Table of contents : Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Part I. Kanak (Hi)stories Chapter One. Origins and Orality Chapter Two. Pathways and Interconnections1 Chapter Three. Cultural Initiation Chapter Four. Transformations Part II. Exploration and First Contact Chapter Five. James Cook Chapter Six. The Forsters Chapter Seven. D’Entrecasteaux Chapter Eight. La Billardière Chapter Nine. Nineteenth-Century Perspectives Part III. Early Texts Chapter Ten. Colonial Representations of Kanak Culture Chapter Eleven. Portraits of Colonial Society Chapter Twelve. Living in the Bush Chapter Thirteen. Women’s Lives Chapter Fourteen. The Voice of the Other Part IV. The Modern Period Chapter Fifteen. From Colonial Regimes to Their Contestation (1870–1946) Chapter Sixteen. Rewriting Colonial History Chapter Seventeen. Kanak Rewriting of Colonial History Chapter Eighteen. Recovering Custom Chapter Nineteen. A Cultural Politics of Independence Chapter Twenty. Critique of Custom Chapter Twenty-one. Writing Together Chapter Twenty-two. Métissage and Cultural Hybridity References About the Editors