Relaying an e-mailed message from Jean Fran?is Bar?

from
Jean-Fran?is Bar?Directeur de recherche ?líI.R.D.


Thanks to Serge Tcherk?offís kind suggestion I am happy to inform the CREDO network of the second edition of my book dealing mainly with Tahitian history in the long run after the reciprocal discovery of the British Navy by the Tahitians and vice versa.
Le malentendu pacifique. Des premi?es rencontres entre Polyn?iens et Anglais et de ce qui síensuivit avec les Fran?is jusquí‡ nos jours. Editions des Archives Contemporaines, collection ?Ordres sociaux ?sous la direction de Marc Aug?et Jacques Revel. 2?e ?ition, 2002 (1?e ?ition Hachette 1985).
The topic of the book is very much in relation with the ?humanity and divinity topic ?adressed by Serge in his text on-line on this site : ?On the boat of [the god] Tangaroa ?

I have been absolutely abashed by the nature and the importance of the controversy raisen by Gananath Obeyesekere against Sahlins ëwork on Hawaiian history (as was Sahlins himself obviously : How Natives Think. About Captain Cook for instance University of Chicago Press 1998 ).

At the time of the present bookís first edition (1985), Marshall Sahlins had already published Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities. Structure in the early history of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom in the ASAO Monographs, (1981) which was to be followed by Islands of History in 1985. The extraordinary similarities between some of the historical processes at hand in Tahiti and Hawaii, given the specificities of both ensembles, led to some exchanges with Sahlins and to a constant reference to his main overall views for Hawaii about history in general (?bring culture back into history?, because Tahitian history was repercuting a practically pure echo of these views. Tahitian post-ëdiscovery?history, seen as a specific process of transformation, could just not be described, in the sense of historiography, without taking into account various aspects of the culturals frameworks at hand, including the British ones at the time.

A first part of the book (?Bricolages de líhistoire :Tahiti 1980? was devoted to a synchronic overview of Tahitian society in the 1980s, in the purpose to get the reader to realize the necessity of a diachronic view for understanding what one could call oddities of the current situation; first of all, an overall and ambiguous reference to what the tahitian language as spoken by the vulgum pecus or feia riíi calls ?the things from the outside ?(ëohipa no rapae), not without paradox : the Tahitian protestant church, first protestant church of the Pacific islands, was not ?from the outside ?but from ?the inside ?(no roto) as in the Hawaiian ka mea o loko.

But two parts (?M?aphores de líAutre?; ?M?aphores en Action ? were devoted to the interactions proceeding from the ?discovery ?in 1767 and the various voyages of the British Navy, with Cook and after Cook; and to the extraordinary processes leading to the ?conversion ?to ?protestantism ?by the whole population between 1808,1812 and 1817, following the decision taken by an important kin-title chief followed by other homologues, in a war situation.

The second edition of the book could not really be enriched, except slightly, for the Avant-Propos. For instance I did not know at the time Sahlinsís text about the ?Fijian war ?and the paramount chief Thakombau, later published in Islands of History, (except for an unpublished document kindly circulated by Jean Pouillon, that I did not felt authorized to quote). This text could again practically be superposed to the Tahitian conjoncture of the 1808-1817 years. After Thakombauís ?conversion ?the word of God spread out plentifully, writes approximately a missionary quoted by Sahlins ; in Tahiti two decades before, low status people kept asking to the missionaries: ?is your God for the chiefs only, or does he belong to the teíuteíu (servants) as well ? ?

In general, a number of allusions to the Hawaiian situation of the late 18th century and early 19th as dealt with by Sahlins mainly are pretty close, although Cookís death is by essence a unique event.

So it is all the more fascinating that data synthetized by Tcherk?off in his ?On the boat of Tangaroa ?repercutes again another echo of the same historical processes. Yes, discoverers of Tahiti (mainly British) were kinds of gods, not because the Tahitian minds thought wrong, but because some chiefs, as approached from time to time by the vulgum, were kinds of gods themselves ; they were metaphors of gods. Yes, they were dispensators and distributors of rare or unknown goods (mainly iron tools) (see chap. VIII, ?les choses extraordinaires de líEurope ?. Yes, Tahitian people long thought they were ?from Britain ?(peretane), due to the ?natural ?(in fact cultural) effects of the circulation of goods, selective as it has been. Yes, Tahitian chiefs thought themselves as akin to ?King George ? Yes, the question of sexual circulation gave way to controversies about the human status of Europeans.

In short, Tahitians saw the British in their own way, and the British did the same, through a reciprocal projection (the projection of kinghood on Tahitian kin titled chiefs being in that case the more decisive through the anglican political philosophy, but not systematic for that matter). Every actor was a metaphor of the other, and so was every sub actor to some extent.

As Sahlins himself states it for Hawaii, this situation soon brought on denials, a long time further in Tahitiís case, where pretty consequent rebellions against French political control were focused on the will to stay English, constantly denied by the Foreign Office.

Hence the idea of ? a working misunderstanding ? which seemed to me a good descriptive tool for historical processes in general, as far as they include the apprehension of alterity by people.

September 2003









__________________
Le Malentendu Pacifique. Table des mati?es

PREMIERE PARTIE.BRICOLAGES DE L'HISTOIRE : TAHITI, 1980
Chapitre I: Ombres de Tahiti 15
Chapitre Il: "Les ?es" 39
Chapitre III: Les temps et les pouvoirs 63

DEUXIEME PARTIE. M?APHORES DE L'AUTRE
Chapitre IV : ?ernels commencements: Tahiti,
19-23 juin 1767 87
Chapitre V: ?ernels commencements, suite. 119
Chapitre VI: M?aphores polyn?iennes de l'Autre 139
Chapitre \VII: Des dieux-chefs d'un autre type 155
Ch VIII: Les choses extraordinaires de l'Europe 175
Chapitre IX : J?ovah et ses messagers 195
Chapitre X: Miroirs ma'ohi d'un dieu autre 213

TROISIEME PARTIE. M?APHORES EN ACTION
Chapitre XI: Fatals d?ours de l'ambition 229
Chapitre XII: Irr?ersibles dur?s d'un malentendu 249

?ILOGUE 261
NOTES 263
BIBLIOGRAPHIE 275