Voyage to Cayenne, in the Two Americas and among the Anthropophagi (Vol. 2)

Louis Ange PitouProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
492K words
Chapters
50

Tags

Foreign Language Books Travel Human GeographyHistorical ReappraisalPortrait GalleryAdventure JourneyDocumentary NarrativeEclectic ReadingExotic CultureSocial ObservationFolk CustomsCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Voyage À Cayenne, dans les deux Amériques et chez les anthropophages (Vol. 2 deAuthor: Pitou, Louis Ange, 1767-1846,Language: French, Class: F2351: Latin America local history: Guiana, Release Date: Oct 21, 2012

Editor's review

This is Volume 2 of Captain Pitou's original French work Voyage à Cayenne, dans les deux Amériques et chez les anthropophages, an early eyewitness account and local history of South America and Guiana. Its value lies not in polished prose but in the colonial observations it offers from the perspective of an exile after the French Revolution: voyages, conditions of detention, local society, and narratives of so-called "cannibals" are interwoven, making it both a primary source and a reflection of contemporary European imaginings and prejudices about the exotic. It should be read as a historical source rather than a modern travel guide, with attention to distinguishing observation, hearsay, and rhetoric. The Project Gutenberg public-domain electronic edition facilitates searching and citation and is suitable for close reading and comparison with travel accounts of the same period. For researchers of French Guiana history, the history of exile, or colonial writing, this volume fills in many details; general readers will need some French and historical patience.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read Volume 1 before this volume to clarify the sequence of the voyage and narrative and avoid reading out of context.
  2. Keep a historical map of Guiana and Cayenne on hand to locate places and routes while reading.
  3. Excerpt the descriptions of "cannibals" separately and compare them with European travel accounts of the same period to distinguish hearsay from observation.
  4. Take itemized notes on institutional and personal details for later verification and citation.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50

FAQ

Is this book a complete travel account? No. The information shows that this is Volume 2 of Voyage à Cayenne, dans les deux Amériques et chez les anthropophages and part of the whole work. Before reading, it is best to find Volume 1 first and follow the order to understand the voyage and narrative; reading this volume alone may leave out prior context and background.
Are the "cannibal" accounts in the book credible? They should be treated with caution. Such early travel accounts often mix firsthand observation, secondhand oral accounts, and contemporary European imaginings of the exotic. It is advisable to read the relevant passages as textual evidence of colonial writing and to consult modern historical scholarship on similar accounts rather than taking them directly as ethnographic fact.
Is the electronic edition suitable for academic citation? The Project Gutenberg edition is convenient for searching and citing the original text, but it is a public-domain electronic text and usually lacks modern scholarly annotation and textual criticism. For formal citation, verify the original edition information and note the electronic source; for key historical facts, also compare with paper or library copies.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Louis Ange Pitou Author · French · 1767–1846

Louis Ange Pitou (1767–1846) was a French writer, born in Valainville and died in Paris. Originally a clergyman, he was arrested several times for his staunch royalist views and was exiled to French Guiana, from where he escaped back to France by way of Cayenne. This experience of exile became important material for his writing: his Relation de mon voyage à Cayenne et chez les anthropophages, published in 1805, recounts that period and attracted considerable public attention. Three of his works are held in this collection: the two-volume Voyage À Cayenne, dans les deux Amériques et chez les anthropophages and Le chanteur parisien. His writing draws largely on personal experience and observation and bears a clear personal stance and the mark of its era; as public information is limited, the details of his life and the full range of his works remain to be further examined.