Fame—And Tahiti

From Captain Cook to Doug. Fairbanks

By Edward C. Snow

' 'TAHITI —“PearI of the Pacific” —has * brought fame to many men, and enhanced the fame of many more. Per haps it was just a happy accident that made this island stand out above all other Pacific lands in this respect; on the other hand, it may be something in the atmosphere of the island that changes the character of otherwise mediocre men.

In the following article, Edward C.

Snow, who lived in Polynesia for many years, tells us something of the men connected with Tahiti’s past and gives some reasons why that connection brought fame.

While men such as Captain Cook and William Bligh were, it is true, known and connected with other places besides Tahiti, their names and reputations were greatly enhanced by their sojourns in that tropic paradise.

But who would have heard of Fletcher Christian had there not been a mutiny?

Now, to quote his own prophetic utter ance: “My name will be associated with ‘Mutiny’ as long as the English tongue is spoken." Bligh’s second voyage to Tahiti, on the “Providence,” on the other hand, has received the smallest amount of publicity ever awarded a successful adventure, because it was an uneventful success: no Christian, no mutiny, no story!

During 150 years, Tahiti has experi enced at least one thousand ship hold ups and crew desertions involving from one to two hundred men. Some ships have had to wait weeks while the crew made hay, because union rules forbade sailing short handed, but many foreign ships on world cruise schedules hauled up their anchors and left the deserters behind for the police to deport.

To record all the mutinies, desertions, and tricks employed by sailors at Tahiti would fill a fair sized volume. None actually set their captain adrift, as did Christian, but the results were identical.

They jumped their ship and stayed at Tahiti, till captured, deported or sent to gaol.

THEN there was Pierre Loti, upon whom world limelight fell as the result of his Tahitian adventures seventy years ago. He visited many countries as Lieut. Viaud and wrote many books about his romances in them. However, it was Tahiti that married him, baptised and christened him with his famous name.

He lived until about twenty years ago in a grand French chateau, filled with art treasures collected on his many adven tures. He died an Admiral.

Paul Gauguin would probably have been a very obscure French artist on the strength of his European efforts alone, even though he may have lived many years longer. His departure for Tahiti changed the canvas completely. The price of glory was the grave, but the world now classes Gauguin with Turner, Gainsborough and Corot.

There are countless authors such as Herman Melville, Calderon, Keable and O’Brien whose books on the South Seas helped them emerge from obscurity into world fame. How one particular island, lavishly endowed by nature, has made a series of men world famous is a secret worth the telling. There are two reasons:— (1) Nothing is published in Tahiti in English, and very little in French, apart from a local bulletin of cables and adver

tisements and a Government “Hansard.”

For over a century all Tahiti’s publicity in newspapers, magazines and books has been printed in such foreign cities as Edinburgh, London, New York, San Francisco, Auckland, Wellington and Sydney. That meant that any individual mentioned in print was ensured world wide publicity as a matter of course. The result was obvious. (2) Tahiti’s seven natural wonders have attracted visitors from all over the earth —some of them, as did Captain Cook, went there many times. These wonders are: The Island landfall at dawn; the silhouette of Moorea at sunset; Tahitian wood Tau; Tahitian dance music; Tahi tian dances; Tahitian perfumes (potent and exotic, like an amiable drug); Tahitian pageant and church singing.

A South Sea Island which can suddenly speed up its tempo by about a thousand per cent, could not be anything but world famous. And it requires but one thing to do it —money! When from one to ten million francs are forthcoming from tourists, churches or Government, then things begin to move. Tourists usually confine their activities to bottle parties or floor shows varying in cost from two hundred to a thousand francs, and leave the “big stuff” to visiting warships and the Government.

On pageant occasions the cabarets in Chinatown close down and a more attrac tive series of “baraques forraines” are constructed a quarter of a mile away, for which 4,000 tons of timber are im ported from Canada. So great a trans formation in so short a time produces an ecstasy which, in the case of sailors, borders on frenzy. Every year brings its crop of desertions, rules and penalties notwithstanding. Fines, gaol and third degree bashings are no deterrent.

A LITTLE more than a decade ago the late Mr. Douglas Fairbanks, hero of the silent films, decided to try life in the idyllic Island, where there were no flies or malaria, sunstroke or snakes. A Mexican Jew by birth, as well as being a great acrobat and publicity man, he was full of ideas for doing things in a big American way. He had a string of super films such as; “Arizona," “Knickerbocker Buckeroo,” “Robin Hood,” “Mark of Zorro,” “Gaucho” and “The Black Pirate” to his credit, and possessed in addition

God’s greatest gift to a film star: an audience of every colour, race, class and creed, that understood and liked him.

His making of “Robinson Crusoe” at Tahiti, assisted by Max B. Dupont, was mentioned in the “PIM” of a decade ago, by Mr. A. C. Rowland.

Some time after the picture was finished Doug, decided to return to Tahiti, but not as a mere tourist. Oh, dear no!

He would go as a Tahiti Big Shot! Noth ing less than a steam-yacht would do.

So Doug, hired a three-decker, with elec tric lifts. From “The Black Pirate” effects he borrowed a brass cannon and mounted it on the fo’castle.

Thus he returned to Papeete after the manner of Captain Morgan sailing into the old pirate Babylon of Port Royal (submerged at Jamaica, 1692). He was on the fo’castle of the “Caroline,” hands on hips, foot on rail, gun firing a royal salute—the real thing! He landed, de clared every day at Tahiti was Xmas Day, and the toast was Champagne—on him!

Then he ran into it properly. He met aloof Americans of the intellect, and conservative English gentry. They told him exactly what they thought of Holly wood and its buffoonery; it was such and such a Barnum’s Circus.

His second visit brought about a sur prising metamorphosis in Mr. Fairbanks.

He slowed up, ceased to act native, or go “on location” at sixty miles an hour.

From his new-found associates he learned there were other things in life besides movies. He gradually developed a sense of true values which culminated in his “going British” and marrying Lady Ashley, with a measure of success.

Doug’s idea of making every day Xmas Day in Tahiti brought mixed results. He declared: “Peace and goodwill to all men” was possible there, “because, unlike life in big cities, men did not have to compete with each other for jobs.” And it proved practicable among tourists, who • for a decade, without formal introduction, greeted and behaved towards each other as real brothers, nationality proving no barrier.

Before he left Tahiti, Doug, taught not a few the secrets of his success; to think in world terms rather than in small town or purely local terms, and many profited by his tuition, both in arts and commerce.

Doug, gave his public a run for their money, the first principle to world fame.