Chapter 10. Sacred cloth and sacred women. On cloth, gifts and nudity in Tahitian first contacts: a culture of ‘wrapping-in’

The ethnohistory of the early encounters between Samoans and Europeans has shown us the important role played by the offerings of cloth, on both sides on the encounter. This cloth exchange is in no way specific to the Samoan case and was indeed a crucial element of all early Polynesian-European contacts. In order to achieve a certain level of generalisation on this point, I shall now add to this discussion the available data for Tahiti. A study aiming at a pan-Polynesian comparison cannot limit itself to one side of Polynesia and must at least include for comparative purposes a case from the western groups and a case from the central and/or eastern groups.^[1]

In cross-cultural encounters it is the things one thinks one has recognised that often turn out to be the most misleading. Analysts of encounters between Polynesians and Europeans will be familiar with the issues of ‘power’ and ‘religion’ that are involved here (for Eastern Polynesia, see Baré 1985; Saura 1990, 1993). Further studies have shown that differing conceptions of ‘gender’ also need to be taken into account (for Western Polynesia, see Tcherkézoff 1993; Douaire-Marsaudon 1998; Suali’i-Sauni 2001). As we have seen in Part One, recent debates and studies about Samoa have even added ‘sexuality’ to the list as a major source of misinterpretation when considering historical transformations (see also Anae et al. 2000). It is nonetheless somewhat surprising to discover that one also needs to consider how a material item like cloth can give rise to serious misunderstandings.

From a European perspective, our surprise stems from the fact that we are used to thinking of cloth as being subject to cultural variation only in terms of design or technique. The social functions of cloth seem to remain the same cross-culturally: cloth provides a supple material, it provides protection and, furthermore, depending upon its formal properties (the material, the colour, the way it is cut etc.), it provides a marker of social status. Again from a European perspective, cloth and clothing are conceptually opposed to nudity, since being dressed is conceptually opposed to being undressed. A body stripped of its clothing is said to be ‘nude’. This basic opposition gives rise to all kinds of associations that, given our deeply entrenched Judaeo-Christian tendency to see a direct link between nudity and sexuality, serve to oppose the clothed person, who represents obedience to social rules, to the unclothed person, who represents ‘savagery’ and/or the open expression of sexual desire.

Given these rather limited notions, it comes as no surprise to discover that, from early contact to contemporary times, European reports and studies entirely misconstrued the significance that Polynesians accorded (and which in certain circumstances they continue to ascribe) to the social uses and handling of cloth, to its presentation as a ceremonial gift, or to simple acts of dressing and undressing. For by focusing upon the functional aspects of cloth (as a form of protection), Europeans overlooked the fact that certain kinds of cloth could be objects of great value and, as such, sacred gifts. By focusing upon the design and the material of clothing as a sign of social status, Europeans overlooked the fact that dressing and undressing could be social acts whose significance owed little to either the kind of material or the style of clothing involved. Last but not least, the conceptual opposition between dressing and undressing trapped them into seeing nakedness as nudity and undressing as stripping in anticipation of sex.