Five indigenous men, Ambrym, ca.1890

“Ambrim [Ambrym] - Native men. Savage, heathen, cannibal. In the South Sea Islands the French are so much hated that although the natives kill them when they can, they will neither cook nor eat them!” Group portrait of five men from the island of Ambrim. Each man is naked except for a ‘namba’ (a traditional penis sheath from the New Hebrides [Vanuatu]). One man also wears a cape, and another has a decorated armband. Certain islands, Erromanga [Erromango], for example, were notorious for reported cannibalism. The attitudes towards the French are perhaps rather a reflection of the missionaries’. The French were under much less control than the British: the Western Pacific High Commission prohibited the British from trade in alcohol and firearms and the recruitment of natives for work in areas such the New Hebrides [Vanuatu]. The Presbyterian missionaries therefore saw themselves as the likely champions of the indigenes against the unrestricted force of the French.