BC Cook
ALAIN Gerbault sailed around the world a hundred years ago. After serving in the French air force in First World War and watching all his friends die around him, he grew disillusioned with civilization and took to the sea. Fortunately for us, he kept meticulous logs and wrote about his experiences.
In the following passage, he visits Tahiti and laments that it is not the island of Cook and Bougainville. It is a crusty remnant laboring under the heavy top layer of the modern world.
“Papeete in no wise disappointed me, for I had expected nothing. It was a town inhabited chiefly by half-breed whites and Chinese. The white population consisted of businessmen and officials, the first had brought thither their love of money, the others all the prejudices of European civilization; they liked exactly what I hated, they and I had scarcely a thing in common, and I lived on board the Firecrest at Papeete almost as solitary as if I had been in the open sea. The Papeete of Loti was certainly dead long since, but I did not regret it, for that was not the town I wished to know but the old Papeete of the early European navigators, of Wallis, Cook and Bougainville — the Papeete that flourished when Tahitian civilization was at its zenith with its feudal constitution, its wonderful lyric poems, and its surpassingly beautiful dances.
“It would be quite alien to the object of this book if I were to set forth my reflections on the decadence of Tahiti. I was particularly struck by the invasion of the Chinese and by the total absence of any of the native arts; they have quite disappeared never to be replaced. There is nothing picturesque to be found there now, not even the native costumes, for the French law forbids the wearing of the pareu, or loin-cloth, in the streets of Papeete; as the old dances and songs by the waterside are likewise prohibited, Papeete is indeed nowadays a very quiet small town.
“Yet, notwithstanding all this, there are still a few pure Tahitians there, though they are not be met with in broad daylight, for they are out and about all night fishing on the reef, whence they carry their catches at very early morning to the marketplace. This market is one of the rare picturesque spots yet to be found in modern Tahiti, with its brilliantly colored fish, its tropical fruits that smell so sweetly, and its enormous bunches of bananas. Sometimes too, wonderful specimens of native beauty are to be seen there.
“I often amused myself by strolling along the quays where numerous and inevitable little Chinese are always to be seen fishing, and where the schooners coming in from Tuamotu discharge cargoes of mother-of-pearl, that for so many people represent the spice of romance and poetic adventure, while for me they signify only exploitation and the spirit of trade.”
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for over 30 years. He is a director and historian at Sealark Exploration.
