Fesche was not only a keen observer of daily events. He also, like the others, made various generalisations and hypotheses. The main difference between Fesche’s method and that of Bougainville and the other officers is that he did not forget to include his observations when he was speculating or making general comments, and thus provides us some “ethnography” to reflect upon. We have seen the importance of this when we looked at his views on marriage. But we also need to consider some of his notes which, while they may seem unimportant, in fact lead us in the direction of a complete reconsideration of the historical record relating to sexual encounters at a pan-Polynesian level.
Fesche describes the funeral rites at which a number of the French were present. The corpse is kept for several days on a ceremonial stage, is rubbed with oil and receives other such attentions before being interred:
The women, no doubt out of propriety, weep abundantly, but several of the French who happened to be present at their ceremony easily caused this to be followed by most immoderate laughter through the signs and propositions they were making to the prettiest of them, propositions that were accepted. Let one draw from this whatever conclusion one wishes (Fesche 2002, 261).
This is an interesting anecdote and it applies to numerous first contacts between Polynesians and Europeans. At the very beginning the European captains and officers who were received by the chiefs were astounded to discover that girls were being offered to them. So it did not take long before all the sailors and soldiers wished to receive the same treatment, and let it be known, as we see here.
Now, on the Polynesian side, this had different consequences. From that moment the Polynesians understood that these presentations of girls – which for them served a cosmological purpose, I believe – could also be used as a medium of commercial exchange. It was at that point that the men brought forward more girls, as well as women perhaps, and asked for objects in exchange. And then the women did this themselves. A key phrase in Fesche’s narrative should be quoted here. Fesche first of all explains that married women do not grant their favours, but that “those who are unmarried are free and prostitute themselves with whomever takes their fancy, and so one can appreciate the kind of life most of the French led in this fortunate island” (2002, 260). We see again how the statement about the local ways and the rules regulating sexual behaviour rests solely on the interpretation that the French had made of the sexual relations they themselves had entered into with Tahitian women/girls. Fesche then immediately adds, “they gave themselves to us at first without asking for any reward, simply eager to give us some pleasure, but soon self-interest became their guide, they insisted on presents” (260). We can disregard Fesche’s interpretation that the women/girls were “simply eager to give us some pleasure,” but we should remember his observation that they made their overtures to the French “at first without asking for any reward.” This remark leads us to make a distinction between two stages, something that up until now historical researchers have not done in their studies of the accounts of first sexual contacts.
The Frenchman also describes the way in which, once the first days of the encounter had passed, the Tahitians took all that they could when they went aboard the French ships: “These people have minds that are very disposed toward theft, they are the cleverest scoundrels I know” (Fesche 2002, 262). Some of them came dressed in many layers of tapa and hid the objects that they took underneath the layers, but they were sometimes caught out when they left:
Others, aware of the special esteem we had for women, brought several very pretty ones on board who offered themselves to the first come. An elderly man, held in special respect by them as far as we could tell, led three of them into Mr de Bougainville’s room and urged him most pressingly to enjoy their favours. Mr de Bougainville resisted but it was impossible for him not to be distracted to the point where, while they were there, an achromatic glass was stolen from him (Fesche 2002, 262).
Fesche is intelligent enough to note that “aware of the special esteem we had for women,” the Tahitians started to come forward with girls (and/or women, we do not know) who offered themselves to the “first come” on the ship in order to distract attention. But, significantly, this began when the Polynesians noticed this “special esteem” on the part of their visitors. We should also take note of the fact that, even at the beginning of this second phase of sexual encounters, it is again the men who “led” the women on board, and in this case even an “elderly man held in special respect by them” (Fesche 2002, 262).
So, transformation had indeed taken place by which the ritual presentation of young girls quickly turned into sexual commerce. At least this applied in the case of contacts with Polynesian societies that did not enjoin a marriage with a public defloration. The girls could therefore have a sexual relationship with the visitors without putting their future in danger. That is why this sexual commerce took place in Tahiti, Hawai`i and Tonga, but apparently not in Samoa.[23]
But the emergence of this trade in a second phase (which could be set up in a few days, or only after one or even several new arrivals of Europeans) is in no way an argument for interpreting the first presentations of girls in terms of hospitality or sexual commerce. We know now that these presentations took place in the same way in Tahiti and Samoa.
[23] For Samoa, sources as late as the 1830s continue to note that sexual advances on the part of European male visitors were rejected (Tcherkézoff 2004a, 82).