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.Stevenson srepresentation of herself as a potential pet for these women both recognizes localpractices of adoption, and rhetorically dissociates herself from the violent power thatmade whites in the Pacific much more often possessors than possessions.The episodes at Natau and Nanomea in The Cruise of the Janet Nichol contrastgreatly with those at Mariki and Penrhyn.They represent successful interactionsbetween visitors and locals, in which the contempt, shame and incivility of theearlier, failed trading-scenes are replaced by mutual respect.The fact that the latertrading encounters took place on board the ship may have been one factor in theirsuccess; on her own territory, Stevenson was better able to control the action andless likely to breach etiquette or stumble into explosive local political situations.That in the later episodes Stevenson s interactions with Pacific Island women werenot mediated by men (white or indigenous) may also have contributed to theirsuccess.Looking at the four episodes in chronological order, as this chapter hasdone, it is also evident that Stevenson s attitude to trade developed as her Pacifictravels progressed.The opposition between trade and gift-giving that characterizedthe earlier scenes gives way in the later ones to a pleasing continuity between gift-exchange and trade.As she learned more about the labor trade, Stevenson becamemore sensitive to its damaging effects on the relations between whites and islanders,and worked harder both to understand the behavior of the local people, and to makeherself less threatening to them.The scenes at Natau and Nanomea show the ways in which Stevenson became,over the course of the voyage, more adept both at the business of trading and at therhetorical management of its representation.Her confidence grew that her sympatheticconnection with other women, no matter what their race or background, allowed herto read the signs of the trading encounter and write their perspective into her accountof it.Yet this very confidence may trouble the modern reader, for rather than dealingwith the messy negotiations and compromises of meaning that come with contactlanguages, Stevenson preferred to overleap the realm of language altogether as sheinteracted with the island women.In her accounts of those interactions, she createsa space of direct communication between women, where gestures speak plainerthan words , and intuition supplies the meanings that the language barrier obscures.Although no doubt prompted by a genuine desire for connection, this tactic allowsStevenson to script the roles of the other women and thereby in the narrative, if notnecessarily in the action itself to control the meaning of the scene.48 Ibid., p.134. This page intentionally left blank Chapter 13Fair Trade:Marketing The Mohawk PrincessAnne CollettIn her biography of the Canadian poet Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake, Betty Kellerreports an incident that occurred in July 1894 on the trip home from London to Canada a successful trip by all accounts, during which Johnson-Tekahionwake had not onlybeen fêted as the new darling of the London salon circuit, but had negotiated theEnglish publication of her first volume of poetry with Bodley Head.Keller writes:On her trip home, nursing her sore throat and feeling quite unwell, she foundherself unable to avoid a large, talkative American woman.The lady wasextremely upset about many of the customs she had found in England. Why , she said, when I asked for ice water, they looked at me as if I were aNorth American savage! Do you know , said Pauline quietly, that s just the way they looked at me. Oh , said the woman, not at all abashed, was your father a real wild red Indian? Yes , Pauline answered. Why, excuse me , said the woman. You don t look a bit like that! Oh? replied Pauline. Was your father a real white man? Why, sure , said the puzzled lady. Excuse me, but I m equally surprised , said Pauline and sought refuge in her cabin.This encounter had been all she had needed to remind her that she was headedhome.1This exchange reveals Johnson-Tekahionwake as more than equal to her opponent neither victim nor vanquished and yet nevertheless constrained by and within thebounds of cultural expectation.She interprets and speaks with acumen, but thatspeech is met with puzzlement: she is not (and possibly cannot be) understood, atleast within this historical moment
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