Alumni Travel Reading: Tahiti and French Polynesia

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This book presents one of the greatest private collections of Polynesian art in the world. Objects are fully described and annotated.

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' 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.

A follow up volume to Whetu Moana above

A novel about mother-daughter relationships, love, and wisdom by Tahitian writer Vaite. She is also author of Breadfruit (2000), and Tiare (2006). Finder her books in libraries and online booksellers.

This critical work looks at themes and representations of nostalgia and colonialism in French imperial texts focused on Tahiti, Martinique, and India.

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.