Person and Myth [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520351127

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Person and Myth

PERSON AND MYTH Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World

James Clifford

University of California Press Berkeley • Los Angeles • London

University of California Press B e r k e l e y and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England ® 1 9 8 2 by T h e R e g e n t s of t h e University o f California Printed in t h e United S t a t e s of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

C h a p t e r s 5 and 8 have previously been published in slightly d i f f e r e n t f o r m in The Journal of Pacific History and Man.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Clifford, J a m e s , 1 9 4 5 Person and m y t h . Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Leenhardt, Maurice, 1 8 7 8 - 1 9 5 4 . 2. E t h n o l o g y — N e w Caledonia. 3.

Anthropologists—Melanesia—Biography.

4.

Anthropologists—France—Biography.

5.

Misssionaries—Melanesia—Biography.

6.

Missionaries—France—Biography.

I. Title. GN21.L373C57 306'.092'4 ISBN 0-520-04247-6

81-4509 AACR2

For My Father

Contents List of Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgments

ix

S o m e Misleading T e r m s Introduction PART ONE: Do I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.

xi

J Neva The Education of a Missionary La Grande Terre 30 Getting Involved 45 Do Neva 59 Translations 74 War and Rebellion 92 Evangelical Horizons 105

13

PART TWO: Do Kamo Introduction to Part Two 124 VIII. The Making of Ethnographic Texts 129 IX. The Canaque Professor 145 X. Gens de la Grande Terre: New Caledonia, 1938-1940 XI. Structures of the Person 172 XII. The Colonial World 189 XIII. Participation and Myth 200 XIV. Plenitude 216 Afterword 225 Abbreviations Notes

229

231

Bibliography of W o r k s by and about M a u r i c e L e e n h a r d t Index

265

25 7

158

Illustrations

MAP OF NEW CALEDONIA

9

1.

Franz Leenhardt

2.

Maurice Leenhardt in 1 9 0 2

3.

T h e fiancées, Maurice and J e a n n e Michel in 1 9 0 1

4.

In the valley of the Houailou River

5. & 6.

16 25 28

37

T h e traditional village, men's and women's houses

7.

N e w Caledonian colonialism

8.

D o Neva, first pastoral students

9.

P r o t e s t a n t missionaries

39

49 64

67

10.

T h e farm at D o Neva

72

11.

Maurice and Jeanne Leenhardt in 1 9 0 9

12.

D o Neva, a Christian marriage

13.

G r a n d C h e f Mindia Néja in 1 8 7 8 , 1 8 9 2 , 1 9 1 2

14.

A page from Boesoou Erijisi's notebooks

15.

Paul Rivet, Maurice Leenhardt, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

16.

Maurice Leenhardt and Eleischa Nebay, 1 9 3 8

17.

T h e ceremonies at Coulna, 1 9 3 9

18.

Esthetics and mythe vécu

19.

Maurice Leenhardt in 1 9 5 3

viii

75

101

167

211 218

132 143

162

151

Acknowledgments O f those w h o r e m e m b e r Maurice Leenhardt in their r a t h e r different ways, I am principally indebted to his son, Raymond Leenhardt, pastor and professor in his father's tradition. M. Leenhardt has been most generous in giving me access to his father's unpublished papers— letters, journals, and lecture n o t e s — t h e large majority of which are in his hands. He and M m e . Geneviève Leenhardt have read and corrected my text in m a t t e r s of fact at various stages of its development. M. Leenhardt has been admirably open in encouraging me to interpret his father's life as I have seen fit. M m e . Roselène D o u s s e t - L e e n h a r d t , herself a well-known historian of N e w Caledonia, has made available to me some of h e r o w n holdings, principally her transcriptions of passages from her father's letters in the years 1 9 1 7 and 1 9 2 3 - 1 9 2 5 . In discussions, she has provided me with valuable insights into his character and work, reflecting the general viewpoint recently expressed with passion in her short autobiographical text, La tête aux antipodes. T h i s "récit autobiographique" includes many poignant portraits of Maurice Leenhardt and the e x tended family during the early 1920s. It arrived during the editing of the present study, and I have thus not made specific use of it. It is not, nor does it pretend to be, a source of dispassionate fact, but is an honestly subjective cry of protest—a taking of distance from many of the constraining contexts, imperial and P r o t e s t a n t , that I have indicated in the pages that follow. A n y o n e dealing with the history and ethnology of N e w Caledonia owes much to the writings of Jean Guiart, Maurice Leenhardt's most distinguished successor. From the beginning of this project, Professor Guiart has provided valuable advice and documentation; the frequent citations of his works will indicate my debt to him. Father Patrick O'Reilly, in his incomparable documentary collections and in conversation, has deepened my understanding of colonial N e w Caledonia. M m e . Hilda Danon, herself engaged in writing a philosophical study of Leenhardt, has helped me in many way. As friend and collaboraix

X

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

tor, she h a s shared w i t h me h e r insights and p r o b l e m s . M . Claudio R u g a f i o r i w a s m o s t g e n e r o u s in providing i n f o r m a t i o n f r o m t h e M a u s s archives and h i n t s on L e e n h a r d t ' s w o r k , of which he has a deep u n d e r standing. M . Jean Cadier, f o r m e r Doyen of t h e M o n t p e l l i e r T h e o l o g i c a l Faculty, provided m e w i t h invaluable b a c k g r o u n d i n f o r m a t i o n on t h e L e e n h a r d t family milieu. Mile. L é o n a r d , librarian of D . E . F . A . P . (the f o r m e r S o c i é t é des M i s s i o n s Evangéliques), 1 0 2 Bid. A r a g o , Paris, gave g e n e r o u s advice and archival assistance. F a t h e r C o s t e of t h e M a r i s t A r c h i v e s in R o m e was kind e n o u g h to search o u t d o c u m e n t s relating to L e e n h a r d t . P a s t o r J e a n Paul B u r g e r provided a lucid and detailed a s s e s s m e n t of L e e n h a r d t ' s visit to t h e upper Z a m b e z e . In N e w Caledonia, m o r e people t h a n I can m e n t i o n h e r e made m e feel w e l c o m e and en famille on t h e occasion of L e e n h a r d t ' s c e n t e n n i a l celebration at Houailou during A u g u s t 1 9 7 8 . A m o n g scholars based in N o u m e a w h o helped m e w i t h m y inquiries, I would like to t h a n k M m e . D o m i n i q u e B o u r r e t and M . J e a n - M a r i e K o h l e r . M . G o r o h u n a Firmin D o g o o f Poindah kindly explained t o m e a considerable a m o u n t of local h i s t o r y and c u s t o m r e l e v a n t to L e e n h a r d t ' s w o r k ; and M . J e a n - M a r i e T i j i b a o u of H i e n g h é n e , b o t h in p e r s o n and in his w r i t i n g s , has b e e n an incomparable guide to t h i n g s M e l a n e s i a n . T h e N e w C a l e donian land, in its c o m p l e x , v i b r a n t b e a u t y , has b e e n an inspiration and ally. M y t h a n k s also to t h e following individuals w h o h a v e shared w i t h m e their m e m o r i e s of L e e n h a r d t : M m e . H e n r y C o r b i n (née Stella L e e n h a r d t ) , M m e . Jean G a s t a m b i d e (née Francine L e e n h a r d t ) , M m e . Eric Dardel (née R e n é e L e e n h a r d t ) , P a s t o r C h a r l e s M o n o d , M . M i c h e l Leiris, M . P i e r r e - H e n r i C h o m b a r t - d e - L a u w e , M . G e o r g e s C o n d o m i n a s , P a s t o r E t i e n n e K r u g e r , M m e . G e r m a i n e D i e t e r l e n , t h e late M . R o b e r t D e l a v i g n e t t e , and t h e late M . H e n r y C o r b i n . T h e following have read and criticized t h e t e x t at various s t a g e s : Virginia I. C l i f f o r d , H. S t u a r t H u g h e s , V i n c e n t C r a p a n z a n o , J a n e K r a m e r , G i l b e r t Lewis, C o n n i e H i g g i n s o n , M i c h a e l Ignatieff, G u s t a f S o b i n , K a r i n Lessing M e r v e i l l e , R i c h a r d S i e b u r t h , A n n a C a n c o g n i , Frederika Randall, G e o f f r e y K a b a t , David K o t e e n , R o b e r t S c h u l z i n g e r , T . N . Pandey, Joan L a r c o m , and my tactful editor, D a n D i x o n . Donald B e g g s prepared t h e index. I t h a n k and absolve t h e s e , m y friends, in t h e usual ways: a life is w r i t t e n , as it is lived, plurally.

Some Misleading Terms Ethnology—I use t h e word loosely, as the most c o m m o n French equivalent for what has been called "Social Anthropology" in Britain and " C u l t u r a l Anthropology" in America. Its use shades into " e t h n o g r a p h y " w h e n designating empirical research. Although it is convenient to make the distinction between " e t h n o l o g y " and " e t h n o g r a p h y , " I do not wish to imply that they are sharply dissimilar intellectual undertakings. Canaque—An

indiscriminate n a m e applied by white settlers to native N e w Caledonians. In its English form, kanaka, it exists widely in the Pacific, usually with a disparaging c o n n o t a tion. However inaccurate and offensive the t e r m may appear, I have not eliminated it from this study (1) because Leenhardt used it, w i t h o u t prejudice, t h r o u g h o u t his life, (2) because its use is c o m m o n in French e t h n o logical circles to designate specifically the Melanesians of N e w Caledonia, (3) because it has been adopted as a t e r m of national pride by Melanesians. I have left Canaque untranslated.

Pagan, Savage—Leenhardt commonly used paien neutrally to denote only pre- or non-Christian. He sometimes invested the pagan " s t a g e " of moral development with the dignity of classical antiquity or that of the early Hebrews. T h e French sauvage is m o r e ambiguous than the English " s a v a g e , " for it implies "wild," "undomesticated," or " n a t u r a l " (as in La Pensée Sauvage or "le camping sauvage"). " P a g a n " and " s a v a g e " are not necessarily pejorative. xi

Introduction

I first encountered Maurice Leenhardt through his intriguing, unorthodox study in religious phenomenology, Do Kama: Person and Myth in the Melanesian World.1 Then, in the course of general research on the history of French anthropology between the world wars, I became aware of an extraordinary ethnographic experience underlying Do Kamo's moral speculations (its title, in a New Caledonian tongue, means "the true person"). I began to wonder about this anthropologist who as a missionary had spent more than half his adult life in the field. My interest grew as I delved into Leenhardt's unpublished letters and journals, spanning twenty-three years in Melanesia and one and a half in Africa. I found a complex, ambiguous struggle—within and against the colonial system, within and against the ideological forms of a Western, Christian world view. A better acquaintance with Leenhardt's research convinced me of its continuing value as a methodological model. T h e author of Do Kamo began to emerge as a provocative combination of ideas and practices, at once old-fashioned and prescient. I have tried to make sense—or at least a story—out of these conflicting impressions. T h e shape, also the enigma, of Leenhardt's life are nicely caught in an anecdote, perhaps apocryphal, told to me by one of those who attended his lectures on New Caledonian ethnography during the 1930s. In a classroom at the Sorbonne, a skeptical student confronts the missionary-anthropologist: " B u t , M. le Pasteur, how many people did you really convert during all that time out t h e r e ? " Leenhardt strokes his finely combed, abundant grey beard, then replies with a shrug: " M a y b e one." His blue-grey eyes often contained a hint of amusement; he liked to provoke. T h e r e can be little doubt that the " o n e " in question was himself, for Leenhardt had been powerfully influenced by his years in the South Pacific. In his later teaching and writing, until his death in 1954, he thought and rethought a difficult and inspiring involvement with the Melanesian world. As an evangelist Leenhardt worked on the large island of New Caledonia from 1 9 0 2 until 1 9 2 6 . T h e r e a f t e r , an academic anthropol1

2

INTRODUCTION

ogist in Paris, he taught at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, the Institut d'Ethnologie, and the Musée de l'Homme. During these years he continued his life's work of extensive field research in Southern Melanesia. The founder of modern French oceanic studies, first president of the Société des Océanistes and of the Institut Français d'Océanie, Leenhardt held Marcel Mauss's influential teaching chair at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes during the late 1930s and the 1940s before the post was passed on, in 1951, to Claude Lévi-Strauss. He advocated an important theoretical countercurrent in French anthropology and sociology between the world wars. Leenhardt was the brilliant fieldworker one does not expect to find in the French university tradition before 1950. Anglo-Americans, at least, tend to think of twentieth-century French anthropology as essentially philosophical in orientation—a tradition whose strength lies in the production of powerful explanatory paradigms and whose weakness is a tendency to overintellectualize and explain away the incongruities of lived experience. If there is truth in the stereotype— applied primarily to Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss—it should not blind us to the fact that this "tradition" has always been contested. Leenhardt, Arnold Van Gennep, Alfred Métraux, Charles Le Coeur, Marcel Griaule and his school are important counterexamples. Leenhardt stood for a lifelong commitment to empirical, firsthand research. He attempted, moreover, to emphasize cultural expressivity and change over structure and system, experience over formal laws. He resisted the separation of phenomenological and sociological approaches—a distinction that had tended to define social anthropology since Durkheim. Leenhardt's theoretical stance, it seems to me, has become newly significant in a post-structuralist context. Indeed, his entire life of research, in the widest sense of the term, addresses itself to the present concern with more "open" cultural theories—modes of understanding capable of accounting for innovative process and historical discontinuity, for the dynamics of the person, and for reciprocity in ethnological interpretation.

In 1978, the centennial year of Leenhardt's birth, a monument was dedicated to his memory in the Houailou Valley of New Caledonia at the site of his mission station, Do Neva. It was an event of local political importance. Leenhardt's name stands for something in the region. Once seen as a radical, he has now been reclassified as the island's greatest liberal. New Caledonia remains an Overseas Territory of France, heavily settled by Europeans and exploited for its

INTRODUCTION

3

considerable nickel deposits. For many Melanesians and liberal whites, Leenhardt's name signifies the valorization of tradition and cultural authenticity. Among a number of older colonists it evokes a dangerous, "pro-native" radicalism. (Leenhardt was, in fact, frequently embroiled with colonial authorities and with his own mission society.) And among an emerging group of nationalists, the name stands for an outmoded brand of reform. The missionary-ethnographer's long-term practice of "applied anthropology" is f a r from insignificant in New Caledonia today. His example stands, also, to be of wider interest as fieldworkers everywhere—both ethnographic and evangelical—reexamine the consequences of their participation in exotic communities. Leenhardt's research experience was not, of course, a typical one. Indeed, that much of it—though not all—was accomplished in an evangelical context may render it suspect, especially to those who see the roles of missionary and ethnographer as irreconcilable. A certain friction between science and religion is frequently at issue in my account. I had come to Leenhardt with well-formed opinions about the missionary enterprise, something I had dismissed as culturally destructive, a spiritual aggression inseparable from colonial domination. Had I not first become interested in Leenhardt as an ethnologist, I would probably not have considered the experience of an evangelist worthy of extended, sympathetic attention. But to understand Leenhardt's work more than superficially, one cannot separate its scientific from its religious aspects. Although he devoted himself increasingly to university-based research, Leenhardt should not be thought of as a missionary-turned-anthropologist. Ethnography was, from the beginning, an integral part of his mission work; and his anthropology continued to be shaped by the fundamental goals of his evangelism. While his peculiar combination of careers imposed limits on Leenhardt's academic production, it also contributed to its originality in a secular university milieu. Thus, at times, I have been led to argue for the value of "religious" modes of interpretation in a comparative science of human culture. The word "religious" needs to be kept, implicitly, in quotation marks, for Leenhardt at least did not see it as a separate, clearly definable category of experience. Rather, he assumed that "religion" referred to a basic and universal mode of knowledge, an access to transcendence permeating all realms of human experience. If he was sometimes troubled by the old Christian ambiguity of a divinity both transcendent and immanent, his deepest instincts were on the side of immanence. In this he derived constant support from Melanesian religious attitudes—pitched, literally, at ground level and inscribed in immediate

4

INTRODUCTION

s o c i o - m y t h i c relations. B u t M e l a n e s i a n m y t h and the C h r i s t i a n p e r s o n r e p r e s e n t e d t w o d i s t i n c t — o f t e n c o n f l i c t i n g — w a y s of e x p e r i e n c i n g divinity. L e e n h a r d t worked heroically f o r their mediation; t h r o u g h his s t r u g g l e s I h a v e tried to indicate c e r t a i n s t r u c t u r e s and limits of liberal P r o t e s t a n t i s m — a n d ultimately perhaps, of the montheistically o r g a nized self. In A u g u s t 1 9 7 8 , 1 was in N e w Caledonia t o a t t e n d t h e c e l e b r a t i o n of L e e n h a r d t ' s c e n t e n n i a l . A f e w days a f t e r t h e c e r e m o n y at D o Neva, I had occasion to a c c o m p a n y P a s t o r R a y m o n d L e e n h a r d t , t h e m i s s i o n ary's son, t o a P r o t e s t a n t S u n d a y m o r n i n g w o r s h i p service at G o n d e , a village set in t h e n a r r o w i n g Houailou valley n e a r t h e geographical c e n t e r of t h e large, m o u n t a i n o u s island. (I shall r e t u r n to G o n d e m o r e t h a n once in retelling L e e n h a r d t ' s life.) M . L e e n h a r d t preached a s e r m o n in the Houailou v e r n a c u l a r , a t o n g u e he had learned as a y o u n g boy at D o Neva and which he spoke w i t h an old-fashioned grace. He urged t h e people of G o n d e to hold to their traditions, which he said w e r e in p r o f o u n d h a r m o n y w i t h t h e essential C h r i s t i a n m e s s a g e . A f t e r t h e service M . L e e n h a r d t , his wife, and I w e r e g u e s t s o f t h e village at a s u m p t u o u s meal. W e sat at a long table b e n e a t h a c o r r u g a t e d iron canopy placed beside t h e small c h u r c h at the c e n t e r of the village. Following c u s t o m , the chief and t h e m e n of G o n d e sat with us at t h e table, while t h e w o m e n served and reclined on colored m a t s n e a r b y , eating the s a m e food, listening in, and occasionally c o m m e n t i n g . A r o u n d t h e open sides of t h e c a n o p y w a s a f e a t h e r y screen of v e g e t a tion: palms, pines, mandarin o r a n g e t r e e s . T h r o u g h t h e foliage, stirred by the b r e e z e , o n e saw t h e outline of t h e n e a r b y m o u n t a i n s . W e ate c e r e m o n i a l bougnas made of y a m s , t a r o , m e a t , h e r b s , and c o c o n u t juice, all wrapped tightly in b a n a n a leaves and baked in e a r t h e n o v e n s on h o t s t o n e s . T h e bougnas w e r e s u p p l e m e n t e d with fish, squash leaf salad, and an a r r a y of o t h e r cooked vegetables. C o n v e r s a t i o n w a s relaxed, in F r e n c h and Houailou, c e n t e r i n g on t h e old days. E v e r y o n e s e e m e d pleased w h e n — t h e g r o u p being unable to recall a p r e - C h r i s tian Houailou t e r m f o r c i r c u m c i s i o n — M . L e e n h a r d t w a s able to find it in his f a t h e r ' s translation of t h e N e w T e s t a m e n t . Local c o f f e e w a s served in English china set o u t especially f o r t h e g u e s t s . A theological discussion e n s u e d . O n e o f t h e m e n at t h e table spoke to us a b o u t t h e food w e had j u s t e a t e n . He said t h a t this food was n o t j u s t food, physical n o u r i s h m e n t , b u t was filled with significance. Eve r y t h i n g w e had e a t e n , he told us, c a m e f r o m specific places n e a r b y . Its h i s t o r y w a s k n o w n . T h e food w a s local s u s t e n a n c e , a source of life; it had b e e n t o u c h e d by c e r t a i n p o w e r f u l s t o n e s to m a k e it g r o w . T h e s p e a k e r w o n d e r e d w h e t h e r in o u r c o u n t r y w e had a n y t h i n g similar to

INTRODUCTION

5

this. (Politically anticolonial, h e w a s p u t t i n g us on the s p o t — g e n t l y , s t u b b o r n l y . ) Did o u r W e s t e r n f o o d hold this kind of m e a n i n g ? I m a d e the f i r s t a t t e m p t at a reply, s p e a k i n g of s u p e r m a r k e t s and of p r o d u c e w r a p p e d in plastic. M m e . L e e n h a r d t a g r e e d that o u r f o o d had g e n e r a l l y lost its local, sacred m e a n i n g , but s h e added that in c e r t a i n p a r t s of F r a n c e b r e a d r e t a i n e d a s i g n i f i c a n c e similar to t h a t of t h e y a m in N e w C a l e d o n i a . P a s t o r L e e n h a r d t t h e n s u g g e s t e d a religious i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . H e said that E u r o p e a n s had p e r h a p s f o r g o t t e n w h a t w a s r e m e m b e r e d h e r e — t h a t the H o l y Spirit could be p r e s e n t , c o n c r e t e l y , in e v e r y t h i n g . B u t o u r i n t e r l o c u t o r politely r e f u s e d the e x p l a n a t i o n . T h e o t h e r m e n at the table and a f e w of the o l d e r w o m e n reclining n e a r b y s u p p o r t e d h i m w i t h g e s t u r e s a n d an occasional w o r d . H e told us t h a t f o r t h e m it w a s w r o n g to speak this w a y of the H o l y Spirit being e v e r y w h e r e . O u r f o o d , he said, is not " s a c r e d . " It h a s p a r t i c u l a r v i r t u e s based o n p a r t i c u l a r c i r c u m s t a n c e s . F o r e i g n e r s c o m e h e r e , he insisted, talking a b o u t " s a c r e d " s t o n e s and s o on. It's n o t t r u e . A s t o n e is n o t sacred. A s t o n e is a s t o n e f o r m a k i n g y a m s g r o w . O r it's a s t o n e f o r h u m a n f e r t i l i t y . Y o u w o u l d n ' t apply a s t o n e f o r y a m s to a n y t h i n g else. Its m e a n i n g is in its application, dans son application, he r e p e a t e d . P e o p l e talk of " s a c r e d " s t o n e s , of the " H o l y S p i r i t " . . . . It's not t r u e . " C e n'est pas vrai. C e s o n t des p i e r r e s pour." S t o n e s for... . L a t e r I told a n o t h e r M e l a n e s i a n f r i e n d of m i n e a b o u t this e x c h a n g e a m o n g P r o t e s t a n t s at G o n d é . M y f r i e n d w a s raised a C a t h o l i c and had a t t e n d e d s e m i n a r y , all the w h i l e r e t a i n i n g a belief in his a n c e s t o r s and habitat. H e l a u g h e d . " O u i , le dieu c h r é t i e n c'est u n e filie p u b l i q u e ! " T h e C h r i s t i a n G o d w o u l d do a n y t h i n g , a n y w h e r e , w i t h a n y o n e . I w a s , b y t h e n , p r e p a r e d f o r m y f r i e n d ' s sally. I had c o m e to a similar c o n c l u s i o n in w o r k i n g t h r o u g h , s t r u g g l i n g w i t h and a g a i n s t , L e e n h a r d t ' s e x a m p l e . I a d m i r e d his a t t e m p t to r e d i s c o v e r his G o d c o n c r e t e l y in M e l a n e s i a n religious e x p e r i e n c e , b u t I w o n d e r e d w h e t h e r this could r e p r e s e n t a n y t h i n g o t h e r t h a n a p e r s o n a l s o l u t i o n . I h a v e n o t , at this m o m e n t , a t t a i n e d m u c h c e r t a i n t y o n the m a t t e r . M o s t i m p o r t a n t , I h a v e had to q u e s t i o n s e r i o u s l y w h a t it n o w m e a n s to be a " M e l a n e s i a n C h r i s t i a n . " In f o l l o w i n g L e e n h a r d t ' s c o m p l e x e x p e r i e n c e , I h a v e c o m e to a m o r e c o n c r e t e u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e d y n a m i c s of t h e colonial e n c o u n t e r ; I h a v e had to r e c o g n i z e , too, that C h r i s t i a n i t y — globally a r t i c u l a t e d — i s an i n d e t e r m i n a t e , o p e n - e n d e d p r o c e s s . T h e r e s e e m s , in f a c t , to be a g r o w i n g g e n e r a l c o n f u s i o n o v e r w h a t c o u n t s as c u l t u r a l " a u t h e n t i c i t y " and as s i g n i f i c a n t c u l t u r a l " d i f f e r e n c e . " A p p e a l s to t h e s u p p o s e d c o n t i n u i t y of tradition a r e i n c r e a s i n g l y s u s p e c t . A n d J e a n D u v i g n a u d a r g u e s in Le Langage perdu t h a t " r e a l d i f f e r e n c e is not m e r e l y s o m e t h i n g c o n n e c t e d to the s t r a n g e n e s s of

6

INTRODUCTION

ethnic o r c u l t u r a l traits. R a t h e r it is s o m e t h i n g w h i c h r e s u l t s f r o m t h e o r i g i n a l i n v e n t i o n of a c h a n g e , f r o m the capacity to f a c e the n e w , and e x p e r i e n t i a l l y to d e f i n e u n p r e c e d e n t e d f o r m s of r e l a t i o n s h i p , o r g a n i z a t i o n o r e x p r e s s i o n . " 2 T o be p r o f o u n d l y M e l a n e s i a n , o n e n e e d n o t , of c o u r s e , w e a r a penis s h e a t h o r live in a r o u n d h o u s e . O n e can w e a r a " U C L A " tee shirt o r a b r i g h t l y c o l o r e d m i s s i o n d r e s s . O n e can, in f a c t , be a C h r i s t i a n and s o m e t h i n g else. I h o p e t h a t the r e a d e r of t h e s e p a g e s will d e r i v e f r o m t h e m , at least, a n i n f o r m e d u n c e r t a i n t y a b o u t c u l t u r a l identity and d i f f e r e n c e , a v o i d ing especially the e a s y r e c o u r s e to d i c h o t o m i e s and e s s e n c e s . S u c h an a t t i t u d e h a s t h e m e r i t of l e a v i n g the f u t u r e o p e n and of not e q u a t i n g c u l t u r a l c h a n g e t o o quickly w i t h m o d e r n i z a t i o n o r global h o m g e n e i t y , w i t h h i s t o r y o r w i t h e n t r o p y . In political c o n t e x t s s u c h p r o p h e c i e s — w h e t h e r of d o o m o r d e v e l o p m e n t — t e n d to be s e l f - f u l f u l l i n g .

T h e p r e s e n t b o o k is a s y m p a t h e t i c , t h o u g h not uncritical, a c c o u n t of M a u r i c e L e e n h a r d t ' s e x p e r i e n c e and w r i t i n g s . It t a k e s , i n e v i t a b l y , his side of t h i n g s . M y m a i n s o u r c e s h a v e b e e n L e e n h a r d t ' s p r i v a t e pap e r s — a n e x t e n s i v e collection of l e t t e r s , j o u r n a l s , m e m o r a b i l i a — a n d his m a n y s c a t t e r e d publications. T h e s e I h a v e q u o t e d , e x c e p t in a f e w specified i n s t a n c e s , in m y o w n t r a n s l a t i o n s . F o l l o w i n g c o n v e n t i o n a l b i o g r a p h i c a l practice, I h a v e also a t t e m p t e d to p o r t r a y a v a r i e t y of lived c o n t e x t s , t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t of w h i c h — c o l o n i a l N e w C a l e d o n i a , F r e n c h P r o t e s t a n t i s m , P a r i s a n t h r o p o l o g y b e t w e e n the w o r l d w a r s — a r e u n f a m i l i a r to A n g l o - A m e r i c a n r e a d e r s . I h a v e relied h e r e on a r c h i v e s and s t a n d a r d s e c o n d a r y s o u r c e s , a l s o on i n t e r v i e w s and particip a n t o b s e r v a t i o n in t h e s e c o n t e x t s as t h e y persist. I t r u s t I h a v e n o t , in s t r i v i n g f o r a b i o g r a p h i c a l c l o s u r e , s m o o t h e d o v e r the r o u g h e d g e s of L e e n h a r d t ' s l i f e — t h e c l a s h i n g m i l i e u x , the d i c o n t i n u o u s p e r s o n a e t h a t m a d e u p an e n g a g e d , active, c o n f u s e d e x i s t e n c e . N o r h a v e I tried h e r e to r e v e a l an i n n e r life o r to p o r t r a y a " r e a l " o r " e s s e n t i a l " L e e n h a r d t . In talking w i t h t h o s e w h o k n e w h i m (and w h o d o n o t a g r e e ) , in c o n s i d e r i n g the multiplicity of s i t u a t i o n s in w h i c h he acted, I h a v e c o n c l u d e d that to m a r k o f f a t r u e L e e n h a r d t , to r e c o n s t r u c t the w o r k i n g s of a n i n t i m a t e s e l f — a s s u m i n g this could be d o n e b y w o r k i n g l a r g e l y f r o m w r i t t e n r e c o r d s — w o u l d be i n a p p r o p r i ate to a life t h a t I take to h a v e b e e n an e x p e r i e n c e of r e l a t i o n a l i t y and participation. In s o m e d e g r e e , t h e r e f o r e , I h a v e applied to L e e n h a r d t his o w n t h e o r y of the M e l a n e s i a n p e r s o n , a p e r s o n s e e n as d e c e n t e r e d , " o u t s i d e " i t s e l f , c o n t i n u a l l y rising to occasions. T h e notion of an " i n n e r " life is p r o b a b l y b e s t u n d e r s t o o d as a f i c t i o n of f a i r l y r e c e n t , and f a r f r o m u n i v e r s a l , a p p l i c a t i o n — e v e n in the W e s t .

INTRODUCTION

7

H e r e it is w o r t h looking a h e a d to L e e n h a r d t ' s m a t u r e c o n c e p t i o n of m y t h , a " m o d e of k n o w l e d g e , " as he p u t it, accessible to all h u m a n e x p e r i e n c e w h e t h e r archaic o r m o d e r n . M y t h , in this v i e w , s h o u l d be f r e e d f r o m the s t a t u s of a s t o r y o r e v e n of a l e g i t i m a t i n g social c h a r t e r . M y t h is not e x p r e s s i v e of a " p a s t . " R a t h e r , m y t h is a p a r t i c u l a r kind of e n g a g e m e n t w i t h a w o r l d of c o n c r e t e p r e s e n c e s , i n t e r s u b j e c t i v e relations, and e m o t i o n a l participations. T h e r e is n o t h i n g m y s t i c a l , v a g u e , o r f l u i d a b o u t this w a y of being; it d o e s n o t i m p e d e logical, empirical, o r technological activities, as L e e n h a r d t ' s c o l l e a g u e and f r i e n d L é v y B r u h l tended to a s s u m e . M y t h is a valid m o d e of p r e s e n t k n o w l e d g e f i x e d a n d a r t i c u l a t e d b y a " s o c i o - m y t h i c l a n d s c a p e . " Place a s s u m e s h e r e a d e n s i t y inaccessible to a n y m a p , a s u p e r i m p o s i t i o n of c u l t u r a l , social, ecological, and c o s m o l o g i c a l realities. O r i e n t i n g , indeed c o n s t i t u t i n g t h e p e r s o n , this c o m p l e x spatial locus is not g r a s p e d in t h e m o d e of n a r r a t i v e c l o s u r e b y a c e n t e r e d , p e r c e i v i n g subject. R a t h e r , t h e p e r s o n " l i v e s " a d i s c o n t i n u o u s s e r i e s of s o c i o - m y t h i c times and s p a c e s — l e s s as a distinct c h a r a c t e r than as an e n s e m b l e of r e l a t i o n ships. T h i s mythe vécu calls into q u e s t i o n a W e s t e r n v i e w of the self c o t e r m i n o u s w i t h a discrete b o d y , a v i e w t h a t v a l u e s identity at the e x p e n s e of plenitude. Ideally, p e r h a p s , a b i o g r a p h y s e e k i n g to e v a d e its built-in t e n d e n c y to d e l i v e r a c o h e r e n t w h o l e s h o u l d not be w r i t t e n in a realist m o d e , as a Bildungsroman, a f a b l e of i d e n t i t y , and s o f o r t h . 3 In t h e p r e s e n t ins t a n c e , h o w e v e r , I h a v e n o t f e l t at liberty to e n g a g e in f o r m a l e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n and h a v e w r i t t e n f r o m w i t h i n the c u l t u r a l l y d e f i n e d biog r a p h i c a l g e n r e — w h i l e t r y i n g , o c c a s i o n a l l y , to hint at its c o n s t r a i n t s . C h a r g e d w i t h i n t r o d u c i n g L e e n h a r d t to an E n g l i s h - s p e a k i n g a u d i e n c e , I h a v e t h o u g h t it n e c e s s a r y to p r e s e n t his public acts a n d w r i t i n g s as a c o n t i n u o u s historical r e c o r d , in c h r o n o l o g i c a l s e q u e n c e . W h a t f o l l o w s is t h e r e f o r e a E u r o p e a n - s t y l e b i o g r a p h y . It d e l i v e r s a s e l f , b u t a self a m b i g u o u s l y i n v o l v e d in a M e l a n e s i a n l a n d s c a p e . A n d it tries to c o n s t r u c t a p e r s o n a l i t y o p e n to the f o l l o w i n g : I leap and I s t a n d u p o n the w o o d h e a r t of t h e iron w o o d t r u n k f r o m the t r e e apa and apiatyau I'll be the t o n g u e of m e n f a t h e r s , s o n s and g r a n d s o n s of M w a n a p o the m a s t e r of G o t i p u and N a n y a k a R a w e the m a n w h o will s p e a k a n d reply the s o n s a n d g r a n d s o n s of B w a e B e a l o a n d B o l o and K a d y a t u the m a n w h o d i s p e r s e s the c o u n t r y

8

INTRODUCTION the man residing in the home of the Bay Meedu. . . . I, the vine, enormous phallus that stretches out and crushes I, the milky-sapped vine, ornament of the house that sucks, standing on the thunder mountain I will cry out a song I will beat the bamboo. . . . 4

This is the sort of speech the missionary had to learn to understand— and to love. T h e voice is that of one of Leenhardt's early pastoral students and ethnographic informants, Eleischa Nebay. As late as the 1950s, long after New Caledonia had become wholly "Christian," this pastor and devout Protestant was still in demand to recite his orations for festivals. Within the orator's speech is the eloquence of his clan and his habitat; his words, gestures, and breath express the Melanesian sense of local pride, of mythic attachment. Leenhardt came to believe that the Christian God spoke in these accents. Not only could God speak this vernacular, but in so doing, he revealed himself, to the European able to listen, as a source of life as well as of power. In doing so, " H e " could become more relational— closer to land, stones, people. T h e Word, for Leenhardt, was flesh again, Jesus reborn in androgynous concreteness, present in Melanesian society and mythic habitat. This—as will be shown below in more ambiguous, lived detail—was Leenhardt's belief. T h e reader need not, of course, adopt his religious conclusions to admire and gain sustenance from the missionary-ethnographer's openness of spirit, his scientific probity, his great loyalty to a land and its people.

PART I

Do Neva

W h e n a E u r o p e a n has b e e n living f o r t w o o r t h r e e y e a r s a m o n g s a v a g e s h e is s u r e t o be fully c o n v i n c e d t h a t h e k n o w s all a b o u t t h e m ; w h e n h e h a s b e e n t e n y e a r s o r so a m o n g s t t h e m , if h e be an o b s e r v a n t m a n , h e finds t h a t h e k n o w s v e r y little a b o u t t h e m , and so b e g i n s to l e a r n . — L . F i s o n , m i s s i o n a r y in Fiji, quoted

by C o d r i n g t o n , The Melanesians,

1891.

W e na a na B a o r o poe k a m o roi m e r e a re na ji rai pani e m a , na wi a. G o d s p e a k s to a m a n ' s h e a r t in t h e l a n g u a g e h e h a s sucked f r o m his m o t h e r . — M . Leenhardt, "Lettre aux P a s t e u r s de N o u v e l l e - C a l é d o n i e , 11 O c t . 1 9 3 8 "

CHAPTER I

The Education of a Missionary Maurice Leenhardt was familiar with proud, small cultures. His family, Scandinavian in origin, had been well established in the French Midi since the late eighteenth century. T h e y intermarried with o t h e r b o u r geois P r o t e s t a n t s around Montpellier and Marseille—Westphals, C a s telnauds, Monods. France's peculiar Protestantism, though it had gained legal status with the Revolution, retained the outlook of an embattled minority. Since the middle ages, Languedoc had been a h o m e for heretics; it was a country of spiritual " s p r i n g s , " in André Siegfried's words, a band of rugged land w h e r e the religious life seemed traditionally " t o have burst f r o m the soil." 1 Maurice Leenhardt grew up close to this land, in a small pious world full of cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents. Family loyalty meant a great deal to him. B u t he was affected also by the expansive world of the late nineteenth c e n t u r y , a time of opening horizons—geographical, cultural, scientific. Leenhardt knew both the support and suffocation of kinship. His father, Franz Leenhardt, had been the first of the family to turn away from trade. Born in 1 8 4 6 at Marseille, Franz spent his childhood at L'Isle sur la S o r g u e in the Vaucluse, w h e r e his father, Henri L e e n hardt, owned a thriving dye manufactory. A f t e r the Franco-Prussian War, the family business was ruined by the advent of chemical dyes and by the belated realization of their chief client, the French military, that bright uniforms made excellent targets. ( T h e Leenhardts specialized in red trousers.) Beginning with Franz, the family inclined toward the liberal professions, showing, however, a marked attraction for t h e pastorate. Henri Leenhardt had wanted his son to take up engineering, a career that could contribute to the family business. Franz was, in fact, gifted in science. B u t it was the biological and earth sciences that fascinated him most, and as a boy in t h e Vaucluse he was an ardent collector of plants, animals, and fossils. He followed his father's wishes until, as a young man, he became convinced that technology without 13

14

DO NEVA

faith must be an empty exercise. 2 At mid-century, Wesleyan revivalism had already swept much of the Protestant south. Franz Leenhardt's piety was nourished by the newly fervent climate. He gave up engineering and decided on the vocation of a pastor, marrying Louise Westphal, a woman who shared his piety and aspiration to a life of service. His wife, an enthusiastic churchwoman, was a member of one of Montpellier's influential Protestant families. At the time of their marriage, a split in the Montpellier church was becoming final. The group to which both the Westphals and Leenhardts belonged was commonly known as " T h e Chapel." This important faction had abandoned the city's established congregation, " T h e Temple," because they did not feel that its rationalism, restraint, and general "liberalism" could accommodate the new winds of fervent "orthodoxy." With orthodoxy went philanthropy, social work, education, and foreign missions. More than a few individuals like Franz Leenhardt, whose restrained personal style and taste for science and philosophy placed him nearer to liberalism, instead allied themselves with the orthodox camp primarily because its style was engaged and activist. They felt it necessary to abandon the staid elitism into which much bourgeois Protestantism had settled since the late eighteenth century. 3 Louise Westphal Leenhardt, for her part, was a true member of T h e Chapel; she vibrated with ecclesiastical élan. A strongfeatured woman with animated, sparkling eyes that Maurice would inherit, she was lively, enthusiastic ("Oh, comme c'est b e a u — Comme c'est intéressant!"), and rather sectarian. Her son would later take a certain ritual pleasure in shocking her puritan sensibilities. Overall, the Leenhardt household was relentlessly high-minded and pious. This cast was set by Franz Leenhardt's somewhat distant, dominating presence. Having pursued his theological studies in Germany, Franz was about to engage himself in local pastoral duties when he received an unexpected call. The principal theological faculty of French Protestantism, located at Montauban, had decided that the faith needed to become closer to modern scientific methods and trends of thought. In 1875 Franz Leenhardt was asked to set up a curriculum in modern sciences for the pastors-in-training. 4 With some hesitation, for he and his wife were loath to give up the all-encompassing life of a pastorate, Leenhardt accepted the assignment. Thus it was at Montauban, a small provincial city just north of Toulouse, that the Leenhardts made their home. There, on March 9, 1878, their fourth child, Maurice, was born. His older brother, Camille, was six years of age, and his two sisters, Aloyse and Amélie, four and three. Three years later, the

EDUCATION OF A MISSIONARY

15

L e e n h a r d t s ' last child, P a u l , w a s b o r n . P r o f e s s o r s at t h e T h e o l o g i c a l F a c u l t y lived a p a r t y e t in the s a m e n e i g h b o r h o o d . A n d since M o n t a u b a n p o s s e s s e d n o o t h e r i n s t i t u t i o n of h i g h e r l e a r n i n g , the s c h o l a r s w e r e r a t h e r spoiled b y t h e local p o p u l a c e , accorded a special d e f e r e n c e . F r a n z L e e n h a r d t f i t the p r o f e s s o r i a l i m a g e , f o r he p o s s e s s e d a n a t u r a l hauteur and distinction. B u t M a u r i c e ' s f a t h e r , if distant, w a s n o t u n a p p r o a c h a b l e . His children a n d s t u d e n t s l e a r n e d t h a t , o n c e q u e s t i o n e d , he could be a patient t e a c h e r . If a s k e d f o r a d v i c e o n s o m e c o n t r o v e r s i a l i s s u e o r p e r s o n a l p r o b l e m , he w o u l d r e s p o n d w i t h a simplicity and d i r e c t n e s s that s o o n t r a n s l a t e d t h e d i s c u s s i o n to its e s s e n t i a l spiritual and m o r a l plane. 5 F r a n z L e e n h a r d t w a s a n e m i n e n t g e o l o g i s t . His d o c t o r a l t h e s i s , a m a g i s t e r i a l s t u d y of the M o n t V e n t o u x r e g i o n of t h e V a u c l u s e , r e c e i v e d t h e F r e n c h G e o l o g i c a l S o c i e t y ' s p r i z e and b r o u g h t its a u t h o r t h e o f f e r of a P a r i s U n i v e r s i t y chair. F r a n z c h o s e to s t a y at M o n t a u b a n , a milieu m o r e h o s p i t a b l e to his u l t i m a t e life's w o r k , a p h i l o s o p h i cal f u s i o n of t h e o l o g y w i t h p o s i t i v e science. " F a c t s , " F r a n z L e e n h a r d t w a s in the habit of s a y i n g , " a r e a w o r d of G o d . " A t M o n t a u b a n his t e a c h i n g w a s e x c l u s i v e l y scientific. H e e x p o s e d his s t u d e n t s to a w i d e r a n g e of disciplines, f r o m p a l e o n t o l o g y a n d p h y s i c a l a n t h r o p o l o g y to c h e m i s t r y , p h y s i c s , a n d g e o g r a p h y . His chief c o n c e r n w a s to e n c o u r a g e habits of o b s e r v a t i o n a n d direct e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n : " T o teach t h e m to s e e , t h a t ' s w h y I'm h e r e . " H e f e l t t h a t theological s t u d e n t s p a r t i c u l a r l y n e e d e d to be b r o u g h t to respect and u n d e r s t a n d o b j e c t i v i t y . It w a s too e a s y to dismiss scientific f a c t s , like e v o l u t i o n i s m , as u n - C h r i s t i a n . L e e n h a r d t b e l i e v e d that theological s p e c u l a t i o n m u s t a l w a y s b e g i n w i t h t h e e x p e r i m e n t a l e v i d e n c e . T h e p a s t o r - n a t u r a l i s t s a w the m a terial w o r l d , scientifically r e v e a l e d , as G o d ' s e x p r e s s i o n , and he l a b o r e d to c o m m u n i c a t e this a t t i t u d e to the s t u d e n t s at M o n t a u b a n . H i s d e m o n s t r a t i o n s w e r e practical. " I n a n y a r e a w h a t e v e r , " he w o u l d w r i t e , " w h e t h e r p h y s i c a l o r m o r a l , as long as o n e h a s not s e e n and t o u c h e d , o n e ' s k n o w l e d g e is of an i n f e r i o r o r d e r , a dead letter, s o m e t h i n g l e a r n e d b y r o t e , f a i t h in a u t h o r i t y . . . ," 6 L e e n h a r d t o r g a n i z e d field trips d u r i n g w h i c h he p a s s e d o n the g e o l o g i s t ' s m e t h o d of e n e r g e t i c and minute observation. A t t h e F a c u l t y his t e a c h i n g c e n t e r e d in t h e l a b o r a t o r y . T h e " M u s é e L e e n h a r d t " w a s a well-lit r o o m e q u i p p e d w i t h b e n c h e s f o r c h e m i s t r y e x p e r i m e n t s ; t h e w a l l s w e r e lined w i t h g l a s s c a s e s f u l l of rocks and b o n e s of all descriptions; a c o m p l e t e s k e l e t o n h u n g in the c o r n e r ; t h e r e w e r e tiers of s p e c i m e n d r a w e r s f o r L e e n h a r d t ' s e x t e n s i v e collection of f o s s i l s . A f t e r he had c o m p l e t e d his practical d e m o n s t r a t i o n , the p r o f e s s o r w o u l d field q u e s t i o n s f r o m the s t u d e n t s . S o m e w e r e critical,

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1 . Franz Leenhardt, date uncertain. Photo:

Leenhardl

others passionate, for the relation of science to religion was becoming an inescapable issue. Franz Leenhardt had eloquently defended Darwinian theory before the Montauban faculty. 7 In his laboratory, speaking with calm precision beside a row of plaster busts showing the development of cranial capacity from ape to man, the pastor-naturalist elaborated his views. Christian morality, he argued, is not oldfashioned or in conflict with science. Its essential requirements may be formulated in the language of the most modern of the sciences. Physically, man is inferior to the animals, his body undeveloped, except for his brain, tongue, and hand. The course of evolution reveals a tendency toward the development of "higher" capabilities, as man learns to master his body and environment. Freedom is independence f r o m material, animal, dependences. The attainment of warm blood, the progressive centralization of the nervous system—every development points towards a being w h o will be entirely master of himself, will be what he wants to be. This, in short, is the moral goal set for us by evolution; w e fall short. But one man's example has opened the way. This man, Jesus, could say "I am the father." Through every trial and temptation, Christ remained "in full possession of himself, enjoying absolute self-mastery. [Jesus] attained the triumph of the spirit, constantly and without compromise; he was free, truly free." 8 Franz Leenhardt's reputation among his colleagues was considerable; and his influence on his son was, from the beginning, immense.

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As a model of scientific open-mindedness combined with unshakeable personal faith, he was an inspiration. Indeed, something of a paternal cult formed around Franz Leenhardt, observed, primarily, by Maurice and his younger brother, Paul. Paul, the family poet, composed e f f u sive, religious lyrics in honor of the patriarch. And Maurice, even in his late thirties, writing from the Pacific, tended to address his father as a humble student does his teacher, dwelling on his own innate intellectual "nullity" and his inability to attain the "heights" to which his father's thought aspired. 9 True, there was a double edge in this kind of repeated profession of incapacity. Maurice Leenhardt felt a life-long ambivalence—suspicion mixed with awe—regarding eminent professors and scholars (feelings that continued even when he had become one himself). His own early academic career was a series of frustrations and failures painfully accentuated by the rigid lock-step of the secondary education system. An anecdote, certainly apocryphal but still told in the extended family, recounts that Maurice Leenhardt, a troublesome student, once provoked this angry warning from a teacher: "You'll end up in N e w Caledonia!" In the late nineteenth century, the island's sole reputation was that of a penal colony. Maurice Leenhardt would, more than any other person, change that image. But to certain of his family, whatever his ultimate reputation as a missionary and university ethnologist, he would always be thought of as a failure and misfit sent off to the ends of the earth. Family reputations tend to be unfalsifiable. it did not matter that Maurice Leenhardt was, in fact, seldom rebellious or that his scholastic performance, though mediocre, did contain real successes. He was judged by a rigid set of standards and found wanting. Leenhardt's difficulties began during his late childhood. He developed an infection that was discovered too late to prevent the permanent loss of hearing in one ear. His attention in school was impeded. At the age of thirteen he had to repeat a grade. His parents sent their adolescent son a w a y to a Protestant boarding school in the Dordogne, and there, according to his later account, he engaged in his first serious spiritual questioning. 1 0 Maurice hated the various boarding schools to which he was consigned. This was his first experience of exile from the family, and during these months his missionary vocation took shape. Previously at Montauban he had listened with fascination to accounts by a visiting Moravian evangelist of work among the Eskimos of Labrador and the islanders of the Pacific. During the years that followed, the boy's "dreams wandered over white ice and blue ocean. . . ," an immaculate vision of opening horizons and freed o m . 1 1 Prior to his boarding school experience, the idea of evangelical

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work was linked to adventure and escape. T h i s was the heyday of Livingston, Stanley, Brazza, and the romance of exploration. B u t during this first long separation from his family, Maurice identified the mission career with a personal, religious need. It sanctified the pathos of separation and transmuted a general desire for adventure into an image of approved work in the service of Christ. It was through the idea of missions, Leenhardt said, that he came to love God. T h e idea provided a clear spiritual direction for his unruly, adolescent energies. While away at school he began to contribute some of his pocket money to the Paris Evangelical Mission Society. 1 2 His studies improved. Back in M o n t a u b a n he continued at the local lycée while pursuing a course of religious education. But school was never easy for him. T h e pace was too rapid; he was not rhetorically gifted and was a poor memorizer. M o r e o v e r , he was enthusiastic and enjoyed shocking and arguing with people. This bent did not help him with his teachers. By the age of eighteen he had already failed his "bachot" twice. T h e entire secondary education system was oriented toward this exam. In the late nineteenth century the Classical Baccalaureate was the mark of t h e educated bourgeois. 1 3 T h e students w h o could not manage to pass, o r even those w h o took the relatively new and less "considéré" Modern Baccalaureate, were marked for life. A f t e r the second of his failures, Maurice was sent away again for individualized tutoring in a "boîte à bachot" in Toulouse. Here he crammed his head with mathematics, practiced endless Latin compositions, found his teacher uncouth and crude, and was generally miserable. His fantasies turned again to f r e e r spaces: T h e w e a t h e r here is dark and sad [the 18-year-old wrote to his parents]. It's the same climate [as yours], but to me it seems m o r e sombre and unhappy because I'm living in a n a r r o w street. This is the first time I've lived in a street with facing houses. It's suffocating when one wants to get some fresh air at the window. T h e houses become sad and dark. O n e is not so much melancholy as annoyed. Enervation circulates in the streets: the coming and going of carriages, busy people, school children, and beggars. And then one becomes enervated oneself, and thirsts for a whole sky, to see trees, expanses. . . , 1 4 Maurice's need for nature had been acquired at the family c e n t e r of Fonfroide, in the vicinity of Montpellier. T h e children spent their vacations t h e r e in the company of the paternal grandparents and a constant flow of cousins, uncles, aunts, and maternal kin. Fonfroide

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was a cavernous Neo-Gothic mansion built by Henri Leenhardt as a residence closer than L'Isle sur la Sorgue to the family center. He, and later Franz, retired there, and it soon became a family reunion site and symbol of paternal order. In an ambience of high piety, the children enjoyed considerable freedom to roam the grounds and surrounding country. Fonfroide was set on a gentle rise surrounded by rolling, open land, fertile orchards and vineyards. The ensemble of its buildings and grounds created an atmosphere of intimate space enveloped by a tall, light canopy of Alep Pines. Maurice Leenhardt's primary feeling for the proper "scale" of life—a habitat set in an open, familiar countryside—was formed at Fonfroide. "Nature" never carried the connotation of wildness, isolation, or retreat; it was an inhabited space, structured by social and religious attachments. (We may note, in anticipation, his " N e w Caledonian" orientation.) 15 The anomie of Toulouse did not prove conducive to work. Maurice failed again. He was despondent; his mission career seemed blocked. His father, much worried, arranged for him to go to the pastoral Collège des Batignolls in Paris. There, while working on his Latin, he could, at least, participate informally in the activities of the Paris Mission Society under the patronage of its director, Alfred Boegner. 1 6 But the Leenhardts were somewhat chary of Paris. Boegner would have to watch out for their son. "Maurice," his father noted, "is very fond of art, and I would rather that he didn't, at first, have too much stimulation from that quarter." Boegner quickly inquired further concerning his prospective student's (dangerous?) esthetic proclivities, and Franz Leenhardt provided the following account of his son's character: You were concerned with what I said concerning Maurice's taste for art; it's not a question of the theatre, but simply of a preoccupation and exaggerated enthusiasm for works of art, painting, sculpture, and certain literature. But I don't think there's anything here to be preoccupied by, especially once put on the alert. You will surely have a great influence on him, especially if you take hold of him in the name of missions. But you have to know how to approach him, because he's quick to protest and gets his back up easily. You'll be shocked. But I don't want to give you the wrong idea of Maurice, for I'm certain you will become fond of him once you've recognized his devoted and cooperative nature. And anyway, what can you do? He's a missionary towards and in spite of everything. 1 7

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Maurice became a boarder at the Collège des Batignolls, a place he sincerely detested. T h e students' time was rigorously programmed; studies w e r e competitive, long, and lonely. Leenhardt did not make any close friends, and—the son of an exceptionally pious family—he was repelled by the adolescent vulgarity of much around him. He yearned for a companion of solid faith and elevated sensibility. 1 8 He was encouraged, however, by the contacts he made at t h e " M a i son des M i s s i o n s " in the Boulevard Arago, headquarters of the Mission Society. He was delighted to be a m e m b e r of w h a t was commonly called the "mission family." Activities at the society were eagerly attended, especially sincé they could justify release f r o m Batignolls for an a f t e r n o o n or evening. If the boarding school was suffocating, the Maison des Missions provided glimpses of an exciting, wider world. Looking after a table at a mission fair, Leenhardt sold and wondered about a collection of African "fetishes"; he was avid for news f r o m the society's mission fields, L e S o t h o , Zambeze, Gabon, Madagascar. He was moved by the astonishing eloquence of two visiting Malagasy native pastors. He eagerly absorbed the experiences of veteran evangelists on vacation and wallowed happily in the romance of departures —young, dry-eyed missionaries on trains, the fluttering handkerchiefs of the "mission family" on the receding platform. 1 9 An opposition began to form in this thinking between the roles of " t h e pastor" and " t h e missionary." T h e former's m o r e settled life might be appropriate for a person like his elder brother, Camille, w h o by this time was responsible for a parish and was at ease preaching and playing a traditional role. He, Maurice, would be the spiritual explorer w h o would sow his faith on virgin ground instead of pruning and coaxing tired old roots. 2 0 Maurice presented a brave, sometimes combative, front in the face of his repeated "failures." But the specter of the bachot was to haunt him for almost t w o years at Batignolls, w h e r e he dutifully crammed his head with the rules of G r e e k and Latin g r a m m a r (confessing in a letter that he retained only the poetic "genius of the language"). 2 1 He practiced endless compositions, managing to conjure up a real but, alas, " n o t very classical" enthusiasm for subjects like "Corneille's theatre is a school of the soul's g r e a t n e s s , " a typical baccalaureate quotation from Voltaire. Finally, by July 1 8 9 8 , he had absorbed enough appropriate answers, rules, and flourishes to be deemed w o r t h y of the title "Bachelier de l'Enseignement Secondaire Classique." His career was at last open before him.

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M a u r i c e L e e n h a r d t ' s l e t t e r s f r o m Paris s h o w him to have b e e n a h i g h - m i n d e d and independent, basically agreeable, and r a t h e r s e n t i m e n t a l y o u n g m a n . A m i x t u r e of sublimated feeling and traditional m o r a l i t y c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the period's brand of official r o m a n t i c i s m t u r n s up in his l e t t e r s , especially t h o s e t o his b r o t h e r Paul. His p a r e n t s need n o t have w o r r i e d a b o u t t h e c o r r u p t i n g e f f e c t of Parisian a r t and l e t t e r s . H e read p o e t r y , b u t it w a s t h a t of H u g o , L a m a r t i n e , and M u s set, w r i t e r s already v e n e r a b l e ; he did n o t s e e m to k n o w of Baudelaire's e x i s t e n c e ; M a l l a r m é inhabited a n o t h e r u n i v e r s e . M a u r i c e responded to t h e p a t h o s of noble r e n u n c i a t i o n s . His e n t h u s i a s m for Corneille's " s c h o o l of t h e soul's g r e a t n e s s " found e c h o e s in his o w n c e n t u r y — i n b o o k s like F r o m e n t i n ' s Dominique, t h e beautifully w r i t t e n s t o r y of a r o m a n t i c triangle, rich in evocative landscape and t h o r o u g h l y moral. M a u r i c e d e v o u r e d this w o r k passionately. " Y o u ' l l find in it," he w r o t e his b r o t h e r , " a n a t u r a l , t r u e l o v e " and "will e m e r g e edified, seeing [the illicit lovers] at t h e abyss, w i t h f o r t i t u d e e n o u g h t o part f r o m each other forever."22 M a u r i c e , while w a r n i n g his poetic b r o t h e r to " b e w a r e of his facili t y , " responded s t r o n g l y to s o m e of Paul's early verses. H e praised, f o r example, lines on t h e flag. (Patriotic ballads w e r e a popular g e n r e a f t e r t h e defeat of 1 8 7 1 ; M a u r i c e w a s an a r d e n t patriot and D r e y f u s a r d republican.) H e w a s moved also by a p o e m of f r a t e r n a l c o m m u n i o n w i t h i n and w i t h n a t u r e , responding passionately: Y o u r description of t h e n i g h t on t h e plain w e c o n t e m p l a t e d t o g e t h e r recalls t h o s e gentle d r e a m s and long ecstasies in t h e n i g h t , t h e h a r m o n i e s o n e h e a r s t h a t calm the h e a r t — O h , you m a k e m e miss all t h o s e happy p a s t i m e s . . . . 2 3 And s o on. A n a t u r a l , familial Paradise L o s t was by n o w well e s t a b lished in L e e n h a r d t ' s e m o t i o n a l u n i v e r s e . It is possible t h a t he w a s n e v e r closer to a n y o n e t h a n h e w a s to his b r o t h e r Paul in their preadolescent y e a r s , b e f o r e M a u r i c e ' s d e p a r t u r e s , first f o r Paris, t h e n f o r t h e S o u t h Pacific. Paul, of a deeper piety, perhaps, t h a n e i t h e r of his p a s t o r b r o t h e r s , w a s always e m o t i o n a l and troubled. H e b e c a m e a b u s i n e s s m a n in Marseille, a devoted lay activist in C h r i s t i a n social c a u s e s . A s u p p o r t e r of his beloved b r o t h e r ' s evangelical w o r k , h e died y o u n g , in 1 9 3 2 , n o t long a f t e r M a u r i c e had r e t u r n e d to Europe to stay. M a u r i c e , as F r a n z L e e n h a r d t had w a r n e d B o e g n e r , was " e x c e s s i v e l y " a t t r a c t e d to a r t , especially to the visual, a r c h i t e c t u r a l arts. His childh o o d difficulties w i t h hearing probably a c c e n t u a t e d this sensitivity to g e s t u r e and spatial f o r m . T h e L o u v r e t o him was a sacred site. T h e

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elder Leenhardts worried, perhaps, that their son might receive the wrong kind of stimulation from certain of its contents—for example, the works of Montauban's most famous son, J.A.D. Ingres (sumptuous, bejeweled nudes like La Grande Odalisque) or Delacroix's exotic harems. But their son was probably more attracted to the sublimated eroticism of a monument like the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace or to the warm, feminine tenderness in Da Vinci's Virgin and Child with Saint Anne. Maurice was especially moved by Leonardo, a genius of science, art, and, as the young theology student discovered on a trip to Milan in the fall of 1899, "a great Christian." Maurice stood for a passionate hour (dizzy with a toothache) before the disintegrating frescoes of the Last Supper. And in the nearby Brera Palace he was deeply touched by Leonardo's study for Christ's head, a photograph of which hung in his parents' dining room. "It's what the most elevated humanity is capable of dreaming as a model of gentleness, if you analyze this word not in terms of delicacy, but of firmness and goodness, energy and forgiveness. . . ," 2 4 During his student years, Leenhardt thought seriously about the relation of esthetics and religion. He wondered whether "art alone might not suffice to establish the worship of God . . . for a certain elite." 2 5 In "pure esthetic feelings" he had experienced on earth the reality of heavenly "harmony" and "tenderness." These views, expressed in a letter home, provoked one of the rare long replies he received written entirely by his father. Franz Leenhardt cautioned his son against mystical elitism. The human world is by nature a fallen, imperfect world. Too much estheticism in religion (a reflection of latecentury trends toward art for art's sake) could distance one from concrete activity in a corrupt actuality. It would also dilute and disperse the religious experience, removing one from primary communion with Christ. At this time, Maurice accepted his father's criticisms. He believed that his choice of a down-to-earth career in missions would protect him from the danger of estheticism. 2 6 But he continued to wonder whether the esthetic sense might not be the essence—or at least the earliest manifestation—of religious experience. As a missionary-ethnologist he showed himself willing to recognize authentic transcendence outside the person-God couple. And as an old man, in his last years of teaching at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, he would return to his youthful preoccupation in his discussions of the phenomenology of Melanesian art. In Paris, Alfred Boegner took Maurice in hand. A man rather like Franz Leenhardt in his high seriousness and simplicity of manner, Boegner presided over French Protestant missions during the period

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of their most rapid expansion. 2 7 T h e Société des Missions Evangeliques had been founded in the 1820s, a product of revivalism's growing interest in converting the heathen. T h e society was a nondenominational, multinational body drawing its support chiefly from France, but also from Switzerland, Holland, and northern Italy. Its governing committee, training center, and general headquarters were located at the Maison des Missions in Paris. When Maurice Leenhardt was preparing for evangelical work during the late 1890s, the society was principally engaged in two major African fields—in the South African Kingdom of LeSotho and in the upper Zambeze region. It also maintained a smaller mission in Tahiti. Around 1 9 0 0 the society took on a series of important new commitments in Gabon, Cameroon, Senegal, Madagascar, and as a kind of afterthought, New Caledonia. T h e s e were years of enthusiasm for evangelism in the " D a r k Continent." 2 8 French and Swiss Protestants had their own Livingston in the explorer-evangelist François Coillard, founder of the Zambeze Mission. T h e vigor of his propaganda and personal charisma had brought him rapid success—measured in donations, stations, and staff, if not in the creation of independent African churches. He embodied an evangelical "imago" that never failed to move the faithful: the lone man in white, paddled by blacks up an infested African river, bringing the Gospel to lost souls. Coillard passed through Montauban on one of his fund-raising tours, and Leenhardt, an eighteen-year-old dreaming of missions, was much impressed. 2 9 But with experience he became suspicious of the Coillard style, which tended to center the mission on the heroic personality of the missionary. (Much later he would visit the Zambeze field and compose a stinging report on its failure to create solid local congregations.) T h e young man was more inspired by the example of LeSotho, the society's oldest field of activity. T h e LeSotho mission stressed education in the Sesotho language and translation of the Bible into the vernacular. It also trained a large corps of African evangelists and teachers. Local congregations demanded and received a considerable measure of control over their own finances and the election of elders. T h e two lessons that Leenhardt learned from the LeSotho example—which remained, throughout his career, a model for him—were the primary role of native Christian pastors and laity, and a commitment to linguistic sophistication and translation. 3 0 At the Maison des Missions, Leenhardt was much influenced by Herman Kruger, a veteran familiar with Madagascar and LeSotho. Kruger liked to deflate young theology students by asking whether they knew how to pour cement or frame a window.

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He advised mission trainees arriving in their field to "do nothing" for at least six months. Their first duty was to keep eyes and ears open, and above all, to become competent in a local tongue. 3 1 From Kruger, as well as from his father, Leenhardt derived the notion that mission work should be rooted in a " m e t h o d . " And as a student influenced by positivism, he believed in a possible "science of missions" with "laws." 3 2 He mistrusted the emotionalism that tended to obscure mission discourse, and later he would analyze the conversion process with considerable coolness and relativism. As a theology student at Montauban during the years 1 8 9 9 - 1 9 0 1 , Maurice Leenhardt edited the Almanack des Missions, a publication of the local "friends of missions" society. Once, with the "audacity of youth," he later put it, the student-editor dared " t o challenge (though unsuccessfully) a missionary who in an article had put under the rubric 'devil' all the genies, spirits, and gods of paganism." In another article, Leenhardt mentioned in passing the kinds of questions that were beginning to interest him. " O n e of the most serious concerns of the missionary lies in the task of discovering what among the customs of the people he is working with can coexist with the Christian faith, and what is clearly sin." He concluded diplomatically: "Methods to this end are varied and controversial." 3 3 During these years Maurice cautiously managed to go his own way. T h e r e were no more scholastic crises. His relationship with Boegner and the Mission Society was properly filial. If abstract theological studies continued to bore him (his final exams at Montauban received a barely passing grade), concrete activities, editing the Almanack, training himself in gynecology and basic medicine, were more engrossing. He was growing steadily in maturity, confidence, and an appreciation of the realities of mission work. T h e s e qualities are evident in his extraordinary bachelor's thesis: " T h e Ethiopian Movement in Southern Africa from 1 8 9 6 to 1899."34 T h e example of LeSotho had convinced Leenhardt of the need for liberalism in allowing the spontaneous development of African Christianity. His thesis analyzed the early struggle by the new churches to find a path of authenticity between nativisim and European domination. T h e core of the thesis was an attempt to pull together a preliminary narrative of the establishment and early vicissitudes of the African Methodist Episcopal (or "Ethiopian") Church, founded in 1 8 9 6 by disaffected pastors of South African Wesleyan mission congregations, principally Manghena Mokone and James Dwane. Ethiopianism, preaching "Africa for the Africans," spread rapidly in the late 1890s

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across s o u t h e r n Africa and the Transvaal. T h e response of white missionaries and g o v e r n m e n t s was denunciation and ridicule. Since they w e r e ignorant of the movement's inner dynamics and were deceived by the apparent radicalism of its slogan, whites tended to see it in a purely political light. Leenhardt made short work of these explanations. Ethiopianism, he writes, is not a political but a social movem e n t , and it is based on legitimate complaints against repression and discrimination. Leenhardt was the first systematic historian of Ethiopianism to attempt to understand it f r o m within. He was dealing with a m o v e m e n t only just beginning to make its presence felt in newspaper accounts and the mission literature; thus internal documents were few and hard to locate. Leenhardt obtained some precious sources through the Ethiopians' black American allies. O t h e r w i s e he drew on small church newspapers and correspondence with various mission societies, G e r m a n , English, and French. His conviction that European missionaries had something to be ashamed of in the m a t t e r was strengthened by the noncooperation of some of the groups to which he addressed his inquiries. T h e m e r e establishment of an adequate narrative for the years 1 8 9 6 to 1 8 9 9 , following James Dwane's travels to America and shifting alliances in the Transvaal, was a considerable achievement. Nearly fifty years later, the classic study of

2. M a u r i c e L e e n h a r d t in 1 9 0 2 . Photo:

Leenhardt

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Ethiopianism and Zionism, B . M . G . Sundkler's Bantu Prophets in South Africa, refers to Leenhardt's work as authoritative. T h e thesis, a remarkable achievement for a twenty-three-year-old, has recently been republished. 3 5 While Maurice was fulfilling Montauban's required semester abroad, at Edinburgh during the fall and w i n t e r of 1 9 0 1 , he pondered his approaching career. Africa, of course, attracted him. B u t during the past year he had followed with growing interest a series of pleas from another quarter. A missionary was needed for the large island of N e w Caledonia in southern Melanesia. T h e Grande T e r r e (or "Mainland"), as it was called, had been a French possession for a half-century, its colonial history notoriously violent. Recently, Melanesian P r o t e s t a n t evangelists from the outlying Loyalty Islands had begun to proselytize successfully on the Grande T e r r e , an area only partially converted by white Catholic missionaries. T h e s e Melanesian evangelists w e r e encountering considerable obstruction from white colonists, and they required the protection of a European missionary. T h e Journal des Missions carried their eloquent pleas, seconded by a French Protestant on the Loyalty Islands, Philadelphe Delord. This task, in difficult political circumstances and in competition with an established Catholic mission, seemed to require a mature evangelist of proven authority. B u t the m o n t h s passed and no one stepped forward, for the Grande T e r r e had little allure, with its reputation as a land of convicts, policemen, and bloodthirsty cannibals—Canaques, they were called. Leenhardt began to investigate the situation more carefully. He discerned a noble work of social and spiritual regeneration. M o r e o v e r , the idea of a new field of possibilities in which he would have entire responsibility certainly attracted him. In November 1 9 0 1 he w r o t e to Boegner, asking to be considered for the post despite his inexperience. T h e director's response was favorable. Leenhardt forced the pace to complete all of his r e q u i r e m e n t s — s e m e s t e r abroad, thesis defense, final exams, ordination—in time for departure by the following fall, for he would have to arrive in N e w Caledonia before Delord returned on vacation. 3 6 Maurice had already fulfilled one of his most important " r e q u i r e m e n t s " for mission work. B e f o r e departing for Edinburgh, he had become engaged to be married. Although the mission society did send out single men and "demoiselles," couples were preferred. In contrast with Catholic practice, P r o t e s t a n t s offered the heathen concrete examples—presumably edifying—of Christian domesticity. M o r e than a few hasty marriages w e r e arranged on the eve of departure. But in Leenhardt's moral universe the couple was sanctified, and Maurice yearned for deep spiritual c o m m u n i o n in marriage. He found in his

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h e l p m a t e a w o m a n w h o s h a r e d his d e v o t i o n t o m i s s i o n s a n d w h o b e c a m e t h e f r i e n d of e l e v a t e d sensibility h e h a d b e e n s e e k i n g t h r o u g h o u t his r a t h e r l o n e l y late y o u t h . At t h e e n d o f A u g u s t 1 9 0 1 , h e a n n o u n c e d his i n t e n t i o n s t o B o e g n e r . ( T h e s o c i e t y f o r m a l l y r e s e r v e d t h e r i g h t t o v e t o a n y " i m p r u d e n t " m a r r i a g e plans b y its e v a n g e l i s t s in t r a i n i n g — a r e q u i r e m e n t f o r m e m b e r s h i p in " t h e m i s s i o n f a m i l y . " ) J e a n n e André-Michel was the daughter of a prominent family of M o n t p e l l i e r P r o t e s t a n t s ; h e r f a t h e r , c u r a t o r of t h e L o u v r e , w a s a f a m o u s a r t h i s t o r i a n and m e m b e r of t h e P a r i s intellectual elite. In his d a u g h t e r , h i g h a r t and piety p r o d u c e d a p e r s o n a l i t y o f f i r m t a s t e and d e t e r m i n e d m o r a l i t y . J e a n n e w a s o r t h o d o x b u t n o t in a n y simple s e n s e a c o n f o r m i s t . F r o m a n e a r l y a g e s h e decided on a c o u r s e o f h e r o w n . H e r h o r i z o n s had b e e n b r o a d e n e d by t h e s t o r i e s o f h e r m o t h e r , w h o h a d f o r a t i m e lived in H o n o l u l u as d a u g h t e r o f t h e F r e n c h c o n s u l . M m e . A n d r é - M i c h e l e n c o u r a g e d i n d e p e n d e n c e in h e r d a u g h t e r s , allowing them a relative freedom that was the envy of their Paris friends. M o r e o v e r , J e a n n e A n d r é - M i c h e l w a s w e l l e d u c a t e d f o r a w o m a n of h e r t i m e , b e i n g a m o n g t h e f i r s t of h e r s e x t o pass t h e ( " M o d e r n " ) Baccalaureate.37 A t t h e age o f f i f t e e n , J e a n n e w a s deeply t r a n s f o r m e d by h e r r e a d i n g o f C a l v i n . T h e n c e f o r t h s h e w o u l d c o n s e c r a t e h e r s e l f t o a life o f s e r vice, and it w a s n o t long b e f o r e f o r e i g n m i s s i o n s c a p t u r e d h e r i m a g i n a t i o n . H e r f a m i l y r e s i s t e d f o r a t i m e this e x t r e m e a d o l e s c e n t predil e c t i o n — w h i c h m a t c h e d so well t h a t o f h e r h u s b a n d - t o - b e . T h e solid piety o f t h e A n d r é - M i c h e l s w a s t e m p e r e d b y u r b a n i t y and s o p h i s t i c a tion. T h e y w e r e m e m b e r s o f t h e M o n t p e l l i e r " T e m p l e . " In f a c t , J e a n n e , in h e r p e r s o n a l m a n n e r o f r e s t r a i n t , hauteur, and d i r e c t n e s s , w a s s o m e w h a t r e m i n i s c e n t o f F r a n z L e e n h a r d t . M a u r i c e and J e a n n e a d o r e d e a c h o t h e r . T h e i r s w a s a spiritualized p a s s i o n n o u r i s h e d b y a v a g u e l y e r o t i c i z e d i m p e r a t i v e o f d u t y and r e n u n c i a t i o n — a t o n c e " r o m a n t i c " and " c l a s s i c a l . " T h e y loved o n e a n o t h e r w i t h an a d o l e s c e n t a w k w a r d n e s s a n d a d e s i r e f o r a totally s h a r e d life. T h e i r piety f o r b a d e a n y g r o s s physicality. W h e n M a u r i c e L e e n h a r d t l a t e r w r o t e of t h e C h r i s tian f a m i l y ideal s e t a g a i n s t t h e " r a w s e x u a l i t y " o f p r i m i t i v i s m and o f " t h a t s u b l i m a t i o n w h i c h leads t o t h e h e i g h t e n e d and p u r e love o f C h r i s t i a n c o u p l e s , " h e w a s d e s c r i b i n g his o w n m a r r i a g e . 3 8 J e a n n e A n d r é - M i c h e l could be i n t i m i d a t i n g . A s a t w e n t y - y e a r - o l d w o m a n doing c h a r i t y w o r k in a c h i l d r e n ' s h o m e , s h e s t o o d o u t a m o n g h e r c o - w o r k e r s , k e e p i n g t h e m at " a r e s p e c t f u l d i s t a n c e , " as o n e of t h e m p u t it, and i m p r e s s i n g all b y h e r " m o r a l s u p e r i o r i t y and t h e h i g h s e r i o u s n e s s s h e d e v o t e d t o t h e a c c o m p l i s h m e n t of h e r task. . . , " 3 9 J e a n n e c h e r i s h e d i n t i m a c y and a c e r t a i n privacy. H e r s e n s e o f d e c o r u m

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3. T h e fiancées, Maurice with Jeanne Michel in 1 9 0 1 .

Photo:

Leenhardt

was more easily violated than her husband's, and often she felt it necessary to restrain him in his various enthusiasms. During their fifty years of marriage, she had to appear unshockable, and she put up with physical hardships for which her background in Paris society had ill prepared her. Late in life she allowed herself dreams of a settled life in a rural French pastorate. But as a young woman of twenty, determined, against the advice of all, to devote her life to God and savages, she radiated confidence. By now her parents had given their blessings to her vocation, though some of her family still thought it a waste, as one put it, "to make dishtowels out of such fine lace." 4 0 Maurice Leenhardt's ordination ceremony took place on the eve of his departure in October 1902, three months after he and Jeanne were married. T h e Montpellier "Chapel" was filled with more than five hundred people. 41 Three surviving grandfathers of the missionary couple sat next to each other. Boegner preached; Camille Leenhardt intoned the articles of engagement; Franz and Louise Leenhardt received the congregation at Fonfroide after the service. Maurice spoke in a confident voice: The Christian church seems nowhere so pure as in missions, where it finds itself liberated from the dogmatic political debris with which history has burdened it. Those who have just laid on me their hands will understand what I mean when I speak of the privilege of sowing in a virgin land rather than incessantly pruning sprouts from sick roots. And perhaps,

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God only knows, it is the young churches in pagan lands w h o will provide us with the fresh blood needed for the vitalization of our tired milieux. 4 2 Four days later the young couple departed. T h e families bade them farewell from the dock in Marseille—Jeanne, outwardly serene, M a u rice, wiping away a tear, Paul, weeping floods. 4 3 T h e voyage to the S o u t h Seas would last more than six weeks. In their baggage was a case of materials for the collection of scientific specimens, prepared, on Franz Leenhardt's orders, by the Paris M u s e u m of Natural History. T h e Leenhardts departed with hearts full of faith. T h e i r aim was to participate in the life of a faraway land, to consecrate themselves to w h a t e v e r might be the needs of its people. Perhaps they hoped, half consciously, for a clean slate, the pure, open spaces Maurice Leenhardt dreamed of as a schoolboy. M a n y missionaries have desired such a place, a spiritual clearing w h e r e religious life can be simple and authentic, w h e r e the Christian evangelist can lay the foundation of a noble edifice. Such dreams receive rough t r e a t m e n t on contact with a culture possessing its own prior historical and religious traditions. N o r do such dreams leave much space for a very clear idea of the colonial milieu and the agonies of culture contact. T h e Leenhardts were not naive, and they probably entertained f e w e r illusions than most beginning missionaries. B u t one wonders what their feelings were when, on their arrival in Noumea, the N e w Caledonia capital, they were greeted sardonically by its mayor: " S o w h a t have you come here for? In ten years there won't be any Canaques left!"

C H A P T E R II

La Grande Terre " . . . A high wooded hill, burned, corroded brown by the sun. At the far end of the channel, flattened by light, the city, a cascade of zinc roofs. Here and t h e r e a coconut palm casting some shade. Flame trees show off their gleaming flowers. . . ." T h u s a traveler of the late nineteenth century described the approach to Noumea. And so it would have appeared t o Jeanne and Maurice Leenhardt w h e n they arrived aboard the packetboat Polynesia on N o v e m b e r 13, 1 9 0 2 . From some distance they could see the large military hospital, set on a rise, and the grandiose cathedral with its t w o towers. Across a spacious harbor, on I'lsle Nou, they could make out the low structures of t h e penitentiary. By the turn of the century, Noumea was something more than an overgrown outpost. 1 A f t e r forty years of existence, it had become a sprawl of buildings spreading into the hills of its peninsula. T h e European settlement clung t o an arm of land pointing seaward in the direction of Sydney, Australia, the first landfall, m o r e than a thousand kilometers distant. As befitted a colonial capital, Noumea kept up appearances. Its dusty streets w e r e named for Paris boulevards. S o m e of its public buildings had attained a certain out-of-scale grandeur. Atop the attorney general's residence, large and square, an ornate, pagoda-like belvedere perched incongruously. However, most of the area was covered with two- and o n e - s t o r y colonial houses, metal roofed, with shuttered verandahs. T h e r e w e r e few trees on the streets and public squares; shade was in short supply everywhere. T h e various commercial depots and stores were little m o r e than glorified sheds, and it seldom took m o r e than a decade for Noumea's exposed wooden buildings to go seedy. With the opening of the new century, rat-catching was officially subsidized. Apart f r o m routine brawls and disorders in the port, excitement was rare in the small community. Daily existence was taken up with a perpetual routine of socializing, business, the circulation of political gossip. Periodic arrivals of mail boats f r o m France were the chief events marking the passage of time. Occasionally a novelty would arrive, as on April 19, 1 8 9 7 , w h e n the island's first showing of a 30

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moving picture was witnessed by the population of Noumea. T h e familiar personalities gathered at the town hall, a villa surrounded by coconut palms. In the bare salle des fêtes, where every fourteenth of July the same people gathered to drink the municipality's champagne in a swirl of gowns, uniforms, and bunting, a curious apparatus had been installed. T h e citizens of the capital gasped to see the flickering image of a train entering a French station. The effect on the spectators, we know from the local press, was overwhelming. T h e population of Noumea was mostly European: businessmen, soldiers, functionaries, and their families. There was also the usual sprinkling of Javanese, Chinese, and Pacific Islanders. Occasional Canaques from the interior could be seen engaged in menial occupations. White prisoners were also very much in evidence: the island had been acquired by the French government in 1853 as a suitable dumping ground for the metropole's "dangerous classes." T h e streets of Noumea were dug through the hills by convict labor gangs. Its monuments, its port, were largely constructed by prisoners. In the interior of the island, parolees were encouraged to set up as small farmers. La Grande Terre, 400 km. by 50 km., possessed good land for cattle grazing and the cultivation of coffee. By 1900 an official drive was underway to populate the territory, no longer with convicts, but with French farming families. Rich mineral deposits had been discovered, and in the capital the lure of nickel prospecting exercised many imaginations. Mining companies already disposed of considerable land and power. Inside Noumea not much was known of that unmapped, menacing area, "the interior," or la brousse. Denizens of the capital were more interested in the price of nickel and the perpetual political maneuverings of the Paris-appointed governor and the local Conseil Général. Perhaps now and then a shabby farmer, herdsman, or priest would arrive from the island's opposite coast, bearing news of a cyclone at Hienghène, Houailou, or Canala. Often there would be word of "troubles," rumors of an insurrection brewing. Then those who recalled the terrible year of 1878 would retell their gruesome tales of cannibalism and the war in which savages from the central highlands had wiped out two hundred whites. Noumea was a refuge, an ingrown European city clinging to the lower tip of the Grande Terre. At its back stood the forbidding, empty mountains of the island's southern chain. Noumea was not a gateway to New Caledonia. It looked toward the sea; one entered by boat and departed by boat. T h e capital could not have made a very good impression on Maurice Leenhardt. He learned to detest its hollow pretentiousness and isolation from the cultural and ecological life of the island. Imagine, having sailed for

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s e v e n w e e k s , o n l y to d i s e m b a r k d e e p in t h e C o r a l S e a and f i n d o n e s e l f s t a n d i n g in a s h a b b y R u e S o l f e r i n o , R u e de Rivoli, R u e de l'Aima! T h e n e w m i s s i o n a r y c o u p l e w a s g r e e t e d by F r a n ç o i s L e n g e r e a u , chaplain at the p e n i t e n t i a r y and p a s t o r of the capital's small P r o t e s t a n t c o n g r e g a t i o n . W i t h h i m w a s P h i l a d e l p h e D e l o r d , a colleague s t a t i o n e d o n o n e of t h e small L o y a l t y Islands just a h u n d r e d k i l o m e t e r s f r o m the o p p o s i t e c o a s t of the G r a n d e T e r r e . H e r e w a s the m a n w h o s e l e t t e r s h a d f i r s t b r o u g h t N e w C a l e d o n i a to L e e n h a r d t ' s a t t e n t i o n . D e l o r d had f r e s h n e w s of t h e M e l a n e s i a n e v a n g e l i s t s w h o s e w o r k the n e w m i s s i o n a r y had c o m e to direct. T h e s e P r o t e s t a n t s f r o m the L o y a l t y Islands w e r e called "natas," m e a n i n g " m e s s e n g e r " in one of t h e i r v e r n a c u l a r s . A t Leenhardt's arrival the G r a n d e T e r r e w a s about one-third Catholic, t h e r e s t u n c o n v e r t e d . L o y a l t i a n P r o t e s t a n t i s m h a d led an e m b a t t l e d e x i s t e n c e t h e r e f o r six y e a r s and w a s m a k i n g h e a d w a y . T h e L e e n h a r d t s ' d e s t i n a t i o n w a s t h e e a s t e r n side of the island; in a w e e k the coastal s t e a m e r w o u l d take t h e m t h e r e . H o u a i l o u , m i d p o i n t of the o t h e r coast and a P r o t e s t a n t f o o t h o l d , w o u l d be their point of a r r i v a l . T h e y had m a n y q u e s t i o n s c o n c e r n i n g t h e H o u a i l o u r e g i o n . W o u l d it be s u i t a b l e f o r a p e r m a n e n t b a s e ? D e l o r d t h o u g h t so, b u t n e i t h e r h e n o r L e n g e r e a u could be v e r y specific. In t h e m e a n t i m e , d u r i n g his i n e v i t a b l e r o u n d of c o u r t e s y calls, L e e n h a r d t l e a r n e d t h a t petitions w e r e circulating a m o n g c o l o n i s t s in t h e h i n t e r l a n d a s k i n g t h e g o v e r n m e n t to e x p e l t h e P r o t e s t a n t natas. T h e s e " f o r e i g n e r s , " it w a s said, w e r e s t i r r i n g u p r e s i s t a n c e to w h i t e r u l e and impeding t h e r e c r u i t m e n t of Canaque labor. T h e y o u n g m i s s i o n a r y politely p r o m i s e d to look i n t o the c h a r g e s . T h e L e e n h a r d t s w e r e s h o w n a r o u n d t h e i m m e d i a t e a r e a . T h e y did n o t , h o w e v e r , p a y a visit to the n e a r e s t c e n t e r of m i s s i o n a c t i v i t y , t h e l a r g e C a t h o l i c station at St. L o u i s j u s t d o w n the coast. R e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n the t w o C h r i s t i a n i t i e s , t h o u g h o f f i c i a l l y c o r r e c t , w e r e in practice v e r y hostile. T h e natas had too s u c c e s s f u l l y c h a l l e n g e d a h a l f - c e n t u r y of C a t h o l i c m o n o p o l y . L e e n h a r d t ' s a r r i v a l as the island's f i r s t E u r o p e a n P r o t e s t a n t m i s s i o n a r y w a s a clear escalation of the battle f o r souls. T h e n e w c o m e r a l r e a d y felt t h e t e n sion. In the capital m a n y potential f r i e n d s and f o e s w e r e o b s e r v i n g his p e r f o r m a n c e . W o u l d this y o u n g p a s t o r play by the r u l e s ? T h e L e e n h a r d t s w e r e lodged in t h e p r e s b y t e r y . It had been d e c o r a t e d in t h e i r h o n o r b y M e l a n e s i a n P r o t e s t a n t s . B u t it w a s not until their third day in N o u m e a t h a t t h e y m e t t h e s e Canaques. A s e r v i c e of w e l c o m e had b e e n a r r a n g e d in t h e c h u r c h f o r S u n d a y a f t e r n o o n . A f t e r t h e w h i t e c o n g r e g a t i o n had d e p a r t e d , a c r o w d of M e l a n e s i a n s g a t h e r e d , attired in t h e i r b e s t — r u m p l e d j a c k e t s , t r o u s e r s , loose m i s s i o n d r e s s e s , and b a r e f o o t . T h e r e w e r e s h o r t s p e e c h e s , p r a y e r s , h y m n s .

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Leenhardt's few words were translated into Houailou by a Protestant chief, O u n y n a , and into M a r e by Delord. T h e service was warm and, except for the incomprehensible languages, familiar in form. A f t e r the official gathering, ten residents of the Houailou region asked to meet separately with the new " M i s s i . " T h e Leenhardts received them on the presbytery verandah and the welcome was repeated but in a r a t h e r different style. Chief O u n y n a spoke on behalf of all. T h e n a large handkerchief was spread at the newcomer's feet, and each person approached to offer greetings, gravely placing a piece of European currency on the white square. " T h e r e is a simplicity about these people that is wholly u n - E u r o pean," Jeanne Leenhardt w r o t e aboard t h e Saint Antoine as it rounded the desolate southern tip of the Grande T e r r e . Neither she nor her husband could say that the Canaques w e r e a handsome race, with their thick, dark brows and muscular bodies; still, they had a grace about t h e m that pleased her. S o m e of the Lifouans who made up the c r e w of the coastal steamer w e r e m o r e attractive to the European eye. T h e s e Loyalty Islanders, with their hint of Polynesian blood, sometimes possessed thin features and a pale skin. During the trip the Leenhardts were able to converse with them, young Protestants who had been educated in the schools of the Loyalty mission. T h e y spoke a curious French sprinkled with English words. As the Saint Antoine turned up t h e east coast, keeping a safe distance outside the ring of coral reefs, the mountains of the Humboldt Range seemed to loom closer. T h e Leenhardts could see why this long island was called the G r a n d e T e r r e : it was an imposing mainland. Its t w o coastlines were quite different. Noumea's side was dry, sparsely inhabited, with mountains rising some distance back from the shore. B u t these eastern peaks plummeted into the sea; and f u r t h e r up the coast, behind a thin strip of beach and within steep valleys, the voyagers caught glimpses of luxuriant green. At Canala, two-thirds of the way to Houailou, the steamer carefully navigated a pass in the reef and entered a beautiful, fiord-like bay. As supplies were unloaded, words w e r e exchanged in the b o a t s — " M i s s i , " " H o u a i l o u " — a n d frank, curious gazes met the t w o new whites. Considerable excitement surrounded the Leenhardts' arrival. A P r o t e s t a n t missionary had long been promised and awaited. His pressence now consecrated and reinforced the nalas work throughout the Grande T e r r e , a work that, for all its initial success, badly needed organization and protection. For many Canaques, the arrival of a " M i s s i " to establish a permanent station on the main island meant that the new "English religion" had come to stay. Its message of temperance,

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34

l i t e r a c y , a n d s o c i a l r e g e n e r a t i o n h a d s t r u c k a r e s p o n s i v e c h o r d in a n increasingly colonized land. T h e n e x t m o r n i n g , S u n d a y , t h e L e e n h a r d t s finally arrived at H o u ailou. A broad e s t u a r y and fertile valley w e r e enclosed o n e i t h e r side by p i c t u r e s q u e p e a k s — m o u n t a i n s o w n e d , t h e y w e r e told, by t h e large m i n i n g c o m p a n y , " L e N i c k e l . " A g r o u p o f s m a l l c r a f t a p p e a r e d in t h e e s t u a r y a n d a p p r o a c h e d t h e Saint Antoine.

In o n e o f t h e m , D e l o r d r e c -

ognized Mindia Neja, the most important chief of the region. Leenh a r d t had h e a r d of Mindia, his personal struggle w i t h

alcoholism,

t h e n a d r a m a t i c r e f o r m d u r i n g a s t a y w i t h D e l o r d o n M a r e . In f a c t , t h e c o l o n i a l g o v e r n m e n t h a d b e e n t h r e a t e n i n g t o d i v e s t M i n d i a o f his chieftainship.

But

now,

sober,

influential

in his

kinship

ties,

he

w a s s u p p o r t i n g t h e w o r k o f t h e natas a n d c o m b a t i n g t h e i n f l u e n c e o f t h e w i n e a n d a b s i n t h e sold b y local c o l o n i s t s . M i n d i a , a c c o m p a n i e d b y W e i n i t h , a L i f o u a n p a s t o r a n d o n e o f t h e f i r s t g r o u p o f natas t o a r r i v e on the G r a n d e T e r r e , clambered aboard the steamer. T h e r e was an a w k w a r d , e m o t i o n - f i l l e d m o m e n t . T h e n t h e c h i e f , d r e s s e d in a n i m provised military outfit, greeted the missionary couple with a broad s m i l e ( J e a n n e L e e n h a r d t w a s s t r u c k b y his " r o w o f s u p e r b t e e t h " ) a n d i n v i t e d t h e m a b o a r d his s k i f f . T h e g r o u p did n o t l i n g e r a t H o u a i l o u , a s c a t t e r i n g o f c o l o n i s t s ' h o u s e s , b u t c o n t i n u e d d i r e c t l y t o M i n d i a ' s village, Nindiah, n o t far beyond. At each t u r n of the p a t h w a y the crowd of people accompanying t h e t h r e e w h i t e s burst into song. M o r e singing g r e e t e d t h e m a t t h e v i l l a g e . A l m o s t a t o n c e a s e r v i c e o f w e l c o m e was held on an open, g r a s s y lawn n e a r t h e tiny c h u r c h , which could not come close to accommodating the m o r e than three hundred w h o had g a t h e r e d f r o m neighboring clans. T h e t h r e e guests of h o n o r occupied t h e o n l y c h a i r s . B e h i n d t h e m s t o o d M i n d i a . N i n e natas s a t o n a b e n c h to o n e side. T h e c o n g r e g a t i o n spread itself a r o u n d on m a t s , and t h e r e w a s m o r e s i n g i n g (a b i t t o o s h r i l l f o r t h e n e w c o m e r s ' t a s t e ) a n d m a n y s p e e c h e s . O n c e a g a i n , t h e n e w c o m e r s n o t i c e d in e v e r y t h i n g a n oddly f o r m a l

simplicity. T h e g r e e t i n g s

lasted the entire

morning.

A g a i n , a r e c t a n g l e of cloth w a s placed at t h e Missi's f e e t and t h e speeches and h a n d s h a k e s w e r e again accompanied by gifts of m o n e y . B u t t h i s t i m e t h e r e w e r e a l s o y a m s , t a r o s , a n d c h i c k e n s . It w a s a l o n g , emotional m o r n i n g , and the Leenhardts t h o u g h t they sensed real joy a n d h o p e in t h e w e l c o m e s . M a n y o r a t o r s s p o k e o f a n e w d e d i c a t i o n t o " l i f e " and to the " W o r d . " Delord concluded with a few well-chosen c o m m e n t s for the benefit o f t h e f i v e o r six c u r i o u s w h i t e s o n h a n d — c o l o n i s t s , p a r o l e e s , a n d t h e local g e n d a r m e - s y n d i c . T h e n e w m i s s i o n a r y ' s e n d s a r e s p i r i t u a l n o t p o l i t i c a l , D e l o r d p r o m i s e d . W e P r o t e s t a n t s a r e n o t i n t e r e s t e d in t r i b a l

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35

or governmental affairs. An atmosphere of political tension surrounded the arrival at Houailou. White hostility to the natas was not disguised. T w o Catholic fathers newly stationed nearby were in active competition t h r o u g h o u t the valley. It was already clear to the Leenhardts that the Grande T e r r e ' s colonists did not have much concern for the well-being of mere Canaques. T h e few they had met w h o did seem to care spoke of Melanesians as if they were children or toys. M a n y repeated the Noumea mayor's dire prediction of racial e x t e r mination. T h e plight of the island's Melanesians was indeed desperate. An ever-increasing European presence—penitentiary, mines, colonization—had shaken their culture to its roots. Leenhardt was already familiar with the litany of disaster: military conquest, disease, alcoholism, uprooting, the relocation of reservations on inferior lands. In two terrible decades just preceding his arrival (according to the best modern estimates), the indigenous population had fallen by fully 33 percent. T h e r e were dangerously few children in the tribes. 2 B u t Leenhardt was encouraged by the vitality of Houailou's welcome and by the hopeful attitude of the newly converted Melanesians he had met so far. T h e i r attitude, he sensed, was not merely the result of the natas' recent work, significant as that had been. At Houailou, and with each step deeper into the island, he sensed an essential authenticity, a locally based, cultural resilience. Leenhardt was sensitive to landscape. His father's lessons in field observation served him well. T h e rugged, mystical mountains of the Grande T e r r e recalled the C e v e n n e s of his native Languedoc, and the Houailou Valley, with its twisting river, gently sloping hillsides, and enclosing mountains, appealed to Leenhardt's sense of scale, to his feeling for the right balance b e t w e e n cultivation and wildness. Under Mindia's leadership, the social regeneration of the area seemed to be underway. Perhaps Houailou could become t h e c e n t e r from which the revitalizing work of the Gospel might spread t h r o u g h o u t the land. Its geographic centrality and the relative importance of its language recommended it. A f t e r talks in the area, Leenhardt found that a farm was for sale a few kilometers inland along the estuary. He decided to make it his base. B u t t h e r e was no time now to do more than reconnoiter. A conference of all the island's natas was scheduled to begin in t h r e e days at Ni, more than halfway across the mountains. T h e Leenhardts and Delord, accompanied by a group of natas, began a leisurely climb on horseback that followed the twists and turns of the Houailou River upward through the narrowing valley toward Gonde. T h e Grande T e r r e , previously only an impressive silhouette, now became an en-

36

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veloping p r e s e n c e . P a r t s of t h e valley w e r e occupied by native villages, m a n y of t h e m Mindia's kin. S o m e leaned to the Catholics; m o r e f a v o r e d P r o t e s t a n t i s m ; o t h e r s r e m a i n e d u n c o m m i t t e d and w a r y . M u c h of the valley had been taken o v e r by w h i t e c a t t l e m e n ' s f r e e - r a n g i n g herds. T h e s e half-wild beasts could be seen grazing o n slopes still m a r k e d by their f o r m e r o w n e r s ' carefully t e r r a c e d t a r o fields. E v e r y n o w and t h e n the palms and c o l u m n a r pines of a village c a m e into view. L e e n h a r d t was learning to " r e a d " the landscape and r e c o g n i z e in t h e s e distinctive c l u s t e r s of t r e e s the m a r k of a p r e s e n t or f o r m e r M e l a nesian habitat. C e r t a i n o f t h e s e villages, he found, w e r e abandoned, their o c c u p a n t s forced by colonial e x p r o p r i a t i o n s to the higher, less fertile g r o u n d . As the g r o u p climbed u p w a r d s , the n e a r b y m o u n t a i n s became ever more present. F r o m a distance L e e n h a r d t could see G o n d é — t h e village, or r a t h e r , as he soon learned to call it, the mucin (a Houailou w o r d translated for him as " s é j o u r paisible," peaceful abode). N e a r a bend in the river, at the foot of an impressive peak, a dense ensemble of palms and f e a t h e r y c o l u m n a r pines stood o u t against the open s u r r o u n d i n g s . A t o n e end of t h e g r o v e w a s a small rise upon which the clan, directed by their chief, w h o m the E u r o p e a n s called Baptiste, w a s c o n s t r u c t i n g a P r o t e s t a n t c h u r c h . In his first published r e p o r t , L e e n h a r d t observed: " B a p tiste is busy c o n s t r u c t i n g a n e w c h u r c h , with lovely p r o p o r t i o n s , and t h e e n o r m o u s , u n r o t t a b l e pillars of the pilou-pilou h o u s e [the traditional m e n ' s h o u s e , or grande case]. It's t h e old s t o r y of C h r i s t i a n a r c h i t e c t u r e b o r r o w i n g pagan c o l u m n s f o r the c o n s t r u c t i o n of its m o n u m e n t s . " F r o m this v a n t a g e point, L e e n h a r d t could take in t h e a r e a — t h e village spread just below, the n e a r b y m o u n t a i n s , t h e c u r v i n g valley. T h i s site w a s t o b e c o m e o n e o f his f a v o r i t e places, w h e r e he a l w a y s felt o r i e n t e d , in scale. All at o n c e t h e village in its s u r r o u n d i n g valley b e c a m e i n t i m a t e and s o m e h o w meaningful. L a t e r , as he developed his t h e o r y of s o c i o - m y t h i c landscape, h e would b e t t e r u n d e r s t a n d w h y . F o r t h e m o m e n t , receptive, h e could only observe: " t h e s e people h a v e taste." L e e n h a r d t w a s experiencing the f o r m , if n o t t h e original c o n t e n t , of a traditional Caledonian habitat. T h e village at G o n d é still possessed the expressivity of an e s t h e t i c whole. F r o m the rise w h e r e t h e grande case, t o w e r i n g symbol of the clan, would o n c e h a v e stood, L e e n h a r d t could see t h a t the village w a s carefully a r r a n g e d , its t r e e s and h u t s laid o u t in alleyways. In the space c r e a t e d by r o w s of bending palms, h e felt a g r a c i o u s equilibrium. He m a y even have heard in the rustling foliage s o m e t h i n g of the maciri's voice:

LA G R A N D E T E R R E

37

4 . In t h e valley o f t h e H o u a i l o u R i v e r d u r i n g t h e 1 9 3 0 s , a f e w k i l o m e t e r s i n l a n d f r o m D o N e v a , t h e p a l m s a n d a r a u c a r i a p i n e s s h o w t h a t this s i t e w a s f o r m e r l y a maciri, h a b i t a t , " p e a c e f u l a b o d e . " T h e village h a s b e e n a p p r o p r i a t e d as g r a z i n g land f o r a c o l o n i s t ' s c a t t l e . Photo: Guyon

. . . Plant, arrange, coconut palms in two rows, plant, you the younger, so that walking, we always see these trees, as in m e m o r y . . . . S o raising our heads and looking to their tops, walking, we see the palm growing, Weep, Speak in its leaves, It grows, it is very tall, T h e leaves speak, T h e palms speak, Continuing the wind . . . —a fragment from a funeral lament for a chief, and a favorite of Leenhardt's. 3 It is heard in a context of fragility, impermanence, cyclical transition between life and death. T h e chief's disappearance is traumatic for the clan. He is its "elder b r o t h e r , " who mediates with the power of the dead ancestors. A new alleyway of palms must be

38

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planted; f o r the c o c o n u t p a l m like the p e r s o n is a n e l o q u e n t plant, b r e a k i n g in a s t r o n g w i n d . T h o u g h it w a s m u c h L e e n h a r d t t r a n s c r i b e d a n d t r a n s l a t e d this s o n g , t h e n o v i c e m a y h a v e s e n s e d its m o o d b e n e a t h t h e trees at G o n d e p a s s e d his f i r s t e v e n i n g in the N e w C a l e d o n i a n "brousse."

but fragile later that missionary w h e r e he

A r o u n d the c a m p f i r e the L e e n h a r d t s w e r e c h a r m e d to f i n d m e m bers of the clan s i n g i n g C h r i s t i a n litanies c o m b i n e d w i t h multiplication tables. T h e natas had b r o u g h t basic W e s t e r n e d u c a t i o n w i t h t h e i r m e s s a g e of t e m p e r a n c e and " l i f e . " M a n y set up schools and t a u g h t literacy and a r i t h m e t i c . Indeed, " w r i t i n g , " " c o u n t i n g , " and " p r a y i n g " w e r e c o m m o n l y u s e d as s y n o n y m s f o r the R e f o r m e d Faith. T h i s s o r t of e d u c a t i o n w a s a t h r e a t to c o l o n i s t s w h o w e r e p r i m a r i l y i n t e r e s t e d in an u n i n s t r u c t e d , docile labor f o r c e . T h e natas' schools w e r e f r e q u e n t l y f o r b i d d e n , and f o r m a l i n s t r u c t i o n w a s limited to S u n d a y s — t h u s the c a m p f i r e r e c i t a t i o n s c o n t i n u i n g long into the n i g h t . L e e n h a r d t in his e a r l y e n t h u s i a s m called t h e m a f o r m of " e n d l e s s w o r s h i p . " B e n e a t h t h e p a l m s life s e e m e d i n t i m a t e , familial, o r d e r l y . C o u l d t h e s e be t h e people of w h o m D e l o r d had w r i t t e n , in a letter to the Paris M i s s i o n S o c i e t y , that " f a m i l y l i f e " e x i s t e d o n l y " t o a v e r y i n f e r i o r d e g r e e , " the people w h o s e " m o r a l s e n s e " he had called " d e g r a d e d " ? L e e n h a r d t , m o r e e t h n o l o g i c a l l y m i n d e d , w o u l d c o m e to h a v e a v e r y d i f f e r e n t u n d e r s t a n d i n g of " p a g a n " N e w C a l e d o n i a . In Gens de la Grande Terre, he p r o v i d e d a s y s t e m a t i c a n a l y s i s of t h e p r e c o n t a c t h a b i t a t , a d e n s e l y m e a n i n g f u l space laid o u t in an e x p r e s s i v e f o r m that t r a n s l a t e d itself to the m i s s i o n a r y - e t h n o g r a p h e r in t e r m s of an a l m o s t classical esthetic. A b r o a d c e n t r a l a l l e y w a y b o r d e r e d by c o c o n u t p a l m s leads up to the grande case, a t o w e r i n g h u t c o v e r e d w i t h an i m m e n s e t h a t c h r o o f , s u r m o u n t e d b y s a c r e d s c u l p t u r e s . R u n n i n g parallel t h r o u g h the vill a g e is a n o t h e r a l l e y w a y lined w i t h d i f f e r e n t plants. E v e r y detail of t h e s c e n e is s y m b o l i c . T h e m a i n alley is m a s c u l i n e ; t h e parallel o n e (in c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y , not in opposition) is f e m i n i n e . A t o n e e n d of the e n s e m b l e , n e a r t h e grande case, a h a r d y d r y v i n e is planted, t h e diro, recalling the m a l e e s s e n c e in its c o n t i n u i t y . A t the o t h e r end g r o w s the doro, a s u c c u l e n t . D r y is m a l e , w e t f e m a l e . T h e couple is " i n s c r i b e d o n the e a r t h . " T h i s u n i o n r e p r e s e n t s a joining of t h e t w o e s s e n t i a l lines of c u l t u r a l i n h e r i t a n c e . T h i s society as L e e n h a r d t c a m e to c o n c e i v e it is n o t to be classified as e i t h e r m a t r i a r c h a l o r patriarchal. " L i f e " f l o w s f r o m the t o t e m , via m o t h e r and m a t e r n a l uncle, to t h e child. " P o w e r " p a s s e s f r o m t h e p a t e r n a l a n c e s t o r s o r g o d s t h r o u g h the political o r g a n i z a t i o n of the clan to the child. T h u s the coupling of m a l e and f e m a l e e x p r e s s e d in the village l a y o u t is not t h e m e e t i n g of t w o individuals, m a n and w o m a n , but t h e p a t t e r n e d interaction of t w o c o n s t i t u e n t c u l t u r a l c o m p l e x e s . W i t h i n this p a t t e r n a p e r s o n is

5 and 6. T h e traditional village, 1 8 9 9 . " T h e round h o u s e is t h e house o f life. Everything takes places there: sleep, rest, conversation. T h e grande case, so-called pilou hut, is a house which r e p r e s e n t s the s t r e n g t h of t h e group. It is the men's house, w h e r e they live t o g e t h e r and receive their g u e s t s . T h e small h o u s e s belong t o w o m e n ; each has h e r s " (M.L., Notes, p. 6). Photos: M. Devambez,

Musée de l'Homme

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t h e locus of a variety of dual relations, either with kin or mythic beings. 4 All of this Leenhardt learned with time. His first impression of the Caledonian mode of life was essentially esthetic. He was charmed by t h e peaceful village alleyways: . . . Straight, smooth, carpeted with soft grass, bordered by bending coconut palms which are set out in regular terraces w h e n the terrain allows, all leading to the summit of the grande case which dominates t h e w h o l e — t h e s e alleyways appear as avenues possessing rare esthetic qualities of sobriety and design. T h e y reveal the profound good taste and feeling for wholeness characteristic of t h e people of the Grande T e r r e . . . .5 Leenhardt's immediate sympathy for the N e w Caledonian " s t y l e " opened his eyes to the subtleties of its cultural expressions. And as the years progressed, he c a m e to understand Melanesian life as a dynamic interweaving of nature, society, m y t h , and technology. T h e village was at the center of an ensemble, a surrounding "mythic landscape" w h e r e the notable mountains, rocks, trees and animals were familiar, endowed with totemic life or the power of an ancestor-god. Such natural bodies w e r e not memorials or even representations, but disc r e t e presences in which the living w e r e implicated. T h e landscape was mediator b e t w e e n the invisible and visible worlds, an arena of "lived m y t h . " T h e living could e n t e r m y t h - t i m e s w i t h — f o r Europeans—disconcerting frequency. T h e traditional Melanesian was a personage engaged in relations of participatory dualism with mythic "others." Leenhardt came also to understand traditional Caledonia as a culture in transition. T h e most archaic experience, radical participation in the e n v i r o n m e n t structured by totemic myth, was, he t h o u g h t , giving way to a m o r e "rational," m o r e objective ancestor worship and an appeal to personalized " g o d s . " T h e entire archipelago, even before white colonization, was a crossroad of cultural influences. T h e Loyalty Islands w e r e m o r e Polynesian in political structure and racial type than the mainland. O u v e a had been largely settled by immigrants f r o m the Wallis Islands. Loyaltian influence on the east coast of the Grande T e r r e was marked and increasing. Moreover, as Leenhardt pursued his ethnographic research, he became increasingly aware of a complex history of linguistic and cultural borrowings. T h e n o r t h e r n portion of the island showed evidence of recent influences from the direction of Indonesia, w h e r e a s the southern portion seemed more

LA GRANDE TERRE

41

a r c h a i c , p e r h a p s c u l t u r a l l y linked w i t h A u s t r a l i a . A l t h o u g h e a c h localized political u n i t occupied its o w n r e g i o n and spoke a d i s t i n c t t o n g u e , of w h i c h t h e r e w e r e m o r e t h a n t w e n t y o n t h e island, t h e r e w a s a c o n t i n u a l p r o c e s s o f b o r r o w i n g and i n f l u e n c e . C u l t u r a l p a t t e r n s w e r e alive t o c h a n g e . T h e pace, h o w e v e r , w a s slow, r h y t h m i c ; and in t h e late n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y it w a s u n c e r t a i n w h e t h e r traditional a d a p t ability w o u l d be able t o a c c o m m o d a t e t h e a b r u p t t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s b r o u g h t on by c o l o n i z a t i o n . S o c i a l life in t r a d i t i o n a l C a l e d o n i a r e s t e d on a s y s t e m of m a t r i l i n e a l , patrilocal c l a n s i m p r e c i s e l y d e s i g n a t e d as " t r i b e " o r " v i l l a g e . " W i t h i n a s i n g l e linguistic a r e a , r e g u l a r p a t t e r n s o f e x c h a n g e linked clan t o clan. T h e r h y t h m o f g i f t and c o u n t e r g i f t included m a r r i a g e ( t h e e x c h a n g e of " l i f e " in t h e p e r s o n o f a w o m a n ) and t h e c i r c u l a t i o n o f g o o d s , s e r v i c e s , and " m o n e y " ( s t r i n g s o f shells s e r v i n g n o t as v a l u e - e q u i v a l e n t s b u t as seals of a g r e e m e n t s ) . F u n c t i o n i n g in c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y w i t h t h e t o t e m i c life f o r c e o f t h e m a t e r n a l lineage w a s t h e p a t e r n a l political s t r u c t u r e . T h i s " p o w e r " w a s a s s o c i a t e d p r i m a r i l y w i t h t h e a n c e s t o r s , t h e grande case, and t h e c h i e f . T h e c h i e f w a s a n o n a u t o c r a t i c " o l d e r b r o t h e r , " w h o m e d i a t e d b e t w e e n t h e w o r l d o f t h e living and t h e parallel w o r l d of t h e dead. H i s e f f e c t i v e p o w e r w a s limited by t h e c o u n c i l of elders, w h o c o n t r o l l e d t h e s u c c e s s i o n (a role t h a t t h e colonial g o v e r n m e n t w o u l d try to u s u r p ) , and by t h e clan's u t e r i n e r e l a t i o n s . In g e n e r a l , t h e s m a l l - s c a l e political s t r u c t u r e o f t h e clan in N e w C a l e donia w a s e g a l i t a r i a n and m i n i m a l l y h i e r a r c h i c a l ( " M e l a n e s i a n " in style, as o p p o s e d t o t h e L o y a l t y Islands' m o r e h i e r a r c h i c a l , " P o l y n e s i a n " s t r u c t u r e ) . A l t h o u g h a n u m b e r o f clans in a g i v e n a r e a could be u n i t e d by a l a r g e r and l o o s e r " t r i b a l " o r g a n i z a t i o n presided o v e r by a grand chef, t h e principal ties w e r e still t h e direct o n e s o f dialect a n d k i n s h i p . T h e s e g r o u p s , v a r y i n g c o n s i d e r a b l y in size and c o h e r e n c e , lived in s e m i p e r m a n e n t h o s t i l i t y , a s t a t e o f " w a r " t e m p e r e d by c u s t o m and alliance. T h e colonial h e g e m o n y r e d u c e d , b u t did n o t e l i m i n a t e , s u c h rivalries. T h e r e e x i s t e d , n o n e t h e l e s s , a m a r k e d h o m o g e n e i t y of c u s t o m t h r o u g h o u t t h e island. T h e life of e v e r y g r o u p w a s g u a r d e d by its t o t e m s and a n c e s t o r s i m m a n e n t in t h e landscape. A n d e v e r y w h e r e , t h e c u l m i n a t i n g m o m e n t o f social life w a s t h e c e l e b r a t i o n o f t h e pilou c e r e m o n y . T h i s i m p o r t a n t o c c a s i o n f r e q u e n t l y r e q u i r e d y e a r s of prepa r a t i o n . T h r o u g h it a clan e x p r e s s e d its vitality w i t h displays o f v e r b a l e l o q u e n c e , d a n c e s , and o s t e n t a t i o u s d i s t r i b u t i o n of food and g i f t s . T h e e v e n t v a r i e d in size f r o m t h e r e g i o n a l grand pilou o r g a n i z e d by a grand chef t o m o r e i n t i m a t e , familial rituals. T h e vitality o f social life f o u n d e x p r e s s i o n in t h e pilou, especially in its c a r e f u l l y o r d e r e d gift d i s t r i b u t i o n s t h a t c o n s e c r a t e d alliances b e t w e e n clans.

42

DO NEVA Pilous

and traditional marriage practices would present a t h o r n y

p r o b l e m t o L e e n h a r d t a n d t h e natas.

Could New Caledonian Protes-

t a n t i s m p r e a c h social r e g e n e r a t i o n and at t h e s a m e t i m e oppose t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t " p a g a n " m a n i f e s t a t i o n s o f s o c i a l h e a l t h ? Pilous,

espe-

cially t h e i r r e l i g i o u s a s p e c t s — d a n c e s t o t h e d e a d a n d o t h e r " s a v a g e e x c e s s e s " — s e e m e d the epitome of a tradition that could not be r e c o n ciled w i t h C h r i s t i a n i t y . A n d t h e k i n s h i p s y s t e m , t h o u g h it w a s t h e principal g u a r a n t o r of social o r d e r and personal morality, conflicted d i r e c t l y w i t h t h e P r o t e s t a n t ideal o f individual a u t o n o m y b a s e d o n t h e vertical, p e r s o n - G o d dyad. B e f o r e L e e n h a r d t ' s arrival t h e s e obstacles h a d n o t p o s e d a s e r i o u s p r a c t i c a l d i l e m m a ; t h e natas h a d t e n d e d t o compromise without a great many second thoughts, grafting

their

n e w literate " w o r d " onto existing structures, performing their prayers a t pilous, a n d living as m u c h a s p o s s i b l e w i t h i n t h e life o f c u s t o m . T h e s e Melanesian pastor-evangelists were the backbone of

New

Caledonian Protestantism. Theirs were complex, transitional

men-

talities;

accu-

Leenhardt

would

often

rately—"pagano-protestants."

call

them—inelegantly,

but

In 1 9 0 2 a t H o u a i l o u a n d a r o u n d

the

c a m p f i r e at G o n d e , h e m a d e c o n t a c t w i t h s o m e of t h e m . B e f o r e long, a t t h e v i l l a g e o f N i , n e s t l e d in t h e h i g h l a n d s j u s t a c r o s s t h e w a t e r s h e d , h e m e t t h e m all as a g r o u p . L e e n h a r d t ' s f i r s t nata c o n f e r e n c e l a s t e d a w e e k and included Delord and t w o dozen evangelists stationed on b o t h c o a s t s . L e e n h a r d t w a s , in f a c t , s o m e w h a t i n t i m i d a t e d b y t h e s e Loyaltian Christians. As a y o u n g theological s t u d e n t he had read their l e t t e r s asking f o r a m i s s i o n a r y . H e r e m e m b e r e d lying a w a k e at night w o n d e r i n g if h e , a n u n t r i e d e v a n g e l i s t , m i g h t b e t h e p e r s o n G o d h a d c h o s e n f o r t h i s w o r k . N o w h e w o n d e r e d if h e w o u l d e v e r a c q u i r e t h e authority needed to guide such m e n of experience, some m o r e than t w i c e his a g e . A l r e a d y , n e a r H o u a i l o u , h e h a d s t o o d m u t e l y b e s i d e t h e d e a t h b e d o f H a x e n , a n old L i f o u a n e v a n g e l i s t — s i x t e e n y e a r s in N e w G u i n e a , n o w six in N e w C a l e d o n i a . D u r i n g h i s last e i g h t

months,

despite failing s t r e n g t h , H a x e n had stayed at his p o s t — u n t i l h e could lay e y e s o n t h e n e w M i s s i . Waina, Waibo, M a t h a i a , O w h a n , W a k u b a , Ipeze, Ninyima, W a s h i t i n e , J o a n e : L e e n h a r d t h a d t r o u b l e k e e p i n g t h e natas' n a m e s s t r a i g h t . S o m e w e r e t i m i d in m a n n e r , o t h e r s s e e m e d p r i d e f u l a n d p e r h a p s o v e r b e a r i n g ; t o w a r d s h i m all w e r e a g r e e a b l e , t o o a g r e e a b l e .

Sometimes

everything about them became suddenly impenetrable—their m a n n e r o f s p e a k i n g , t h e w a y t h e y s t o o d p l a n t e d o n t h e e a r t h in t h e i r s h a p e l e s s European clothes, the way they gestured, or remained strangely silent. B u t t h e y could be r e a s s u r i n g l y direct at times; and m o s t s e e m e d sinc e r e l y c o n s e c r a t e d t o t h e w o r k . T h e natas w e r e n o t E u r o p e a n s , a n d t h e

LA GRANDE TERRE

43

Loyalty Islands had been Christian for only half a century. Sixty miles windward of the Grande T e r r e , these small islands had long been linked to the east coast of the larger body by ties of ritual exchange, marriage, and trade. 6 Lifou, M a r e , and O u v e a had been w o n for P r o t estant Christianity in the 1 8 4 0 s by Samoan evangelists under the auspices of the London Missionary Society. English missionaries followed to organize the young churches and begin translating the Bible into local vernaculars. English political influence soon gave way to French, but the "English religion" remained the principal faith in the Loyalty group. By the 1 8 9 0 s , the Loyaltian churches w e r e relatively mature. Perceiving the cultural chaos and demographic emergency on the G r a n d e T e r r e , Loyaltian pastors (Nata in M a r e means messenger) began evangelizing among the unconverted tribes of N e w Caledonia. T h e i r e f forts w e r e initially successful. In the eyes of many Caledonian clans, embattled and confused, the new "Life-giving W o r d " seemed to hold a promise, literally, of cultural existence. It was known that the Loyalty Islands had been spared a heavy colonial presence, and alcoholism had been checked there. Protestantism took hold in N e w Caledonia during the years of the greatest expropriations of native lands and the highest rates of European immigration. T h e native evangelists were untainted by association with the immediate exploiters, and they k n e w h o w to adapt their Christian message to local conditions. T h e natas followed already existing paths of political and social alliance in spreading their message, and their initial appeal was in those areas w h e r e traditional society had been most damaged by recent white encroachments.7 Within each clan, the nata worked through accommodation with t h e chief, who often adopted the "English religion" for political r e a s o n s — perhaps because a traditional rival was Catholic. B u t since the political structure of the clan was not centralized and autocratic, the natas enlisted o t h e r figures of authority in setting up their young churches. T h e nata himself adopted a key political role (depending on his energy and talent), and he shared his authority with "deacons." T h e s e w e r e not appointed by the nata or, later, by the missionary. T h e y were elected by m e m b e r s of the church. M o r e o f t e n than not, a person of established " p a g a n " prestige was chosen to fill this " P r o t e s t a n t " position—a jau (divine o r healer), a kavu ("master of t h e land"), an elder, or the representative of an important lineage. T h u s the natas coopted (or w e r e coopted by) much of the deepest local, familial authority structure. T h e early evangelists' message was simple: learn to read, learn to count, give up drinking, and attend prayer meetings. Among the sur-

DO NEVA

44

r o u n d i n g c o l o n i s t s , h o w e v e r , s u c h a m e s s a g e w a s c o n s t r u e d as a n e n c o u r a g e m e n t to insurrection. Literacy, aside f r o m initiating a profound psychological revolution, was an important immediate m e a n s o f c u l t u r a l s e l f - d e f e n s e . It p r o v i d e d a u s e f u l m e t h o d o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n b e t w e e n r e s e r v a t i o n s ( f r e e t r a v e l w a s f o r b i d d e n ) . It g a v e a n i n d e pendent access to the w h i t e w o r l d — t o the religious power enclosed within the holy scriptures, to the law, and to a wide range of the white man's knowledge. Arithmetic was a check on commercial cheating. And to reject alcohol was to disarm o n e of the chief weapons used to k e e p t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n in a s t a t e o f d o c i l i t y a n d c o n f u s i o n . T h e L o y a l t i a n natas w e r e , t o t h e colons, a n e w k i n d o f n a t i v e : i n d e p e n d e n t , m o b i l e , a c c u s t o m e d t o o p e r a t i n g in a m i l i e u w h e r e w h i t e s did n o t r e p r e s e n t a c r u s h i n g f o r c e . T h e L o y a l t i a n p a s t o r s s t e p p e d o n a v a r i e t y o f t o e s ; f o r if t h e y w e r e d i p l o m a t i c in t h e i r d e a l i n g s w i t h n a t i v e political s t r u c t u r e s , t h e y w e r e p e r h a p s t o o o p e n l y a g g r e s s i v e in opposing N e w Caledonian Catholics and colonists. O n e of Leenhardt's f i r s t a c t s a t t h e N/ c o n f e r e n c e w a s t o u r g e t h e natas t o b e m o r e c a r e f u l in t h e i r d e a l i n g s w i t h E u r o p e a n s . B u t h e h a d n o i l l u s i o n s t h a t t h e r e could be a n y real a c c o m m o d a t i o n b e t w e e n basic conflicting i n t e r e s t s : " T h e natas," h e w r o t e in h i s f i r s t r e p o r t , " b a d l y i n f o r m e d o f t h e c o m p l e x i t i e s o f t h e w h i t e s o u l , h a v e a c t e d as t h e y d o in t h e i r m o r e l i b e r tarian [Loyalty] islands, occasionally missing opportunities to be c o m p r o m i s i n g . I n t h e l o n g r u n t h e y c a n ' t a v o i d t h i s , f o r t h e y will a l w a y s fall s h o r t o f t h e o n l y c o m p r o m i s e s w h i c h c a n a p p e a s e a c o l o n i s t — t h a t is, t o d r i n k w i t h h i m , o r t o m a k e t h e i r s k i n s w h i t e . " 8 D u r i n g his first w e e k s o n t h e G r a n d e T e r r e , L e e n h a r d t s a w his feelings alternate b e t w e e n familiarity and abrupt disorientation. T h e r e w a s a n i m m e n s e a m o u n t t o u n d e r s t a n d all a t o n c e . O n o n e o c c a s i o n t h e n e w m i s s i o n a r y l i f t e d u p t h e e n d o f a l a r g e g i f t y a m t o t e s t its w e i g h t a n d t h e n l e t it fall l o g - l i k e t o t h e g r o u n d . A g a s p o f s h o c k pulsed through the crowd. Leenhardt had not yet learned that a y a m m u s t b e c r a d l e d like a t e n d e r i n f a n t . C o n f u s e d , c h a r m e d , h e w o u l d keep his eyes and ears open. H e w a s prepared f o r rigor and struggle, b u t w a s h e r e a d y — h e w o n d e r e d in h i s f i r s t r e p o r t — f o r t h e " d e l i c a c y of evangelical w o r k ? "

C H A P T E R III

Getting Involved I believe that the Caledonian mission is one of the most discouraging there is . . . everything is nuances; the existence of the Canaques must be affirmed, maintaining tribes dislocated by forced labor; and one must not be afraid to find one's influence counterbalanced by terrestrial authorities for a time more powerful; one has to walk as if seeing something invisible. Leenhardt was writing to his parents after three years in the field. 1 He had, by then, begun to accept that real Christianity could not be forced on Melanesians, but had to be allowed to take shape voluntarily in their "pagano-protestant" hearts. (In a later chapter we will follow the development of his thinking on the conversion process.) T h e "something invisible" upon which Canaque survival depended was a local socio-religious orientation capable of prospering in a colonial world, a world whose power seemed only to be increasing. People needed to find new ways not to be white. T h e y had much to overcome—to resist and, selectively, to assimilate. T h e colonial impact on the Grande T e r r e had been unrelenting, and for Melanesians in 1 9 0 5 the immediate problem was simple physical survival. Colonization produced a state of demographic emergency. T h e best rough estimates of population suggest that there were about 5 0 , 0 0 0 people living in the New Caledonian archipelago around 1855. By 1900, only about 2 8 , 0 0 0 were counted. A recent authority speaks of a precipitous drop of fully 33 percent during the two decades after 1 8 8 7 . 2 New diseases took their toll, and alcoholism was used as a weapon by some unscrupulous whites. T h e disturbance of traditional agriculture aggravated problems of nutrition. Infanticide, use of abortives, and the simple decision not to bring children into a hostile world, though elements of the traditional demographic/ecological equilibrium, now took on dangerous proportions. T h e shock of defeat was aggravated by separation, physical and spiritual, from the moorings of mythic geography. T h e colonists had established a system of reserva45

46

DO NEVA

tions in the wake of extensive land expropriations. Distinct groups were thrown together with chaotic results. Political conflict between insiders and outsiders was matched by generational friction between traditionalists and frustrated youth. T h e latter, if they wanted to adapt to the new conditions, found few avenues both honorable and legal. T h e immediate choice was between wage slavery outside the reservation and submission at home to authorities whose prestige had been undermined. As coffee growing became an option, there was potential competition within the reservations for the little appropriate land. In such conditions, political intrigue and sorcery increased. 3 Leenhardt arrived on the island at a critical juncture. T h e years around 1 9 0 0 were ones of accelerated colonization. T h e whites were at last firmly established, having defeated the bitter resistance of the preceding decades. For the Melanesian population it was a period of defeat, despair, confusion, and prideful resignation. "Just let me drink and die," the chief at Canala had told the visiting missionary. 4 Leenhardt wrote to his parents: We had been given the picture of a people throwing itself into the arms of a good Jesus; but I find little except the proud Canaque of the insurrection who, defeated, would rather not have children at all than see them exploited by the whites. 5 T h e situation was serious, but it was not without hope. T h e crucial word in the young missionary's account was "proud." It recognized a recent Canaque experience of autonomy, resistance, and defeat—not of capitulation. 6

T h e early Catholic Marist missionaries, who arrived in 1843, were chased off the island. T h e r e ensued a period of "massacres" (Melanesian acts of violence) and "reprisals" (European acts of violence) resulting in the Marists' definitive installation, backed by the French navy. During the 1850s the missionaries warily extended their footholds on the island, faced by resistant warrior societies. With a few exceptions the early evangelists were incapable of understanding this viable culture in relativistic terms. 7 Their tactics included the usual evangelical repertoire of cajolery, eloquence, mistranslation, and death-bed conversions (the only sure way to send a Melanesian to heaven). In the early years of colonization, the Marists accumulated considerable land holdings and exercised what minimal European political power existed.

GETTING INVOLVED

47

This pattern changed with the arrival of the penitentiary regime. With the penal colony came more strenuous administration in the person of Governor Charles Guillain, who held office from 1 8 6 2 until 1870. This energetic naval commander set up the major structures of white government. He encouraged European immigration, and during his administration the total number of colonists increased from 4 0 0 to 1,300. Guillain also developed the capital city of Noumea, put down frequent Canaque uprisings, and founded a Fourierist phalansterie. His colonial vision is summed up in the motto he proposed for New Caledonia's coat of arms: below figures of a Melanesian and a convict— "Civiliser, Produire, Réhabiliter."8 As a result of the official policy encouraging "colonisation pénale," a great many of the early settlers were convicts. T w e n t y thousand prisoners were sent to New Caledonia before 1895. T h e y ranged from professional criminals to idealistic political deportees from the Paris C o m m u n e . (Among these latter was the famous "vierge rouge," the anarchist Louise Michel, who during her stay became one of the first ethnographic champions of native New Caledonians.) 9 T h e prison regime was a mixture of brutality and leeway, providing for varying degrees of liberty for its inmates. Convict farms were established at various points on the island, and parolees had the option of setting up as farmers or herdsmen. T h e Catholic church arranged accelerated marriages between male and female prisoners (additional boatloads of women were freed from metropolitan prisons for this purpose), whereupon the newly regenerate couples were staked to tools and land. T h e latter commodity was not, of course, imported from France. Colonization on the island thus began on a shaky basis. Property whose title was uncertain was supplied to colonists whose commitment to the land was questionable and whose behavior towards its legitimate inhabitants was frequently, to put it politely, irresponsible. T h e growing friction between settlers and natives was a major source of the uprising of 1 8 7 8 - 1 8 7 9 . By the time peace was restored, 2 0 0 Europeans had been killed. Losses among the Melanesians are unknown but may be assumed to have been at least several times higher. 1 0 A variety of sources testify to the brutality of the repression, a series of campaigns in which the French made use of traditional tribal rivalries in gaining military assistance from Melanesian auxiliaries. T h e causes of the uprising were not in much dispute at the time. La Nouvelle Calédonia, the newspaper of Noumea, published the following cogent, though rather fatalistic, analysis:

48

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T h e Main Causes:— (a) T h e y are black. We are white. T h e y were the first occupants of the island. We arrived later. (b) Formerly the vast land was free. Now the stations move closer together and the colonists increase to crowd the natives out. T h e y revolt. 1 1 T h e newspaper went on to list a variety of more specific causes, including penitentiary land expropriations, forced-labor recruitment, violation of native burial sites, provocation by colonists and gendarmes, and (an irritant throughout Leenhardt's long career in New Caledonia) the devastation of Melanesian gardens by unfenced cattle. La Nouvelle Caledonia's analysis of the 1 8 7 8 war's causes has remained unchallenged until recently. Modern versions tend, however, to view the native side sympathetically, viewing rebellion as a justified response to aggression. Indeed, today as we read this list of "causes" it is hard to see them as anything other than a justification of the rebel side. But it is important to realize that in 1 8 7 9 a dichotomized " t h e y are black, we are white" attitude could argue for policies of extermination against the native race. T h e confrontation was not, in fact, so stark; some indigenous groups sought dignified accommodations with the whites. 1 2 T h e rebellion was the Melanesians' last chance to inflict a significant defeat on the invaders. Its defeat signalled to all the permanence of colonization; subsequent "troubles" were small-scale and sporadic. T h e uprising's long-term effects were to restrain somewhat the government and colonists in their impositions on the natives, who were for a time regarded as "unassimilable." T h e administration looked to convicts for its labor supply and then to nonwhite sources elsewhere in the Pacific. T h e bloody conflict also acted to retard the immigration of farming families from France, convincing people that the Grande T e r r e was a dangerous land. Even a half-century later, memory of the great rebellion was strong, a permanent feature of white colonial psychology. This legacy was a constant problem for Leenhardt, for any show of collective initiative by Melanesians tended to be construed as revolt and was punished as such. T h e colonists were nervous and, in periods of tension, trigger-happy. By 1900, however, the steadily growing numbers and confidence of the whites, combined with Melanesian population decline and disarray, had led to increased pressure on remaining Canaque lands and more attempts to recruit cheap indigenous labor. T h e decade preceding Leenhardt's arrival was dominated by the governorship of Paul Feillet, an energetic innovator, an anti-Catholic, and a man who, if he

GETTING INVOLVED

49

7. N e w Caledonian colonialism: gendarme's station in the back c o u n t r y , La Foa, 1 8 7 4 . Photo:

Hughan

could, would have turned New Caledonia into an ideal little rural France. 1 3 Feillet, who held office from 1894 to 1902, was convinced that penal colonization was ruinous for the land. He managed to convince the Paris authorities to, as he put it, "turn off the tap of dirty water," that is, to end penal transportation. Then he set about "opening the spigot of clean water" with an aggressive campaign to attract stable families of French settlers. His goal was a rural democracy of small, independent landholders. His means to this end were brusque and not always democratic. Lands were required to accommodate the new families. All cultivable areas were therefore surveyed, and those particularly suited to coffee culture—the governor's favored innovation—were set aside. A new Bureau of Native Affairs began "regularizing" (and seriously reducing) the boundaries of the native reservations. As early as 1855 the government, which claimed "sovereignty" over the entire island, recognized in principle the "ownership" by local clans of the lands they "occupied." All the words in quotation marks represented foreign legal conceptions and were highly problematic in practice. The principal effect of setting up native reservations was simple expropriation to free the so-called unoccupied land for white use. Over the next half-century, however, the reservation system, which

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instituted a tradition of inalienable collective ownership of land, was an important right for those natives w h o survived the traumatic early dislocations. T h e reservations were, at least, a refuge w h e r e clans could regroup. For this reason Leenhardt in 1 9 0 2 supported Feillet (who was also an anticlerical and political ally), believing that Canaque lands had to be legally established. He subsequently opposed any f u r t h e r "regularizations." T h e reservations tended to be relegated to the poorer areas, rocky and unfit for extensive agriculture or high in the island's r e m o t e central valleys. Villages w e r e " f i x e d , " and a district system was established in which local rule was to be by white gendarme-syndics and by chiefs acceptable to the g o v e r n m e n t . Melanesians were legally restricted to their territories, needing the permission of the gendarme to travel. In practice this permission was accorded only w h e n a native was to enter service with a colonist in another locale. T h e terms of Canaque employment w e r e governed by a system of indentured service, a regime designed for immigrant labor, one that Leenhardt would later denounce as a f o r m of " s l a v e r y . " 1 4 Restrictions on native travel were a recurring source of friction with local authorities. T h e success of the Protestant mission depended on freedom for native pastors to circulate and for students to attend school at D o Neva. T h e missionary found himself enmeshed in a complex field of political conflicts involving land, labor, tribal politics, Catholic competition, and native education. In O c t o b e r 1 9 0 3 Leenhardt became involved in the grievances of certain P r o t e s t a n t s on the island of O u v e a . In reply to official reproaches that the affairs of the Loyalty Islands did not concern him, he rashly replied that all injustices should be his concern. In the O u v e a case he employed a tactic he would use again, a threat to publish the facts of the m a t t e r in France. T h i s strategy attacked the weakest point of the governor, w h o was normally a career bureaucrat stationed in the colony for a few years only. Such tactics could hardly have increased the young missionary's popularity in Noumea. He was aware of t h e probable impact of his protests, reassuring his parents who had expressed concern over his " i m p u d e n t " style: " N o , dear parents, I'm cultivating a style which is always judicious and firm, with all the qualities I don't possess in my ordinary letters. And I'm beginning to make a habit of it." 1 5 T h e adopted style probably did not fool many people. Leenhardt was too evidently a man who could not always be counted on to play by the rules of cooperation among whites.

It was not long before the young pastor developed the reputation of a " p r o - n a t i v e , " "indigenophile." Such labels, which were anything but

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compliments, brought with t h e m insecurity and isolation. A tone of suppressed violence runs t h r o u g h his letters. This tone resonates with the surrounding context of social and racial conflict—where violence was not suppressed. Forced labor and beatings w e r e frequent. And Leenhardt had not been long on the island w h e n one of his mission's best natas was assassinated. In the letters we read casual references to " t h e colonist who has vowed to send me to the b o t t o m of the s e a / ' and so on. T h e danger was real. In the opinion of Professor G u i a r t , w h o knows the Caledonian climate well, Leenhardt's life was at certain times seriously t h r e a t e n e d — n o t by natives, but by w h i t e s . 1 6 Law and order was far from secure in the territory. In effect, both legal and not-so-legal land grabbing was encouraged by official policies of colonization. Rivalries could flare into violence at any m o ment—colonists against natives, Catholics versus Protestants, official against traditional tribal authorities. T h e white colons and paroled convicts found themselves in a state of minimal law. Leenhardt, endeavoring to act as a moral force against decadence, was alternately enraged and saddened by the erosion of personal restraint he observed in the behavior of his c o u n t r y m e n . Nevertheless, N e w Caledonia was governed by the French legal system. And the law was not entirely imaginary, merely difficult to reach. Although the Melanesian was not formally a citizen, he did, in theory, possess definite rights. With courage, pride, and perhaps t h e discreet help of a sympathetic F r e n c h m a n , a native Caledonian could sometimes obtain redress of grievances. Maurice Leenhardt had n o choice but to work within this frame, h o w e v e r uncertain he knew it to be. A patriot, he believed in t h e ultimate justice of French law. Extralegal tactics w e r e not only extremely risky; they w e r e unthinkable. T h e colonial regime was not, in any case, monolithic. In Noumea there existed an informal n e t w o r k of possible allies—liberal, republican, anticlerical. By playing one local interest against another and by using influence in France, Leenhardt might oblige the authorities to live up to their nobler pretensions. He might also succeed in protecting his vulnerable mission while its work took hold. However, the rules of the g a m e forbade any show of radicalism or intransigence, and L e e n hardt was a young man with an instinct for honest confrontation and plain speaking. He had to learn how to be patient, how to compromise and act indirectly: his fifty years of effectiveness as a political agitator in a treacherous colonial milieu w e r e purchased with an always painful restraint. Leenhardt was f o r t u n a t e during his first years on the island to be dealing with friendly colonial governors. Feillet was, in fact, a distant relative. A climate of T h i r d Republic anticlericalism resulted in early

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g o v e r n m e n t support for t h e natas in their challenge of entrenched Catholicism. T h e friendly governors, Picanon and Rognon, both tried to impress upon Leenhardt the limitations of his role in the colony. His work was spiritual and educational, not political. Native policy, affaires indigenes, was the business of the secular administration. Picanon and Rognon tried to domesticate the idealist; their successors moved to open h a r a s s m e n t and attack. From the h o m e f r o n t , too, there was pressure not to get involved. T h e received wisdom of French Protestant mission experience held that activity in politics was playing with fire. T h e i r long history of isolation and persecution had developed habits of caution in the Huguenots: " T h e anvil outlasts the h a m mer. C o n c e n t r a t e on spiritual m a t t e r s . " Leenhardt rejected this stand. It violated his instinct for a religion that participated in all areas of life. He argued repeatedly against his parents' and colleagues' caution, and by 1 9 0 5 he was quite clear on the question of getting involved in affaires indigenes: While chafing at the bit and pondering my tactics towards the g o v e r n m e n t , I assume an elevated point of view with my natives. I show t h e m that elsewhere we shall make an excellent tribe, and that the essential thing is not to be so concerned with a p e r m a n e n t abode h e r e below. T r u e . B u t I would think myself profoundly egocentric if I didn't try to get justice for these poor people. And anyway, how can I, in simple everyday morality, oppose the natives' stealing of coconuts if 1 accept their expulsion f r o m the coconut groves to which they are attached like mistletoe to its t r e e . 1 7 Leenhardt did get involved and he was a stubborn agitator. But he had to learn, also, h o w to ask for favors r a t h e r than demand rights. It was, of course, impossible to separate "legitimate" mission business from political organizing. For example, w h a t was the point of teaching arithmetic without also nurturing the confidence to use it? O n e day a vacationing student returned to D o Neva sporting a black eye: "a [white] m e r c h a n t had given it to him for pointing out that 9 - 4 = 5 and not 3 . " 1 8 Would this young man speak up the n e x t time? Leenhardt hoped that a general m o v e m e n t of assertion by Melanesians was underway. He saw himself aligned with it, as did his enemies: 2 natives, day before yesterday in f r o n t of the Justice of the Peace, declared that they would pay their small debt to an exploiter if he would provide t h e m with a bill. For natives there are n o accounts; a citation is issued and collected by seizure, without bills. T h i s recent demand is something new,

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a fruit of the general development of which we are accused. And the merchant, Mayor of Houailou, said to the Canaque w h o asked for his accounting: "I'm going to denounce M. L. and P. L. to the Attorney General." 1 9 There is satisfaction in this accounting to his parents, but there is also frustration. Leenhardt went on to predict that his rivals would have a much better chance of being heard in Noumea than he would. In the capital the Native Affairs Bureau tended to be interested only in the most flagrant abuses of the Melanesian population. Its chief concern was for good order and manpower. Various thinly disguised forced labor systems were in operation aimed at coercing reluctant Melanesians to bring in the coffee harvest or work on roads in the nickel mines. The head tax, levied on able-bodied males, was designed to be paid off in days of labor. The right to requisition natives for public works (a right frequently and illegally applied to private service) was lodged in the hands of the local gendarme-syndics. It became a common tool of arbitrary punishment against which the victim had no legal recourse (a "lettre de cachet," in Leenhardt's words). The missionary later composed a sharp analysis of this regime and its abuses for use by a visiting colonial inspector. 2 0 The early honeymoon with the administration did not last long. Leenhardt's view of his work too often put him in direct conflict with colonial interests. Though he wished to function as loyal opposition, he was regularly forced into the dangerous public role of a subversive. This was particularly true in the years after 1910, w h e n an activist governor, Charles Brunet, encouraged police harassment of the nalas and t h e ' D o Neva mission station. In the Noumea press, the Native Affairs administrator attacked the Protestants, " w h o preach open revolt and keep the Canaques f r o m working." 2 1 During this period the administration attempted to undermine Mindia Neja's authority as chief in the Houailou Valley by dividing his district into three parts. The t w o new chieftainships were conferred on men less qualified by lineage and owing everything to the government. This practice had become common t h r o u g h o u t the island, and such chief-creating policies introduced new forms of politicking and intrigue into the already disorganized clans. A chief, as the government defined him, was responsible for order, and not the least of his functions was to provide regular supplies of indentured and requisitioned labor. He received a percentage of each laborer's wage. It is not hard to imagine the potential abuses of such a system and its corrupting effect on delicately balanced traditional patterns of authority. Leenhardt resisted as best he could all moves toward direct rule,

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notably in the spring of 1 9 1 4 , when G o v e r n o r B r u n e t introduced a bill that would have placed all clan authorities, chief, council of elders, tribal court, under the immediate control of the local gendarme. 2 2 (Fortunately t h e plan was scuttled by the outbreak of the First World War.) Leenhardt lobbied against the proposal in Noumea and in Paris, and his letters criticized strongly the new style of " g o v e r n m e n t anthropology" that was being used to justify the measure. B r u n e t had argued that clan politics was in such a state of chaos that Canaque survival depended on the authorities' setting up an efficient tribalism and bringing order into "traditional" structures. T h e governor's brand of official traditionalism was suspect to the missionary, who was by n o w thoroughly conversant with colonial realities. T h e new plan envisaged a f u r t h e r " r e v i s i o n " of reservation lands to bring t h e m into line with what the governor called the " t r u e n e e d s " of their possessors. 2 3 This plan could only mean f u r t h e r reduction of the sanctuaries supposedly guaranteed by Feillet. Although changes in tribal life w e r e inevitable, Leenhardt believed, they could not be legislated by people w h o had n o understanding of native culture. C u s t o m s , he w r o t e in a letter, must not be " f r o z e n . " 2 4 T h e life of culture is change—at its own pace and on its own terms. T h e government's brand of "applied anthropology" threatened Leenhardt's own practice, which was based on a sophisticated cross-cultural hermeneutic. His letter spells this out in a striking passage: T h e greatest sacrifice required of the missionary is that of his o w n culture; not that he should scorn it, but rather, it has to be taken as a given, so as to acquire a n e w one, a native culture—they'd call it prelogical at the S o r b o n n e — and this is not easy. We've accomplished very little with the natives because we've hardly begun to penetrate their m e n tality, to recast the data of our concepts so as to obtain concepts fitted to theirs, using o u r own notions, but purifying t h e s e notions, retaining only w h a t is the h u m a n inheritance, not c o m m e n t a r y by W e s t e r n e r s . . . . A government's clumsy interventions may render customs incapable of authentic evolution or may cause t h e m to "evolve askew. . . . For there will not have been enough critical judgment to develop in native c u s t o m w h a t is properly the patrimony of mankind, and even to introduce elements which are new, but appropriate to the native mentality." 2 5 O n e may certainly question the evangelist's ability to identify and develop the "patrimony of mankind," and one may have doubts about

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t h e u l t i m a t e n e u t r a l i t y of this kind of c r o s s - c u l t u r a l h u m a n i s m w h e n o n e c u l t u r e d o m i n a t e s a n o t h e r . A t t h e s a m e time, o n e m u s t t a k e s e r i o u s l y L e e n h a r d t ' s c o n t e n t i o n that c u s t o m s m u s t not be f r o z e n , t h a t t h e y h a v e a r i g h t to e v o l v e , a p p r o p r i a t i n g n e w e l e m e n t s . L e e n h a r d t s a w that as a d m i n i s t r a t o r s b e c a m e m o r e e t h n o l o g i c a l l y a w a r e t h e y w o u l d u s e ideas of c u l t u r a l r e l a t i v i s m to j u s t i f y k e e p i n g subject g r o u p s b a c k w a r d and " t r a d i t i o n a l . " T h e m o r e t h e N e w C a l e d o n i a n g o v e r n m e n t talked e t h n o l o g i c a l l y , t h e m o r e L e e n h a r d t b e c a m e s u s p i cious. F o r its r e l a t i v i s m w a s s h a l l o w , and its real goals s e e m e d to be t h e m a i n t e n a n c e of a w e l l - o r d e r e d , desacralized tribal l i f e — w i t h a l e v e l of e d u c a t i o n a p p r o p r i a t e f o r a docile proletariat. T h e r e w a s also, of c o u r s e , a direct political conflict i n v o l v e d . A s t h e colonial g o v e r n m e n t b e c a m e m o r e active in tribal a f f a i r s , it c a m e i n t o c o n f l i c t w i t h t h e natas r e s i d i n g in t h e clans. A n d f r e q u e n t l y t h e P r o t e s t a n t s ' C a t h o l i c c o m p e t i t o r s w o u l d t a k e a d v a n t a g e of t h e s i t u a t i o n to m a k e c o m m o n c a u s e w i t h g e n d a r m e s a n d t h e n e w " g o v e r n m e n t c h i e f s . " In t h e t r i b e s , L e e n h a r d t w r o t e , "it's t h e r e i g n of d e n u n c i a t i o n and exile." It's g o n e f a r e n o u g h f o r t h e n a t i v e s t o c o m e a s k i n g m y help. I s u p p o r t t h e m w i t h advice and direction, t e a c h i n g t h e m to act o n t h e i r o w n and not to be b r o k e n b y p u n i s h m e n t . F o r t w o y e a r s n o w the Warai and Ba c h i e f s h a v e b e e n s e n d i n g t h e i r subjects to c o m p l a i n at the police station w h e r e [the m e s s e n g e r s ] g e t d r u n k . T h i s time t h e y ' v e decided to c o m e t h e m s e l v e s . It's p r o g r e s s I'm pleased w i t h . N a t u r a l l y o u r adm i r a b l e s e r g e a n t d o e s n ' t t r a n s m i t t h e i r r e q u e s t s ; and since t h e i r f o r m e r l e t t e r s to the G o v e r n m e n t w e r e i g n o r e d o n a r r i v a l t h e y a r e w r i t i n g to t h e G o v e r n o r b y w a y of t h e l a w y e r , B r u n s c h w i g , w h o h a s a l r e a d y d o n e so m u c h f o r us. T h e G o v e r n o r will k n o w v e r y w e l l t h a t w e ' r e b e h i n d it all, b u t w e ' r e less t h e r e t h a n h e thinks. W e ' r e in it o n l y b y i n f l u e n c e , w h i c h will m a k e h i m e v e n m a d d e r . . . . W h a t w i l l c o m e of this crisis w e ' r e g o i n g t h r o u g h ? I hope, more self-consciousness f o r the natives.26 2>