George Vason's account

1. To whom is George Vason's account addressed? How do you know? How would the encounter in this account be told differently from the point of view of a person from the Tongan islands he is visiting? 2. What is Jenny Newell's main argument? How does she prove this? 3. How are trade and collecting differentiated in Newell's essay? How did gift-giving relate to the formation of taio bonds as a form of diplomacy specific to Polynesian cultures? And how were collections at this time related to individual subjectivity? 4. What role do the images (plates 1-9) play in Newell's text? How do they help the author's argument? What, if any, additional questions or problems do they inspire? 5. Who is the audience of Newell's text? How do you know her audience? What perspectives are not fully addressed here? 6. How do these two texts add complexity to our understanding of Polynesian material culture, including tapa cloths?Why is it helpful to know not only how tapa were made and what they looked like, but how they were used?              

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