Narratives of Omai

“At the heart of these enterprises was the desire to find evidence of the origins of human civilization, the basis from which their own society had self-evidently progressed so far”
Michelle Hetherington, The Cult of the South Seas.



The three readings form the Cult of the South Seas demonstrates the rich context of the encounters and travels of the English voyagers. In Hetherington’s piece, the “cultural assumptions” of the Europeans as the epitome of the advanced human condition (the upper-crust of evolutionary and cultural refinement) means that European audiences of travel literature expected “tales of difference” that “throw their own culture into high relief.”


Question: Do readers of scientific travel literature still expect “tales of difference,” if so, how is it changed to suite our cultural assumptions?


Scientific discoveries are often couched in terms of finding out what and who we are. The space telescope looks at the “birth” of our universe, other planets tell us what the earth was like billions of years ago, the human genome finds a common ancestor. It all seems to point to the origins of life, whether in the lines on Mars or hot springs in the deep ocean.

Question: Is scientific travel a kind of rational theological exercise, in the sense that discovery seems prone narratives of human teleology and genealogy?

Along the same lines, Peter Raby describes the two-directional properties of the finding oneself through tales of difference in his chapter of Bright Paradise “Through the Looking-Glass.” Like Alice, who realized the mirror held much more than the reflection could show, scientists, travel junkies, and collectors of every stripe, found themselves crawling through the observation glass and falling into a topsy-turvy world that threatened to cut off the very head that led them there.

Question: Is the traveler in control of the experience?

Predictably, Omai’s travels to England inspired notions of the noble savage, perhaps best exemplified by the legacy of Montainge’s more deliberate tinkering with travel tales about New World encounters used to contrasts “discovered” peoples from Europeans, and to belittle and chastise the state of European society. Just as looking through the other end of the telescope makes things look smaller rather than larger, Omai comes to stand for both noble savage and the savage European. In a sense, Omai comes with the baggage of a stock character embodying a kind of difference that suggested Europeans might have taken a wrong turn along the evolutionary road to become poor substitutes for humanity in the buff. That is, humanity stripped of its gadgets and universal god might show Europeans to be less dignified and honorable than they imagined themselves. It is notable, Hetherington points out, that the embrace of the idea of the Noble Savage “bore a direct relation to one’s class and education,” which suggests that this early-stage relativism relied upon knowledge of the classics, a bit of leisure time, and a serene assumption of natural social privileges associated with class that could be surprisingly brittle under inspection. It seems that those with the most to lose could be the first to see it coming.


Question: Why does the upper-class grapple with “difference” in specific ways as Hetherington suggest?

Question: How did working-class people in England interact with the “difference” found in New World encounters?


In Ian McCalman’s look at the Omai incident, Spectacle of Knowledge: OMAI as Ethnographic Travelogue,” the narrative of difference becomes popular spectacle, taking advantage of the tension inherent in the binaries created by looking outward to see one’s inner self. The tales of Cook’s murder seems to tap directly into the narrative of difference that at one moment basks in the Eden-like simplicity of life in the Sandwich Islands and the next moment must contend with the bludgeoning of a famous sea captain. The tension between the beautiful and the grotesque, magic and science, study and destruction, travel literature and Biblical dogma, superior and inferior peoples, adulthood and infancy, seems to keep the spectacle moving like a spinning top, always more fascinating while it oscillates. And then there is “realism,” a concept of authenticity that seems ripe to peel coins from earnest onlookers and novelty enthusiast. I am reminded of a comment of a survivor of Pearl Harbor who went to see the movie “Pearl Harbor,” which, he exclaimed, “was louder in the theater than the actual attack.”


Question: McCalman notes commentators praised De Loutherbourg’s spectacle of Omai for its realism. Thinking of modern film that reproduces historical accounts with claims to accuracy, how does realism in travel narratives manage to be both aesthetically pleasing and authentic?


Finally, In Harriet Guest’s “Omai’s Things,” the concept of collecting takes an interesting turn in the other direction. As Omai is carried to the Banks’ sanctuary along with other collectibles, he too is laden with items to store in a newly built English-style house in Tahiti. The notion that Omai had been contaminated by European society inaugurates a long-lived and persistent narrative of the defiled Noble Savage, and the satirist who took jibes at the odd and “useless” items Omai took home assume a kind of paternal high-ground that ironically unleashed a guilt-laden and more destructive ambition to turn New World peoples into god-fearing Christians.

Question: You live in England when Omai arrives and have two weeks to spend with Omai, what do you do? What will the satirist write in response?