The look of Tahiti in 1888

Weeks ago I wrote a series of posts about Robert Louis Stevenson's connection with French Polynesia. Sister June has discovered an absolutely deliciously dissolute (well that's my interpretation) photo of this author (with stepson who had inspired 'Treasure Island') at http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=22280.In addition, there is new information about his work and time in Tahiti. But here is the photo with Stevenson seated:

1888 - Robert Louis Stevenson and the Marquesas Islands. Where was Gauguin?

I love the fact that so many of the world's renowned people have visited the remote French Polynesian islands, and gained a great deal from the experience. It seems everyone starts at Tahiti and then moves onto other islands. Even my trip will start there before I travel those 1000 odd miles north to the Marquesas - I have no choice because all international flights arrive and depart from Tahiti - but what reason do ships and their sailors have for always starting with Tahiti? We know Robert Louis Stevenson spent some months in Tahiti, before visiting the Marquesas in 1888. He wrote about his experiences and impressions there, in a 1900 book called ‘In the South Seas, Being an Account of Experiences and Observations in the Marquesas, Paumotur and Gilbert Islands in the Course of Two Cruises, on the Yacht Casco (1888) and the Schooner Equator. 1900. You can read his words at http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/rlsteven/southseas.pdf. Robert Louis Stevenson's first landfall on his voyage was at Hatiheu, on the north side of Nuku Hiva, in 1888. Meanwhile half a world away, in the second half of 1888, Paul Gauguin joined Vincent van Gogh in Arles, but the two quickly parted ways. Gauguin left France in 1891 and settled in Tahiti. He returned briefly to France but abandoned Europe permanently in 1895, having failed to sell many of the works from his first Tahitian excursion. He moved to the Marquesas Islands around 1898 and died on Hiva Oa in 1903. There is no record of Robert Louis Stevenson ever travelling to Hiva Oa. And there is no record of Paul Gauguin ever travelling to Nuku Hiva. I wonder if their personal and professional worlds ever allowed for them to know of each other?

Robert Louis Stevenson's Tahitian Poems

Music music music. My passion for making connections with Tahiti and the Marquesas started with being curious as to whether Haydn's desert island opera might be connected, and previous blogs have suggested connections. Now I find, that Robert Louis Stevenson was besotted by the local music during his stay on Tahiti. According to http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jso_0300-953x_1964_num_20_20_1912, Stevenson's Tahitian poems are in fact translations of Tahitian songs and tales he recorded and translated. Apparently, Stevenson spent 3 months on Tahiti. He suffered illness and boredom while in Papeete and moved around. “Arriving in Tautira sick and without acquaintances there, Stevenson met Princess Moe, who found him lodgings and nursed him back to health with plates of raw fish and other Tahitian delicacies. To honour Princess Moe, Stevenson wrote the poem entitled “To an Island Princess’. Princess Moe settled Stevenson with a Tautira sub-chief named Ori a Ori. Ori and Stevenson became fast friends, and went through a Tahitian ceremony making them bond friends for life. Ori in turn sent Stevenson to visit kinsmen in the Papara district, Tati Salmon and Queen Marua Taaroa, who both befriended Stevenson. Stevenson has published three Tahitian tales. The longest and best known is “The Song of Rahero”… The two other published tales, ‘Of the Making of Pai’s Spear’ and ‘Honoura and Weird Woman’ are both renditions of minor Tahitian tales. The longest song is entitled ‘The Lament of the Aromaiterai’. If you want to read these songs go to the website from which this information has been collected. As a taste one poem includes the following: The wind roars in from seaward/The waves of the deep are lifted up/They bury the high sea cliffs… etc This sounds amazing and so I am increasingly excited to see that country. Ahhhh the power of music!

Did Robert Louis Stevenson spend time in Tahiti?

I have been asked if Robert Louis Stevenson, author famed for ‘Treasure Island’ amongst many other novels and short stories, really lived on a Pacific island and was it Tahiti or some other island in the French Polynesia group. An answer comes from http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/life: “Weir of Hermiston, Stevenson's very Scottish romance, was written when Stevenson was far away on the other side of the world. His decision to sail around the Pacific in 1888, living on various islands for short periods, then setting off again (all the time collecting material for an anthropological and historical work on the South Seas which was never fully completed), was another turning point in his life. In 1889 he and his extended family arrived at the port of Apia in the Samoan islands and they decided to build a house and settle. This choice brought him health, distance from the distractions of literary circles, and went towards the creation of his mature literary persona: the traveller, the exile, very aware of the harsh sides of life but also celebrating the joy in his own skill as a weaver of words and teller of tales. It also acted as a new stimulus to his imagination. He wrote about the Pacific islands in several of his later works.” By contrast, ‘Treasure Island’ was written because: “Another fortuitous turning-point in Stevenson’s life had occurred when on holiday in Scotland in the summer of 1881. The cold rainy weather forced the family to amuse themselves indoors, and one day Stevenson and his twelve-year-old stepson, Lloyd, drew, coloured and annotated the map of an imaginary "Treasure Island". The map stimulated Stevenson’s imagination and, "On a chill September morning, by the cheek of a brisk fire" he began to write a story based on it as an entertainment for the rest of the family. Treasure Island (published in book form in 1883) marks the beginning of his popularity and his career as a profitable writer, it was his first volume-length fictional narrative, and the first of his writings "for children"(or rather, the first of writings manipulating the genres associated with children).” But did Stevenson get to Tahiti. Yes he did and more. On June 27th 1888, in San Francisco, Stevenson joined the ship Casco which departed for a cruise of the Pacific islands, including the Marquesas, the Paumotus and Tahiti. The cruise lasted until 24 January 1889 when it finished in Honolulu. The year before he sailed, Stevenson had his portrait painted by Singer Sargent: Stevenson travelled with his wife Fanny. The following photo includes both with two islanders on Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas.