The Profane Venus. Women and Transgression in the First Encounters of the South Pacific

Abstract

Some of the central debates in anthropology, as well as some of the most notorious cultural misunderstandings in history have revolved around women in the South Pacific. This article proposes an ethnographic approach to the role of women in the “first encounters” between Europeans and Polynesians, based on the greater comprehension that we now have regarding the thought and customs of the peoples of the Pacific. This has been a topic of discussion that has normally been based almost exclusively on the British and French experiences of the 18^th century. We propose to add to this, the descriptions, reports and chronicles also written by authors from Peru, New Spain and Spain, thus widening the chronological and geographical framework in order to shed new light on the crucial role of indigenous women of the Pacific.