Typee · Chapter
XXV explained
The narrator reflects on the physical beauty and strength of the Typees, contrasting them favorably with the inhabitants of Nukuheva and with civilized peoples.
What happens
The narrator reflects on the physical beauty and strength of the Typees, contrasting them favorably with the inhabitants of Nukuheva and with civilized peoples. He describes their flawless forms, white teeth, and varied complexions, attributing their health to a natural diet and lifestyle. He notes the use of vegetable cosmetics like papa root and coconut oil, and laments the corrupting influence of European contact, hoping the Typees remain untouched. He cites historical voyagers (Mendanna, Cook, Stewart, Fanning, Porter) who praised Marquesan beauty, and observes the limited European goods in the valley—chiefly a few muskets and cloth—highlighting the Typees' isolation.
Themes in this chapter
The Idealized Primitive
The narrator idealizes the Typees as physically perfect, healthy, and uncorrupted, contrasting them with the degeneracy of civilized societies.
Colonialism and Its Effects
The chapter highlights the corrupting influence of European contact, with the narrator hoping the Typees remain untouched by foreign vices and diseases.
Cultural Relativism
The narrator compares Typee beauty and health favorably to civilized norms, questioning the superiority of European dress and lifestyle.
Characters to notice
- Narrator
Observes and reflects on the physical beauty, health, and customs of the Typees, comparing them to civilized societies.
- Mehevi
Noted for his fondness for anointing himself with coconut oil; gives the narrator a dilapidated musket to repair.
- Fayaway
Mentioned as the most beautiful example of the light olive complexion among Typee women.
- Toby
Referenced as having given cotton cloth to young guides, now seen at the festival.
- Marnoo
Cited as a model of beauty, with a classically beautiful profile.
Key passages
“Stripped of the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden—what a sorry set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, crane-necked varlets would civilized men appear!”
Without their tailored clothes, civilized men would look pathetic and deformed compared to the naturally perfect Typees.
The narrator contrasts the artificiality of civilized dress with the natural beauty of the Typees.
“Better will it be for them forever to remain the happy and innocent heathens and barbarians that they now are, than, like the wretched inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, to enjoy the mere name of Christians without experiencing any of the vital operations of true religion, whilst, at the same time, they are made the victims of the worst vices and evils of civilized life.”
It is better for the Typees to stay as they are—happy and uncorrupted—than to become nominal Christians like the Hawaiians, who suffer from the vices and diseases brought by civilization.
The narrator criticizes the destructive impact of Christian colonization on indigenous peoples.
“The islanders are still the same; and I have seen boys in the Typee Valley of whose 'beautiful faces' and promising 'animation of countenance' no one who has not beheld them can form any adequate idea.”
The Typee boys today are just as beautiful and lively as those described by Mendanna's chronicler over two hundred years ago.
The narrator affirms the enduring beauty of the Typees, linking them to early European accounts.