| Merahi metua no Tehamana | |
|---|---|
_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) | |
| Artist | Paul Gauguin |
| Year | 1893 |
| Type | Oil painting |
| Location | Art Institute of Chicago,Chicago |
Merahi metua no Tehamana ('Tehamana Has Many Parents' or 'The Ancestors of Tehamana') is an 1893 painting by theFrench artistPaul Gauguin, currently in the collection of theArt Institute of Chicago.[1] The painting is a portrait of Paul Gauguin's wife Teha'amana during his first visit toTahiti in 1891–1893. This marriage has always provoked controversy because it was arranged and completed in the course of a single afternoon and Gauguin claimed Teha'amana was just thirteen years old at the time.[2][3]
Asculpted head is also known to be a portrait of Teha'amana. She is assumed to have posed for numerous other paintings of the time, including the celebratedSpirit of the Dead Watching.[4]
Teha'amana was the native wife ofPaul Gauguin during his first visit toTahiti from 1891 to 1893.[5][6][7] It was common at that time for French colonists to take native wives; the wives were simply referred to asvahine, Tahitian for 'woman'. Thesevahines were often underage children, as was the case with Teha'amana, their marriage being arranged by their family for reasons of status or financial advantage. The marriages were generally not legally binding.[8] Of Gauguin's threevahines, the two he took after Teha'amana eventually returned home while Teha'amana herself declined to continue their relationship when Gauguin returned to Tahiti in 1895.[9] Teha'amana undoubtedly saw herself as conventionally married according to her local customs, but for Gauguin, the marriage was clearly a temporary arrangement.[10][11][12] Nevertheless, he did profess a tender love for Teha'amana in his journalNoa Noa [ca].[a] Pierre Loti'sLe Mariage de Loti, a book that influenced Gauguin's decision to travel to Tahiti, was an immensely popular account of such a marriage twenty years earlier, although in that case, the marriage was actually a fictional composite of many casual liaisons indulged by Loti during a two-month visit toPapeete. In Loti's account, his wife was fourteen years old, while in Gauguin's account, Teha'amana was thirteen years old.
The name Teha'amana is formed from the definite articlete, the causative particleha'a and the substantivemana ('strength'), and thus signifies 'giver of strength', hence its frequent occurrence in ancient prayers and folklore.[13] In his account of their idyll together, Gauguin described how in the evenings Teha'amana would recount their ancient myths as they lay in bed.[14] Teha'amana was nevertheless a Christian, as evidenced by the missionary dress she wears in the portrait, and would most likely have known nothing of Tahitian mythology.Bengt Danielsson, theKon-Tiki anthropologist, notes that Teha'amana recounting the old myths is an especially barefaced fiction, because not only were these largely forgotten; they had always been withheld from women. All of Gauguin's accounts of ancient Tahitian religion inNoa Noa were copied from other sources without adequate acknowledgement.[15][16][b]
Men tookvahines for sexual and other practical advantages, such as gathering food supplies. This was because Tahitian families were self-sufficient in food. The staples of breadfruit and bananas were gathered high in the mountains on a weekly basis, while fish was abundant in the lagoons. Pigs were hunted in the undergrowth. As a consequence, there was no trade in foodstuffs and offering food was regarded as an act of charity. Instead of gathering the food himself, Gauguin opted to take avahine so that her family could provide for him. Having avahine meant at least he had access to wild fruit and fresh shrimp gathered by her, as well as her own family's extensive food stores.[17][18]
Gauguin's account of Teha'amana inNoa Noa, where he refers to her asTehura, is mainly confined to their marriage, contracted in a single afternoon in the course of a planned excursion around the island, and a few other episodes including notably the genesis of his paintingSpirit of the Dead Watching.[19] Danielsson was able to find some oral and civic sources in the course of his research.
Teha'amana's family came fromRarotonga, one of theCook Islands. Before settling in Tahiti, they spent some time inHuahine, one of theSociety Islands, where Teha'amana was born.[20] In Tahiti they settled at Fa'aone, some fifteen miles to the east of Gauguin's bamboo hut at Mataiea, where Gauguin encountered them at some time during or after November 1891, taking Teha'amana as hisvahine the same day. No birth certificate is known to confirm her age, but it is likely she was only in her early teens, as were his two subsequentvahines.[21] She was pregnant by August 1892 according to a letter of Gauguin's,[22] but there is no further record of the child: Danielsson thought it had been aborted, Mathews thinks it more likely was adopted, as was commonly the custom in Tahitian society. Gauguin records Teha'amana was at the quay on 14 June 1893 to wish him a traditionally tearful departure from Tahiti. When Gauguin returned in 1895, Teha'amana had married again, but nevertheless spent a week with him before returning to her husband, according to a letter Gauguin sent Monfreid.[23] Gauguin makes no further mention of Teha'amana. After his death, when he had become famous, Teha'amana made no effort to come forward as hisvahine. Mathews thinks this may indicate there was, in reality, no single Teha'amana, or that she was simply indifferent to his memory as a matter of little consequence.[24]
After Gauguin left in 1893, Teha'amana remained in Mataiea, working at first for Chief Tetuanui, but soon marrying a young Tahitian boy, named Ma'ari, from neighbouring Papara. They had two sons, one of whom was still alive when Danielsson was researching Gauguin. From him, Danielsson gathered the information that the reason Teha'amana declined to live with Gauguin in 1895, despite generous gifts of bead necklaces and brass rings, was that she was repulsed by Gauguin and thesyphilitic sores covering his entire body.[25][c] Danielsson was able to locate a death certificate showing that Teha'amana died on 9 December 1918 in Mataiea from theSpanish flu epidemic that carried off a quarter of Tahiti's native population. She is buried in Mataiea, although her tombstone bears no indication of her relationship with Gauguin. Acirca 1888 photograph of a young Tahitian girl by Charles Georges Spitz is often reproduced as one of Teha'amana, although Danielsson points out there is no evidence at all for the identification.[27]
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The inscription below the idol reads "MERAHI METUA NO | TEHAMANA".[1] This means 'Teha'amana has many parents', a reference to Teha'amana possessing foster parents as well as her natural parents in accordance with thefaʼaʼamu [fr] Tahitian custom (Gauguin had to negotiate with both sets of parents when arranging the marriage).[29] The placement of the inscription below the idol may also emphasise the belief that all Tahitians descended from the union of the ancient deitiesHina andTa'aroa.[30]
Danielsson thought the painting a farewell portrait, depicting Teha'amana in a regal state dressed in her best churchgoing clothes and holding a plaited palm fan, a symbol of beauty.[29] The redtiare flower she wears at her left ear signifies she is married.[31] When he was researching his book, Danielsson showed a photograph of the portrait to a native, Puto'ura a Ta'iterafa'ato'a, fifteen years old in 1893 when the portrait was painted. Ta'iterafa'ato'a recognised Teha'amana at once, identifying the scar tissue above her right eye as the result of an accident she suffered when she was very young riding a pony, defying her parents.[32] The portrait was bought at Gauguin's 1895Hôtel Drouot auction at only 300 francs and subsequently gifted toDaniel de Monfreid, Gauguin's great champion in Tahiti, suggesting it held sentimental value for Gauguin.[30]
Charles Stuckey remarks that the two ripe mangoes, placed on a low table to Teha'amana's right, probably represented the bounty of Tahiti, if not Teha'amana's fertility herself. The idol is taken to be a representation of Hina, borrowed fromHindu sculptures presenting the life-giving gesture. As a counterfoil, the heads that hover above each of Teha'amana's shoulders areevil spirits, suggesting a dialogue between good and evil or between life and death. The glyphs behind Teha'amana's head areRongorongo glyphs fromEaster Island, although Gauguin's examples are imaginary. These glyphs had been discovered scarcely thirty years earlier and Gauguin would have seen examples both at theExposition Universelle of 1889 and in Papeete, where a local bishop researching them had a number of examples in his care. The glyphs have never been deciphered and Gauguin's intention was probably to emphasise the impenetrability of Tahitian culture. In hisNoa Noa account, he remarked he found Teha'amana herself impenetrable, thus perhaps theMona Lisa expression he gives her in the portrait.[30][33]
The portrait is closely based on a charcoal study and, taken together with the unduly short proportions of the arms, suggests the portrait may not have been painted directly from the model.[30]
%2c_polychromed_pua_wood%2c_H._22.2_cm._Realized_during_Gauguin%2527s_first_voyage_to_Tahiti._Mus%25C3%25A9e_d%2527Orsay%2c_Paris.jpg)
The only other portrait known certainly to be of Teha'amana is a sculpted head in the form of a hollow mask in the Musée d'Orsay.[4] The wood carving is curious because it carries a roughly hewn figure of Eve on its inside. Stuckey suggests this is a reference to the Edenic paradise Gauguin said he had found with Teha'amana, but also observes that Gauguin had questioned her fidelity in hisNoa Noa account and suggests the figure might also represent fantasies on Teha'amana's part as Eve the temptress, the greens eyes of thepolychromed head perhaps signifying jealousy.[34]