Grégoire Louis Domeny de Rienzi - Océanie, ou la cinquième partie du monde - 1836

DOMENY DE RIENZI (Grégoire Louis). Oceania or the Fifth Part of the World. Geographical and ethnographic Review of Malaya, Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia; offering the results of the author’s travels and discoveries and those of his predecessors, as well as his new classifications and divisions of these regions. Paris, Firmin Didot frères, 1836. 2 vols. in-8, 399 p.; 397 p., text in two columns, plates engraved off-texte and folding maps, half-fawn calf, smooth spines adorned with large rocaille and gold fillets, boards marbled paper (bindings of the period).

First edition.

Only Volumes I and II, out of three. Traveler and geographer, Grégoire Louis Domeny de Rienzi (1789-1843) claimed to have made five voyages in western Oceania, especially in the Malay Archipelago, before teaching geography in Paris after 1830. Rival of Jules Dumont d’Urville (1790-1842) in the classification of Pacific peoples, he disputed with him the paternity of the name Micronesia, which D’Urville partially acknowledged borrowing in 1832. His Oceania, a vast compilation of earlier relations enriched by his own observations, greatly helped disseminate the division into Malaisia (Malays), Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia.

The two volumes comprise the general survey of Oceania (physical geography, races, languages, religions, customs), Malasia and a large portion of Micronesia and Polynesia. Melanesia and Australia occupy Volume III, which is not present here. In Volume I there is a curious series of airs noted: a dancing tune of the Haouaï Islands, a tune from Gouap (Yap) in the Carolines, a comic song of the Mariannas, a ballet air from Montezuma played at Gouaham (Guam), a death chant of Taïti, airs of the Papuans of New Guinea, of the island Traman (Arrou group) and the land of Arnhem.

Numerous folded maps and plates engraved after Danvin and Rienzi: Javanese temple in ruins, wayang puppets and masks of Java, Rafflesia, pepper and mangosteen, fishes and python, types and costumes, tattoos and dance of the Carolines, shell necklaces, the chief stretched on a mat surrounded by bearers of fly-catching, landscapes and dwellings, etc., etc.

Spines rubbed, minor foxing and defects.