'upa'upa

The tradition & historical record

The ʼupaʼupa (often written as upa upa) is a traditional dance from Tahiti. It was mentioned by European explorers, who described it as very indecent. It is not quite clear how similar the gestures at that time were with the now immensely popular tāmūrē. In both dances the performers form groups of pairs of a boy and a girl, dancing more or less in sexually oriented movements. The musical setting usually includes voice, flute, and drums. ¹

After having arrived on Tahiti in 1797, the LMS missionaries quickly intimidated the local rulers of the island and fixed themselves in a position of power. Although this enabled them to abolish such habits as infanticide, cannibalism and tribal wars, it also enabled them to introduce the idea of sin, which was unknown on Tahiti until then. The joy of dancing, so dear to the Polynesian heart, was one of the first to be axed. The famous Pōmare code of 1819 declared the ʼupaʼupa (and tattooing in the same line) to be bad and immoral habitudes, severely to be opposed. The Leewards followed suit soon after. But dancing continued in secret. In the code of 1842 many restrictions were relaxed, but the ʼupaʼupa (the general term for dancing then) remained on the black list. In the same year the French proclaimed the protectorate. Being Catholic with some broader views on life than the Protestants, and considering that "if you cannot beat them, join them", they proclaimed in the official bulletin of 1849 that the ʼupaʼupa was still forbidden, except on public feastdays, but then still without the indecent gestures. The act of 1853, repeated in 1876 was more restrictive. In the hope that the Tahitians would spend their time on more pious occupations than dancing and drinking, a system of licenses was introduced. A license could only be obtained by a chef and only on Saturday evenings. ¹

Despite all these restrictions, dancing went on, less secret or more secret depending on the law at that moment. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “'upa'upa”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

'upa'upa is dance from Tahiti, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²