“Domattina Tahiti sarà un paese immaginario”. Gino Nibbi e il mito delle isole della felicità

Within the copious literature on the myth of Tahiti, this essay draws attention to a not very well-known and almost unobtainable book, Nelle Isole della Felicità (1934) , and on its author Gino Nibbi (Fermo, Italy 1896-Grottaferrata, Italy 1969) – a writer, journalist, art expert and voyager who lived in Australia for a long time, spending three months in the Society Islands. A rare Italian account on those Polynesian worlds that would otherwise be the exclusive monopoly of French and American writers, Nibbi’s book stands out for its refusal to surf the epic of denunciation and condemnation so frequent among the desecrators of the South Seas. The author manages – in a fairly original manner for his times – to avoid taking a merely pitying approach to the Tahitians, wiped out by the missionaries’ evangelization and by the devastating French rule, or to simply go along the flow of the “no memory people”, the lyric on “les immémoriaux” sung by Gaugain, Gerbalut, Segalen and the lot. Nibbi rather chooses a different path, equally distant also from the abundant literature on the exotic that systematically avoided any reference to the colonial aspect to insist on the beautiful landscapes, the charming natives, the fertile nature and the marvels of casual and sensual love. While well-aware of the loss of the ancient traditions following the so-called “fatal impact”, Nibbi emphasises the contacts and contaminations, and the Tahitians’ capacity to act upon their impure present of subjugated colonised people – catching glimpses of persistence, complexity and of an unchartered vitality. By doing so the book offers an unusual vision of the Islands of Happiness that deconstructs their stereotypical and reifying representations, and also reveals a remarkable talent in describing the complex western creatures living at or passing-by the end of the romantic-Pacific line.