Title: Savage Men and Beautiful Women: Early representations of Pacific Islanders and representations used
1Savage Men and Beautiful Women Early
representations of Pacific Islanders and
representations used in contemporary tourism
2First Contact
- First contact with whites was often through
itinerant sailors and sailors off whaling ships,
explorers, fishers and traders of beche-de-mer
and pearl shell, sandalwood cutters,
blackbirders, beachcombers, missionaries, and,
later, plantation owners. - In representations from Cooks voyages, Pacific
Islanders tended to be likened to the Ancient
Greeks and idealised as Noble Savages (Smith,
1989).
3Reception of the Rev. J. Williams, at Tanna, in
the South Seas, the day before he was massacred
Attributed to George Baxter, 1841.
4Early adventurers
- Adventurer, Frank Hurley, described a longhouse
in this way - Everything was inexpressibly crude and
primitive. We had entered the Stygian homes of
prehistoric swamp-dwellers living by the shores
of a primeval sea Skulls, human bits, and
tit-bits filled our bone-bag, while axes, knives
and fabrics were substituted. Surely, indeed,
Father Christmas had visited the house! Iron and
steel replaced bone and stone, and a million
years was bridged in a day! (Hurley cited in
Thomas, 1992370).
5Obeyesekeres argument
- Maori were seen as savage cannibals until the
Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. - Representations of Pacific Islanders as savage
cannibals then moved north to the Marquesas and
Fiji (The Cannibal Islands). - Such stories were the stuff of seamens tales of
adventure and bravado. - (Obeyesekere,
1998)
6Missionaries in the Pacific
- The LMS sent out The Duff to missionise the
Pacific. - In Fiji, Methodism became widespread after the
conversion of the high chief, Cakobau. - Methodism changed Fijian society. Cannibalism
and wife-strangling were outlawed. Fijians were
expected to wear modest clothes according to the
missionaries sense of morality, etc.
7Exchange between Cakobau and Mr Hunt
- If I am first to lotu among my people, I shall
be first in heaven, shall I not? If you love
God the most, and serve him the best, you may
have a higher place in heaven, replied Mr Hunt.
But, said he, Namosimalua has lotued. Have
you given him glass windows for his new house,
and English carpets for his floors, and have you
sent to England for a vessel for him? He gets
no riches because he has renounced heathenism.
We do not come here to give riches to those who
lotu, but to tell you about God and Jesus Christ,
that you may love Him, and your souls be saved,
said Mr H. Then I will not lotu, he replied.
He then inquired about the resurrection. Mr H
told him that his body, and the bodies of all
those he had eaten, would be raised at the day of
judgement, and if he did not repent, they would
all be sentenced to the bukuwaqa together.
Well, replied he, it is a fine thing to have a
fire in cold weather (Wallis, 1883 62).
8Missionary views of Solomon Islanders
Taken 1912 (Thomas, 1992)
Taken c.1904-5 (Thomas, 1992)
9Gaugins Depictions of Tahitian Women
- Paul Gaugin, The White Horse, 1898
- And the Gold of their Bodies, 1901,
- (Ash, 1983)
10Gaugins Depictions of Tahitian Women
- Paul Gaugin, Nevermore, 1897 (Ash, 1983)
11Depictions of Pacific women
Stereoscope photo of a Hawaiian woman pre-1900,
Frank Davey, (Desmond, 1999)
Frank Burnetts A Tahitian Beauty, published
in 1911 (Thomas, 1992)
12Representations of Pacific Islanders
- The dominant view of explorers, officials, and
traders was of a racial hierarchy with white
Europeans at the top and the Negro races at the
bottom. - Tribal societies were thought to be savage,
primitive, barbaric, mystically-oriented, like
children. - Women were often represented as over-sexed and
tempting.
13Melanesians vs Polynesians
- Melanesians were often represented as
- belonging to the Negro race (at the bottom of the
racial hierarchy) - savage, barely human
- socially degraded ugly and sexually unappealing
- women. - Polynesians were often represented as
- relatively clever because many Polynesian groups
practised sedentary agriculture (e.g. Hawaiians) - passive, idle, and languorous men (Thomas,
1992378) - sexually alluring - women.
14Who represents? Why do some representations
become influential?
- Differences in representations also depended on
whether the representers were - Seafarers, Adventurers
- Missionaries
- Tourists
- The importance of these representations depended
on how they were circulated in Europe and America
and whether they matched overarching ideas about
Pacific Islanders already in those countries.
15Hotel versions of firewalking
16Firewalking
17Firewalking at Beqa, 2001
18References
- Ash, Russell 1983 The Impressionists and their
Art London Orbis Publishing. - Bossen, Claus 2000 Festival Mania, Tourism and
Nation Building in Fiji The Case of the Hibiscus
Festival in Contemporary Pacific, Vol. 12, No.
1 123-154. - Edmond, Rod 1997 Representing the South Pacific
Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gaugin Cambridge,
NY, Melbourne Cambridge University Press. - Lindenbaum, Shirley 2004 Thinking about
Cannibalism in Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 33 475-98. - Newland, Lynda 2004 Turning the Spirits into
Witchcraft Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages in
Oceania, Vol. 75, No. 1 1-18.
19References
- Obeyesekere, Gananath 1998 Cannibal Feasts in
Nineteenth-Century Fiji Seamens Yarns and the
Ethnographic Imagination in Cannibalism and the
Colonial World (eds) Francis Barker, Peter Hulme,
and Margaret Iversen, Cambridge, NY, Melbourne
Cambridge University Press. - Oosterwal, Gottfried 1978 Introduction in
Mission, Church, and Sect in Oceania. (eds) D. T.
H. James A. Boutilier, and Sharon W. Tiffany. Ann
Arbour, The University of Michigan Press. - Smith, Bernard 1989, 1960 European Vision and the
South Pacific Melbourne, Oxford, Aukland, NY
Oxford University Press. - Thomas, Nicholas 1992a The Inversion of
Tradition in American Ethnologist, Vol. 19, No.
2 213-232.
20References
- Thomas, Nicholas 1992b Colonial Conversions
Difference, Hierarchy, and History in Early
Twentieth-Century Evangelical Propaganda in
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.
34, No. 2 366-389. - Thornley, Andrew 1996 The Legacy of Siloam
Tahitian Missionaries in Fiji in The Covenant
Makers Island Missionaries in the Pacific, Suva,
Fiji Pacific Theological College and USP. - Tiffany, S. W. 1978. "The Politics of
Denominational Organisation in Samoa". Mission,
Church, and Sect in Oceania. D. T. H. James A.
Boutilier, and Sharon W. Tiffany. Ann Arbour, The
University of Michigan Press. - Wallis, Mary 1983 (1851) Life in Feejee Five
Years Among the Cannibals Suva Fiji Museum.