Christina Thompson
Editor's Note The Marquesas Islands are located in part of French Polynesia. They are the farthest archipelago from Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, and the furthest from any mainland. One of the most remote island groups. The painter Gauguin died of illness on the island of Hivava in the archipelago. Herman Melville's novel "Tepi" is also set on the island of Nuku Hiva in the archipelago. The Marquesas Islands were inhabited as early as 150 BC, and ethnographic observations and linguistic kinship indicate that these earliest natives came from Samoa and Tonga.
In 1595, the Spanish seafaring explorer Alvaro de Menda?a de Nera first discovered the island and named it Marqués de Ca?ete, the then governor of Peru. ?ete) naming. Their initial contact with the islanders was full of curiosity and friendliness, but also full of distrust and plunder. This article excerpts the relevant chapters from the book "People of the Sea" with the permission of the publisher.
Marquesas Islands
If we ignore for the moment that the two small atolls seen by Magellan were uninhabited at the time, then the first one discovered by Europeans The Polynesian islands belong to the Marquesas Islands.
This group of islands is located about 4,000 nautical miles south of the equator and west of Peru. It is located on the eastern edge of the Polynesian Triangle and exists alone in a relatively empty sea. Neighboring islands can also be found within a few hundred nautical miles to the west and south, but if you sail north or east from the Marquesas Islands along a 180-degree arc, you will not encounter anything within thousands of nautical miles. land.
There are various islands in Polynesia, and the Marquesas Islands are the so-called "High Islands". To the uninitiated, this means that the islands are mountainous and, in some cases, rise thousands of feet above sea level. But to geologists, this means the islands were formed by volcanic eruptions.
Marquesas Islands Aboriginal History Photos
Where one plate dives beneath another, arc-shaped islands rise. But the high islands in the central Pacific are thought to be formed by "hot spots," which are columns of molten rock that rise directly from the mantle.
These islands are usually distributed in a chain, clustered along the northwest-southeast axis, with the oldest appearing at the northwest end and the youngest at the southeast end. This pattern can be seen in the Pacific Plate heading northwest Exercise to explain. This theory holds that over millions of years, islands were formed and moved as the crust on which they were built drifted, and behind them, new islands continued to rise and rise in the ocean.
A typical example is the Hawaiian Islands: the Big Island of Hawaii, which has active volcanoes, is located at the southeastern end of the island chain. These islands extend all the way to the northwest, gradually lowering and sinking, eventually forming a series of submarine mountains. Meanwhile, southeast of the Big Island, a new volcano is forming that will emerge from the sea sometime in the next 100,000 years.
The scenery of Takashima is divided into yin and yang. These volcanic islands are made almost entirely of basalt and have eroded in spectacular ways, revealing huge stone strips, walls and pinnacles. On the windward side, the mountains absorb moisture from the passing air and become lush and green. On the leeward side, in the rain shadow, the mountains are barren and dry. Perhaps the greatest contrast occurs between the dark, heavy mountains and the bright, open sea. Freed from the shadow of the mountain peaks, the tangle of trees and vines on the highlands gives way to a refreshing landscape of green grass, verdant coconut palms and rustling leaves of the casuarina trees. The sharp ridges gradually flatten out and turn into coastal plains. The waterfalls on the mountain form a slow and calm river.
At the tide level, there are rows of rocks and ponds interspersed with light-colored crescent-shaped beaches.
The sea stretches into the distance, and the waves beat endlessly on the rocks, forming rows of white foam. The rocks are silent and motionless, separating the bright turquoise lagoon from the vast deep sea with a slightly darker color.
In some ways, the Marquesas are the quintessential high island, with towering rock bases, grotesque spiers, deeply eroded crevices and fertile valleys.
But in other respects it is nothing like the Polynesian islands depicted in travel brochures. Due to being in the path of the Humboldt Current, which carries cold water toward the coast of South America, the Marquesas have never had any coral reef ecosystems.
There are no lagoons, few secluded bays, and only a few beaches. The rugged volcanic island extends all the way to the coast, and the seaside side basically presents a cold, vertical shape.
The Marquesas Islands also lack coastal plain landforms, which are the easiest and most natural place to survive on volcanic islands. Anyone who has been to the Hawaiian Islands knows that the standard method of travel for a volcanic island is to circle the island around the coast. It is easy to see how important the topography of this part of the island was - allowing movement and communication, and providing space for gardens, plantations and housing. In the Marquesas, however, all this was out of the question; the only habitable land lay in the valleys radiating out from the center of the island, surrounded and divided by the arms of the mountains.
Writer Robert Louis Stevenson (second from left) in the Marquesas Islands
To many Europeans, the Marquesas Islands seem to have an unspeakable romance. The mountain peaks here are shrouded in mist, the mountains are shaded by greenery, and the island flanks rise unexpectedly from the sea, containing a pensive primitive beauty. In 1888, the writer Robert Louis Stevenson visited the area and found the mountains and rivers majestic and daunting.
The huge dark ridges and towering cliffs, "at any time of the day," he wrote, "bring us a new aesthetic feeling, and at the same time make the viewer's heart vaguely rise. Inexplicable fear. ”
It is not difficult to imagine that the first Polynesians may have had similar mixed impressions when they arrived. The discovery of any volcanic island in the Pacific is a victory: it means land, fresh water, safety and a source of food. However, archaeological sites in the Marquesas show that a variety of fish hooks were present here from the beginning of human settlement, perhaps indicating that fishing techniques introduced from the more coral islands were recognized in the Marquesas. The deep and rough coastal waters of the archipelago had no use at all. The first ancestors may have carried out a lot of experiments and innovations. Despite this, the animals brought to the island (except maybe dogs) spread smoothly, the breadfruit trees gradually flourished, and people were able to thrive here - when the first Europeans arrived, the Marquesas Islands Residents came out in droves to greet the unexpected strangers.
Breadfruit tree
In 1595, the Spaniard Alvara de Menda?a accidentally discovered the Marquesas Islands on his way to the Solomon Islands. While Mendanha could be said to have "discovered" the Marquesas, this is not strictly true. Claims that European explorers discovered anything in the Pacific, especially in Polynesia, are clearly questionable. As the French who later supported King Louis XV's claim to the Marquesas Islands said, it was difficult to imagine that anyone could seize an island that was already occupied by local residents. This is more true of discovery than occupation: in what sense can a land already inhabited be discovered? However, in the context of the eighteenth-century French or the sixteenth-century Spanish, the word "discovered" did not mean "discovered for the first time in human history" but more like "made known to people outside the area for the first time." ".
Alvara de Menda?a de Nera, Spanish navigator.
This was Mendagna's second trip across the Pacific. About thirty years ago, he led another expedition to search for the unknown southern continent, successfully reached the Solomon Islands, and then hurriedly returned to Peru in chaos. Despite hardships: hurricanes, spreading scurvy, sailors' disobedience, and a brief shortage of food and water - with only "half a pint of water a day, and half the food32 crushed cockroaches" - Mendagna Determined to try again. For twenty-six years, he had been pestering the Spanish royal family, trying his best to win support. In 1595, the royal family finally agreed.
Comparing the two, the second expedition was even more ill-fated than the first. From the beginning, the voyage appeared chaotic, filled with violence and disputes. Mendagna carries a fanatical religious mission, hoping to convert ignorant pagans to God; his wife, an unpopular shrew, will cause trouble wherever she goes; and Mendania's men Many of the soldiers were selfish, brutal and cruel.
Neither the commander nor any of his subordinates seemed to know how far away their destination was, although, at least to Mendagna, he had been there before. In fact, the expedition never reached its destination. Their colony on "Santa Cruz Island" was a disaster, filled with robberies, murders, ambushes, and even a few beheadings.
Mendagna became terminally ill, suffered a nervous breakdown, and "fell into a religious torpor." He had a high fever, and the tragic scene of his death was reminiscent of the movie "Aguirre, the Wrath of God." Afterwards, the expedition disbanded and the survivors sailed to the Philippines.
We learned the above story from Pedro Fernández de Quiros, the navigator of Menda?a, who recorded that the explorers set out from the coast of South America only five weeks after The first piece of land was seen.
Mendagna believed that this was the island he was looking for, so he ordered the crew to kneel down and sing Te Deum laudamus to thank God for making the voyage so fast and smooth. . Of course, this is a ridiculous illusion - the Solomon Islands are still four thousand nautical miles away and at least five weeks away. But it does illustrate how little awareness these early European navigators had of the size of the Pacific, and how easily they could be misled. Eventually, Mendagna realized his mistake and after some reflection concluded that this was actually a completely new place.
The islanders call this island Fatu Hiva, located at the southernmost tip of the Marquesas Islands. As the Spanish approached, a fleet of about seventy canoes sailed from the shore. Quiros noted that these vessels are equipped with outboard brackets. It was a novel wooden structure he carefully described: attached to the sides of the hull, "pressing" against the water to prevent the canoe from capsizing. For many Europeans, this was something new and unprecedented. In fact, outriggers can be traced back to the Southeast Asian islands in the second millennium B.C., and were a key innovation in ensuring that boats with narrow lengths and relatively shallow drafts (i.e. canoes) can safely navigate the open sea.
A hull with outboard brackets installed to prevent capsizing.
Marquesas Islanders
Each Marquesas canoe carried three to ten people, and many more islanders clung to the side of the boat to stay afloat. Moving along with the boat on the water - according to Kiros' rough estimate, there were about four hundred people. He wrote that they paddled their canoes "angrily and with great speed," pointing toward land and shouting what sounded like "Atalot."
Anthropologist Robert C. Suggs, who conducted fieldwork in the Marquesas Islands in the 1950s, believes the locals were telling Menda?a to let He steered the ship closer to the coast, like a "little friendly advice" from one group of sailors to another. Or it was a ploy to get these outsiders to an area that could be more effectively controlled by the islanders.
Quiros wrote that the islanders showed little signs of nervousness. They rowed their boats directly to the Spanish boats and offered coconuts, plantains, and some kind of food rolled in leaves (possibly is fermented breadfruit paste), and large bamboo tubes filled with water. "They looked at the boats, the people, and the women who slipped out of the galleys to watch with big smiles." One of the islanders was persuaded to come aboard, and Mendagna put a shirt and hat on him. , which made the others so happy that they laughed and shouted to their friends. Afterwards, about 40 more islanders climbed aboard and began "walking around in a swaggering manner, grabbing everything around them. Many of them tried to touch the arms of the soldiers on the ship and touch them with their fingers." Several parts of the body, look at their beards and faces." They seemed confused by the European clothes until some soldiers dropped their stockings and rolled up their sleeves to expose their skin, and then, Quiros wrote, they "became quiet and very happy."
Tattoos of the Marquesas Islanders
Mendania and some of his officers distributed shirts, hats and trinkets to the islanders, and the Marquesas hung them Take it around the neck. They continued singing and shouting, and as they grew bolder the noise became more excessive. This in turn annoyed the Spaniards, who began to signal the islanders to leave, but it was clear that the latter had no intention of saying goodbye just like that. Instead, they went the extra mile, grabbing anything they saw on deck, even using bamboo knives to cut thin slices from the bacon served as crew meals. Finally, Mendagna ordered the shots to be fired. Upon hearing the sound, the islanders all jumped into the sea, except for one young man. I don't know whether it was out of fear or stubbornness. He still clung to the side of the ship and refused to let go until a Spaniard slashed him with a sword.
The tenor of the encounter changed instantly. An old man with a long beard stood in the canoe and roared loudly, casting a fierce look in the direction of the ship. Other islanders blew their conch horns and beat their wooden paddles against the sides of their canoes. Some took up spears and swung them at the Spaniards, or attached stones to their slingshots and hurled them at the ships.
The Spanish aimed their matchlock guns at the islanders, but the gunpowder was damp and could not be fired for a time. Quiros wrote: "How the locals kept approaching amidst the noise and shouts was definitely a sight worth seeing." In the end, the Spanish soldiers successfully opened fire, hitting more than a dozen islanders, including the old man - He was hit in the forehead and died on the spot. Seeing the tragic scene, the islanders immediately turned around and fled back to the shore. After a while, a canoe carrying three people returned to the Spanish boat. One of them stretched out a green branch and addressed the Spaniards with a tirade; it seemed to Quiros that the man was suing for peace. The Spanish did not respond, and after a while the islanders left, leaving behind some coconuts.
The encounter between the Marquesas and Mendania was fraught with confusion and misunderstanding, and many "evil things" happened, Quiros wrote, but "if anyone could make us understand each other, this would The incident may have been avoided." In this regard, much of the early contact between Europeans and Polynesians was similar: everything that happened made sense to one, but much was incomprehensible and repulsive to the other, It may even lead to death. On one occasion, for example, four "very bold" Marquesas escaped with a dog from the ship. On another occasion, a Spanish soldier opened fire on several canoes, killing a man with a small child. On shore, Mendagna ordered a Catholic mass to be celebrated, and the islanders imitated the strangers by kneeling in prayer.
Two Marquesas were taught how to make the sign of the cross and recite the words ("Jesus, Mary"). Europeans also sowed corn in the hope of harvesting it. Menda?a's wife, Do?a Isabel, attempted to cut off locks of hair from an indigenous woman's head who had particularly beautiful hair, but was forced to stop after the woman objected - -For the islanders, hair is an absolute taboo and is considered to be used for witchcraft and so is not allowed to be touched.
After three islanders were shot dead, their bodies were hung for public display, thereby making the Marquesas "realize what the Spaniards could do." Menda?a envisioned a colony and decided to leave behind thirty male soldiers and some of their wives. But the soldiers firmly refused the mission. They knew that this might cost them their lives, because when the Spaniards finally left, they had killed more than two hundred people, many of whom died inexplicably, according to Quiros.
Kiros was pained by the cruelty and wantonness of Mendaniya's men. Yet he found much to admire in the islanders. In fact, it is through the eyes of Quiros that we first see the people who would come to epitomize the pinnacle of human beauty in the minds of many Europeans. A visitor later described the Marquesas as "exquisitely exquisite" and "the most beautiful people" he had ever seen. Even Captain Cook, a man who never exaggerated, said that they were "as good as any nation in this ocean or on this earth."
Quiros wrote that the residents of the island have elegant manners, well-proportioned figures, strong legs, slender fingers, and bright eyes and bright teeth. The islanders' skin is translucent, "almost white," and the men's hair is long and shaggy, "like the women's." When they first encountered the Europeans, the islanders were mostly naked as they were swimming, and their faces and bodies were decorated with what Quiros mistook for blue paint. Of course, this is tattooing, and in Polynesia, this practice is quite common - the word "tattoo" in English comes from the Polynesian word "tatau" - and among the Marquesas, it is perfected, every inch of skin, Including the eyelids, tongue, palms, and even the inside of the nostrils, they may be engraved with exquisite patterns. Quiros discovered that the women on the Marquesas Island had charming eyes, slender waists and beautiful fingers, and were even cuter than the Lima ladies, who were famous for their beauty. In his paintings, the male islanders here are tall, burly, handsome and strong. Some were so tall that they dwarfed the Spaniards; others were able to lift their legs up to their ears, impressing visitors.
Breadfruit
Ethnographically speaking - remember, this is the earliest record of Polynesian society - what Quiros describes, although not A lot, but fun. He wrote that the Marquesans raised pigs and chickens, the so-called "Castilian poultry," and cultivated plantains, coconuts, gourds, nuts, and plants that no Europeans had ever seen (which they described as: A green fruit the size of a boy's head). This was the breadfruit that would become one of the most popular foods in the Pacific two centuries later when the crew of the Bounty, commanded by William Bligh, mutinied off Tofua. A legend of the time (that Bligh was trying to bring breadfruit seedlings to the West Indies so that British colonists could have a more economical way to feed African slaves).
The islanders live in large apartment houses with neat stone platforms and worship what the Spanish call an "oracle" - a wall decorated with wooden statues to which locals pray. Offer food. Most of their tools are made of stone or shells, and their main weapons are spears and slings. The most important means of transportation for the islanders is the canoe. The canoes they made came in various sizes: small ones fitted with outriggers, holding three to ten oars, to large ones "well made and of surprising length" that could hold thirty or more people.
Quiros wrote: "They told us that if necessary, they would use these large canoes to travel to other lands."
Large canoes made by the Marquesas Islanders
However, exactly where these landmasses are remains a mystery. Once, very strangely, the Marquesas saw a black man on a Spanish ship and made a sign to the south, indicating that "there are people like him in that direction. They have gone there to fight, and the other party is holding a Bow and arrow". This statement is indeed puzzling, but it was not uncommon in an era when misinformation and misinformation were common. Although this statement could be understood as describing people living on the islands of the far west, bows were never used as weapons in Polynesia. To the south of the Marquesas are only the Tuamotu Islands and, further afield, Easter Island, all of which have inhabitants who are culturally and physically very similar to the Marquesas. They may well be considered enemies, but definitely not archers, nor black men.
However, while we do not know which island Kiros refers to, we do learn that in the Marquesan conception there were "other lands" in the world. Later, European visitors heard of "islands that the natives took for granted and that we knew nothing about." There are also reports that during the dry season, "the natives would go out in canoes to search for other islands," which may help explain why when Cook arrived in the Marquesas in 1775, the islanders wondered whether he had come from "A country with insufficient food supply".
Mendagna stayed in the Marquesas for about two weeks, during which time he discovered and named the four southernmost islands of the archipelago (the northern part of the second island, which was not yet known at the time) Discover).
He named the four islands Santa Magdalena, San Pedro, La Dominica and Santa Cristina in his own way (Santa Cristina). These names are now long forgotten, replaced by the customary names of the Polynesian natives: Fatuiwa, Motane, Hiva Oa and Tahuata.
Mendagna named the entire archipelago as a whole in honor of his patron, the Marques de Mendoza, then governor of Peru. Since 1595, the Marquesas Islands have never been called anything else. Of course, except for the islanders - they collectively call the island they live in "Te Fenua" (Te Fenua), which means "land"; and they themselves, the residents of Te Fenua, are called "Te Fenua". Te Enata, simply means "the people".
After Mendania's fleet finally pulled anchor and set sail, the Marquesas Islands once again disappeared from the European world for nearly two hundred years. The Marquesas appear to have been poorly mapped from the outset, and information about their location was further blocked by the Spanish, who were bent on pre-empting the discovery of the southern continent.
If the Spanish concluded anything, it was that the large, energetic, and handsome Marquesas, the pigs and chickens they raised, and the large canoes they built proved existence of the southern continent. Quiros concluded that the islanders would not have been able to travel long distances across the sea without "seamanship and heavy-carrying ships." This means that somewhere nearby, there must be "other islands connected to form an island chain, or a continent, otherwise, unless God appears, the people living on these islands will have nowhere to go." The first contact between Polynesia and Europe is therefore ironic: it reinforced an illusory belief that the imagined continent was real, while obscuring the more interesting reality of the Marquesas itself.
"People of the Ocean"; [US] Written by Christina Thompson, translated by Li Lifeng, Peking University Press
Proofreading: Shi Jun