Page 122

•TribalPaginaIntera.indd

OBJECT history Next to nothing was recorded about Polynesian idols, but the example illustrated here (fi g. 8) is an important exception. Probably an image of the all-important god ‘Oro, its name is Temeharo. Temeharo was one of ten family gods that Pomare II himself, the paramount chief of Tahiti, asked the missionaries to keep and to send back to England as part of the fi rst shipment of Polynesian idols to be sent to Europe. A note, written by Pomare, dated February 19, 1816, accompanied the ten idols (fi g. 1). The note was published in three editions of the LMS publication Missionary Sketches, accompanied by a fi ne engraving. That principal idol, that has the red feathers of the Otun, is Temeharo—that is his name—look you; you may know it by the red feathers; that was Vairaatoa’s own god, and those feathers were from the ship of lieutenant Watts; it was Vairaatoa that set them himself about the idol. If you think proper, you may burn them all in the fi re; or if you send them to your country, for the inspection of the people of Europe, that they may satisfy their curiosity, and know Taheiti’s foolish gods.5 There is a great deal of information in this short passage if one understands the references. Vairaatoa was Pomare I, Pomare II’s father and paramount chief of Tahiti, as well as Cook’s fi rst major political contact in Tahiti (fi g. 2). Lieutenant John Watts was a midshipman on the Resolution, Cook’s command ship during his third voyage, and later accompanied Admiral Arthur Phillip in transporting the fi rst contingent of English convicts to Australia. Watts’ ship on this voyage was Lady Penrhyn of the First Fleet, under the command of Captain William Sever. After unloading 120 the cargo of horses and 101 female convicts in Sydney, she continued under full command of Watts to Tahiti, landing on July 10, 1788. The note underlines several other points of interest: Red feathers were considered the most precious of all; we don’t learn if Pomare I made the entire idol, but we do learn he adorned it himself. It is of note that the red feathers, probably from a species of rosella (an Australian parrot), were brought by Europeans as trade currency. It is signifi cant that, unexpectedly, it was a Christianized Polynesian who was the fi rst to convince the missionaries not to incinerate the idols in the legendary bonfi res (fi g. 6), but rather to spare them. Upon their arrival in London in 1817, the “idols” from Tahiti, Temeharo among them, were placed on display in the Missionary Museum of the London Missionary Society (fi g. 5), which had opened on Old Jewry in Cheapside in 1815. There they were to be in the company of other artifacts and natural history specimens collected by missionaries in Tahiti, India, China, and South Africa. They


•TribalPaginaIntera.indd
To see the actual publication please follow the link above