Marquesa Islands: 25th March - 5th April
The Marquesa Islands: rugged, spiritual, remote and ancient. As we make landfall on this remote archipelago after twenty days at sea, we are greeted by the sight of impossibly lush mountains in fifty shades of green. They rise steeply out of the sea, wreathed in misty rainfall with rainbows drifting across the cloud-forest covered mountainsides. What a landscape! After such a long time at sea I couldn’t wait to leave Aqualuna’s perpetual motion for some time out, and to plant my feet on terra firma. It was time to explore, drink beer, catch up with friends and discover the Marquesas.
As we came ashore we experienced the aromatic scent of ‘green’ mingled with the fragrance of flowers that is carried on the breeze throughout the islands. As we step off the boat in Atuona, Hiva Oa, it feels as if we’ve entered a garden.
We stayed a couple of days in Hiva Oa with time to tour the island’s fascinating archaeological sites before the swell in the anchorage got the better of us - the constant rolling in the bay was considerably worse than being at sea and getting on and off the boat was not for the faint-hearted. As one sailor from the OCC (Ocean Cruising Club) put it: “getting in the dinghy in Hiva Oa really makes you think over your life choices”.
So we decided to cut our losses and headed down to the small island of Tahuata to join friends for a Firepit Feast organised by the villagers. We had an exuberant dolphin escort into the anchorage and enjoyed a couple of days of calm. After our long crossing this gave us a chance to finally sort out the post-apocalyptic scenes inside the boat, get some washing done and enjoy snorkelling with black-tip reef sharks, surrounded by the utter magnificence of the bay.
Then on to Nuka Hiva which is the main island of the Marquesas. We dived with elegant manta rays, trekked on horseback through the forests and hired a car for a couple of days to explore the island - which was literally operatic in its magnificence.
It is a remarkable landscape of an ancient people, traditionally known as ‘The Land of Men’, which reflects this rugged, untamed land inhabited by a fierce, independent warrior race. There is an overwhelming spirituality to the islands, and the primitive village sites with their areas of worship and sacrifice are well preserved.
Human sacrifice and its attendant cannibalism is the dark side of this spirituality, but played a key role in Marquesan life. In general, they sacrificed and ate the captives of their tribal wars rather than recruiting victims from their own social groups and the purpose was not to provide lunch, but rather to absorb the leadership and warrior qualities of their enemies. There was a focus on consuming specific organs: the eyes for vision, the brain for intelligence and the heart for courage. Human sacrifices were also performed to facilitate the deification of their chiefs and shamans after death and their transition to the afterlife. Officially this practice died out in the mid-late 19th century but our guide told us that the last event of this nature occurred as recently as the mid-1990s and our friends on World ARC boat ‘Amelia’ found what looked to be recently discarded human bones and skull parts just lying around on one of the lesser known Hiva Oa sites. Freaky!!
There are tikis are everywhere, both in the archaeological sites and as a part of every day life in today’s villages. These stone or wooden sculptures are a significant element of the cultural heritage of the Marquesas Islands and integral to the spiritual and social fabric of the islands. They are revered as symbols of power and protection and are usually of a human-like figure, representing a warrior or chief, with a huge head and eyes, and their arms resting on their tummy. They tend to have enormous penises - always a bonus - and they take the form of huge sculptures as well as pictographs, small statues and wearable charms.
The missionaries tried to bring Christianity and ‘civilise’ the islands. They even cut the penises off the tikis (enormous phalluses are clearly unacceptable in refined society) but thankfully they were unable to quash the island spirits. Whilst Catholicism in particular is commonly practised, the traditional beliefs and tiki culture are still the life force of the islands.
The name for this sacred force is ‘Mana’. It is a fundamental concept in Polynesian culture and it is believed that this spiritual power inhabits all living things - and indeed the whole natural world. It is an energy that connects everything and the Marquesans believe that it can be felt in the land, the ocean and in the spirit of the people.
As a committed agnostic I always find myself open to other belief systems and I definitely have a strong sense of the interconnected energy of the world around me - and the force and balance of Mother Earth - so I found the spirituality of Mana resounded profoundly.
When we visited the ancient site of Hatiheu by ourselves, there was most definitely a very strange and watchful aura. I was reminded of watching horror films where you’re all screaming at the screen “don’t go there on your own! Don’t you realise what’s about to happen?? Are you completely insane???” Even M who is fully committed to rejecting the concept of anything remotely spiritual commented on how very spooky and unsettling it was. We found an impressively enormous banyan tree that we were drawn to, only to discover afterwards it had been the repository for all the human skulls from every sacrificial dinner they’d ever had. Apparently these had all been removed by the missionaries who were appalled at the unholy levels of depravity. I’m not entirely sure if that would have laid those sacrificial spirits to rest or enraged them even further. M also discovered several deep holes which he happily pronounced to be firepits but that later turned out to be one of the many pits used as bins for discarded human bones and to incarcerate a prisoner (usually with his limbs broken to prevent escape) and left to consider his impending doom whilst perched on the piles of old bones and awaiting the misfortune of becoming dinner.
Despite their recent fierce warrior history the people of the Marquesas are very friendly to visitors (as long as you’re not a Catholic missionary probably!) and it was truly a pleasure to spend time with these proud and independent people. They told us how important it is to them to maintain the integrity of the islands and reject the influx of major tourism. Having witnessed over and over again on this journey the profound cultural changes that take place with the influx of all-inclusive resorts, global brands and depressing generic westernisation, I wholeheartedly understand their desire to maintain their own cultural values and way of life. The stealthy creep of joyless globalisation is a scourge and I hope with all my heart that the Marquesans manage to hold back that insidious tide. Perhaps it’s time to resurrect the practice of human sacrifice - that would put a bit of a dampener on your Airbnb mini-break and would almost certainly deter the most enthusiastic Sandals customers.
Posted by Claire