Churchman notice of TYPEE

Theodore Hook via NYPL Digital Collections

Submitted by "F. M. H." (Fordyce Mitchell Hubbard?), this review of Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life appeared on the front page of The Churchman for April 17, 1847. Then edited by Samuel Seabury (1801-1872), the Churchman was a weekly religious newspaper published on Saturdays in New York City by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The reviewer excerpts and comments on the Hawaiian material in Chapter 26 of Herman Melville's first book. Specifically, "F. M. H." condemns the immoral and abusive behavior of missionaries there as portrayed by Melville in two segments, "Story of a Missionary's Wife" and "Fashionable Equipages at Oahu." In the Churchman heading, the word Polynesian in Melville's subtitle is misspelled "Polneysian."

For the Churchman.

TYPEE: A PEEP AT POLNEYSIAN LIFE.

BY HERMAN MELVILLE.

This is a singular work and reminds one forcibly of the facetious Daly’s “Travels in the Interior of Africa,” the glossary of the latter work of certain words of the native dialect, bearing a marvellous affinity to sundry words in the former, given as the Typee tongue. The work purports to be the composition of a sailor who deserted from a whaler at Nukuheva, and who in running away reached the Typee country, (the natives of which are notorious cannibals,) instead of that of the Happars, their enemies, and a less barbarous people. The whole matter may be as purely inventive as Daly’s Africa, but the style is “vraisemblable,” and sufficiently dashing to make it attractive. It is an objectionable book for general reading, as the author omits no opportunity to cast a sneer at religion. Speaking of Honolulu, he makes the following bold charge against the Missionaries there established, and against one in particular; we extract from the work, pt 2 p. 251 and seq.— “The natives have been civilized into draught-horses and evangelized into beasts of burden. But so it is. They have been literally broken into the traces and are harnessed to the vehicles of their spiritual instructors like so many dumb brutes! Among a multitude of similar exhibitions that I saw, I shall never forget a robust, red-faced and very lady-like personage, a Missionary’s spouse, who day after day for months together, took her regular airings in a little go-cart, drawn by two of the Islanders, one an old grey-headed man and the other a roguish strapling, both being, with the exception of the fig-leaf, as naked as when they were born. Over a level piece of ground this pair of draught bipeds would go with a shambling unsightly trot, the youngster hanging back all the time like a knowing horse, while the old hack plodded on and did all the work.

Rattling along through the streets of the town in this stylish equipage, the lady looks about her as magnificently as any queen driven in state to her coronation. A sudden elevation and a sandy road, however, soon disturb her serenity. The small wheels become embedded in the loose soil,—the old stager stands tugging and sweating, while the young one frisks about and does nothing; not an inch does the chariot budge. Will the tender-hearted lady, who has left friends and home, for the good of the souls of the poor heathens, will she think a little about their bodies and get out and ease the wretched old man, until the ascent is mounted? Not she; she could not dream of it. To be sure, she used to think nothing of driving the cows to pasture on the old farm in New England; but times have changed since then. So she retains her seat and bawls out,— “Hookee! Hookee!” (pull, pull.) The old gentleman, frightened at the sound, labors away harder than ever; and the younger one makes a great show of straining himself, but takes care to keep one eye on his mistress, in order to know when to dodge out of harm’s way. At last the good lady loses all patience; “hookee! Hookee!” and rap goes the heavy handle of her huge fan over the naked skull of the old savage; while the young one shies to one side, and keeps beyond its range. “Hookee! Hookee!” again she cries— “Hookee tata kanuaka!” (pull strong, men,) but all in vain, and she is obliged in the end to dismount, and, sad necessity! actually to walk to the top of the hill.

At the town where this paragon of humility resides, is a spacious and elegant American Chapel, where divine service is regularly performed. Twice every sabbath towards the close of the exercises may be seen a score or two of little wagons ranged along the railing in the front of the edifice, with two squalid native footmen in the livery of nakedness standing by each, and waiting for the dismissal of the congregation to draw their superiors home. * * * * * * To read pathetic accounts of Missionary hardships and glowing descriptions of conversions, and baptisms taking place beneath palm trees, is one thing; and to go to the Sandwich Islands and see the Missionaries, dwelling in picturesque and prettily-furnished coral rock villas, whilst the miserable natives are committing all sorts of immorality around them, is quite another!”

There is no mention in the book of the name of the parties alluded to, and no particularizing of the Society by which they are delegated; but there can be but one opinion that the “husband” of the lady is a gangrened member of the Mission, and should be at once cut off! Can such things be? If there be truth in the charge, better were it a thousand times that the poor natives were left to themselves, than that they should be depressed below their common nature, under the assumption of christianity. Can it be a matter of astonishment, that scoffers abound, when such things exist under the sufferance and by the support of “a Church,” so called? Is it surprising that men hesitate to contribute to such purposes? There is—there must be a lack of judgment—a perversion of right feeling, that the appointments to such stations should be so misplaced.

Much as there is to object to in this work, if it be but the cause of uprooting this direful ill, it is welcome. That it may do evil, it is feared: but that it cannot fail to effect a certain good, there is no doubt.

F. M. H.
March 31, 1847.

Cite:

"F. M. H." “Typee: A Peep at Polneysian Life.” Churchman (New York, NY) 17, no. 7 (April 17, 1847): 26. http://search.ebscohost.com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=clp&AN=52063187&site=ehost-live.

The opening reference by "F. M. H." to the "facetious Daly" alludes to the comical friend of Gilbert Gurney in Theodore Hook's autobiographical Gurney Papers, originally serialized in Hook's New Monthly Magazine (1837-8). In the July 1837 installment, Gurney samples Daly's bogus journal of "Travels in the Interior of Africa" which includes a fictitious "vocabulary." Daly's fake "vocabulary" or glossary of common African words reminds the Churchman reviewer of Melville's questionable transcriptions and translations of Polynesian words in Typee.

Reprinted in Gurney Married: A Sequel to Gilbert Gurney (1839).