Colonial-era giant and cannibal imagery of Pacific peoples persists into modern journalism

Evidence

Otaheite was renamed Tahiti, an island that remains under colonial rule hundreds of years later. The Fijians are often described as cannibalistic giants in colonial-era literature. See Jeff Berglund, Cannibal Fictions: American Explorations of Colonialism, Race, Gender and Sexuality (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). Chapter 2, entitled “P. T. Barnum’s American Exhibition of Fiji Cannibals, 1871–1873,” details the display of Fijians as a circus act. Also, see the October 17, 1995, article in The Independent, “Wales Braces Themselves for the Giants of Fiji.” The language and imagery surrounding the South Pacific, from Tahiti’s beautiful maidens to Fiji’s giants, remain features in popular journalism and advertising. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 1035

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Muslim giant trope in the main text — the same monstrous giant template was applied to Pacific peoples, showing the giant’s mobility across colonial others.