Paper short abstract:

Based on research on the anthropogenic islandscape transformation processes on the Pukapuka Atoll, this paper analyzes the characteristics of the multifaceted interactional relationships between the Pukapukan people and their assigned cemetery to propose the concept of a cemeteryscape.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2017, our multidisciplinary team has been conducting field-research on geomorphological and anthropogenic islandscape transformation on the Pukapuka Atoll. As one of our research targets, we carried out a historical survey of 30 cemeteries (pō) on the Pukapukan main islet of Wale, logged their GPS coordinates to create a location map, and interviewed genealogical descendants of the buried about burial ground designation procedures. In Pukapuka, one's cemetery is decided at birth through the mutual agreement of one's parents. Patrilineal choice of cemetery is the basic principle; however, maintaining a geographically balanced islet-wide distribution of burial is a crucial factor in any final decision. Therefore, patrilineal and matrilineal lines, as well as flexible adoption to a distant line, are utilized. Once a child's cemetery is decided, the child is incorporated into a "burial relationship" (yōlonga) with the people who are to be buried in the same cemetery in the future. Today several thousand Pukapukans live off-island in New Zealand and Australia. Many of them were born off-island. However, when they first encounter a fellow Pukapukan, they still ask each other the "traditional" greeting, "where are you going to be buried?" Expectations to share a cemetery nucleate specific collaborations in everyday life and connect people with different positionalities to generate a confluence of otherwise diversified trajectories. The relationships based on their future final resting place last literally until their dying day. Pukapukans live through their burial relationships which create and expand their futures. Therefore, Pukapukans live their lives on a cemeteryscape.