BENNARDO, Giovanni (Northern Illinois University).
CONSTRUCTING A 3-D WORLD IN SEARCH OF A TONGAN CULTURAL MODEL.

This paper describes the "Digitized Tonga" database, the construction of a very detailed (geographically, using GIS, and ethnographically) 3-Dimensional rendering of a Pacific island. This 3-D world contains extensive geographical information (topography, roads, villages, etc.) about Vava'u, the northern Tongan archipelago where Houma is located. Houma is a small village of 172 residents and allows complete demographic data collection. Each house of Houma has been 3-D rendered and linked to a family tree of its residents, to the other houses where the relatives live, and to the plots cultivated by the house residents and their relatives.

This database represent a rich landscape against which extensive and in depth analyses of linguistic and ethnographic data will be conducted in search of further instantiation of "radiality," a Tongan cultural model I suggested. The availability of this database in the field and during the analyses will serve a variety of functions. It can be used during the interviews to ask appropriate and relevant questions, to store and check the information provided by the informants, and to stimulate interviewees to explain their descriptions when compared to the digitized data. Similarly, during the analyses of new collected data (e.g., linguistic texts and social networks), the 3-D world will provide the background for their interpretations.

In this presentation, I will first briefly illustrate the theoretical motivation for the construction of such a database. Secondly, a detailed description of the process by which the 3-D world was obtained from a 2-D GIS representation will follow. A short section in which it is demonstrated how this 3-D world has been used to analyze data is also included.