Maiao
| Maiao | ||
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| Waters | Pacific Ocean | |
| Archipelago | Leeward Islands, Society Islands | |
| Geographical location | 17 ° 39 ′ 0 ″ S , 150 ° 38 ′ 0 ″ W | |
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| surface | 8.8 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 154 m | |
| Residents | 299 (2007) 34 inhabitants / km² |
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| main place | Taora | |
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Maiao , other names: Tapamanoa, Tabuaemanu, Tubuai Manu , old names: Sir Charles Saunders Island ( Wallis ), La Pelada ( Boenechea ), nickname "The Forbidden Island" (French: l'île interdite ), is a small, sparsely populated island Island in the South Pacific. Geographically it belongs to the Society Islands (French: Îles de la Société ), more precisely to the Islands over the Wind (French: Îles du Vent ) and politically to French Polynesia .
geography
Maiao is the westernmost of the "Leeward Islands" and is located around 80 kilometers to the west of Moorea . The island is an atoll , the main island of which is of volcanic origin. A reef rim surrounds Maiao at a relatively short distance, only in the southwest does the reef widen, so that a lagoon could arise. The only passage that is only accessible for small boats is in the south.
When viewed from above, two large saltwater lakes that shape the landscape stand out, Lake Roto iti in the north and Lake Roto rahi in the east. They are lagoons that have been largely cut off from the ocean by tectonic uplift processes.
The main island is quite flat, it is only slightly above the sea surface. The vast coastal plain consists of coral sand and debris. In the center, however, a densely overgrown basaltic formation rises , which reaches a height of 154 m.
The only settlement Taora lies at the foot of this elevation in the southwest, between Lake Rotoiti and the coast.
Flora and fauna
So far, there is no comprehensive scientific documentation about the flora of Maiao. With the exception of the swampy areas, there is hardly anything left of the original vegetation of the lower island areas, as extensive clearing was carried out in the first half of the 20th century to create coconut plantations. The steep slopes in the middle of the island are predominantly covered with low-growing, tropical tree and shrub species, interspersed with pandanus and ferns.
Two indigenous bird species can be found at the two inland lakes: the reef freon ( Egretta sacra ), a common wading bird from the heron family in Oceania, and the eyebrow duck ( Anas superciliosa ), a duck bird that is also common in the western South Pacific. In addition, several species of seabirds nest on the island, including two species of the frigate birds (Fregatidae), the noddi ( Anous stolidus ) and the fairy tern ( Gygis alba ).
history
Little is known about the Polynesian natives; systematic archaeological excavations have not yet taken place on Maiao. Remains of a ceremonial complex, the Marae Ahu Tii, can still be found north of the settlement, directly on the shores of Lake Roto iti. The stone platform made of vertical limestone slabs, filled with coral debris, once rose to a height of two meters. Some large stone slabs in the center of the village still indicate the Marae Nuutapu, once the royal ceremonial complex. According to the report of the missionary and explorer William Ellis , there was at least one other ceremonial platform on the island, the Marae Taaroa, which can no longer be located today.
The Society Islands were founded around 200 BC. Populated from Tonga and Samoa. As in the rest of the Polynesian Islands, a tribal society had developed over time. In pre-European times, however, Maiao was dependent on the neighboring island of Huahine to the north and was ruled by the Atu tii royal family of Huahine.
British naval officer Samuel Wallis discovered Maiao for Europe on the morning of July 28, 1767, the day after he sailed from Moorea . He named it "Sir Charles Saunders Island" after the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Charles Saunders . Wallis did not set foot on the island, but had a fairly accurate side view of Maiao drawn. Valais does not provide any information about possible residents. There was no meeting with the islanders.
During his second voyage to the Pacific (1774-1775), the Spaniard Domingo de Boenechea reached the island of Maiao on January 8, 1775, around 8:00 a.m., but did not go ashore either. He didn't meet any residents either and only had a rough sketch of the location of the island drawn. Because of the low-growing vegetation, Boenechea named it “La Pelada” (German: bald head, the bald).
The British missionary and explorer William Ellis, who from 1816 stayed on Tahti, Hawaii and other islands in the South Pacific, described the inhabitants of Maiao as wild cannibals. Under "King" Tamatefetu it was customary to lure particularly corpulent visitors to the island into an ambush and to murder them. The parts of the body were then wrapped in banana and hibiscus leaves and cooked in an earth oven to be eaten.
One day, according to Ellis, the king's wife Feite overheard a conversation between Tamatefetus and his warriors, who were planning to eliminate their brother Tebuoroo. She was able to win two men who had to suffer from the tyranny of the king. When Tamatefetu was bathing in the sea, they crept up behind and stoned him to death.
Ellis names the island Tabuaemanu and states that it is the "name used by the natives".
Another notable visitor was Charles Darwin . He studied and described the geography of the island and used the knowledge gained for his theory of the development of the atolls.
On September 9, 1842, the French rear admiral Abel Aubert Dupetit-Thouars announced the provisional protectorate of France over the Society Islands. In November 1843 the agreements were confirmed by a treaty with Queen Pomaré IV of Tahiti and in 1844 also formally recognized by France. Her son Pomaré V. abdicated on June 29, 1880. As a result, the entire archipelago of the Society Islands finally fell to France, and Maiao also became a French colony.
Eric Trower, a British adventurer and owner of a hotel and small plantation on Moorea, began buying land rights cheaply on Maiao in the 1920s from families who had left Maiao and settled on other islands. He suspected abundant phosphate deposits on the island that he wanted to exploit. When geologists assured him that there were no exploitable deposits there, he planned to plant large-scale coconut plantations in order to enter the then still lucrative copra business. The workers he brought with him planted extensive areas on his own, cultivated or developed land, on which the natural vegetation was destroyed by slash and burn. Since there was no official on Maiao and Trower also had the only firearms on the island, the residents were intimidated and granted him more and more rights. After all, he “owned” half the island, which he considered to be his very own “empire”, and he controlled the entire copra production as well as the traffic and trade between Maiao and the other islands. That only changed when French Protestant missionaries arrived on the island in 1931 and presented the case to the French governor in Papeete . Trower had to compensate the families appropriately and transfer all land rights to a cooperative (Maiao Co-op). When the copra price fell, his company went bankrupt and Trower took his own life. As a result of this experience, non-Polynesians were forbidden to settle on Maiao, a ban that is still in effect today. This is where the nickname "The Forbidden Island" results.
Between the 1930s and the 1950s, no more than five ships reached the isolated Maiao. The islanders were almost completely cut off from supplies of goods that they did not produce themselves. There were periods of starvation and many people died because they were left without any medical care. The situation only improved in the mid-1950s. When fish became more and more popular in Tahiti's markets due to growing tourism, the residents of Maiao either supplied fish themselves or sold fishing concessions for their lagoon. Regular boat traffic began and copra production also increased again. A government radio link with Tahiti was also established in the late 1950s.
economy & Administration and Management
Maiao today has 335 inhabitants, all of whom live in a single village in the southwest. Maiao and the island of Moorea further east form an independent municipality ( Commune de Moorea ) and is one of six communes associées (sub-municipalities). The municipality of Moorea-Maiao is administered by a subdivision ( Subdivision administrative des Îles du Vent ) of the High Commission of French Polynesia ( Haut-commissariat de la République en Polynésie française ) based in Papeete.
The residents of Maiao live mainly from subsistence farming . The most important crops in small fields and in home gardens are cassava , taro , yams , sweet potatoes and numerous types of pumpkin . Bananas , breadfruits, and coconuts continue to be important traditional staples. In the meantime, guava bushes originally from South America have spread widely and overgrow the abandoned plantations. Pigs and chickens are kept in every household; other staple foods are fish, mussels and crustaceans that you have caught yourself.
Small amounts of copra, self- woven pandanus mats and some fruits are exported for the local markets.
Infrastructure
The coral reef has only one passage in the south, which is only navigable for small boats. The individual parts of the island are accessed by an unpaved ring road, which also makes the scattered coconut plantations accessible via side roads.
A small pre-school and elementary school ( école maternelle et primaire ) has been set up in the only village, and the children have to leave the island for further education. Medical care is only available in Afareaitu on the neighboring island of Moorea.
tourism
Maiao is rarely visited by tourists. The island is difficult to reach because there is no airfield and no regular ferry service to the neighboring islands. A small supply ship runs irregularly, on average once a month, from Tahiti. Maiao has no other tourist infrastructure either: no hotels or tourist accommodation, no bank and no restaurants. Private accommodation is usually not rented out; for a longer stay, a personal invitation from an islander is required. All plans of the administration to bring tourists to the island, which has some very beautiful sandy beaches in a natural state, have so far been successfully blocked by the residents.
Photo gallery
Beach view
Maiao Beach
Village view
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lawrence John Chubb & Walter Campbell Smith: On the Geology of Maiao (Society Islands) , Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, February 1927, pp. 342-345
- ^ Peter Mueller-Dombois & Raymond Fosberg: Vegetation of the Tropical Pacific Islands , New York 1998, p. 420
- ^ Jean-Claude Thibault: Le peuplement avien des îles de la Société (Polynésie) , Papeete 1974
- ^ A b William Ellis: Polynesian Researches During a Residence of Nearly Eight Years in the Society and Sandwich Islands, London 1859
- ↑ Patrick Vinton Kirch: On the Roads of the Winds - An Archaeological History of Pacific Islands Before European Contact, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 2000, p. 231
- ↑ Tahiti Hermitage (French) [1]
- ^ John Hawkesworth: An Historical Account of the Circumnavigation of the Globe, and of the Progress of Discovery in the Pacific Ocean, from the Voyage of Magellan to the Death of Cook, New York 1837, p. 165
- ↑ Domingo de Boenechea: The Official Journal of the second voyage of the frigate Aguile from El Callao to Tahiti and the islands nearby and back to El Callao 1774-5. In: Bolton G. Corney: The quest and occupation of Tahiti by the emissaries of Spain in 1772–1776 , Volume 2, Hakluyt Society London, 1914, pp. 161–162
- ^ Charles Darwin: The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, RN during the years 1832 to 1836. Smith Elder and Co, London 1842, p. 153
- ↑ Ben R. Finney: Polynesian peasants and proletarians , Cambridge Mass. 1973, pp. 51-61
- ^ Institut Statistique de Polynésie Française (ISPF) - Recensement de la population 2012
- ^ David Stanley: Moon Handbooks Tahiti: Including the Cook Islands , 2003, p. 164
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