The processes of founder rank enhancement did not only operate when founders settled empty lands or islands. Indeed, the importance of secondary invaders from without has bulked large in recent writings on Pacific anthropology. In many islands an original founder-focused ideology of rank was clearly replaced by an invader-focused one (Howard 1985; Sahlins 1985; Hanlon 1988), although as Sahlins himself points out these stranger king myths probably reflect “indigenous schemes of cosmological proportions” (Sahlins 1985:76) rather than any necessary historical process of conquest by true foreigners. Nevertheless, in the few instances where conquest by true foreigners does appear to have occurred (and the examples discussed by Sahlins and Howard may not be within this category), these foreigners clearly managed to aggrandize their rank rather spectacularly in the process of separation from their homeland community.

Two examples of this would appear to be recorded archaeologically. The most striking must surely be the huge Nan Madol élite dwelling and sacred complex on Pohnpei, established by the immigrant Saudeleur dynasty after its two founders arrived from an island to the west between AD 1000 and 1200 (Hanlon 1988:9; Morgan 1988). In mortuary terms, however, the accolade surely goes to Roy Mata, whose rather gruesome burial complex (c.AD 1250) was committed to the afterlife on a small island off the western coast of Efate in central Vanuatu. As recounted by the excavator (Garanger 1972), Efate traditions record Roy Mata and his followers as emigrants into the region, possibly from the south, although the direction is uncertain. I have summarized the main elements of the burial complex as follows (Bellwood 1978:270):

The body of a man, who can hardly be any other than Roy Mata himself, was found extended on its back in a pit which also contained, to his left, a man and woman side by side, to his right a single male, and across the feet of these four parallel bodies, a young girl … The pit was marked on the ground surface by two large slabs of stone … Around it were slightly shallower burials of 35 individuals, of which 22 comprised men and women buried together in pairs … In Garanger’s words, the women “seemed always to be seeking the protection of their companion, clasping him by the neck, waist or arm, with their legs frequently interwoven with those of the man, and their fingers and toes clenched” … it seems that the men may have been stupefied with kava before burial, while the women were in many cases buried alive and conscious.

Not only was Roy Mata both a founder and an invader according to tradition, but his burial extravaganza, worthy of a Sumerian or Shang Chinese king, is totally without precedent in the anthropological and archaeological records of Oceania. We may never know just why he was considered worthy of human sacrifice on such a scale, but there is little doubt that Roy Mata owed much of his “success” (if we can call it that) to foundership, a success which might have been denied to him were he just another locally-born man of charisma.