Word: tahiti
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...December 1787, H. M. S. Bounty, a British armed transport commanded by a brutal martinet named William Bligh, set sail from Spithead, England, for Tahiti, from which it was to take breadfruit plants to the West Indies. After leaving Tahiti two-thirds of the crew, led by the first officer, mutinied and abandoned Bligh and 18 of his supporters in a small boat equipped with oars and sail. Bligh and his companions won through to Kupang after 43 nightmarish days. Meantime the mutineers returned to Tahiti, whence nine of them set out again with a Tahitian princess for the first...
...brilliant idea last winter of dressing for the beach in flowered brassieres and wrap-around shorts, supposedly copied from the modest, knee-length pareu that Tahitian women wear. Last week U. S. manufacturers were plugging "Tahitian pareos" for the Florida socialite trade. But by a cruel irony, in Tahiti itself, biggest of the French Society Islands Tahitian women were forbidden to wear indecent pareus. Instead they were supposed to wear imported French cotton dresses...
Romance is the chief advertised product of Tahiti. According to French tourist agencies, Tahiti, "Pearl of the Pacific," has everything Hawaii has, and its biggest village Papeete (pop.: 7,000) is "The Paris of the South Seas." Local realtors rent tourists seaside cottages outside Papeete, complete with female cook. Any native girl found on Papeete's streets after 9 o'clock at night is given a prostitute's card and a weekly physical examination. The Tahitians themselves have no words in their language for either prostitution or love...
French officialdom rules Tahiti with blue laws that are only half-heartedly enforced. The natives are required not to drink spirits, steal openly, sing after 9 p. m., kill their unwanted babies. The one prohibition that has really hurt the tourist trade has been that of taking monkey-toed Tahitian girls out of their pareus and putting them into cheap print dresses. Last week this matter reached Paris and French Minister of Colonies Louis Rollin, a Parisian who has lately been preaching cooperation with the colonies, for the sake of French exports...
Some of his aquatints of Hawaiian girls last week immediately reminded critics of Gauguin's sultry Tahiti wood carvings and oils. Unforced and simple, John Kelly's etchings proved him an able draughtsman. Hawaii visitors saw in his pictures a pleasing, accurate record of the island's scenery, water, natives and customs...