There has never been a 'Pacificism' to go with Orientalism, the South Seas having always seemed more luscious than mysterious. The obligations felt by the 'civilised' to turn South Sea islanders into something else was too strong for there to be any thought of learning from them, and scholarly encounters seemed a little too hedonist to be serious. Any politics of palm-trees,grass-huts and 'cannibal kings' was seen as more laughable than real. Such Pacificism as there has been was Eurocentric, romantic in its excitement at 'discoveries', nationalistic in the competition of one empire against another to appear to be doing good or to show which did the least harm, prurient towards the liberties taken by those who 'went native'. The 'idea' of the South Seas was always theatrical: the sexual titivations of Tahiti, the triumphs of James Cook and then his death, the loss of Jean François de la Pérouse, the mutiny on the Bounty, the debates on the good and evil effects of missions.

LRB 31 October 1996 | PDF Download