Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation Volume 19 Article 4 Issue 1 May 2005 Historical Records and Archaeological Excavations of Two "National" Marae Complexes on Huahine, Society Islands, French Polynesia - A Preliminary Report Paul Wallin Gotland University Reidar Solsvik Godland University Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj Part of the History of the Pacific slI ands Commons, and the Pacific slI ands Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Wallin, Paul and Solsvik, Reidar (2005) "Historical Records and Archaeological Excavations of Two "National" Marae Complexes on Huahine, Society Islands, French Polynesia - A Preliminary Report," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 19 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol19/iss1/4 This Research Report is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. - Wallin and Solsvik: Historical Records and Archaeological Excavations of Two "National" Marae Complexes HISTORICAL RECORDS AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS OF TWO "NATIONAL" MARAE COMPLEXES ON HUAHINE, SOCIETY ISLANDS, FRENCH POLYNESIA -A PRELIMINARY REPORT Paul Wallin and Reidar Solsvik Gotland University I TRODUCTIO outheast of the lightly larger Huahine ui to the north. The di trict of Maeva compri e the north and north­ uahine is an i land in the Leeward group of the Soci­ ea tern part of Huahine ui (Figure 2) that urround the H ety I lands (Figure I), situated at 16 0 5' outh latitude , acred' mountain Moua Tapu. The area with the mo t impor­ and 151 0 2' we t longitude, about 150 km north-we t of the tant archaeological remains is a headland tretching out to the island of Tahiti. Huahine consists of two volcanic islands north-ea t, where the Mata'ire'a Hill figuratively can be een with about 112 square km of dry land, joined through an en­ as the' eat' and Moua Tapu with it traight and flat north circling reef. Huahine Hi, the mallest, is located to the south- ide the 'backre t' of this site. The western boundary i a ridge of the Moua Tapu, which i slanting down to the 1S2" 149" 14Jl'W coast at this point. ':Tupai Hi" The village of Maeva is situated on a thin trip of • 'I Borabora land, c. 100 m wide, along the eastern end of the exten­ Maupiti .Taha'a sive lagoon lake Fauna ui, with the steep northern " ~Huahine lope of the c. 60 m high Mata'ire'a Hill to the South. \. Raiatea ? Teliaroa ~\l'lPWARDlS~ The pre ent work ha been carried out within the ,,. "''0ISz.ANl:6 ~ framework of the project 'Local Development and Re­ Mo·orea aTa gional Interaction " which i a joint project between Dr. • Mai'ao ~iti Yosihiko H. Sinoto of the B. P. Bi hop Museum and Dr. Me'etia• Paul Wallin of the In titute for Pacific Archaeology and Cultural Hi tory, (Kon-Tiki Mu eum). The aim of thi project is to inve tigate habitation ite and ceremonial --- Un SOCIETY ISLANDS tructure at the we tern end of the village at the ba e of the Mata'ire'a Hill and on the Mata'ire'a Hill it elf. Figure 1. Society I lands. During the la t of two field e ion in 2003 we were able to test-excavate the two mo t important temple on Huahine (according to oral tradition ): marae Mata'ire'a Rahi on the ummit of Mata'ire'a Hill and marae Manunu on the islet Ovarei opposite Maeva village. BACKGRO D TO THE PROJECT DR. SlNOTO WAS FIRST introduced to Maeva in the early 1960 by Kenneth P. Emory, who urveyed marae structure there already in 1925. Sinoto, together with the French ar­ chaeologist Pierre Verin carried out complementary urvey of marae tructures on several of the Leeward I land . At about the same time Mr. Alec Ata, then mini ter of Touri m, invited Sinoto to be the director of an exten ive program of marae restorations on Huahine, Raiatea, and Mo'orea (i.e. Sinoto 1969). Since 1979, Sinoto and hi a ociate, Eric Komori, Elaine Roger -Jourdane and Toru Haya hi, have carried out a survey of the Mata'ire'a Hill and adjacent area in the di trict of Maeva (Figure 3). They have urveyed marae tructure, terrace, house foundations, and other features (Sinoto and HUAHINE Roger -Jourdane 1980; Sinoto, Komori et al. 1981; Sinoto, o Komori et al. 1983). The inve tigations also included te t­ excavation of house site in the upper part of the Te Ana land division (Sinoto and Komori 1988; Komori and Sinoto Figure 2. Huahine with Project area indicated. 2002), as well as on various locations throughout the Mata'ire'a Hill. During the 1990s they begun an exten ive Rapa Nui Journal 13 Vol. 19 (1) May 2005 Published by Kahualike, 2005 1 Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation, Vol. 19 [2005], Iss. 1, Art. 4 excavation of water-logged Huahine, and was conse­ Lake Fauna Nul cultural deposits in the Fare Pote Marae Manunu quently the most important lower part of the Te Ana 'v religious structure on the land division (Komori i land. The morae i 10­ 2001, Wallin, Komori and Motu Ovarel cated on a lope on the Sol vik 2004:). summit of Mata'ire'a Hill, Through these investi­ on land called Tehu'a. The gation, Sinoto developed / ahu is placed at the up morphological c1as ifica­ lope end directed toward tion of the Huahine morae Moua Tapu. The morae is (Sinoto, Komori et al. enclo ed by a stone wall 1981 :7-9). He aloe tab­ except on the down- lope Ii hed typologies and chro­ end where a c. 2 m high nologie for the Society terrace wall makes it im­ Island's morae complex in N po ible to enter the morae general (i.e. Sinoto 1996, from thi ide. The ahll i Komori and Sinoto 2002). built into thi enclosing The chronological rele­ tone wall. The front-wall vance of these classifica­ o Marae of the ahll is compo ed of tion and typologies have --Trail limestone labs on end and however not been tested 0 200_ m with section of tacked through archaeological ex­ basalt in between, and the cavation, therefore a pro­ Figure 3. Project area with site indicated. court i paved with ba alt gram of test-excavation of flag tone (Figure 4). It morae tructures is important as a complement to the urvey was on morae Mata'ire'a Rahi where the important pa'i atua and te t-excavations of settlement sites. ceremony wa carried out (Henry 1928:221), in which all the During our investigations different morae type have god of the island were brought out and di played. It wa been excavated, including "small", "medium" and "large" al 0 on thi temple where the inve tment of a new chief took ized tructures located both at the coa t and on the place a mentioned by Henry (1928: 195). Furthermore, the Mata'ire'a Hill. This paper i a preliminary report on the in­ lineage head of each of the eight di trict of Huahine had vestigation and a short historical account of the two mo t their own backrest on the lower part of the court at thi prominent morae structures, morae Mata'ire'a Rahi and morae. HISTORICAL RECORD A 0 SURVEY IN THE CASE OF MARAE Mata'ire'a Rahi we are able, through de criptions left by early missionaries and cholar, to get an in ight in the general tate of the monument from the 1820s up until today and here we will present two of the e ac­ counts: On January 8, 1822, Tyerman and Bennet vi ited Marae Mata'ire'a Rahi together with the man who was the official bearer of the image of the god Tone. Here follow the de­ cription they made from thi visit: "The great morae, so dedicated to Tani, tand Figure 4. Alw of Marae Mata'ire'a Rahi. uperior among all the e, being nearly a hundred feet by eighty in length and breadth, with wall in morae Manunu on the island of Huahine. The former i men­ orne parts nine feet thick. In the centre of thi tioned in the myths as an "original" morae located central on rude edifice, Tani's bed i een, on which hi idol the hill above Maeva village, and the latter is the exceptional wa laid when prayer were offered to it, and near large "coastal" morae, located at the sea hore side of Fauna that another platform, which the dumb tock occu­ ui, oppo ite Maeva village. pied on pecial occa ion . At the ill tance of thirty feet, in front of the morae, i the u ual raised seat MARAE MATA'IRE'A RAHl (SITE: SCH-2-19) for the prie t when he performed hi devotion; and, near the same, what may be called the altar, MARAE MATA'IRE'A RAm, OR Faao-aitu (Henry 1928:100) consisting of a flat f1ag- tone and an upright one, wa recognized as the "national" morae of the i land of on which the animal , offered in sacrifice, were Rapa Nui Journal 14 Vol. 19 (1) May 2005 https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol19/iss1/4 2 Wallin and Solsvik: Historical Records and Archaeological Excavations of Two "National" Marae Complexes formerly slaughtered; these were swine and fowls.