Fa-Amu (`To Feed’): Adopting Tahitian Children, and Becoming Tahitians?
Yuan-chao Tung, Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica
The issue of adoption in Oceania has long received scholarly attention. In this paper, I focus on Chinese (immigrants’ and their descendents’) practices of adopting Tahitian children. How has adoption been practiced and perceived by the Chinese in French Polynesia? I argue that some transfers of children reflect a sense of family and kinship similar to that of the Tahitian fa-amu.
