Last modified: 2005-09-10 by ivan sache
Keywords: tahuata | marquesas islands | iotete |
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Quoting the website of the Presidency of French Polynesia:
The island of Tahuata is located at 9º56'S and 139º06'W. It is separated from Hiva Oa by a 3-kilometer wide sound known as the Bordelais Channel.
The island has an area of 61 square kilometers and is shaped like a crescent 15 kilometers long. A ridgeline running north to south reaches a maximum height of 1,050 meters. A crater rim with steep slopes that go all the way to the coast, forming high cliffs at the ends of buttress-like spurs above white sand beach bays that form an indented coastline. Tahuata is the only island in the Marquesas with coral formations. Today, the entire island is one municipality with a population of 637 (1996 census) divided among four villages: Vaitahu, Hapatoni, Motopu and Hanatetena. Agriculture is the island's main richness, long after coffee disappeared in the valleys around 1980. Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendana arrived at Vaitahu in 1595, but the islanders' first contact with a European was bloody as Spanish soldiers massacred 200 persons in the village. The behavior of the westerners who arrived between the end of the XVIIIth Century and the beginning of XIXth Century incited a violent hostility among the islanders. The first Christianization attempts among the islanders by Protestants in 1797 and Catholics in 1839 failed. The Polynesian chief Iotete organized a fierce resistance in 1842 when a French expedition led by Dupetit-Thouars tried to take control of Tahuata.
Ivan Sache, 20 August 2005