The 1797 London Missionary Society Arrival at Tahiti

Record summary

The London Missionary Society’s ship Duff arrived in Tahiti in 1797, initiating a prolonged encounter involving Christian teaching, chiefly politics, local ritual specialists and the recording or suppression of Indigenous religious traditions. Although later than most Cook-era voyages, this is still early modern material and is highly identifiable through missionary journals and reports. It matters for folklore comparison because conversion records often preserve fragments of older narratives while recasting them as “idolatry” or pagan error. The mission’s early impact was uneven, and later success should not be projected onto 1797.