Manufactured myths about distant peoples persist into modern tourism exhibits

Evidence

Even when this myth was disproved, others emerged—for instance, of the perfect humans who lived in Otaheite (accompanied by exaggerated reports of public orgasmic rituals and massive cannibalistic occasions), the giants of Fiji, and other magical places and peoples. Some of the same mythologies are in place today. When I visited Fiji in 1995, one could purchase “flesh platters” (instead of wooden plates) and “cannibal forks” (instead of salad tongs), and the originals of these items, as well as “evidence” of Fiji’s giants, were on display at the museum in Suva. As these examples attest, the South Pacific, “in a debased sense remains, a place of dreams,” and nightmares. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 369

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the reader’s core thesis: like the Muslim monster, Fijian cannibal mythology outlived contact with reality and was even marketed back as ‘evidence’ — a manufactured image operating as fear without an object. — connects to: Tourism operators substitute globally recognizable ethnicity for local authenticity. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1206
• SEED: A potential essay angle on how colonial-imaginary myths become material commodities sold back to tourists decades later — museums displaying ‘evidence’ of their own fabrication.