Pitcairn Islands Research Station
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11875/3188
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Browsing Pitcairn Islands Research Station by Subject "female agency"
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Item Repositioning Pitcairn’s Tapa: Detecting the Voices of the Forgotten Women of Bounty(Okinawan Journal of Island Studies, 2023-05) Albert, Donald Patrick; Purifoy, MatthewPitcairn Island tapa inventories, created by Ted Cookson and Pauline Reynolds, were merged, cross-referenced, and verified via online searches for a more comprehensive listing of tapa-holding institutions. Close examination of tapa artifacts created by Pitcairn’s original women settlers and their female descendants (1790 to approximately 1856) allow enthusiasts and scholars the opportunity to hear the voices of their ancestors. The current number of tapa artifacts, which includes garments, cloth fragments, and wooden and whalebone tapa beaters, is low at sixty items. Geographically, these artifacts are housed at institutions located mostly in the United Kingdom. The British Museum has the largest collection Pitcairn tapa, with twenty (33%) of all Pitcairn artifacts in public institutions worldwide. The authors suggest that an electronic atlas of tapa artifacts be developed and updated as possible items from private collections become public. This will allow descendants of this Anglo-Polynesian settlement to learn more about their female ancestors. In 2023, less than fifty people reside on Pitcairn Island, not all descendants. Thousands of descendants, however, dwelling on Norfolk Island, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, trace their ancestry through this isolated oceanic outpost.Item Teehuteatuaonoa aka ‘Jenny’, the most traveled woman on the Bounty: Chronicling female agency and island movements with Google Earth(Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island (Island Studies Journal), 2021) Albert, Donald PatrickTeehuteatuaonoa (or ‘Jenny’ by her English nickname) was one of 12 Polynesian women reaching Pitcairn Island with the HMS Bounty mutineers in 1790. She was the most traveled of these women and the first to return to Tahiti after 29 years away. Her journey is chronicled with Google Earth using a screenshot and caption for each waypoint. The journey included 15 links totaling 24,090 km or 60% of the Earth’s circumference. Her longest link was 7,400 km aboard the Sultan, an American ship from Boston, which brought her from Coquimbo, Chile, to The Marquesas. Jenny’s life provides an excellent example of female agency during a period controlled and reported on by men. Her life epitomized Nicholas Thomas’ understanding that islander-empire contact during the 18th and 19th Centuries involved both survival and suffering, invention and exploitation.