Oceanic Encounters: A Prelude

Abstract

This volume explores encounters, those encounters between indigenous peoples of the Pacific and foreigners during that longue durée of exploration, colonisation and settlement, from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century. By highlighting the idea of encounter we hope to stress the mutuality inherent in such meetings of bodies, and of minds. This is not to say that such encounters were moments of easy understanding or pacific exchanges. As many of the chapters in this volume attest, such encounters, from Quirós' sojourn in Espiritu Santo in 1606 (see Jolly 2007) to Australian patrols in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea from the late 1920s, were often occasions of tumultuous misunderstanding and extreme violence. But, even in the midst of massacre and revenge, there was a meeting of meanings, of bodies and minds, whereby pre-existing understandings, preconceptions from both sides of the encounter, were engaged, brought into confrontation and dialogue, mutual influence and ultimately mutual transformation. We thus prefer the notion of "encounter" to the more common sobriquet-"first contact"-for several reasons (see Connolly and Anderson 1987; Schieffelin and Crittenden 1991; and compare Ballard 2003 [1992]).

El doble descubrimiento en Rapa Nui: Una mirada desde los textiles

“…En Polinesia, hasta hace poco, la forma más respetuosa de presentar un regalo de telas era que lo llevara una mujer envuelta en ella, la cual se desenvolvía frente al receptor hasta desnudar la parte superior del cuerpo. El acto de desnudarse era una señal de respeto frente a un extraño (Tcherkézoff, 2003;Jolly & Tcherkézoff, 2009). Los europeos vieron, entonces, en esta "desnudez" femenina una conducta lasciva, cuando en realidad dicha desnudez significaba un acto de respeto y sumisión.…”

“…En una primera instancia los isleños no esperaban nada a cambio de los regalos sagrados. Sin embargo, al entregarles los europeos telas en retribución a los objetos, los polinésicos comenzaron a exigir dichas telas o a apoderarse de manteles, chaquetas, pañuelos, etc., en las expediciones posteriores (Jolly & Tcherkézoff, 2009).…”

“…Así como lo divino era un todo invisible que se manifestaba parcialmente en personas y objetos, el jefe era una parte de ese todo, una manifestación visible de la divinidad. En esta manera de entender el mundo, los "visitantes" extranjeros que llegaron a las costas podían ser expresiones de esa totalidad (Tcherkézoff, 2004;Jolly & Tcherkézoff, 2009). Varios elementos propios de la concepción de mundo polinésica fundamentan esta visión de los europeos.…”

An Ocean of Leisure: Early cruise tours of the Pacific in an age of empire

“…In his seminal text, The Tourist Gaze, sociologist John Urry points to the power of anticipation and "imaginative pleasure-seeking," although he stresses that tourists' day-dreams "are not autonomous" but mediated through advertising. 30 Advertisements captured neatly the appeal of an island tour. As one newspaper put it: "A glamour of romance and adventure has always surrounded the South Sea Islands, and the idea of a cruise amongst them must fire the imagination of the most phlegmatic.…”

Moving Objects: Reflections on Oceanic Collections

“…Thus, there was an overwhelming focus on mutual exchange in the Canberra exhibition, and, like much writing on Cook, it tended to mist over the violence which was, as George Forster stressed at the time, an inherent part, and not just an unfortunate corollary, of these acts of 'discovery' (see Jolly 1992Jolly , 2007bJolly , 2009aJolly , 2009bJolly , 2009cJolly with Tcherkézoff 2009). Such violence was often mutual too, but although the reciprocal allure of objects may have been roughly equal or even balanced towards Islanders because of the Europeans' vulnerability in needing fresh food, water and wood, it is hard to claim such parity for weapons of war.…”