JAGP646

Depicts a group of people around a fire, perhaps as part of a ritual dance or meeting. This woodcut depicts Tahitian men and women performing the traditional dance known as 'upa 'upa around a bonfire at night. Deemed pagan and obscene due to its sexual suggestiveness, the ritual was banned by Catholic and Protestant missionaries on the island. However, Tahitians continued to perform the ritual in secret, in defiance of colonial authority. Gauguin may have been witness to these dances while in Polynesia. Gauguin also spent a large part of his working life in Tahiti, and lived on the island for 10 years.