Ellis Goes French

A French translation of William Ellis’ famous classic Polynesian Researches, has recently been pub lished in Paris under the title, A la Recherche de la Polynesie d’Autrefois.

It is the third notable book on early Tahiti and the surrounding islands to be translated from English and published by the Societe des Oceanistes. The others are Teuira Henry’s Ancient Tahiti and the Journal of James Morrison (of Bounty fame).

The first two translations were the work of Mr Bertrand Jaunez of Tahiti. Mr Jaunez also began work on Ellis; but, as he himself told me three or four years ago, Ellis’ long windedly ponderous prose and frequent expressions of piety were more than he cared to cope with, and he gave it up.

In the end, Ellis’ 1,000-odd pages were turned into French by two ladies, Mane Sergueiew and Colette de Buyer-Mimeure, whose capacity for difficult, exacting work is some thing to marvel at.

Now that it is done, French-speak ing students of the Pacific have ready access to a book which the Quarterly Review described on its appearance

as “the most interesting work, in all its parts, we have ever perused.”

The French readers are, in fact, somewhat better off than their English counterparts, for the translation has i three important features that the English editions lack.

One is an introduction by Dr Colin W. Newbury which explains who Ellis was and how he came to write his Polynesian Researches. The others are a subject index and an an index of indigenous words. The latter make it almost worth buying the French edition so that you can find things more readily in the various English editions.

Ellis’ work, which was first pub lished in 1829, falls into three, not

always-well-ordered parts.

The first is an ethnography of Eastern Polynesia as it was before the arrival of Europeans. Then follows an account of the arrival of the missionaries of the London Mis sionary Society in Tahiti in 1797 and of their work in spreading the Gospel through that and the surrounding islands over the next 30 years.

Finally, there is an account of Ellis’ tour of Hawaii in 1822-24, which was originally published as a separate book.

Ellis, as Dr Newbury explains in his introduction, was a man of little formal education who rose to be foreign secretary of the London Missionary Society.

He was born in London in 1794; went to Tahiti as an LMS missionary in 1817; and spent eight years in the Society Islands and Hawaii. During his time in the Pacific, Christianity made enormous strides and the old Polynesian order was overthrown.

Ellis was thus on hand during an important period of transition; and it was fortunate for posterity that he was interested and observant enough to note down details both of the old order that he had a hand in destroying, as well as of the new.

It is a pity, on the other hand, that Ellis did not write well. This, it seems, was partly because he was constantly travelling—that some of his passages were written in inns, in coaches, under hedgerows or in the open fields. It also happened that he was in Madagascar when the proofs; of Polynesian Researches came from; the printer, so that he had no op portunity to make corrections or

improvements. —Robert Langdon.

(A La Recherche De La Polynesie

D’ AUTREFOIS. Societe des Oceamstes, Musee de 1’Homme, Paris. Price nofl available).