Gender Roles and Pictures of Ageing

Abstract

During my initial research period on Lamotrek from August to December 2006, I came to appreciate the cultural instruction the teachers’ work provides for the island in a special way. There are not only the culture teachers who train the children in traditional skills and techniques that form a good part of Lamotrekese life and conduct but, adding to this source of local knowledge, the other class teachers are aware of their responsibility to make their pupils sensitive especially towards Lamotrekese topics such as the gender roles and their importance for Lamotrek’s society. Since I wanted to research life courses and personal histories of the people in this place out in the Central Carolines in order to acquire a sense of how one experiences ageing on a Micronesian island, I asked the current second grade teacher, Thomas Hapitmai, if he would like to help me out in an anthropological experiment: to ask his pupils to draw a picture of their grandparents. Hapitmai not only “helped me out”, but managed to motivate his class to create little pieces of art that convey loads of cultural and personal symbolism and meaning.