NOTE: This is part eleven of a thirteen part article. Enjoy!!!
Part XI- Anthropologists – Keepers of Culture
Polynesian Dance - Tourist Mode
Contemporary Polynesia is experiencing a dramatic rebirth of culture. Sadly, much detail about ancient Polynesian life will be lost forever. However, thanks to the work of a few anthropologists from the last two centuries, cultural restoration is in full swing. James Cook and the naturalist Joseph Banks should certainly be included in this group. However Cook visited Polynesia at a time when the degradation from European visitors was still minimal. What is unique about this later group is that they visited at a time when true Polynesian culture was disappearing and their search required in depth investigation and interviewing of many remote people to acquire the knowledge they so carefully recorded.
The Russian explorer Ivan Fedorovich Krusenstern visited Polynesia in 1804 during his round the world tour. He brought naturalist George Heinrich von Langsdorff. Langsdorff chronicled Polynesian culture in great detail including the process of acquiring a tribal tattoo. He recorded his findings in a book entitled Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World. This book inspired a young Herman Melville and may have helped shape the events he experienced in Polynesia.
The next visitor of note was Karl Von den Steinen, German physicist and scholar. Arriving nearly 50 years after the French took power, he made a serious attempt to capture what was left of Marquesan culture. In 1897 he interviewed surviving indigenous people, recorded their stories and culture. He spent 20 years writing 3 volumes of work that were published in 1928, the year of his death. Considered the classic record of Marquesan culture, Die Marqesaner un Ihre Kunst is a treasure trove of tribal tattoo motifs. Contemporary tattoo artists rely on this masterpiece. In Tahiti where only a handful of ancient tribal tattoo motifs survive, tattoo artists use Marquesan designs well described by Steinen.
In 1920, E.S.C. Handy and Willowdean Handy, American Anthropologists conducted studies in the Marquesas. Willowdean located 125 partially tattooed elderly Marquesans in remote areas. Even though tattooing was outlawed in1884 by the French, she was able to locate 3 totally covered individuals and one practicing artist. Willowdean recorded their stories as well as drawing many tattoo designs. Unfortunately, time had already erased the cultural significance of the designs she recorded.
More to follow, Part XII is on its way. Suzan
