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This article is about the island of Nuku Hiva. For the administrative commune which includes the island, see Nuku-Hiva.
Nuku Hiva (sometimes spelled "Nukahiva") is the largest of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It was formerly also known as Île Marchand and Madison Island. Herman Melville wrote his book Typee based on his experiences in the Taipivai valley in the eastern part of Nuku Hiva. Robert Louis Stevenson's first landfall on his voyage on the Casco, was at Hatiheu, on the north side of Nuku Hiva, in 1888. Nuku Hiva was also the site for Survivor: Marquesas, the fourth installment of the popular CBS reality television show in the US.
[edit] Geography[edit] CoastThe coastline of western Nuku Hiva is characterized by a steep, but fairly regular coastline, indented occasionally by small bays leading to deep valleys, which lead into the interior. There are no villages on this side. The coastline of the eastern part of the island has few places to land by sea and takes the brunt of the ocean swells. The north, on the other hand, is indented by deep bays, the largest of which are Anaho and Hatiheu. Aakapaa bay is not as large but has a village of the same name. The south has fewer bays, among which those of Taiohae, Taipivai, Hooumi, Hakapoovai (the last three are parts of the larger Baie du Contrôleur) and the bays of Hakaui and Hakatea both accessed by the same narrow entrance. [edit] InlandThe central part of the island is a high plateau called Tōvi‘i, covered primarily by a tall-grass prairie, on which experiments in cattle raising are taking place for the first time — 15 years ago all the cattle were wild and hunted with rifles. On the western edge of Tōvi‘i rises Tekao, the island's highest peak, which reaches an elevation of 1224 m (4,016 ft). The western and northern edges of Tōvi‘i are a mountain ridge, which catches much of the rain that waters the island. Pine forest plantations covering large areas all around the crater of Tōvi‘i give an overall impression of the lower Alps and parts of Germany, Wales and Switzerland. In one place, Vaipo Waterfall, the collected water falls off a highland and falls 350 m (1,148 ft). The slopes of the north western side of the island are much drier than the rest of the island, and are often described as a desert named "Terre Déserte" in French. [edit] AdministrationNuku Hiva is administratively part of the commune (municipality) of Nuku-Hiva, itself in the administrative subdivision of the Marquesas Islands. The administrative centre of the commune of Nuku-Hiva and also of the administrative subdivision of the Marquesas Islands is the settlement of Taiohae, located on the south side of Nuku Hiva, at the head of the bay of that same name. [edit] DemographicsThe population in 2007 was 2,660. This is substantially less than that encountered at the end of the 16th century when the Spaniards first sighted the island. Contacts with Europeans brought infections such as venereal disease and influenza causing high mortality resulting in the loss of much of the local knowledge of plants as sources of medicine. The population is primarily Polynesian with a small proportion of Europeans, mostly from Metropolitan France. At the 2002 census, 92.6% of Nuku Hiva's residents were born in French Polynesia while 148 people, making up 5.6% of Nuku Hiva's residents, were people born in Metropolitan France.[1] The primary diet of people tends to be breadfruit, taro, manioc, coconut and many kinds of fruit, which grow in abundance. Goats, fish and, more rarely, pigs, are the main sources of meat but there is a growing amount of local beef available. Imported food is also freely available, including apples, grapes, celery, and even sliced bread from New Zealand. Two local bakeries produce baguettes, another cheap staple. Considerable rice is also eaten. There are a great many wild pigs on the island as well as those reared on the agricultural college.The wild pigs are a cross between the Polynesian pig brought by the first settlers and the wild boar brought by the Europeans. There is one jail on the island, which was generally used for 'short stay' internments such as the last 3 months of sentences and was also often altogether empty. Lately, however, prisoners can opt to do their full sentence here if they have no family on Tahiti so the Nuku Hiva jail now has inmates all the time. [edit] CommunicationsNuku Hiva is served by a single-runway airport in the northwest corner of the island, approximately 30 miles by road, northwest of Taiohae. [edit] HistoryNuku Hiva was, in ancient times, the site of two provinces, Te I'i covering somewhat more than the western two thirds of the island, and Tai Pi, covering the eastern third. Latest studies indicate that the first people to arrive here came from Samoa around 2000 years ago, only later colonizing Tahiti, Hawaii, The Cook Islands and New Zealand. The legend has it that Ono, the god of creation, promised his wife to build a house in one day, so he gathered together land and created these islands, which are all named after parts of the house, Nuku Hiva being the roof. Everything he had left over he threw to one side and created a dump which is called Ua Huka. From these supposed origins the population rose to an untenable size; first European estimates vary from 50,000 to 100,000. Food became of prime importance. Breadfruit was the staple, but taro, plaintain and manioc also played a big part. As for meat, fish was the main source, but even so was limited because of the quantity needed to feed so many mouths. Pigs, chickens and dogs were also cultivated, and hunted when they took to the wilds. It is still debated why Polynesians practiced cannibalism. Indeed all Pacific Islands residents did so. One theory is that cannibalism was more for food than ritual, although ritual played a big part. An offering to the gods was called Ika, which means fish, and a sacrifice was caught and, just like a fish, was hung by a fishhook in the sacred place. Those to be eaten were tied and hung up in trees until needed, then had their brains bashed out on execution blocks with a club. Women and children seem to have been cannibalized just for food, whereas warriors killed in battle were offerings to the gods and were eaten by their conquerors to absorb their power; their skulls were kept by their slayers for the same reason. On the 21st of July 1595 Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira stopped at Fatu Hiva and called the islands Los Marquesas after the wife of the Viceroy of Peru. James Cook likewise visited the south in 1774, and the Solide Expedition in 1791. There is little evidence that these visits led to the introduction of diseases, perhaps because slow passages inhibited the diseases aboard the ships. It seems that it was the commercial shipping, taking on sandalwood, and the whaling ships that brought the epidemics that killed 9 out of 10 Polynesians.  In 1813, Commodore David Porter claimed Nuku Hiva for the United States, but the United States Congress never ratified the claim and in 1842 France took possession of the whole group, establishing a settlement which was abandoned in 1859. A ship from Peru captured people from Ua Pou and took them back as slaves, but as the Catholic Church had converted the islands to Christianity by then, there was a protest and those captives who were still alive were sent back. However, this was a mixed blessing because they brought typhoid fever. A population in excess of 100,000 in 1820 fell to 6,000 in 1872, to 3,000 in 1911 and to a low point of 2,200 in 1927. It seemed that there was no way the Marquesians would survive, but two French doctors toured the islands giving vaccinations and medical care and halted the heavy death toll. Leprosy, however, was still a problem only 20 years ago and elephantiasis is only now almost gone. Due to its isolation from Tahiti and the will of most of the population, it has been spared the fate of its capital and remains a mysterious undeveloped archipelago.. In 2002, France successfully requested that a 20-year moratorium be applied to French Polynesia to stop it from being incorporated into the European Union. One of the driving factors was to stop non-French investment in property for the time being.[citation needed] The then-mayor of Nuku Hiva, Lucien Kimitete, who promoted separation of the Marquesas Islands from French Polynesia within the French Republic, was killed in an airplane accident in May 2002, along with MP Boris Leontieff, Mayor of Arue in Tahiti. Many locals still believe this crash was not properly investigated. There is a considerable amount of latent resentment and hostility about this.[citation needed] Since the death of Lucien Kimitete, Marquesan political leaders have repeatedly declared themselves in favor of separating from French Polynesia and remaining within the French Republic in case French Polynesian political leaders in Tahiti would proclaim the independence of French Polynesia.[3] [edit] Resources
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