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What of the future?
I make bold to predict that es the general economic
situation in the Marshalls improves, with assured ship contact between Kili
and the rest of the archipelago, and as the new land system on Kili is freed
of the "bugs" which presently plague its operation, the formerly emergent
leadership will be in position once more to challenge the traditional authority.
Certainly with the death of the present leaders (the two Big Men are now in
their sixties) the old system will be considerably weakened.
The younger
generation no longer remembers the ties cf allegiance which applied on.Bikiot
between lineages and alabs, and are now guided in this only by the memories
ate
of the oldsters.
One lesson I have learned from this continuing study of a community
eeae
undergoing change is the necessity to undertake field study at periodic
intervals in order to learn how changing conditions affect the predictions of
change from an earlier investigation.
It is about as close to a laboratory
situation as we can come in the study of this kind of problen,
November 1963
Honolulu, Hawaii