordered sequences of place names, often takes the form of a journey. Retracing the routes of the clans (on foot, by boat or through words), the stories and the geographies of every group overlap and take part to the social and political equilibrium in current Belema society.