Typee was Herman Melville’s debut novel first published in 1846. Based on his real life experiences aboard the whaling ship Acushnet and his stay on the island Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, Melville's novel became an immediate hit in England. The American edition was edited to remove all of Melville's scathing indictments of the missionaries, but was likewise a best seller. Today it is largely forgotten, overshadowed by Melville's more important work Moby Dick. It is a shame. The novel heavily influenced the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Louis Becke and Jack London, among others. For many of us, whether we know it our not, it is the seed of our romantic notions of the South Pacific. Typee deserves a spot in our modern library.
After reading it, I looked to the web to find a site that would bring the voyage and island to life. I wanted to see the path the Dolly took in its six month wanderings. I wanted a map of the island showing the path our heroes took. I wanted a picture of Kory-Kory's tattoos, to view the lush jungles and breadfruit. To my dismay, no such site appears to exist. There is a brief article on Wikipedia and study guides, but I wanted a pictorial companion to the novel. Not finding it anywhere else, I have endeavored to create it here.
This is not intended as a scholarly work, but I hope you find it of some value, and it inspires you to read Typee.
A Brief Synopsis of Typee
After having spent six long months at sea eating worm filled biscuits and brackish water, Herman and his friend Toby resolve to jump ship at the island of Nukuheva. Upon reaching the mountains where they hope to feast of fruit and wait out the departure of the Dolly, they are chagrined to learn there is no food. With what little food they had exhausted and Herman's foot now swollen, the pair are forced to descend into the only valley they have found.
After a harrowing climb down towering waterfalls, they reach the valley floor. But they are not certain if they have entered the valley of the friendly Happar, or the dreaded cannibalistic Typee. Their worse fears are realized when they discovery it is the valley of the Typee. Much to their relief, they are not immediately eaten, but rather greeted as honored guests. Attached to the home of Marheyo and his extended family, Tomo, as Herman is called by the natives, and Toby enjoy the bounty of the Typee's hospitality.
Tomo's foot has gotten worse and when a ship appears in the bay, he convinces Toby to contact them and bring back help. Toby reluctantly complies, but never returns. In his present condition, Tomo realizes he can not leave and decides to make the most of his stay. He enters in to a rewarding romantic relationship with the beautiful and intelligent Fayaway while exploring the ancient mysteries and practices of the Typee. But with the unexpected appearance of a Taboo native who speaks English, Tomo begins to realize he is not so much of a guest of the Typee as he is a captive.
After the Typee have a battle with the Hapar, Tomo's worse fears are revealed. During the celebration following the battle, he looks into a wooden trencher to see the remains of a human. Yes, the Typee are cannibals after all. Tomo is now determined to escape at all costs, but his efforts are thwarted until another ship arrives in the bay. He drags himself to the beach. During a heated argument between the natives over his fate, the venerable Marheyo gives him his blessing and tells him to return to his mother. Under a barrage of spears, axes and knives, Tomo makes good his escape.
The Dolly
In January of 1841 Melville sailed on the whaler Acushnet under Capt. Valentine Pease, who is assumed to be the model for Ahab in Moby Dick. The ship did not return until May of 1845, but Melville abandoned the Acushnet in July 1842.
In this image of the Acushnet's manifest, Melville's signature is the sixth up from the bottom. Notice the 'X' next to his name. His and the other "X' represent all of the sailors who did not complete the voyage.
All of the sailors would have bunked in the Forecastle. From this cross section of a typical whaling ship it becomes apparent how small an area this was. The sailors would have slept as best they could in wooden bunks and hammocks in the dank dark area.
Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific—the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else! Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisions were all exhausted.
I am indebted to Professor Benjamin M. Schmidt who kindly allowed me to use this chart of the Dolly's voyage. His original work can be viewed at Melville Plots.
Nukuheva
From the verge of the water the land rises uniformly on all sides, with green and sloping acclivities, until from gently rolling hill-sides and moderate elevations it insensibly swells into lofty and majestic heights, whose blue outlines, ranged all around, close in the view. The beautiful aspect of the shore is heightened by deep and romantic glens, which come down to it at almost equal distances, all apparently radiating from a common centre, and the upper extremities of which are lost to the eye beneath the shadow of the mountains. Down each of these little valleys flows a clear stream, here and there assuming the form of a slender cascade, then stealing invisibly along until it bursts upon the sight again in larger and more noisy waterfalls, and at last demurely wanders along to the sea.
From this vantage point Melville would have plotted his escape.
Seen from the ship, their summits appeared inaccessible, but here and there sloping spurs extended from them almost into the sea, buttressing the lofty elevations with which they were connected, and forming those radiating valleys I have before described. One of these ridges, which appeared more practicable than the rest, we determined to climb, convinced that it would conduct us to the heights beyond. Accordingly, we carefully observed its bearings and locality from the ship, so that when ashore we should run no chance of missing it.
It becomes difficult to rectify Melville's text with the actual geography of the island. He insists that the Happar occupy a valley adjacent to the Typee, but that does not appear to be true. From historical text the Happar were opposite the Typee. Unaccustomed to the terrain, it would have been an easy mistake to make for Melville, or perhaps he changed it to make the story more compelling. Anyway, this is the best I can do to recreate the location of the tribes and a presumed path for Tomo and Toby's flight.
Whatever path our intrepid travelers followed, the terrain was daunting.
As one after another the treacherous roots yielded to my grasp, and fell into the torrent, my heart sunk within me. The branches on which I was suspended over the yawning chasm swang to and fro in the air, and I expected them every moment to snap in twain. Appalled at the dreadful fate that menaced me, I clutched frantically at the only large root which remained near me, but in vain; I could not reach it, though my fingers were within a few inches of it. Again and again I tried to reach it, until at length, maddened with the thought of my situation, I swayed myself violently by striking my foot against the side of the rock, and at the instant that I approached the large root caught desperately at it, and transferred myself to it. It vibrated violently under the sudden weight, but fortunately did not give way.
My brain grew dizzy with the idea of the frightful risk I had just run, and I involuntarily closed my eyes to shut out the view of the depth beneath me. For the instant I was safe, and I uttered a devout ejaculation of thanksgiving for my escape.
The Typee
But now to sketch the inmates; and here I claim for my tried servitor and faithful valet Kory-Kory the precedence of a first description. As his character will be gradually unfolded in the course of my narrative, I shall for the present content myself with delineating his personal appearance. Kory-Kory, though the most devoted and best natured serving-man in the world, was, alas! a hideous object to look upon. He was some twenty-five years of age, and about six feet in height, robust and well made, and of the most extraordinary aspect. His head was carefully shaven with the exception of two circular spots, about the size of a dollar, near the top of the cranium, where the hair, permitted to grow of an amazing length, was twisted up in two prominent knots, that gave him the appearance of being decorated with a pair of horns. His beard, plucked out by the root from every other part of his face, was suffered to droop in hairy pendants, two of which garnished his under lip, and an equal number hung from the extremity of his chin.
One day, after we had been paddling about for some time, I disembarked Kory-Kory, and paddled the canoe to the windward side of the lake. As I turned the canoe, Fayaway, who was with me, seemed all at once to be struck with some happy idea. With a wild exclamation of delight, she disengaged from her person the ample robe of tappa which was knotted over her shoulder (for the purpose of shielding her from the sun), and spreading it out like a sail, stood erect with upraised arms in the head of the canoe. We American sailors pride ourselves upon our straight, clean spars, but a prettier little mast than Fayaway made was never shipped aboard of any craft.
The frame of the house was constructed of large bamboos planted uprightly, and secured together at intervals by transverse stalks of the light wood of the habiscus, lashed with thongs of bark. The rear of the tenement—built up with successive ranges of cocoanut boughs bound one upon another, with their leaflets cunningly woven together—inclined a little from the vertical, and extended from the extreme edge of the 'pi-pi' to about twenty feet from its surface; whence the shelving roof—thatched with the long tapering leaves of the palmetto—sloped steeply off to within about five feet of the floor; leaving the eaves drooping with tassel-like appendages over the front of the habitation. This was constructed of light and elegant canes in a kind of open screenwork, tastefully adorned with bindings of variegated sinnate, which served to hold together its various parts. The sides of the house were similarly built; thus presenting three quarters for the circulation of the air, while the whole was impervious to the rain.
Flora and Fauna
The trees are stripped of their nodding burdens, which, easily freed from the rind and core, are gathered together in capacious wooden vessels, where the pulpy fruit is soon worked by a stone pestle, vigorously applied, into a blended mass of a doughy consistency, called by the natives 'Tutao'. This is then divided into separate parcels, which, after being made up into stout packages, enveloped in successive folds of leaves, and bound round with thongs of bark, are stored away in large receptacles hollowed in the earth, from whence they are drawn as occasion may require. In this condition the Tutao sometimes remains for years, and even is thought to improve by age.
Breadfruit
Pounding the breadfruit into the pulp used to make poi.
Although Melville only refers to the fabric tree when describing the making of the tappa cloth, in the Fiji islands the mulberry tree is used.
Raw mulberry tree fibers.
The different strips are now extended, one by one, in successive layers, upon some smooth surface—generally the prostrate trunk of a cocoanut tree—and the heap thus formed is subjected, at every new increase, to a moderate beating, with a sort of wooden mallet, leisurely applied.
The damsels wear nothing but flowers and their compendious gala tunics; and when they plume themselves for the dance, they look like a band of olive-coloured Sylphides on the point of taking wing. In good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks, toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl, that it was almost too much for a quiet, sober-minded, modest young man like myself.
Hibiscus.
Pulmeria.
Birds—bright and beautiful birds—fly over the valley of Typee. You see them perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic bread-fruit trees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the Omoo; skimming over the palmetto thatching of the bamboo huts; passing like spirits on the wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes descending into the bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the mountains. Their plumage is purple and azure, crimson and white, black and gold; with bills of every tint: bright bloody red, jet black, and ivory white, and their eyes are bright and sparkling; they go sailing through the air in starry throngs; but, alas! the spell of dumbness is upon them all—there is not a single warbler in the valley!
Imperial pigeon.
King Fisher.
Marquesan Swiftlet
And finally, I can't help but add this last mystery from the novel. :)
As for the animal that made the fortune of the ex-lord-mayor Whittington, I shall never forget the day that I was lying in the house about noon, everybody else being fast asleep; and happening to raise my eyes, met those of a big black spectral cat, which sat erect in the doorway, looking at me with its frightful goggling green orbs, like one of those monstrous imps that torment some of Teniers' saints!