The papers in this volume were originally presented in a marathon six-day conference (25-30 January 1990) on issues of “Hierarchy, Ancestry and Alliance” held in Canberra and the University’s property at Kioloa on the south coast of Australia, offering participants a fine view of the Pacific Ocean for the concluding sessions of the conference. The conference produced a total of twenty-nine papers. From these papers, one set dealing specifically with ideas of hierarchy was selected to form the volume, Transformations of Hierarchy, edited by Margaret Jolly and Mark S. Mosko (1994). A second set of papers also concerned with hierarchy and precedence but equally concerned with ideas of origins, ancestry and alliance was selected to form this present volume. A majority of the papers in this volume are based on presentations at the conference but they have been revised, rewritten and, in several cases, substantially expanded as this volume has proceeded toward publication.

A feature of this second set of papers is its coverage of a diverse range of Austronesian societies ranging from Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to Micronesia and central Polynesia. Although each paper presents a specific case or cases, the volume, as a whole, has been framed to highlight possibilities of comparison among societies that might otherwise be considered within separate different regional settings. Discussion of issues of hierarchy — rank, stratification and status — as well as issues of equality figure prominently in all of the papers. A principal concern is to examine how hierarchy and equality are created, imagined and maintained by reference to ideas of origin and ancestry as a “founding” ideology in Austronesian societies.

To explore these ideas also requires attention to history. Indeed an historical perspective is essential to the comparative effort. The expression of fundamental conceptions that constitute the basis by which these societies are defined as Austronesian is made evident in their history.