Synopses & Reviews
Whether fully adorning a bikerandrsquo;s arms or nestled cutely, and discretely, above oneandrsquo;s ankle, tattoos are a commonplace part of modern fashion and expression. But as modern as this permanent accessory can seem, the tattoo, in fact, has ancient and distant roots in Oceana, where it had been practiced for centuries before being taught to Western seafarers. This collection offers both a fascinating look at the early exchanges between European and Pacific cultures surrounding the tattoo and the tattooandrsquo;s rising popularity in the West up to the modern day. It is also the first book to thoroughly document the history of tattoos in Oceana itself.
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The essays here first document the complex cultural interactions between Oceana and Europe that had sailors, whalers, and explorers bringing tattoos home from their voyages. They then move on to issues surrounding encounter, representation, and exchange, exploring the ways missionaries and the colonial state influenced local tattoo practices, and the ways tattoo culture has since developed, both in the West and the Pacific. Stunningly illustrated, this unique and fascinating history will appeal to anyone interested in the history of tattoos, the culture of Oceania, or native arts.and#160;
Review
"Thomasand#8217; description of the journey into the imperial world of the Pacific is made inclusive and companionable with lovely asidesand#8230; [a] comprehensive but gripping book"and#8212;Katrina Schlunke, Times Higher Education Supplement
Review
"Islanders is not only a fine work of scholarship but also a lucid and engrossing read."and#8212;Rod Edmond, BBC History Magazine
Review
and#8220;The islandersand#8217; minds and feelings may be inaccessible in purely anthropological terms, but Thomas provides ample evidence to allow readers to fill in the gaps.and#8221;and#8212;Dr. Andrew Rudd, Church Times
Review
Joint winner of the 2010 Wolfson History Prize given by the Wolfson Foundation Dr. Andrew Rudd - Church Times
Review
"Intellectually sophisticated and clearly written, this first-rate study of the experience of the Pacific Islanders provides one of the best available studies of the nature of imperial contact and violence, and of the traumas they caused.”—Jeremy Black, University of Exeter
2010 Wolfson History Prize - Wolfson Foundation
Review
"We are used to idea of thinking of the Pacific in the age of exploration and empire as a play-pond for the greed, ambition and curiosity of Europeans, but now Nicholas Thomas has produced a bracing revision that - Antipodean-like - inverts many of our assumptions about the Islanders that they supposedly discovered and exploited. Drawing on a lifetime of research, and in vivid sinewy prose, he brings to life an unknown world of Islander explorers, adventurers, traders, sailors, whalers, warriors, priests and migrants - peoples who criss-crossed every ocean and whose stories have never made it into Hakluyt or any voyage anthology. Surely it is these Pacific Islanders, rather than we European intruders, who deserve to be seen as the world's first cosmopolitans." - Iain McCalman, author of Darwin's Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution Jeremy Black
Review
“Islanders tells the compelling, sometimes shocking, story of the western world's impact on the peoples of Oceania before 1900. Using all the evidence now available, Thomas shows that the lives of individuals, both Pacific islanders and European newcomers, were profoundly altered as the contact became more persistent and intrusive. Explorers, missionaries, traders and officials jostled for status and profit in their relationship with islanders - chiefly, priestly and otherwise - who in turn pursued their own interests in the years before catastrophic population decline changed the islands for ever. Islanders will appeal to specialists and non-specialists alike as a scintillating contribution not only to Pacific history, but to the general study of relations between European and non-European peoples.” - Glyn Williams, author of The Great South Sea Iain McCalman
Review
"Beautifully written, with spell-binding vignettes. An important, original controbution to our knowledge of life in the Pacific." - Dame Anne Salmond, author of The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas Glyn Williams
Review
"Enjoyably readable."—G.E. Marcus, Choice Anne Salmond
Review
“Thomas has written a work of scholarship that merits close attention and, at the same time, that presumes a ready grasp of the vast geography of the Pacific. His analysis is thoughtful and often thought-provoking.”—Tim Severin, Irish Examiner G.E. Marcus - Choice
Review
andldquo;A definitive history about Pacific tattooing and its influence around the tattoo world. Meticulously researched and beautifully presented, the book is highly recommended.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This historically rigorous and theoretically nuanced collection of essays [is] indispensable to students of world systems of art and culture.andrdquo;
Synopsis
This compelling book explores the lived experience of empire in the Pacific, the last region to be contacted and colonized by Europeans following the great voyages of Captain Cook. Unlike conventional accounts that emphasize confrontation and the destruction of indigenous cultures, Islanders reveals there was gain as well as loss, survival as well as suffering, and invention as well as exploitation.
Empowered by imaginative research in obscure archives and collections, Thomas rediscovers a rich and surprising history of encounters, not only between Islanders and Europeans, but among Islanders, brought together in new ways by explorers, missionaries, and colonists. He tells the story of the making of empire, not through an impersonal survey, but through vivid stories of the lives of men and women some visionary, some vicious, and some just eccentric and through sensuous evocation of seascapes and landscapes of the Pacific. A fascinating re-creation of an Oceanic world, Islanders offers a new paradigm, not only for histories of the Pacific, but for understandings of cultural contact everywhere."
Synopsis
An incisive, evocative history of the experience of empire in the Oceanic world
This compelling book explores the lived experience of empire in the Pacific, the last region to be contacted and colonized by Europeans following the great voyages of Captain Cook. Unlike conventional accounts that emphasize confrontation and the destruction of indigenous cultures, Islanders reveals there was gain as well as loss, survival as well as suffering, and invention as well as exploitation.
Empowered by imaginative research in obscure archives and collections, Thomas rediscovers a rich and surprising history of encounters, not only between Islanders and Europeans, but among Islanders, brought together in new ways by explorers, missionaries, and colonists. He tells the story of the making of empire, not through an impersonal survey, but through vivid stories of the lives of men and women--some visionary, some vicious, and some just eccentric--and through sensuous evocation of seascapes and landscapes of the Pacific. A fascinating re-creation of an Oceanic world, Islanders offers a new paradigm, not only for histories of the Pacific, but for understandings of cultural contact everywhere.
Synopsis
The popularity of tattoos today is a revival of a practice begun in the late eighteenth century, when Westerners first made contact with the native peoples of the Pacific. The term and#8220;tattooand#8221; entered Europe with the publication of Captain Cookand#8217;s voyages in the 1770s, and Pacific tattoos became fashionable in the West as sailors, whalers, and explorers brought home tattoos from Tahiti, the Marquesas, New Zealand, and Polynesia. In recent years these early contacts have been revived, as native tattooists from Oceania have begun tattooing non-Polynesians in Europe, the USA, and elsewhere.
Tattoo is both a fascinating book about these early Oceanic-European exchanges, which also documents developments up to the present day. Documenting these complex cultural interactions in the first part of the book, the authors move from issues of encounter, representation, and exchange to the interventions of missionaries and the colonial state in local tattoo practices. Highly illustrated with many previously unseen images, for example the original voyage sketches of the first Russian circumnavigation of 1803and#8211;6, this is a fascinating account of early tattooing and cultural exchange in Oceania.
About the Author
Nicholas Thomas is Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He has published extensively and won many awards in the field of cross-cultural research in both the UK and Australia. Dr. Martin Fitzpatrick (retired) was formerly Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Welsh History, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He has published widely on eighteenth-century literature, Jenny Newell is Assistant Curator, Pacific and Australian Collection, Department of Ethnography, British Museum and has contributed to a number of publications on eighteenth-century travel/exploration.
Anna Cole is research coordinator of the Tatau/Tatoo project at Goldsmiths College, London.Bronwen Douglas is adjunct associate professor in the Department of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Nicholas Thomas
and#160;
Part One: Histories and Encounters
1. andlsquo;Cureous Figuresandrsquo;: European Voyagers and Tatau/Tattoo in Polynesia, 1595-1800
Bronwen Douglas
2. andlsquo;Speckled Bodiesandrsquo;: Russian Voyagers and Nuku Hivans, 1804
Elena Govor
3. Marks of Transgression: The Tattooing of Europeans in the Pacific Islands
Joanna White
4. Christian Skins: Tatau and the Evangelization of the Society Islands and Samoa
Anne Dandrsquo;Alleva
5. Governing Tattoo: Reflections on a Colonial Trial
Anna Cole
and#160;
Part Two: Contemporary Exchanges
6. The Temptation of Brother Anthony: Decolonization and the Tattooing of Tony Fomison
Peter Brunt
7. Samoan Tatau as Global Practice
Sean Mallon
8. Multiple Skins: Space, Time and Tattooing in Tahiti
Makiko Kuwahara
9. Wearing Moko: Maori Facial Marking in Todayandrsquo;s World
Linda Waimarie Nikora, Mohi Rua and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku
10. Beyond Modern Primitivism
Cyril Siorat
Epilogue: Embodied Exchanges and their Limits
Nicholas Thomas
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References
Select Bibliography
Notes on the Editors and Contributors
Acknowledgements
Photographic Acknowledgements
Index
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