Life and Death in Eden

Imagine a pacific island.

Palms and blue sea, fruits and jungle-embraced mountains; a little island paradise.

Inhabit your island with 15 men and 13 women, 5 Tahitian men and 10 English sailors - the women: Tahitian. Men outnumber women, but bear in mind Tahitian women are quite 'liberal' and under certain cultural circumstance allow the indulgence of multiple sexual partners.

Our islanders have not simply appeared upon the stage out of nowhere, so let's allow them a ship in which to arrive. However, shortly the ship is set alight and all thoughts of return to whence they came are cancelled. Why? Well, because a return to the outside world would, for some of them, in all likelihood synchronize with a waiting hangman's noose; they are mutineers and have cast adrift their captain.

Now forget our mutineers for a while, say, 18 years.

At last, Captain **** is sniffing about the pacific. 18 years have passed and he stumbles across the island. He steps into a waiting canoe and once ashore discovers quite a few women and kids but only one man! He subsequently learns that the particular shortage of men arises, not by the hand of natural calamity, but largely by consequence of murder.

Idyllic!

Those of you who know the story will have guessed by now that I am talking about the Pitcairn Island occupied by the Bounty mutineers in January 1790. A true story quite well investigated by Trevor Lummis in his book 'Life and Death in Eden'; an intriguing and gripping account, apt to blow away any funny ideal of a utopian society in Paradise.

I have come across various other stories, differently flavoured, but which basically throw light upon similar themes: man against nature or man against man. One of my favorites is 'The outpost of Progress' by Joseph Conrad; two men trapped in the jungle of West Africa are waiting for a supply steamer that doesn't come. They end up killing one another over a bag of sugar! (Huuum, reminds me of my two bosses fighting over nothing!)

Anyway, I write only to pass on my enthusiasm.

17 September 2008 - 8:18am — Philip Cartland