Traditional Micronesian Societies: Adaptation, Integration, and Political Organization in the Central Pacific

Glenn Petersen is an anthropologist specializing in Micronesia, and this University of Hawai'i Press book is his academic study of traditional Micronesian political organization, covering the polities of the central Pacific including the five wehi, or chiefdoms, of Pohnpei and their distinct title systems. Its strength is fine grained attention to the actual political distinctions between different Micronesian island societies, work that specifically corrects the common tendency to treat Pohnpei, or Micronesia generally, as an undifferentiated cultural unit rather than a set of politically distinct island societies with their own separate structures. Its limit is that it centers on political and social organization specifically, so a claim about Micronesian religious cosmology or ritual practice, distinct from political title systems, needs a source with that particular focus.