ABSTRACT
The artists of Malaspina's expedition produced a large number of drawings and sketches of people and scenes of Vava'u, including coastal profiles and ceremonial gatherings. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros represented Oceania as a Terrestrial Paradise, using feminine terms to describe the land and its people. The ceremonial practices performed during his voyage were part and parcel of the Spanish apprehension of the South Pacific and remained of paramount importance up to the eighteenth century. Commercial and scientific aspirations were undoubtedly reflected in the way the expeditions to the South Pacific from colonial Latin America were mounted and in the composition of the people on board the ships. The parameters embedded in Quiros's words thus connect perceptions of Terra Australis inherent in narratives and drawings of sixteenth and eighteenth-century Spanish voyages. Quiros's perception of the Pacific occupied a privileged position for nearly 200 years, inflecting eighteenth-century discourses.
