Parijs - 19e eeuw Paul Gauguin -  Inventarisatie mythologische thema’s rondom papegaaien in/op Polynesië

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1. De schaduw van de Godheid

 

 

Polynesians also believed that birds (especially white ones) were shadows of the gods, and every island group identified their many different birds with their representative deities. For example, in Tahiti the brightly colored parakeet was the shadow of the powerful god Tü, the god of stability.

Robert D. Craig: Handbook of polynesian mythology,2003

 

2. De jacht op de rode veren

Polynesians also used to hunt birds, not for food, but for their colorful feathers.

Feathers were generally considered sacred and were used in religious ceremonies

and for human ornamentation. When praying, priests held sacred feathers

upright to the skies to attract the attention of the gods, either a single feather

or a wooden wand with numerous feathers attached to its end. Religious clothing

was adorned with colored feathers from various birds and fowl. It was only

the high chiefs, however, who could afford such feather ornaments, for it is said

a single feather was worth the price of an entire hog. Some chiefs sent messengers to remote islands far distant from home in order to hunt or trade for these feathers. On the messengers’ return, the chiefs had various types of clothing decorated with the feathers.

Craig: Handbook of polynesian mythology

 

To Melanesians and Polynesians, red feathers were also of great value for decoration and trade. The magnificent red musk parrots seen in Fiji are also found in Tonga, but they did not get there naturally, they were kidnapped by the Tongans. At the time there was a vibrant trade in the parrots' red feathers, which were used by Fijians to decorate the edges of fine mats for Chiefly occasions. The Tongans also valued them, and used to sail in their double-hulled canoes to Fiji in order to obtain them. Some of the parrots were spirited away and released in Tongatapu, the trade in which Fiji had a commanding role in the Pacific was thus undermined. Once they were more widespread in the islands, they survive today only on the ancient island of Eua. The use of red feathers for decoration spread all the way from the Solomons north to Hawaii, and as far east as Tahiti. Small parakeets with red plumage such as Fiji's kula parrot were also popular and traded through the islands. today these parrots and parakeets have become scarcer and dyed chicken feathers now decorate fine mats. (gekleurde kippeveren!!!)

Further to the west of Fiji, in the Santa Cruz Islands, red feathers carried an even greater value, and were bound into a fascinating story of wealth, spirits, the exchange of wives, and prostitution.

Red-feather money is only made on Santa Cruz island by a few specialists whose perceived knowledge of the correct taboos and easily offended spirits that guard the forest traditionally gives them the exclusive right to manufacture currency. First a bird-snearer must fashion small perches covered in sticky latex which he positions in a suitable tree, attaching a nectar-rich flower which is hard to resist or a live bird as decoy. Concealing himself behind a blind of palm leaves, he chirps on a special whistle made from a tree bud, so attracting the males to the sticky perch and capturing them.

Most birds die once the red feathers have been plucked from them, but in Hawaii, (...) it as considered a great skill to remove them delicately and release the birds to grow a new set.

Menfolk of the Reef and Duff Islands in the eastern Solomons would traditionally sail south, trading their women to Santa Cruz for feather money, which they were themselves unable to make. The feathers were bound into belts up to ten metres long using the plumage of over 300 birds. In the past those women sold as concubines would fetch ten times as much as brides. The women themselves of course, derived no benefit from the trade. Concubines lived in the men's meeting house, and the purchaser could purvey them as prostitutes, deriving high income from their services.

Feather money is still used occasionally for trading pigs, or even canoes. Inflation is negligible, because its value declines with age. The colour of the feathers fades even if they are wrapped in leaves and placed near smoky fires, and moths and mould also take their toll.

http://www.janesoceania.com/tahiti_origin/index.htm

 

States of spirit possession often symbolically bridge otherwise opposing aspects of identity (Mageo 1991; 1996b). The most famous possessing spirits during colonial times in Samoa were ta¯upo¯u who had been abducted by other spirits and who contained both sides of girls’ contradictory identities in their own persons. On the one hand, they were prototypical pre-Christian ta¯upo¯u: they were beautiful girls from illustrious families. Like legendary chiefs, spirit girls glowed red and often had fair reddish hair; they could become scarlet-headed parakeets, whose red feathers once made fine mats sacred (Krämer 1949 [1923]: 16A-17; Mead 1929: 269).

Jeannette Mageo: Zones of ambiguity and identity politics in Samoa

 

Traditioneel lied: RARI NO TE FAUFE'E

Girls singing this rari gracefully imitate the flight of the various birds, the raging sea, rain, sunshine, thunder, and winds, with their hands and arms. Most of the words containing r are Tahitian, inserted for the sake of euphony. The booby, faufe'e, and pigeon mentioned in the song are common in the Marquesas today, but the ku'a is a reference to the famous red parakeet, the scarlet feathers of which were so highly prized by Polynesians. The Samoans journeyed to Taveuni, Fiji, and the Marquesans, according to legends, travelled as far as Rarotonga for ku'a feathers. The ku'a is also a symbol of divinity.

 

Faufe'e tu'u mahoa pu. -- The faufe'e flies in the sunlight, wings motionless.

Kena tahu'i 'u'u tau 'a'a te vai. -- The tempestuous booby dives into the waters.

'Upe te ku'a te mai'u'u -- The wild pigeon and the ku'a claw

Ke te tai, te ua, ma te ouma'i, -- In changing sea and rain and hot sunshine,

Me te fatuti'i, me te kohu. -- Midst thunder through the mists.

Topa me te tiu— -- The northeast wind strikes—

 

Paka'a tahi au 'a reva atu! -- Madly I dart away!

Hau tere auriri'i! -- Faster fly the birds!

Hau tere auriri'i! -- Faster sings the song!

Hau tere auriri'i! -- Faster fly the birds!

Kohu auriri'i, te kohu auriri'i! -- Birds in the clouds! Birds in the mists!

Te kohu ru'u tu, kohu ru'u tu! -- Song of clouds, song of mists!

Tu'u tau'u te ona 'i Fatu'uku, -- My fledgling flies to Fatu'uku,

Ona hei rei rahi, -- Flies straight into my famous song,

Ru ru'u u rahi hu'u tu! -- Wings sprea

 

AIKANAKA-KAHA‘I CYCLE Maori

The episode, in Kaha‘i's quest after his father, of the destruction of the spirits who fear daylight by trapping them inside a house is referred by Von den Steinen to stories of expeditions from the Marquesas islands undertaken after the red (kula, kura, ula) parrot feathers, so highly prized for ornament, upon one of which trips Hema is supposed to have lost his life. The Marquesan journey to Aotona after bird feathers is to the Cook group thirteen hundred miles to the southwest from the Marquesas. The story is here connected with Aka or Aka-ui (Laka), grandson of Tafa‘i, who goes after the feathers to adorn his son and daughter when they arrive at puberty.

*

THE KANA LEGEND

On a voyage in the ship Aere the sailors throw him into the sea in his sleep, but his brothers pull him in and he kills with his spear Rua-i-paoa the man-devouring beast (pua‘a) which has been ravaging Ra‘iatea. On a second expedition after parrot feathers he attacks the Hi-van warriors and finally leads his brothers against the giant billfish of Hiva who has overcome Borabora, kills him and the chief Tu-tapu, and takes back the chiefess Te-puna-ai-ari‘i to the chief Ta‘ihia of Tahiti. 

Martha Beckwith Hawaiian Mythology 1940

 

Ten days afterwards they left Maketu, twenty in number, ten of the rank of chiefs, and ten men to carry food. When they reached the small lake, discovered by Ihenga, he said to Kahu "You are the Ariki of this lake."

Hence the song of Taipari

 

By Hakomiti was your path hither

To Pariparitetai, and to that Rotoiti of yours,

Sea discovered by Ihenga,

Thereof Kahu was Ariki.

 

Thence they went on to Ohou-kaka, so named by Kahu from a parrot-feather hou-kaka, which he took from the hair of his head, and stuck in the ground to become a taniwha or spirit monster for that place. When they reached the place where their canoes had been left they launched two, a small sacred canoe for Kahu, and a large canoe for the others. Then they embarked, and as they paddled along coming near a certain beach, Kahu threw off his clothes, and leaped ashore, naked. His two grandsons, Tama-ihu-toroa and Uenuku, laughed and shouted "Ho! ho! see, there go Kahu's legs." So the place was named Kuwha-rua-o-Kahu. In this way they proceeded, giving names to places not before named, till they reached Lake Rotorua. They landed at Tuara-hiwi-roa, and remained there several nights, and built a whata, or food-store raised on posts; so that place was named Te Whata.

Edward Shortland: Maori Religion and Mythology [1882]

 

In the myths and legends of the Hervey Islands, Vatea is located near the beginning of their national existence. First of all the Hervey Islanders place Te-ake-ia-roe (The root of all existence). Then there came upon the ancient world Te Vaerua (The breath, or The life). Then came the god time--Te Manawa roa (The long ago). Then their creation legends locate Vari, a woman whose name means "the beginning," a name curiously similar to the Hebrew word "bara," "to create," as in Gen. i. 1. Her children were torn out of her breasts and given homes in the ancient mist-land, with which, without any preparation or introduction, Hawaiki is confused in a part of the legend. It has been suggested that this Hawaiki is Savaii of the Samoan Islands, from which the Hervey Islands may have had their origin in a migration of the Middle Ages. One of the children of Vari dwelt in "a sacred tabu island" and became the god of the fish. Another sought a home "where the red parrots' feathers were gathered"--the royal feathers for the high chiefs' garments. Another became the echo-god and lived in "the hollow gray rocks." Another as the god of the winds went far out "on the deep ocean." Another, a girl, found a home, "the silent land," with her mother. Wakea, or Vatea, the eldest of this family, remained in Ava-iki (Hawaii), the ancestral home--"the bright land of Vatea."

W.D. Westervelt: Hawaiian Legends of Old Honolulu [1915]

 

It is tempting to speculate that, if Burotu was indeed an important centre of the Polynesian red-feather trade, one of the reasons for the decline may have been that the kula was hunted to extinction. It is inexplicably absent from Totoya (Clunie 1984:58), and from certain other islands in Lau, such as Cicia and Vanuabalavu, though present in Matuku (Moseley 1944 [1879]:255; Beckon 1989). It is also tempting to speculate further that Matuku may have been an early source of feathers of Prosopeia splendens (Rinke 1989), the Kadavu musk-parrot, which is the only Fiji parrot with bright red feathers, the others being maroon or yellow, and bears the appropriate name k-kula (k being generic for "parrot"). Fiji parrot feathers were also sought after by Samoans and Tongans, in addition to those of the kula lory (Clunie 1986:150). Although the Kadavu musk-parrot is not found on Matuku today, an unspecified musk-parrot was present as far east as Lakeba up until at least 2250 B.P. (Best 1984:530). It is possible that the Lakeba parrot became extinct through a combination of over-exploitation for the red-feather trade, and loss of habitat after extensive burning of inland forests for farming that occurred about 2000 B.P. (Best 1984:563), resulting in a long period during which Lakeba was sparsely populated (Best 1984:643). Subsequently, Matuku and the other islands of Yasayasa Muala were resorted to, until the parrot again became extinct.

Paul Geraghty: Pulotu, Polynesian homeland (The Journal Volume of the Polynesian Society, 102, 1993)

In using the terms "religion" and "sacred" in this context the Polynesians' concepts must be understood. These people as exemplified in Hawaii attributed a divine origin to their kings and venerated them as gods. This did not imply that humans were raised to the heights conveyed by our ideas of divinity, but that gods, to Polynesians, were little more than human.

Gods were present in many shapes. In human form they differed from people only in substance and in unlimited supernatural power. They inter-married, among themselves and with humans, and begat children. The distinction between kings and gods was the matter of mortality, but the transition from immortal gods to mortal kings in the line of divine descent, has not been satisfactorily explained.

*

The sacred colour was primarily red, as was the sacred feather. The Polynesian red-feather cult had reached the height of its development in the Society Islands at the time they were first explored by foreigners. Red feathers had then become the necessary medium for invoking the great gods, particularly that of war. All prayers in and out of the temple were said over a small bunch of red feathers held in the fingers. The god himself could be implanted in red feathers by contact and prayer, and his presence might thus be simultaneously transferred to hundreds of homes, while his image remained in its place in the temple. The war god was also worshipped in bird form in Samoa and in bird form or effigy in the Society Group, and similar conditions might have been noted in other islands. Effigies of birds were found about the tombs of the Society and Marquesas Islands, but this may have been the effect of a form of bird-totemism which was prevalent in Polynesia. A tern cult was observed in Easter Island, and, as is reasonably shown by Balfour, seems to have been evolved from a frigate-bird cult analagous to that in Melanesia.

*

The girdles were emblems of royal investiture, equivalent to the crowns of monarchy, but as fetishes were far more potent because they imbued the wearer with power direct from the god. By inference, their use was limited to certain pure lines of purported divine ancestry.

*

During a ceremony at Tahiti in preparation for war, the sash and the representation of the god Oro were wrapped up in similarly shaped bundles and laid side by side on the altar. There was as much veneration paid to the sash as to the idol, which latter was merely an uncarved log of wood with red feathers attached. On the accession of a new king, the heir was invested with the sash by the high priest. As the priest girded on the emblem, he prayed that the king's influence might be extended far over the sea. He then described the sacred nature of the girdle, concluding with the words: "This, O king, is your parent," meaning, as Ellis stated, that all the king's power was derived from the gods.

*

I have shown that the making of feather girdles was a very sacred undertaking. In Hawaii the manufacture of royal cloaks and helmets was also conducted under the tabu, but as far as known, was not accompanied by human sacrifice. The helmet was probably of greater regard than the cloaks as it was to come in contact with the head—the most sacred part of the body. The restrictions during manufacture of feather garments were probably general in Polynesia, as implied by the description of the mourner's robe in Tahiti.

John F. G. Stokes: Notes on Polynesian featherwork (The Journal Volume of the Polynesian Society, Volume 34, 1925) 

http://www.royalark.net/Tahiti/huahine.htm

 

Légendes Tahitiennes: Voyage à Vavau

Episode 3: la Malédiction

Laisser les personnages agir: négociations, organisation de leurs défenses, acceptation, préparation d'une expédition ... Si le chef de l'expédition n'est pas parmi eux, des rumeurs bruissent que si aucune solution n'est trouvée, tous les personnages non-ari'i seront sur la liste des "poissons".

 

L'espoir

Que les personnages la cherche ou non, une information viendra à eux par l'intermédiaire du Tahu'a Pure de Ro’o. En raison de la filiation des ari'i de Maha'ena avec Ro’o, il cherchera à les aider.

Voici son récit :

"Dans les temps anciens, il existait une deuxième passe dans le lagon de Vavau. Elle se trouvait juste en face du mataiena'a de Iti-aa (peu de perroquets). Ce mataiena'a s'appelait à l'époque Nui-aa (nombreux perroquets). Mais un jour son chef préféra garder la récolte de plumes pour se faire une cape, plutôt que de les offrir à Ta'aroa. La réplique du grand dieu fut terrible. Il maudit le mataiena'a entier et ferma la passe avec trois énormes lances. Or cette passe faisait de ce district un district important de Vavau. Aujourd'hui Iti-aa est évité de tous et la malédiction perdure. Si quelqu'un parvenait à la lever, la passe se rouvrirait."

 

La malédiction de Nui-aa

Le mataiena'a de Iti-aa (pas de perroquets) s'appelait autrefois Nui-aa (beaucoup de perroquets). C'était un mataiena'a important de Vavau : sa passe en faisait un lieu de passage et ses nombreux perroquets apportaient des plumes rouges dont les ari'i des autres îles étaient friands. Mais un jour le cupide ari'i nui de Nui-aa, Vara-te-tafoto, manqua à son devoir envers le grand dieu Ta'aroa. Alors que la part des pêcheurs destiné à être donné en offrande à Ta'aroa lui fut remis et il préféra en faire un festin. Peu de temps après, il détourna également les plumes jaunes destinés au to'o de Ta'aroa pour sa coiffe.

Le grand dieu frappa. Il lança trois énormes lances qui barrèrent la passe, fit mourrir Vara-te-tafoto et maudit le mataiena'a. La malédiction fut terrible, les poissons évitent le lagon de ce district, les femmes furent rendues horribles, les ari'i simples d'esprit et les perroquets disparurent de Nui-aa qui devint Iti-aa. Il envoya également son nain noir et puant, Matiti-Tito pour s'assurer de la pérennité de la malédiction.

Les trois esprits gardiens: chacune des lances qui barrent l'ancienne passe est protégé par un esprit gardien. Rapo, esprit serpent, Hati - ratu, esprit de l'aito et Maevarau-te-aa-'ino, l'esprit perroquet.

 

Maevarau-te-aa-'ino, l'esprit perroquet: esprit du bois, voix audible, aime discuter et avoir le dessus dans la discussion, il préfère les graines et les fruits aux plumes et à la viande, aime être flatté.

 

Conclusie..?

Voorlopig….

Papegaaien worden niet gegeten, in Polynesië. Ze zijn heilig.

Hoe komt Gauguin aan drie dode papegaaien op zijn altaar-tafel..?

Zelf de nek omgedraaid..?

Het kan hem bijna niet om de rode veren zijn gegaan: Het is de Prosopeia splendens die bovenal nagejaagd wordt, en bovendien, het is juist de kunst om het beest in leven te houden.

Met rode veren lijkt het tafereel dus weinig van doen te hebben.

Zet Gauguin misschien een namaak ritueel op poten..?

Voor de gelovigen inhet Westen..?

Masker, 19de eeuw

Ill: Leon de Wailly