Content area
Full Text
APHRODITE'S ISLAND: The European Discovery of Tahiti. By Anne Salmond. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. 537 pp. (Maps, B&W photos, illus.) US$29.95, cloth. ISBN 978-0-520-26114-3.
Billed on the flap jacket as a "bold new account of the European Discovery of Tahiti," this work promises a fresh approach to the limited and often flawed explorer and missionary primary sources of eighteenth-century contacts with Tahitians. The introduction opens with Bougainville's arrival in 1768, revealing how his knowledge of Greek mythology informed his perceptions of Tahiti. Salmond deconstructs this myth of paradise filled with sexual and sensual abundances. Her methodology offers a refreshing revelation of ancient Tahitian culture, society and world view. Further, Salmond does an exemplary job at presenting extensive biographical contexts and histories of the major explorers who arrived in Tahiti and groundbreaking revelations about the Polynesians who accompanied them on their travels.
Chapter 1 provides Tahitian creation stories and contexts to illuminate the roles of the gods, the cult of 'Oro and the 'arioi, and the critical function of Tahitian religion in everyday life and practices. Chapter 2 examines oral and written sources that reveal the importance of alliances and tribal warfare. It also reveals Vaita's prophecy, which foretold the arrival of newcomers who would bring defeat, destruction and new cultural codes that...