The papalagi

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The Papalagi ( papalaŋ̩i ) is a book by the German painter and writer Erich Scheurmann that contains the travel reports of a fictional South Sea chief. It first appeared in 1920.

The book is subtitled "The speeches of the South Sea Chief Tuiavii from Tiavea". The word Papalagi , which comes from Samoan , means "the white one", "the stranger", "the sky breaker" according to Scheurmann. The word actually exists in Samoan. Scheurmann's story reveals itself to the reader as a kind of secret communication, since he published the speeches of Chief Tuiavii "certainly against his will".

Emergence

The “travel report” was written between 1915 and 1920 after Scheurmann had received an advance payment from his publisher for a South Sea story. Scheurmann lived in Samoa for a year , but had to break off his stay because of the start of the First World War.

The book is based to a certain extent on the parable The Research Trip of the African Lukanga Mukara into Inner Germany by the colonial officer and pacifist Hans Paasche ; Plagiarism allegations were heard in court, but not resolved.

content

The book is about a chief Tuiavii (which is a title and not, as the book suggests, a proper name) and his fictional speeches to his people. He reports on his trip to Europe and warns his people about the values ​​that prevail there. Really, however, it was not a South Sea chief who had traveled to Europe, but Scheurmann to Polynesian Samoa. Western Samoa was a colony of Germany until 1915 . In the book the author tells little about the way of life of the Samoans; rather, he criticizes Europe through childlike, naive language and uses the cliché of primitive colony peoples to portray simple wisdom.

"The Papalagi" is divided into eleven "speeches", some of which should be mentioned here:

From round metal and heavy paper

About round metal and heavy paper : the chief warns that “the round metal and heavy paper that they call money” is “the true deity of white people”. To this God alone is your attention.

From the profession of the papalagi

About the profession of the Papalagi : Chief Tuiavii speaks about professions in civilized societies: “Do something so often that one can do it with closed eyes and without any effort. If I do nothing with my hands but build huts or weave mats - building huts or weaving mats is my job. When the papalagi later realizes that he would rather build huts than weave mats, they say: he has missed his job. "

About magazines

About magazines : “In these papers lies the Papalagi's great cleverness. He has to hold his head between them every morning and evening to fill it up again and fill it up, so that he can think better and have a lot in him; how the horse runs better when it has eaten a lot of bananas and its body is properly full. "

The grave illness of thinking

The serious illness of thinking : The chief describes the thinking of Europeans and describes it as a serious illness. “If someone thinks a lot and quickly, they say in Europe that they have a big head. Instead of having pity on these great minds, they are especially venerated. The villages make them their chiefs, and wherever a big head goes, it has to think publicly before the people, which gives everyone a lot of lust and is much admired. When a great head dies, there is mourning all over the country and much lamentation for what is lost. "

effect

The book was translated into at least ten languages ​​and was also distributed in East Asia. It was sold more than 1.7 million times in German alone. The speeches were surprisingly often considered to be authentic - and not read as literary fiction , by Hanns-Hermann Kersten, among others. It achieved great popularity especially during the hippie movement . The alleged speeches became a cult book of the 1968 cultural revolution and the green alternative movement. The new edition of a Swiss publisher is also distributed by the Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag without mentioning the author's sympathies for Hitler and his work with the Nazis. In spite of the thoughts that can be assessed as racist, Papalagi is also in German curricula of the 21st century as “tried and tested reading” (Hessen), about “intercultural education” (Berlin), “dealing with the foreign” (Bremen) or “criticism of civilization” (North Rhine -Westfalen) to promote or treat.

In 1997 the Canadian-Swiss author Peter C. Cavelti published a version of Tuiavii's Way translated into English .

literature

  • Gereon Janzing: Cannibals and Shamans - Common misconceptions about foreign peoples . Werner Pieper & The Grüne Kraft, 2007, ISBN 978-3-922708-59-9 .
  • Horst Cain: Tuiavii's Papalagi. In: Hans Peter Duerr (Ed.): Authenticity and Fraud in Ethnology. Frankfurt am Main 1987.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Note by the author (e.g. in the 3rd edition, Felsen-Verlag Buchenbach, Baden 1922): "Sprich: Papalangi". See also Samoan language .
  2. ↑ cf. Hanno Kühnert: Plagiarism is right. Zeit Online 48/1989, p. 89
  3. ↑ a b Thomas Steinfeld : Home on the island. The Samoa book "The Papalagi" by Erich Scheurmann served the dropout dreams of the 68 generation - under racist auspices . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of January 7, 2016, p. 12.
  4. ↑ Horst Cain: Persian letters in Samoan . In: Anthropos. Internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- und Sprachenkunde , Vol. 70 (1975), pp. 617–626.