Colour and Catholicism

The French-controlled is lands of Wallis and Futuna, which lie several hundred kilometres north-east of New Caledonia and north of Fiji, are little known even to New Caledonian Frenchmen.

Nothing ever seems to hap pen there to gel them into the news. The “Come to Wallis and Futuna Movement" has not yet begun. And there is lit tle readily available literature on them.

But times are changing. In 1972, this reviewer had the unaccustomed task of review ing two books on Wallis in the same year, and now we have a book dealing with both Wallis and Futuna.

The new book is by Philippe Godard, a Frenchman, who has made the Pacific his home since 1968. It is an attractive, large-format production, whose text combines a tra veller's impressions of the is lands with sketches of their histories and general infor mation about them. The whole is strikingly illustrated by many coloured photo graphs. old maps, sketches and photographs in black and white.

Unfortunately for English speaking readers, the text is in French. But the captions for the illustrations, which are printed at the back of the book, are in French, English, Wallisian and Futunan.

Both Wallis and Futuna (plus Futuna’s sister island, Alofi) are inhabited by Polynesians. The language of the first closely resembles Tongan, while that of Futuna is akin to Samoan. “Neverthe less," Godard tells us, “Walli sians and Futunans appear to have little difficulty in under standing one another."

Wallis, otherwise known as Uvea, received its European name from Captain Samuel Wallis, who came upon it in HMS Dolphin in 1767,

following his discovery of

Tahiti. Despite Wallis’ fame in connection with Tahiti, Godard is the first author. 1 believe, to discover and rep roduce the portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

For many years, Wallis Is land was dominated by a for midable, bearded Marist,

Bishop Bataillon, who went there in 1837 and turned the island into a virtual theocra cy. He was largely responsible for its becoming a French Protectorate.

A colleague of Bataillon, Father Pierre Chanel, who was sent to Futuna in 1837, achieved celebrity as the first Christian martyr in the South Pacific. He was murdered in 1841. Despite this unpromis ing start, Futuna, too, even tually came under the strong influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Catholicism of Wallis and Futuna is strongly reflected, in its Polynesian way, in Godard's book. A notable example is a specially-executed painting of Chanel’s death by the inimita ble Wallisian artist Aloisio Pilioko.

Besides the Catholicity of the two islands. Godard's book reveals them to be places of brilliant colours and clear blue skies: places where much of the old-style, pre tourism Polynesia is still to be found.

There are still thatched roofs and outrigger canoes aplenty, not to mention pigs that root for shells in the shallows when the tide goes out.

On the other hand, the papalangi who have sojourned in the islands over the years such as the Americans who had a base on Wallis during World War II have done their bit to alter the local genotype. At least, that’s the impression that I get from studying some of Godard’s portraits, particularly of

children.

Robert Langdon.

(WALLIS and FUTUNA. By Philippa Godard.

Published by Editions Melanesia, 27 Rue Sebastopol, Noumea. Price not available.)