Fear of a cannibal island: Colonial fear, everyday life, and event landscapes in the Erromango missions of Vanuatu

Abstract

Archaeological landscapes of colonial encounter were shaped to varying degrees by mutual mistrust, misunderstanding, anxiety, and the inherent terror of frontier violence. In the mission encounters of Island Melanesia, the colonial trope of “cannibalism” added a particular tinge to these fears of the colonized other. Mythologies of cannibalism both repulsed and motivated Christian missionaries who were led to places such as Erromango in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). Cannibalism as a practice was rare or even non-existent in these encounters, but it remained part of the European imaginary of the region. Several highly-publicized missionary martyrdoms on Erromango between 1839–1872 remain important to local social memories enacted in place. At the same time, there is a backdrop of relatively peaceful everyday life for missionary families as revealed by the archaeological record of mission houses. The structural and actual violence perpetrated by Europeans in missions and other colonial encounters are historically and currently underemphasized.