Encountering the Other

The main character in Herman Melville's Typee, Tommo, straddles two different cultures throughout most of the novel. While still maintaining his connection with the culture and country he has traveled from, Tommo also attempts to absorb certain customs of the Typee, whohe is currently with, in order to survive in their territory. This happy median is disrupted, however, when Maheyo, the Typee chief, reveals that it is a custom for every member of his tribe to be tattooed on the face. This brings up an important question that Typee addresses: How do permanent markings affect the way we live our lives?

Tommo is reborn once he enters the Typee community. He can not walk because of a leg injury he suffered running away with Toby, so he must be carried around everywhere by a native named Kory-Kory. Tommo seems infantile because of this. Yet, Tommo grows in the time he spends with the Typee. He adopts their customs and wears their dress. He becomes educated about their culture. Soon, he is able to walk on his own again, but it is a different kind of walk and way of living that he has adopted from the Typee. He chooses to stop wearing his shoes. He bathes in a stream with half-naked girls. He sits in the Ti with the other men. Tommo has become immersed in this new way of living and though he still longs for his way of life at home, he becomes quite happy living the way of the Typee.

Thus, Tommo keeps a nice balance of the two cultures as he longs for the old and empathetically accepts the new. However, this balance comes crashing down at one crucial point in the text. Tommo and Kory-Kory come across the tribe's tattoo artist, Karky, during one of their daily strolls. They come across Karky tattooing the eyelids of another Typee. This first encounter is displayed in a rather graphic nature. It seems more like a mutilation rather than a work of art. Melville uses words such as "forced composure", "agony", "tormentor" (217), and so forth to describe what Karky does to his fellow native.

Tommo is soon informed that the leader of the Typee, King Mehevi, wishes that Tommo will have his face tattooed. Tommo's reaction is "utter abhorrence of the measure" (219) and he works himself up emotionally to the point where he is hysterical. King Mehevi then relays the notion that the Typee actually see this process as a type of "beautifying operation" (219). The king keeps insisting that Tommo get tattooed until Tommo compromises and offers his arms for the art. Mehevi assumes that Tommo means he will get his face tattooed first, then his arms, and is delighted to hear this.

Tommo sees this act as a mutilation while the natives really see it as a rite of passage. The Typee have been extremely accepting of this foreign intruder in their community. They have fed Toby and Tommo and even provided Tommo with his own personal servant to carry him around until his leg healed. They have even come to regard him as part of the tribe, letting him into restricted areas such as the Ti. However, this act of tattooing is the single most important part of becoming a Typee. It is the markings of their tribe and everyone who has one has assumed the collective Typee identity. No one is truly a member of the Typee until they bear the marks of the tribe.

The man that Tommo and Kory-Kory witnessed getting a tattoo was actually getting an old tattoo redone. Despite all the pain he noticeably suffered, despite all the agony that Tommo can see on this man's face, he is going through this pain for at least a second time. He is voluntarily suffering in order to properly assume the Typee identity once again. This kind of courage can only be linked to a strong emotional connection to the tattoos.

Sure enough, Tommo finds this connection when he discovers that the tattoos are "connected with their religion" (220). Thus, the strong emotional ties are explained and it makes sense that the natives would endure so much pain to honor their religious entity. This is how the Typee see this action as a rite of passage. Furthermore, it is an eye-opening indicator of just how far the natives expect Tommo to stray away from his old culture.

Asking Tommo to change his religion during this religiously adamant time period is the same as asking him to change his identity. This is how Tommo comes to see the act as a mutilation. They are digging into his skin and forcibly ripping his old identity from him. Asking Tommo to get a tattoo is just like asking him to abandon his white culture and become a Typee. Tommo says in disgust, "it was evident, therefore, that they were resolved to make a convert of me" (220). This is one big reason that Tommo will not get the tattoo. He would lose his faith as well as his culture. It is simply out of the question for him and that is why he opposes the idea so vehemently.

His reaction is a reflection of this realization that becoming tattooed is a process that can not be undone. The tattoo is a marking that is permanent. Once you have it, it is impossible to get removed. It is an identifier of the Typee culture. If Tommo were to get this tattoo, he could never be able to face his fellow countrymen again and regard them as peers. He says if he were to be tattooed, "I should be disfigured in such a manner as never more to have the face to return to my countrymen" (219). He realizes that his face would no longer be the same after such an operation. He would no longer have the same face or be the same person. He could no longer be looked at as an equal in white (European or American) culture. He would always be less as his face would be mutilated with the religious symbol of a native peoples. While he might be exulted or honored in the Typee culture for having a good tattoo, he would be frowned upon and cast out of white culture.

This is why this moment is a defining moment for Tommo. Up until this point, readers are unsure about which way Tommo will go. It nearly seems as if he may choose to stay with the Typee as he is extremely critical of the colonialism of white culture and runs away from this culture because it is too repressive. It almost seems as if Tommo has found a nice fit in the Typee culture, adopting a new name and identity. Then, this moment arises when he must decline the religious marking. He has made a definitive choice to maintain his current identity. There is no more question about which identity he is going to assume.

Even beyond the religious connections of the tattoos, these markings also have social implications within the diction of the Typee. There are three choices when a native is ready to be tattooed. One is three horizontal bars representative of a "serving-man" (220). Another choice is three oblique stripes that symbolize the same kind of status. The last choice is a "mystic triangle" (220) in the center of his face that would identify him as "a true courtier" (220). This means that having a tattoo on his face would define Tommo in Typee terms. Only in the Typee culture would these markings have such an importance and only would the Typee people understand their meaning. Therefore, if Tommo were to get the tattoo, he would be trapped indelibly in the diction of Typee culture as he would be regarded as a lesser being in any other culture. He would be a hybrid, not exactly accepted in his American culture and not quite accepted in Typee culture either. He would be permanently caught between the two worlds, not being able to fully take part in either one.

Immediately after this ordeal, Tommo senses all of this and his longing to return to America comes back. It is a moment when he snaps back to reality and realizes that though he admires their culture, he does not have what it takes to become a Typee. One of the scenes that illustrates this is in the chapter after he refuses the tattoo. He witnesses a Typee mother teaching her baby how to swim. He realizes that all Typee can swim exceptionally well because they are taught from birth. It is these kind of experiences that Tommo has missed out on. It is the reason he can never be one of them. This injured dream of acculturation is the catalyst that brings back Tommo's leg injury and once again he finds himself in a rather infantile state.

However, this is not the only reason that Tommo refuses his invitation to be a Typee. His refusal also says something about his moral judgments. It is evident that he regards white culture as being better than Typee culture in some way. The reader is led to believe that he is judging the natives as a colonist would. They are inferior people in his eyes and on a number of occasions he actually believes that they are cannibals though he has never seen the act with his own eyes.

Yet the Typee culture does something unexpected. It does mark Tommo even though he opposes it. His very need to write his experiences down and narrate them for others to read is representative of a permanent mark imprinted on Tommo's mind by the Typee culture. He cannot escape the times he had fun with the people of Typee and the intimate moments when he felt a part of them.

Tommo takes opportunities, before his rejection of being tattooed, to revel in all the good qualities of the Typee. He judges them in a way that makes it seem as though they were superior to all other beings. One such moment is at the Feast of Calabashes. Here a glorified physical description of the Typee people can be found. When he talks about their body structure he says, "In beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen" (180). Similarly, he says their smiles are "more beautiful than ivory itself" (181). These are certain marks that the Typee culture has left on Tommo's mind. He will never be able to shake the feeling of how he stood and watched these humans stand in perfect condition and how it made him feel to be awed by their "physical strength and beauty" (180).

Any way that the Typee culture awed Tommo could be considered an indelible marking on his mind. They are the moments that make Tommo second guess his own culture and want to acculturate with the natives. That second guessing will never go away, even after Tommo has assumed his position in white culture again. He will still wonder if in some way he would be better off living amongst the Typee. This kind of marking is something that Tommo could not avoid. Though he could ward off any kind of physical marking that would give away this kind of attitude, it is still there deep inside him. The Typee identity sticks around even though he has chosen his original identity.

Another moment that is like this is when Tommo adorns himself in Typee garb for the festival. He describes the clothing of the women Typee as being superior to that of American women. He says of American clothing, "Their jewels, their feathers, their silks, and their furbelows, would have sunk in utter insignificance beside the exquisite simplicity of attire adopted by the nymphs" (161). He wants to become a part of this scene. He wants to match the beauty of these ladies ("nymph" is a fantastical label for the Typee women). He resolves to wear the native clothing and feels some confidence in his choice when he says, "Thus arrayed, I would have matched the charming Fayaway against any beauty in the world" (161). In this scene, Tommo is marking himself by voluntarily adorning himself in a way that will make him a part of their culture. It is a part of their culture that he admires and is fascinated by. It is a part of their culture that he longs to become a part of. Thus, he chooses to partake in the event and to be in their festival. Choosing to be involved in a foreign custom is a clear mark of a different identity.

Tommo's adoration for the Typee culture comes from a new consciousness that he has adapted living amongst the Typee. Tommo can also not help the re-education that occurs when he stumbles upon the Typee people. It is a kind of rebirth as he learns everything he has ever been taught (language, customs, etc.) with this new Typee consciousness. Indeed he learns an entirely different diction and vocabulary from the Typee people. For example, he learns words like "arva" (165) which is a local intoxicating beverage. Once he leaves this culture, he will most likely never hear of arva again. However, he will always remember this bit of knowledge. Living with the Typee is an education for Tommo. He must learn the essential words to survive and to socialize. He needs to learn the vocabulary to survive.

If he were to ignore this diction and this culture, it is already proven that he has difficulty surviving on his own. When Tommo and Toby first abandon their ship, they have a hard time surviving while they make their way to Typee. They lack the provisions needed having only a balled up wad of soggy bread with pieces of tobacco stuck in it. They lack shelter while they are in the ravine. Nature is too strong as the pouring rains make it inside their makeshift dwelling. Also, Tommo's leg becomes mysteriously injured. These are all indicators that these two travelers are not fit for the climate.

These events highlight the failure of white and "civilized" culture to survive in nature. Tommo and Toby struggle against the elements in a way that anyone from their background would. Everything they have learned in their past is irrelevant because they are out of their element and out of their own climate. It is this inadequacy that causes Tommo to cling to the Typee culture. They know how to survive in this situation and they can help him do the same if he will simply undergo this re-education. It is an entirely new way of living that Tommo learns and it is vital for his survival. Thus he attaches a certain level of emotions to this new identity and it makes it hard for him to lose it.

This assertion comes with the implication that something in each person's identity is linked to the climate they grow up in. It is no mistake that Melville takes the opportunity here to really enliven the landscape. The nature that Tommo and Toby walk through is described in vivid detail as lushly green and very sexual. Everything is ripe and ready to yield. The implication is that Americans are not accustomed to this kind of atmosphere. This could be a comment on the way that "civilized" culture seems so reserved about their sexuality while the natives of Typee present their bodies shamelessly on a daily basis. The natives seem more in touch with nature than Toby and Tommo. They can survive while people from a supposed "civilized" culture cannot.

Thus, some permanent markings that could be left on Tommo's character from the Typee might be a new respect for nature. A new understanding of nature and what it takes to survive are markings that Tommo must bear for the rest of his life for sure. He knows now that "civilized" culture does not have what it takes to survive in nature like the Typee do. Another example of this kind of mark may be a lack of confidence in his ability to survive. After seeing how well the Typee survive with so little, Tommo could find his own survival skills inadequate.

Markings in Typee are very important. They are not just impressions on the skin, but an entire identity. Typee is truly about the main character, Tom, and his brief transformation into Tommo, a Typee. Tommo struggles with identity as he finds himself constantly sympathizing with the Typee way of life and shunning the American culture that he has come from. Typee highlights this struggle with identity and markings become important as an embodiment of these identities.

Therefore, the moment of high tension when Tommo refuses to partake in the Typee custom of receiving a tattoo is one of the most important points in the text. He is not just refusing this marking, but he is also resisting this newly found Typee identity. Despite all the markings that the Typee have left on Tommo, some of them permanent, ultimately he has made the decision to identify himself with the collective conscience of white culture. Thus, in the end he violently escapes from the clutches of the terrible cannibals. He has assumed this ignorant view of the Typee once again after he has realized that he wants to maintain his old identity. He essentially loses all the education that he has received from the Typee and has become ignorant of their culture yet again. This allows him to assume they are cannibals when he sees what he thinks is a partially eaten corpse. The point is that this may not have been true at all. He could just be projecting this image onto what he has seen because of the social stereotypes that are prevalent in white culture. In assuming his old identity he has once again assumed the collective consciousness of white culture. He has once again assumed the stereotypes that he had forgotten.

In the end, two very important words are uttered by one of the men Tommo lives with, Marheyo, when he points to the water and says in English the words "home" and "mother" (248). These words are important as they mirror the thoughts that must be going through Tommo's head at this point. Until now these words have been lost to Tommo. He has not thought about home or mother because he has been busy adapting to the Typee way of life. However, as soon as he has cast this endeavor aside, the words reappear just as his thoughts of home and mother do. The words spoken are in English, a language that Tommo had also lost up until now. With these reminders Tommo assumes his white identity again and makes a bold escape from the "dangerous natives".

Typee is a novel about the main character, Tom or Tommo, and his struggle to find his identity in the culture of the "other". He briefly acculturates, but soon finds that he has no place amongst the natives. The "other" transforms from cannibalistic savages to friendly natives and then back again throughout the course of Tommo's struggle. This reflects the attachments he feels to the culture as they strengthen and then fall apart. Tommo chooses to bear the markings of his old identity rather than accept the markings of a Typee.

Works Cited

Herman, Melville. Typee: a Peep At Polynesian Life. Ed. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. T. Tanselle. Vol. 1. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1968.