KANNIBALS & VAHINES

Description

The sweet and terrible vahiné kannibal haunt the dreams of the West for more than two centuries. These representations built first around the adventures of Bougainville browser, inventor of Tahitian Eden and those of Monsieur de La Perouse gone to the shores of the infernal islands of Melanesia have continued to this day to supply an imaging South Seas who replaced her languid hours fairies, ogres and Bluebeard. Roger Boulay analyzes the evolution of these images from those established by the first travelers of the southern lands. It covers the whole extent of the field they illustrate: popular literature, advertisements, comics, film, postcards, records and objects. A trip to the “museum kannibal” will make you relive the emotions of your great-grandparents when they discovered kannibals to universal and colonial exhibitions. A moment spent with dancers from the famous hula take you back in your dreams of little girls playing with hula-girl Barbie. Hawaiian shirts, tangos South Sea “where women are beautiful and eternal love”, flowers, perfumes winds come telescoping cannibal warrior, hunter heads, the island volcano and shark lagoon. This walk, among the most used images, made ideas and the most durable stereotypes, has only one purpose: a more authentic discovery of the peoples of Oceania.