Enana

The ʻEnana, or Marquesans, are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Marquesas, remote volcanic islands whose north Marquesan name Te Henua ʻEnana means the land of men. Descendants of Lapita voyagers from western Polynesia settled them between about 1190 and 1290 and built a culture on fishing, fowling and breadfruit gardens in drought-plagued valleys.

Basalt adze heads quarried on Eiao were carried by sailing canoe more than 2,500 kilometres to islands as far as Rarotonga and Tabuaeran, evidence of far-flung pre-European trade. The clans were famous warriors, practising tattooing and ritual human sacrifice.

Álvaro de Mendaña reached the southern islands in 1595 and named the group after the Marquis of Cañete. Protestant missionaries arrived from 1797, and in 1813 Commodore David Porter claimed Nuku Hiva for the United States, though Congress never ratified the claim; whaling ships made the islands a regular port of call.