Tiki, taro and tupuna —finding Polynesia in Tahiti’s Austral Islands

STORY BY SHANNON WIANECKI | PHOTOS BY ELYSE BUTLER

94 95 The five tiny islands comprising the Australs lie at the southern extreme of French Polynesia. Dizzying drumbeats fill the tiny Tubuai airport. Isolated and lightly visited, they’ve preserved a unique Today’s welcome committee includes six look over your shoulder or straight into Tahiti, Tahitians dream of the Australs. identity and lifestyle that’s at young men who sit in the open-air lobby you. He delivers us to Motu Roa, an Until the 1970s the only way to travel once modern and intimately attacking tall, carved drums with slender uninhabited islet at the outer edge of the here was by private boat or hitching a ride connected to the past. Here, artisan Tuparii Gangnery sells sticks. Their fever-pitched percussion lagoon, and ties up to a coconut palm. He aboard Tuha‘a Pae, the cargo ship that calls the crafts and weaving for drowns out the airplane engine’s whine. naps in the shade while the rest of the group twice a month. In 1972 the French govern- which Rurutu, the northern- Loved ones greet one another with a crush kayaks through water so clear, individual ment carved a small airstrip into Tubuai’s most of the Australs, is known. of flowers: fat hei (garlands) made with corals can be identified without a snor- coast. Now flights from Papeete stop here On the facing page, the islet of Motu One (“sand island”) tiare, ylang-ylang and hinano, the signature keling mask. For lunch we eat grilled par- en route to the equally small runways on off Tubuai, the largest of the scents of French Polynesia. Hinano, the rotfish sandwiches. Mohea entertains us the neighboring islands. Air traffic is still Australs (population 2,100). male inflorescence of the pandanus tree, with renditions of neighbor island accents: something of a novelty. Air Tahiti’s fifty- On the opening spread, Viriamu grows everywhere here. Hei-makers fold its the soft drawl of Ra‘ivavae and the clipped seat turboprops touch down just a few times Teuraurii, descended from a chiefly lineage, washes his perfumed bracts into garlands and drape bark of Rurutu. “They sound like they’re a week. When they do, locals line up horse in the lagoon of Rurutu. them on the unsuspecting. (It’s a celebrated angry with you in Rurutu,” she laughs. alongside the airport fence to wave hello aphrodisiac. One sniff, it’s said, relaxes to friends passing through. inhibitions as much as a bottle or two of Tubuai, Ra‘ivavae and Rurutu Each of the five inhabited islands has Tahitian beer—uncoincidentally also all belong to the Austral Islands, a little- its own allure. Tubuai is the largest, home named Hinano.) visited archipelago four hundred miles to 2,100 people and 200 ancient marae Mohea Doom rescues me from swooning south of Tahiti. Though it’s part of French (temples), including some of the most in- and shuttles me to Wipa Lodge, her family’s Polynesia, this remote island chain is a triguing in French Polynesia. Both Tubuai pension. I’m the sole guest aside from two world unto itself, where traditional Polyne- and nearby Ra‘ivavae are mountainous, friends visiting from Tahiti. “We’re about sian culture thrives. Unlike the honeymoon surrounded by turquoise lagoons and ringed to leave for a picnic,” Mohea says. “You’re destinations up north, there are no over- by white, sandy motu (islets). To their welcome to join us.” Within an hour we’re water bungalows or spas here, no restau- west, Rurutu is the taro-growing capital of gliding across the glass surface of Tubuai’s rants or boutiques. ATMs are scarce and French Polynesia, known for its sprawling lagoon. Mohea’s father, Willson Doom, often empty by the weekend. The thousand patchwork of green fields, limestone cliffs steers the small boat, two baguettes bal- or so tourists who visit each year stay in and caves, and the humpback whales that anced above the wheel. family-run pensions and integrate into crowd its bays each winter. Little Rimatara Willson has a dreamer’s demeanor: island life. Mohea’s friends confirmed: measures just three square miles but boasts a soft smile and large, dark eyes that either While most of the world daydreams about two colorful endemic bird species. Its

96 97 airstrip wasn’t built until 2006. Far to the old gods for new ones: Austral Islanders site. “Broken pieces are better for studying,” Living history: Willson Doom south, Rapa remains accessible only by surrendered their great wooden tiki to the Willson says, handing me a tray of un- touches a sacred stone in boat. It’s the most isolated, with the most missionaries, who publicly burned them. earthed antiquities. Among the adze flakes a marae, or temple, dedicated to childbirth. The stones “tell pristine marine ecosystem. For decades France and England played tug are partial mother-of-pearl fishhooks and the story of who was born Seafaring Polynesians populated these of war over the Australs. By 1900, France bits of tattoo instruments carved from here,” he says. This marae is islands some two thousand years ago during had claimed them all. Yet despite these human bone. Some of these artifacts date one of more than two hundred scattered across Tubuai, the golden age of transpacific voyaging. devastating epidemics and political up- back to the twelfth century. Their distinc- some of them considered to Over the ensuing millennia, self-sustaining heavals, Austral Islanders have managed to tive styles indicate that Tubuai once had be the most spiritually and communities evolved, with unique and maintain cultural continuity and a distinct regular contact with Tonga, Sämoa and archaeologically significant sophisticated cultural practices. Though sense of identity. Aotearoa (New Zealand). “Before the in French Polynesia. Many, like this one, are maintained small, the Australs have contributed dis- fifteenth century the Oceanic world was by generations of family proportionately to Oceanic art. International Mohea and her father know the one population,” Willson says, reminding lineages. On the facing page, collectors covet the intricately carved hospitality business well. Willson started me that modern borders are misleading. a ceremonial paddle carved ceremonial paddles, beautifully woven out offering boat trips like this one before For roughly a thousand years Polynesian with the starburst pattern characteristic of Austral pë‘ue (pandanus mats) and the chalk-white opening the lodge. She worked at five-star voyaging canoes crisscrossed the world’s Island art. coral penu (poi pounders) for which this resorts in Bora Bora, returning home to largest sea, spreading a shared culture. archipelago is known. help run the family business. They’re both “The ocean did not separate us,” he says. Western ships arrived at the end of the keen to attract more tourists to Tubuai— “It connected us.” eighteenth century. Captains James Cook and conscious of how that could change the Willson’s fascination with Tubuai’s and George Vancouver were the first Euro- tempo of the island. At present, bikes and history is more than academic; it’s personal peans to pass through, followed by a few horses pass by Wipa Lodge as often as cars. and spiritual. Five generations of his family mutineers from the HMS Bounty. (Christian Back at the lodge, Willson tours me have lived here, seven when he counts his Fletcher tried to establish a fort on Tubuai, around his living room and library, where grandchildren. “I have two kinds of infor- but islanders drove his mutinous crew away the Dooms dine with pension guests. It’s a mation,” he says, leaning against the hefty after just two months.) Contact with de facto gallery decorated with ceremonial wooden spear that he regularly travels Western sailors proved catastrophic for paddles, sharkskin drums, footstools and with. “Scientific knowledge and the oral Austral Islanders: By the time missionaries poi pounders. Willson’s collection rivals culture the old man gave me.” For five years began arriving in the early 1800s, 90 percent that of the national museum in Tahiti; he Willson studied under Tai Noa, a tupuna of the native population had perished from even possesses one of the Bounty’s iron (elder) who claimed to have seen his stu- introduced diseases. Rapa’s population cannonballs. In 1994 his father dug up a few dent’s face in a dream. “He chose me while plummeted from 2,000 to just 120. Little curious objects in the backyard, which drew I was in the body of my mother,” Willson wonder that the survivors jettisoned their several prominent archaeologists to the says. “He said, ‘That boy has the key.

98 99 Missionaries arrived in the Australs in the early nineteenth Show him the door.’” Near his death Tai ancestors’ wisdom to positively influence like claws are actually flower petals woven century, and there as elsewhere Noa summoned Willson and taught him the the future. In that spirit he named his grand- out of coconut twine and accented with in the Pacific, Christian practices chants and sacred histories of the island. daughter ‘Ahanui. “Nui” means grand, purple shells. “My sister made this one,” are infused with native culture. In ancient times the two hundred-plus and “‘aha” refers to the braided coconut she brags. “I have many, all kinds.” Here, members of the Church of Jesus Christ play music and marae scattered across Tubuai were places cordage that lashes both canoes and com- We bounce in Eléonore’s truck up the practice Tahitian dance near the for priests to communicate with departed munities together—a weighty name for a partially paved coastal road, nudging lazy village of Mataura, Tubuai. On ancestors. Warriors petitioned gods for three-year-old. He thinks she’s up to it. As dogs from their napping spots. She slows the facing page, Rurutu artisan victory in battle, farmers asked for abun- we step out of the marae, he plays a cell- down to say hello in Tahitian to a passing Leontine Atitoa Vahine weaving a rima rima, a traditional hat dant harvests, youths were tattooed and phone video of her leaping onstage with bicyclist, but with her musical accent “ia made from a spineless variety mothers buried their babies’ umbilical gusto to Tahitian music. He grins. “She’s ora na” sounds more like “yogaaaanaaaa.” of pandanus leaf. cords. Willson offers to show me one of the already dancing the best on the floor.” On Ra‘ivavae most people pronounce four marae that he looks after, a temple “g” in place of “r.” We approach Mount devoted to childbirth. Undeterred by a Of the five Austral Islands, Ra‘ivavae Hiro—or Higo—Ra‘ivavae’s highest sudden cloudburst, we slog down the dirt is considered the most beautiful, an undis- point, which looms over the island’s north road to the edge of a river. Through a break covered Bora Bora. Viewed from above shore. Squawking fairy terns and white- in the dense thicket of pürau (tree hibis- it’s otherworldly. Shifting shades of aqua tailed tropicbirds patrol the 1,400-foot-tall cus), I can see the tall slabs of basalt surround a tiny crop of rain-carved moun- stone fortress. At its base lies Anatonu: a characteristic of marae. Before we enter, tains. The lagoon glows with an opalescent dozen tin-roofed houses, a tall white church, Willson chants to ask permission and state fire, hemmed by a necklace of twenty- a squat little magasin (general store) and who we are. After giving birth in the nearby eight little islets. Some of these motu are Tama Resort, the pension Eléonore runs stream, he says, new mothers would retreat no more than a swath of white sand. Others with her husband, Dennis. A few teens to bamboo huts built here to quarantine bristle with dense green patches of aito hunker like stray cats outside the magasin, their infants. “You can read the stones by (ironwood trees) and seem to hover above Anatonu’s sole source of internet. their shape and angle,” he says, indicating their own reflections. At dawn the pâtisserie truck circles the basalt pillars. “They tell the story of Eléonore White greets me at the airport the island, making its morning deliveries. who was born here.” with a fragrant hei made with blooms and Sleepy islanders emerge to receive armfuls Warm rain penetrates the canopy of herbs from her garden. She cuts a striking of fresh-baked baguettes—one of the leaves as we stand momentarily silent. figure in a bright red fitted dress, two blessings of French rule. Shirtless and “Sometimes I come here alone. I sit and strands of black pearls and a truly remark- drenched in sweat, a muscular man jogs up think on unanimity,” Willson says. Consen- able hei upo‘o (crown). The spiky, sand- and down the road toting a log with sand- sus, peace and gratitude are his touch- colored wreath resembles a congress of bags affixed to either end. He’s training for stones. He believes he can draw on his ghost crabs encircling her head. What look next month’s fruit-carrying race— one of

100 101 the most competitive events during heiva, One morning, Eléonore and I take a head. “She’s beautiful. Plus, she’s smiling. the annual arts and culture festival. boat to Vaiamanu, a motu shaped like a You don’t see too many tikis smile. She has Eléonore lays out a lavish breakfast in whale’s fluke. I snorkel over clouds of fish style.” Indeed, both the stone woman and the common dining room: warm baguettes and fluorescent-lipped clams while she her human counterpart wear the same high with pamplemousse marmalade and po‘e, combs the shoreline for cowries, tridents hair bun and wide, dropped neckline. tapioca flour crêpes. That night she serves and little periwinkles to string into neck- Eléonore isn’t the only one on Ra‘ivavae steamed taro and breadfruit, reef fish sim- laces. I have yet to see her enjoy an idle with a collection of traffic-stopping head- mered in coconut milk and curried octopus moment. After two hours she drops her gear. The latest fashions are on display at she caught herself. A giant Technicolor harvest—forty pounds of shells—onto the a farewell party for the Anatonu church poster advertising the Austral Islands hangs sand and wades into the luminous water. minister. While pure white pandanus hats over the table. The woman pictured on it, “How could you go wrong?” she asks. More are de rigueur for church service, for a dressed in a beach vine crown and brace- statement than question, this oft-repeated festive occasion like this, most ladies prefer lets, is our very own hostess—still a Eléonore-ism is her way of saying life on hei upo‘o. Eléonore sports a flurry of silk fetching model and quite the diva at close Ra‘ivavae is idyllic. orchids, while her sister wears a ring of to 70 years. True to her word, she wears On the way back to Anatonu, we visit delicate roses made with shiny strands of a different hei upo‘o every day, each more the Australs’ sole surviving tiki. Ra‘ivavae pürau fiber dyed pink. Several men wear outlandish than the last. once possessed the largest stone tikis tropical bowlers woven with light and dark Within the lagoon’s cradle, Ra‘ivavae outside of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). When pandanus. Pampas grass plumes, pinned residents seem to find everything they need: Christian missionaries first anchored here above the ear, appear to be the embellish- fish, coconuts and fresh streams for farming in 1819, they confiscated these “false idols” ment du jour. Rurutu is nicknamed “the taro. But like all Edens, this one has a flaw: and either destroyed them or shipped Thus finely attired, the congregation island of whales” for the Singles are hard-pressed to find eligible them back to Europe. One tiki reportedly packs into the community center where tohorä, or humpbacks (seen on the facing page), that visit sweethearts among the island’s 975 inhab- didn’t want to go and “jumped” off the a band belts out Tahitian hymns at full beginning each October to itants. Everyone is related. In the old days, boat. Superstitious fishermen still avoid the volume. “They sing with their heart,” calve in the island’s protected bachelors raided distant archipelagoes for spot where it landed in the lagoon. Three Eléonore says into my ear as we squeeze bays. The annual arrival of wives. Eléonore took a modern approach; Ra‘ivavae tiki now preside over the gardens into seats at the overloaded banquet table. the humpbacks draws many of the thousand or so tourists she met Dennis while working at Club of the Paul Gauguin Museum on Tahiti. The Each family has contributed a specialty who visit the Australs each Med on Moorea. The couple spent three tallest is nearly nine feet. The tiki in front dish—or four—to the feast. There is year. Being so isolated, decades in San Bernardino before retiring of us is half that size though still excep- enough poisson cru, steamed taro and po‘e Austral Islanders rely on here in 2001. When I ask him what he tional. “She was carved from red stone for several send-off meals. Eléonore nudges the natural bounty of the land and sea for sustenance; likes best about Ra‘ivavae, he thumbs in because it has mana [power],” Eléonore me, indicating which plates she plans to here Kalei Rossi dives for Eléonore’s direction. “Her.” says, draping a shell necklace over the tiki’s take home as leftovers. After dinner every- clams in Tubuai's lagoon.

102 103 one lines up to present the departing spot, heaving the old reef above water and in a family wed on the same day. Elin and preacher and her family with hand-strung creating a singular landscape of fossilized Viriamu exchanged vows alongside two of shell necklaces—so many that the preach- limestone cliffs and caves. Rurutu’s first his younger brothers and their brides. The er’s husband looks ready to collapse under human inhabitants lived, worshipped and days-long celebration included a procession their weight. entombed their dead inside these caverns. into the nearby town of Avera, multiple The party continues the next day at the I arrive on Rurutu just ahead of a storm. feasts, dance performances and twenty-five Visitors to the Australs won’t airport. Nearly half the island’s population Elin Teuruarii welcomes me into her home costume changes. Each family on Rurutu find any hotels; accommo- turns out, arms laden with fresh hei. Kids as thunderclaps rend the darkening sky. gave the newlyweds a new set of clothes, dation is provided by family- run pensions like Teautamatea clamber up the fence, scanning the sky Each deafening drumroll sends her three plus stockpiles of food, woven pandanus Pension on Rurutu, run by the for the plane. Church members sing in the children shrieking down the hallway. mats and other handcrafted heirlooms. Teuruarii family seen here: Elin snack shop. The travelers are dressed to Unperturbed, she heats water for tea and Guests received invitations to the big event and Viriamu with their children, Amaterai, Heimana and Matotea. impress, in matching floral prints and even sits down to chat. If anything, the dash of a full year in advance, allowing them Originally from Wales, Elin fell more spectacular headgear than the night wet, cold weather is familiar to the Welsh- enough time to amass the necessary gifts. in love with the Australs and before. One woman’s flower-studded born mom. After graduating from Cam- In the morning Elin shows me the stayed to start a pension with headband features a full fern—sprays of bridge, she came to French Polynesia to family marae behind the house. Coconut the taro-farming, horse-racing Viriamu. “People thought I was fronds burst from the back of her head. pursue a doctorate in entomology. Weevils palms shade a large, beautifully paved slightly mad,” says Elin. On the A stern-faced older gentleman sweats are surprisingly diverse on Rurutu. Some- platform punctuated by upright wedges of facing page, Rurutu’s largest beneath a splendid wreath made entirely of how these flightless insects managed to basalt. “Ghost chairs,” Elin calls them— cave, Ana A‘eo, where ancient people came to communicate chartreuse ylang-ylang blossoms. Once colonize the most remote reaches of the seats for chiefs and ancestors, both living with their ancestors through aboard the plane, a great deal of jostling Pacific long before humans. Elin was and departed. A village once stood here, the sunroof. ensues to accommodate bulging bags and decoding this mystery when her attention with a chief’s thatched house and an ahu hat brims that extend well into the aisle. was drawn elsewhere—toward Viriamu (altar). “The altar held a sacred statue,” Elin For this crowd, leaving home is still a Teuruarii, a taro-farming, horse-racing de- says, “but the missionaries took it back grand adventure. scendant of one of Rurutu’s old royal clans. to England as proof of their conquest.” They fell in love, married, had three kids Known as A‘a, the statue is considered Rurutu is a geological anomaly. Born and opened Teautamatea Pension. one of the most significant works of art in twice, it formed during two separate “People thought I was slightly mad,” all of Polynesia. The three-foot-tall wooden volcanic events. The initial volcano rose Elin laughs. Their wedding was a spectac- image of a man has thirty human figures from the sea twelve million years ago. ular affair, involving dozens of bridesmaids protruding from his body, forming his eyes, Over time it eroded away, leaving a ring of and groomsmen and two other couples. mouth, ears and other features. A‘a resides coral in its wake. Ten million years later Traditional Rurutu marriages happen just in the British Museum, though a dozen a second volcano emerged in the same once a generation; all of the adult children bronze casts were made and distributed.

104 105 Picasso had one; another is here at the patchwork of emerald green reaches deep also in the more traditional style: pounded mayor’s office. When the missionaries first into the valley. Farmers grow twelve into soft, doughy poipoi. That night, Viri- received him, two dozen smaller objects different varieties of taro here, identifiable amu invites me to help prepare the family’s were inside his hollow cavity. Most likely by the color of the stem. Most farm for poipoi. The time-consuming process he was created to hold the bones of a deified themselves while a few export to Tahiti. involves special tools: a concave wooden ancestor— one of Viriamu’s relatives. We stop to watch several men harvest board and heavy coral penu. Unique to the Which means that Elin didn’t just marry a patch of red-stemmed mana ura. Tradi- Australs, smooth white penu are carved into royalty, but divinity. tionally women aren’t allowed to work from fossilized coral found on Rurutu’s She scoffs at that suggestion but admits taro fields, but no one seems to mind us coast. Viriamu piles a handful of steamed that her husband and his brothers do exhibit gawking. One man uses a wooden staff to corms on his board and mashes them. a certain godlike panache during Rurutu’s wedge softball-size corms free from the After twenty minutes of methodic annual horse race. As president of the mud, while a second slices the leafy tops pounding, flipping, adding water and island’s equestrian association, Viriamu from the corms with a machete. A third pounding some more, Viriamu cuts the Taro remains a staple food hosts the hot-blooded competition each cinches the tops into tidy bundles. Every creamy, sticky poipoi into three portions. throughout the Austral Islands, and Rurutu is regarded as one year during the month-long heiva. Bare- part of the plant is used: The roots and He wraps two up in ti-leaf bundles to of the taro-growing capitals back and barefoot, riders urge their finest leaves are cooked and the crowns replanted. ferment and eat later. He mashes a few of Tahiti. Up to twelve varieties steeds down the beach, sending sand flying. In a nearby field, another man turns over bananas into the third, scoops it into a bowl of the starchy root vegetable The Teuruarii family’s other legacy is wet clay with a shovel, airing out his raised and douses it with fresh coconut milk. It are cultivated in centuries-old ditch-and-berm systems. Here, less thrilling to watch but just as impres- bed and re-sculpting its surrounding trench. tastes earthy and mildly sweet—unlike its a farmer harvests taro near the sive. Hundreds of years ago Rurutu farmers This differs from Hawai‘i, where taro is Hawaiian equivalent, poi, which is more town of Avera, Rurutu. On the channeled mountain streams to flow past also planted extensively. There it grows sour. In appreciation, Viriamu recites a facing page, Viriamu Teuraurii out for a sunset ride along their taro plantings before reaching the sea. submerged in flooded paddies. Here only short chant: Mona tei, mona tei, taro hua Rurutu’s lagoon. The fields at Vaiavai have been in contin- the roots of the plant reach the water. The hua, Vaiavai! The most delicious taro with uous cultivation ever since. Descendants of farmer shakes his head and says, almost the best texture comes from Vaiavai! more than twenty families tend plots here, apologetically, “Hawai‘i taro tastes muddy.” Viriamu’s accent is strong, and the including Viriamu and his brothers. Across the Pacific, rice, potatoes and rough, clipped words of his chant come “You can feel that this valley has been other quick-cooking starches have largely across as a challenge. But I have to dis- cultivated for centuries,” Elin says as we supplanted taro. Not in the Australs. agree with Mohea; the Rurutu dialect walk along the ditches separating each Even the omnipresent baguette has failed doesn’t sound angry. It sounds ardent — raised plot, ducking beneath the occasional to knock taro from center stage here. a cadence in keeping with the smack of poi weeping willow. Vaiavai is one of French Islanders eat it with every meal, typically pounders, volcanic sea cliffs and hooves Polynesia’s largest, oldest taro fields; its in steamed, nutty-tasting chunks, though in the sand. HH

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