Guides: Alumni Travel Reading 2018-2019: Tahiti and French Polynesia

Tahiti and French Polynesia

Exploration

Early Tahiti As the Explorers Saw It, 1767-1797 by Edwin N. Ferdon
Call Number: GN671.S55 F47
ISBN: 0816507201
Publication Date: 1981
This book relies on the early accounts of discovery and at the same time addresses the problems with knowing the history of a people from the eyes of the explorers and colonizers. Sadly, as this reading list will attest, much of what we know in the West about Tahiti and its neighboring islands is from a Eurocentric view point. Still, a reviewer from the Geographical Review wrote that Ferdon provided a “panoramic and sometimes precise view of early Tahitian lifestyle.”

Available at libraries and online booksellers
Trading Nature: Tahitians, Europeans, and Ecological Exchange by Jennifer Newell
Call Number: Van Pelt QL345.T3 N49 2010
ISBN: 9780824832810
Publication Date: 2010
Exploration and discovery from the Russian perspective: Two ships set sail from Russia, the Nadezhda and the Neva, for a voyage around the worl to carry out scientific exploration and collect artifacts for Alexander I's ethnographical museum in St. Petersburg. Newell presents an account of the voyage with detail of the events of the voyagers' stay in French Polynesia.
Twelve Days at Nuku Hiva: Russian encounters and mutiny in the South Pacific by E. V. Govor
Call Number: University Museum Library DU701.N8 G68 2010
ISBN: 9780824833688
Publication Date: 2010
More on the fateful voyage of the Russian ships Nadezhda and the Neva. Twelve Days at Nuku Hiva focuses on a mutiny as well as first person accounts of Russian encounters with the Nuka Hivan population. Govor looks to the writings of the ships' captains, the resident naturalist, and also the writings from fellow voyagers from Russia, Germany and Japan. Gover also looks to the Nuku Hivan perspective represented through their early interpreters, as well as evidence taken from the present day Nuka Hivan myth surrounding the Russian visit.
Tahiti Beyond the Postcard by Miriam Kahn
Call Number: Van Pelt GN671.S55 K34 2011
ISBN: 9780295991016
Publication Date: 2011
Attempting to see beyond the largerly Western interpretation the islands, Miriam Kahn goes beyond the Tahiti of the tourism industry in her study. This is indeed a darker side and includes the history of nuclear weapon development and its consequences the physical and emotional well being of French Polynesians, but also presents a three dimensional view of the people and their lives in the 20th century.
Vanishing Paradise: Art and Exoticism in Colonial Tahiti by Elizabeth Childs
Call Number: Fine Arts NX653.T35 C49 2013
ISBN: 9780520271739
Publication Date: 2013
This book takes a look at three 19th century artist, French artist Paul Gauguin, American John LaFarge, and the American writer Henry Adams and compares their views and representations of the islands.

Mutiny

Mutiny and Aftermath: James Morrison's Account of the Mutiny on the Bounty and the Island of Tahiti by James Morrison
Call Number: Van Pelt Library DU20 .M676 2013
ISBN: 9780824836764
Publication Date: 2013
James Morrison survived to tell the tale of the mutiny on the Bounty. Besides providing a narrative of the events of the famed mutiny, Morrison recounts his life living with the Tahitians. His observations are more those of an adopted insider and predate introductions of Western religious and societal practices. The editors claim that Morrison's is "the most insightful and wide-ranging of early European accounts of Tahitian life." The editors provide additional information regarding the place names and individuals Morrison records into this account.

Map of the Islands

Courtesy of Tahiti Tourism North America

For more maps and information visit Tahiti Tourism North America site. Although it is a very commercial Web site—It provides a brief overview of island history and geography and, perhaps more interestingly, maps for each of the islands along with photo galleries

Island Flora

Also available through Hathitrust.org. Permanent link for the book: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4526707 or http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006257703

Some Tropical South Pacific Island Foods: Description, History, Use, Composition, and Nutritive Value by Mary Murai, et al. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, [1958]

Polynesian Tiki

Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery (Film, 2014)

Extract of Description from Franklin: “James Cook Geographer, historical consultant and bestselling author Vanessa Collingridge searches for the man behind the legend as she traces his story in a series that is part biography, part travelogue and completely enthralling. A hero to some, a villain to others, this son of an English farm labourer described more of the globe than any other man in three incredible voyages. Discover the man and his times. Step back into the 18th century to experience what it was like to navigate uncharted and unknown waters in search of a legendary Great Southern Continent and then a Northwest Passage through the Arctic ice; as well as to be among the first Europeans to visit exotic Pacific islands like Tahiti.”

Available from Amazon and other video retailers

Art, Fiction, Culture

Polynesia: The Mark and Carolyn Blackburn Collection of Polynesian Art by Adrienne L. Kaeppler; Adrienne Lois Kaeppler
Call Number: Fine Arts N7411.P64 K34 2010
ISBN: 9781883528386
Publication Date: 2010
This book presents one of the greatest private collections of Polynesian art in the world. Objects are fully described and annotated.
Gauguin's Paradise Remembered: The Noa Noa Prints by Alastair Wright; Calvin Brown
Call Number: Fine Arts NE1149.5.G38 A4 2010
ISBN: 9780300149296
Publication Date: 2010
This book presents Gauguin's somewhat fictionalized diary of his experiences in Tahiti, which he illustrated with a series of ten woodprints. The journal and woodprints are the focus of Wright and Brown's study of Gauguin and his art, its meaning and sources of inspiration.
Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in Englis by Albert Wendt (Editor); Reina Whaitiri (Editor); Robert Sullivan (Editor)
Call Number: Van Pelt Library PR9645.65 .W48 2003
ISBN: 0824827562
Publication Date: 2003
'Whetu Moana' is the first anthology of contemporary indigenous Polynesian poetry to be written in English and edited by Polynesians. The three editors, Robert Sullivan and Reina Whaitiri (who are Maori) and Albert Wendt (who is Samoan) are all known for both their own creative writing and their academic study of Pacific and Polynesian literatures. The collection includes many well-known poets . . . and reveals an active, varied and creative scene which confronts both a complex colonial past and a contemporary global present. From the Publisher.
Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in Englis by Albert Wendt; Reina Whaitiri; Robert Sullivan
Call Number: Van Pelt Library. PR9670.P652 M38 2010
ISBN: 9780824835415
Publication Date: 2010
A follow up volume to Whetu Moana above
Frangipani by Célestine Vaite
ISBN: 0316114669
Publication Date: 2006
A novel about mother-daughter relationships, love, and wisdom by Tahitian writer She is also author of Breadfruit (2000), and Tiare (2006). Finder her books in libraries and online booksellers.
Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life; Omoo: a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; Mardi, and a Voyage Thither by Herman Melville (Library of America)
Call Number: Van Pelt Library PS2381.5 .T38 1982
ISBN: 00940450003
Publication Date: 1982
If Mutiny on the Bounty doesn't fill your need to indulge in literary iconology, Melville's South Sea trio of ocean going romances should fully satisfy such a need. The edition noted here is the first volume of The Library of America's three-volume edition of the complete prose works of Herman Melville. Typee and Omoo are based on a young Melville's experiences whaling and present a much more bucolic view of the sea going life than does Moby Dick. The third romance, Mardi ("the world" in Polynesian), set on a mythical Polynesian island, leans more toward the darker vision represented in Melville's later masterpiece. If you are ready to be immersed, dive in.

The Marriage of Loti (Rarhu), by Pierre Loti (1880)

Pierre Loti, a pen name for Julien Viaud, was one of several French writers in the late-19^th century who wrote about the “exotic” locales they traveled to. This autobiographical novel tells Loti’s story of falling in love with a Tahitian woman while traveling as a French naval officer. Loti participates in an era of fin-de-siècle French literature that exoticized the East, as well as French colonial outputs.

Available through HathiTrust: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t79s1sv30