Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to show, through the case of the pae pae in the Marquesas Islands, how the transmission of the past is a non-linear process and heritage represents a medium to get in touch with the expressions of the "invisible world", embedding the will to forget with the desire to rediscover it.

Paper long abstract:

In the Marquesas Islands, a long historical chapter following French colonisation (1842) was marked by the banning of certain native customs and practices, coupled with an attitude of rejection towards the material traces of the tradition. The pae pae (quadrangular lithic plinths) and all vestiges of settlements were depicted as "mute stones" (London 2018), expressions of the "silent land" (Dening 1980) and of a "dying race" with "no memory" of its past (Christian 1910, Segalen 1975 ; 2000)". For a long time such a stigmatized perception of the tradition was perpetuated by the Catholic church and new meanings given to concepts such as "mana" and "tapu" confined the past to another space (the forest and the ruins) and time (the night). However, with the "cultural awakening" of the last decades the restoration of the archeological sites is at stake and is nowadays driven by the attempt to enlist some of them at the Unesco WHL. This paper aims to show through the case of the pae pae how transmission presents itself as a non-linear process in which both dynamics of continuity, discontinuities and ruptures coexist. Assuming memories as moving elements, I will try to account how heritage is at the core of new cultural policies and it represents a medium to get in touch with the expressions of the "invisible world" of the past, embedding the will to forget of the elderly with the desire of the young to rediscover it.