Hiva Oa

Hiva Oa is the largest island of the southern Marquesas, a rugged volcanic island of towering steep ridges and deep valleys. Marquesan communities cultivated breadfruit and stored fermented fruit in pits against times of scarcity. Breadfruit was peeled, stored under leaves and earth, and later baked as part of the islanders’ food supply. The valleys held settlements and ceremonial places whose stone platforms and carvings testify to generations of island life.

In 1595 Álvaro de Mendaña’s Spanish expedition sighted Hiva Oa and visited nearby Tahuata. Almost two centuries later, James Cook’s Resolution called at Tahuata in 1774 and surveyed the southern islands. Encounters brought unfamiliar goods into the Marquesas, while island communities continued to govern their valleys through chiefs and established relationships.