The Marquesas Islands Today

The Marquesas Islands are an isolated group of thirteen volcanic islands and rocks situated on the eastern edge of Polynesia between 7 and 12 degrees south of the equator, and 138 and 142 degrees west latitude. Along with the Society Islands the Australs, the Tuamotus, the Gambiers and Mangareva, the Marquesas are a part of the French Polynesia, a French overseas territory. Due to French disinterest and the anti-Marquesan orientation of Tahitian politics for the last 25 years or so, these islands have been quite neglected in comparison to the economic development which has taken place in other areas of French Polynesia, e.g. in Tahiti, Bora Bora, Rai’ate’a and on the major Tuamotu atolls. The Marquesas do not have an international port or airfield, and cannot be reached directly from the Americas except by private yachts or aircraft. All goods shipped to the Marquesas mus come through Tahiti where exorbitant taxes are imposed and then must be shipped to the Marquesas, adding freight costs to already expensive commodities. Tourists wishing to visit the Marquesas can only do so through Tahiti, from where one can embark on the M/S Aranui, by far the best way to see the islands, or alternatively one may take Air Tahiti, the domestic air service which flies daily to Nuku Hiva and Hiva Oa the largest islands of the archipelago. From these two islands, connections are available to Ua Pou and Ua Huka on a less regular basis.

The Geology of the Marquesas
Two terms encompass the geological history of the Marquesas Islands: plate tectonics and volcanism. The Marquesas, like nearly all other island groups of Eastern Polynesia (all of French Polynesia, Hawai’i, and the Cooks), sit on the Pacific Tectonic Plate, the largest of the 13 major plates that make up the earth’s crust. Propelled by lava oozing from the Eastern Pacific Mid-Ocean Ridge, this enormous plate is sliding northwest toward Japan and Siberia at the astounding speed of 10-15 cm per year, carrying with it the total burden of all these archipelagos as well as the submarine mountains which repose thereon.
Beneath the Pacific plate are “hot spots” or “ hot regions; “ areas where hot magma rises from the earth’s inner core, burning through the plate on occasion to form submarine mountains , or even breaking through the ocean surface to form islands. Such processes take millions of years to accomplish, but in terms of geological time, this is but a blink of the eye. Moreover, none of these geological processes is ever finished: the earth is a dynamic organism, constantly in transition, and the only thing constant in its geological history is change itself.
The Marquesas arose from lava welling up through a fractured, weak area in the Pacific plate, beginning about 7 million years ago. The oldest islands in the archipelago are the islands of Eiao. Hatu’utu, Motu One, and surrounding rocks and reefs along a line 8 degrees south of the equator. Magma kept on flowing upward as the plate moved northwest over the next 6 million years or so generating the foundations of the remaining islands in the archipelago. . Originally it appears that there were only three major land masses where the Marquesas now stand: a northern island, of which Eiao and the other rocks, Hatu ‘utu, Motu One, and the associated rocks are remnants; a large island including Nuku Hiva, Ua Huka and Ua Pou ; and another large island including all the islands of the southern group . These “super” islands apparently blew apart or sank beneath the seas, leaving only remnants; the islands that we see today. For several million years, many of the islands remained beneath the surface of the sea, only emerging above the ocean surface after 2-3 million years had elapsed. The southernmost island in the Marquesas group is Fatu Iva, which is only 1.25 million years old.
Today, there is a “hot spot” south of Fatu Iva, and there are still traces of volcanic activity and instability along the entire length of the archipelago. Eiao has been found to be geologically quite unstable by French investigators who were seeking to determine the possibility of conducting underground nuclear weapons tests there. There are also volcanic sulphur gas outlets along the south coast of Hiva Oa, andseveral islands have mineral springs of volcanic origin. Finally, occasional mild earth tremors are noted. All of this shows that the Hawaiian volcano goddess, Pele (also known to the ancient Marquesans), is not yet sleeping soundly in the Marquesas. A recent (1982) totally unexpected eruption in Mehetia, 90 miles south of Tahiti, shows how dangerous it can be to become complacent about volcanism.
As a result of the volcanic origin, all the Marquesas Islands are composed solely of volcanic stone: basalts and hawaiite. There are no sedimentary rocks on the islands. One island, Ua Pou, has a significant amount of trachyte, indicating a possible origin from a different level of the earth’s lithosphere. In some of this trachyte one finds attractive mineral formations resembling yellow flowers: the famous flower stones of Ua Pou.
Because of the islands’ location, lying across the cool Humboldt current from Peru, the seas around the islands are too cool to support the growth of coral reefs such as one sees in Tahiti and the other Society Islands. There is, however, some coral in some bay heads, where the water is shallow and more easily warmed by the sun. The lack of fringing reefs had a profound effect on Marquesan culture, causing the Marquesans to focus on deep sea fish as a source of food.

The Prehistory of the Marquesas
Archeological investigations have revealed that the Marquesas archipelago was settled from Western Polynesia sometime in the period between 500 BC and 300 BC. The earliest C-14 dated sites are all in areas that would not have been the most favorable for habitation by the first settlers: Ha’atuatua on Nuku Hiva, Ana Pua on Ua Pou, and Hane on Ua Huka, all of which date to the middle of the second century BC. Another site, a cave in Hanatekua, Hiva Oa, dates to 80 AD but the date is from a sample taken from deposits one meter above the bottom of the cave. The lowest deposits were not dated and would be certainly older than 80 AD. The first settlers brought with them pottery, some of which was made in Fiji. Pottery has been found on Nuku Hiva, Ua Huka and Hiva Oa. This pottery is of the type known as Lapita Plain, a characteristic culture trait of the Lapita culture, which is considered to be the ancestral culture of the Polynesian peoples.
(The Lapita culture arose in western Melanesia some 1900 years BC and moved rapidly eastward along the north coast of New Guinea through Melanesia and into Fiji, Western Polynesia, and New Caledonia, by about 1600 BC. The Lapita peoples were maritime traders: extensive archeological work in Melanesia has uncovered evidence of Lapita trade routes up to 2600 km in length).

The early Marquesans brought with them the entire kit of Polynesian useful plants: breadfruit, taro, pandanus, yams, sweet potatoes, coconuts, etc. They also brought with them pigs, dogs, chickens, and rats, as well as skinks and geckos who apparently came as stow-aways. Another element in the Marquesan diet was human flesh, for there is evidence of cannibalism from the earliest times. The soil of the Marquesas proved to be excellent for breadfruit and the entire economy of the culture was based on that staple, derived from large groves planted in the deep well –watered valleys.

The Marquesans seem to have always maintained some kinds of contacts with other archipelagos, as evidenced by artifacts which seem to reflect trade; such as poi pounders of Tahitian type, exotic types of stone found in archeological sites, as well as artifacts made from large pearl shells which appear to originate in the Tuamotus.
After approximately 1000 years, the best valleys of the Marquesas Islands began to become overpopulated. Settlements spread from the main, well-watered valleys on the southern and eastern coasts into more remote areas with reduced precipitation and less fertile, rocky soils. At the same time, there is evidence of tribal warfare in the form of fortifications and observation posts on dominant ridgelines around major valleys.
It is clear that there was an abundant supply of manpower and food resources in the main valleys for it is only shortly thereafter, around 1300-1400 AD, that large monumental stone structures appear, stone house platforms (paepae) and temple platforms (me’ae) as well as sprawling tribal ceremonial complexes (tohua) built around large rectangular dance plazas, several hundred feet long, built on massive artificial terraces several meters high. This tohua were the centers of public ceremonial tribal activity; each tribe had at least one, although when the tribe consisted of more than a single clan some had more than one. These often gigantic structures were built strictly by manpower, equipped with nothing more complex than levers of wood. During the construction of such monuments, the chief was responsible for feeding the labor force, which required in turn a capability for storing large quantities of food especially breadfruit paste, which was stored in packets in huge pits . The paste fermented naturally, becoming what the Marquesans called ma: this was mixed with freshly -pounded breadfruit paste to make the Marquesan staple: popoi. Remnants of these ma pits may be seen throughout Marquesan valleys. Two especially large pits, 10 feet or more square and some 30 feet deep, may be found deep in Taipi valley. The Marquesans engaged in prodigious construction activities throughout the last several centuries before the coming of the Europeans. So diligent were they that the floors and the slopes of every valley on the south, east, and north coasts of the largest islands are presently covered with stone ruins. Such contruction activity bears mute witness to the prestige and power of the chiefs and the priests. According to early European visitors they were not necessarily easy to pick out from the lesser Marquesans who flocked to visiting ships, but they were certainly deeply respected and feared. Mgr. Rene-Ildefonse Dordillon, bishop of the Marquesas during the years 1855-1888, made a very telling comment about chiefly power in the Marquesas: “No one commands, but everyone obeys!” The supernatural power of the chiefs, whose ancestry could be traced directly to the gods, was paramount. We know that warriors, priests, and others could also rise from the mass of the population to become chiefs, by demonstrating unusual abilities but this was not a common occurrence.
The large stone tiki which still stand on several temple sites and tribal ceremonial centers around the archipelago are only remnants of the vast array of monumental statues in wood and stone which were found everywhere in the Marquesas, and have since diappeared into museums or private collections , or simply due to weather in the case of the wooden figures. The stone tiki which were seen by the Norwegian fantasist Thor Heyerdahl, as evidence of Peruvian Indian contact in the ninth century AD, in fact turn out to have been sculptured around 1700-1750 AD, almost two hundred years after the European discovery of the Marquesas in 1595 (see below: History of European Contacts).
The Marquesan population grew to an estimated 100,000-120,000, soon before the main European onslaught in the 1790s. Each valley was held by a tribe, which was normally composed of a several subtribes, in fact clans, all related by loose kinship bonds. Warfare was endemic, with a constant round of raids and reprisals taking place. There were traditional alliances among groups of tribes, but these were seldom honored, in a situation of constantly shifting opportunistic intertribal relationships. Droughts occasionally caused serious hardships.
The Marquesans possessed a wide range of watercraft, ranging from small dugout outrigger canoes to large twin-hull double canoes over 60 feet long. These vessels served for major fishing expeditions (organized net fishing was very common) for war, for interisland and interarchipelago travel, and for exploration in search of new lands. When tribes were defeated in war they often took to the canoes rather than remain and suffer the consequences at the hands of the victors.
Although discovered by the Spaniards in 1595, and visited by Cook in 1774, it was not until the 1790s that the Marquesas first encountered Europeans in large numbers, and in the brief period of 60 years, the two thousand year old culture disintegrated, as the Marquesans themselves were wiped out by introduced diseases (mainly childhood communicable diseases and VD) as well as the effects of alcohol, and firearms. After 1838, the repressive policies of the Catholic Mission and the French administration working in concert, explicitly targeted many vital aspects of the culture, banning tattoing, singing, dancing, artwork and any activities related to the old religion.

You can contact Dr. Suggs via:
Email:  mongonui@msn.com