Tommo as a Symbol of Western Corruption of Native Societies

At several points in Melville’s Typee Tommo either makes note of Western impacts on the native peoples or changes their customs himself.  This is perhaps most noticeable when he asks to take Fayaway onto his canoe.  Although it was “taboo” for any woman to even be in the vicinity of the tribe’s canoes, Tommo simply has to pester the chief one afternoon for him to obtain an exception for this girlfriend.  The tribe’s “taboo” is basically a religion to them, so ingrained that they do not even question it or complain, and yet at the simple request of a Western foreigner the rules are broken.  In this way, I think that Melville uses Tommo to exemplify the ease with which the native tribes are influenced by intruding Westerners.  This reflects back upon Tommo’s contemplation that the natives were not “savages” until they came into contact with the more violent Europeans and Americans.  The natives are portrayed as easily influenced and therefore easily corrupted.  Another telling scene is when Tommo builds the pop guns for the people of the village.  Before that, he had described the villagers as completely peaceful, never bickering with each other.  He even noted that the children never play fought.  After he builds them the pop guns, the entire village erupts in fake shooting battles, and the villagers delight in their new fake toys.  Again, the villagers easily adopt to the new Western ideas brought before them, and the pop guns seem to reflect the darker side of Western culture to come.

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