Nuku Hiva Island- the largest atoll of the Marquesas archipelago in French Polynesia, formerly known as Madison.
On the territory of this unique island, there is Temehea Tohua with some of the most outlandish statues that man has ever seen. Some of the ancient sculptures are sculptures of creatures that resemble alien aliens. Many researchers have wondered whether they are the fruit of the wild imagination of their creators or mysterious creatures from distant space have actually visited this island.
At first glance, these are just "big statues", but on closer examination, more and more interesting features begin to appear, causing bewilderment about the "models" that served as inspiration for the sculptors. Among them are massive and oblong heads, large eyes, huge and frail bodies.
The experience of staying on the territory of the Taipiwai Valley in the eastern region of the island of Nuku Hiva can be found in the book "Turei", written by Herman Melville. In 1888, during an expedition to Casco, the atoll was visited by Robert Louis Stevenson, who landed in the northern region of the island called Hatihoy. Also on Nuku-Hiva, the 4th season of the American reality show "Survivors" was filmed.
In ancient times, the island of Nuku Hiva was divided into two districts: Te Lii province (more than 2/3 of the territory) and Tai Pi.
Legends mention the creator god Ono, who promised his wife that he would build a house in one day. To do this, he gathered together the land and created islands that became parts of it - Nuku Hiva was the roof, and the island of Wa-Huka was created from the unused land.
The first settlers arrived in Nuku Hiva from Samoa about 2,000 years ago. Later they colonized New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Tahiti in Hawaii.
By the time the Europeans arrived on the island, its population, according to various estimates, ranged from 50 to 100 thousand people. Most of the diet was breadfruit, bananas, taro and cassava. There was not enough protein for everyone, mainly fish, although the inhabitants of the island also ate pigs, dogs and chickens.
There is still debate in the scientific community regarding the origin of cannibalism, which was practiced by many Polynesian tribes. There is a theory that in this way the protein deficiency was compensated, although mainly eating people was of a ritual nature. For example, a sacrifice for the sea deity Ica was "caught" in the same way as a fish, and then hung over the altar on a hook.
The victim of the sacred ritual was hung on a tree for a while, and then her brains were knocked out with a club. It is believed that for women and children, cannibalism served only as food, while male warriors ate defeated opponents in order to gain their strength. For this, they also preserved their skulls.
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January 2, 2014 4:59 pmThere are a great many mysterious places and amazing monuments of antiquity on Earth, but most of them still remain mysterious and unexplored.
One of these corners is a village called Temehea Tohua, which is located on the island of Nuku Hiva. It is noteworthy that it is the largest atoll in French Polynesia in the Marquesas archipelago.
This stunning island is home to some of the strangest and most mysterious statues in the world. Most of these statues resemble aliens from distant space or parallel worlds, but who do they really represent? Perhaps these statues are nothing more than the fruit of the artist's highly developed imagination, or maybe the ancient inhabitants of these lands tried to capture unknown creatures who once visited our planet?
At first glance, it may seem that these are just large statues. However, close examination reveals interesting details: large eyes, huge elongated heads, strikingly different body sizes of individual statues, and other features that make one wonder: Who or what inspired the sculptor to carve such inhuman features?
Some researchers claim that these statues represent the oldest alien race, the Reptilians.
Interestingly, many of the statues are depicted in family groups, women are more often with children.
And these, apparently, are the males of these creatures:
The Reptilians have often been at the heart of conspiracy theorists' controversies, in which they have been credited with manipulating people and controlling their behavior. It is believed that the Reptilians are very evil, and, nevertheless, the most highly advanced alien civilization in our galaxy. Could statues from Temehea Tohua represent some types of reptilians? If this is so, then it is quite possible that the Reptilians were worshiped by gods among local tribes in those distant times.
Who the statues on Temehea Tohua actually depict may remain a mystery forever, but it is more than obvious that these statues have nothing to do with human appearance.
Also, nothing is known about who and when created the statue.
Historians believe that the first inhabitants of Nuku Hiva appeared about two thousand years ago, they were settlers from the island of Samoa, who later also settled in Tahiti, Hawaii and New Zealand. But how it was actually there is still a question. It is unlikely that these islands were always uninhabited before the beginning of our era.
But it still seems to me that these mysterious statues of reptilians are very similar to Japanese Dogu figurines. At present, more than 3000 such figurines have been found, depicting certain creatures that resemble modern astronauts. It is worth noting that some of the statuettes are 10,000 years old.
DK2AMM, DL6JGN, GM4FDM, PA3EWP will be active from Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands (IOTA OC-027) 3 - 15 March 2016 as TX7EU.
They will be QRV on 40 - 10m CW, SSB, RTTY.
QSL via DK2AMM.
Address for QSL direct:
Ernö Ogonovszky, Am Steinbruch 4, 09123 Chemnitz, Germany.
TX7EU News 3 March 2016
The team arrived on the island of Nuku Hiva. They installed the first antenna. The activity is scheduled to start on March 4, 2016.
Nuku hiva island
For any historian or traveler, the name Nuku-Hiva is immediately associated with something mysterious, or rather even supernatural. And everything is unusual in Nuku Hiva: from the origin of the island and its attractions, to the modern stories associated with it.
Hatiheu Bay, Nuku Hiva Island, Marquesas Islands. Photo by Steve Berardi.
The founding of the island is a true masterpiece
The island of Nuku Hiva is two huge ancient volcanoes, as if embedded in each other by some kind of Master. This giant "matryoshka" has formed two vast basins with strikingly beautiful basalt slopes. One of the hollows surrounds the island's capital, and the crater of the extinct volcano itself has turned into a deep bay with impressive mountain peaks on the coast.
The cliffs immersed in the waters of the vast Pacific Ocean evoke a mute delight in everyone who admires this unearthly beauty that came to us from antiquity. It is not for nothing that the island used to be called "Majestic" - you can feel it in any piece of island landscapes.
Nuku Hiva Island, Marquesas Islands. Photo by Rita Villiert.
Islanders with eccentric addictions
The population of a small piece of land, at first not numerous (the aborigines lived here already in 150 AD), by the 18th century had grown to about 100 thousand people, and then began to gradually decrease. The reason for this was wars between representatives of different tribes, as well as various infections and viruses brought to the island by Europeans, and to which the islanders did not have immunity (during an epidemic, up to a thousand people could die). Well, the Chinese opium brought to Nuku-Khiva at the end of the 19th century completely "put things in order" with the demography: in the 30s of the 20th century, only a little more than half a thousand people lived here. Now the population of the island has increased slightly and has about 2 thousand inhabitants.
But not such jumps in population size are unnatural, but a wild custom, or the terrible need of the aborigines to ... eat their own kind.
Until now, it is difficult to draw a correct conclusion about the reasons for such an exotic "product" included in the diet of the islanders. Perhaps the dense population of a small piece of land with the presence of mainly plant food on it and, as a consequence, a lack of protein. Apparently, the need for protein for such a number of people could not be filled with fish, or living creatures, which there was also no special opportunity to breed in sufficient quantities.
But there is another version of the cause of cannibalism: the rituals of sacrifice. The inhabitants of Nuku-Khiva thus appeased the deities in whom they believed and feared their wrath, and the men of the tribe, having eaten the defeated enemy, appropriated his power and strength. The skulls of the eaten people were carefully preserved for the same purpose.
This could be attributed to the manifestations of wild ancient customs, if not for one extraordinary circumstance.
More recently, in 2011, in pursuit of extreme adventures, a 40-year-old German came to the island with his companion to hunt goats. Taking a local guide with him, he went to the mountains, and after a while the islander returned and told the hunter's friend that he was wounded and remained in the mountains. When the woman decided to go to the rescue of her friend, the guide tied her up and did not let her go anywhere. When the German woman managed to free herself, she reported the incident to the police. The search led the police to an extinct fire, which contained the remains of a man with all the signs of a cannibal meal. And the unfortunate guide simply escaped from the island.
Apparently, cannibals are never former ...
True, there is another, old, but more optimistic story. This is the story of the navigator Melville, who once escaped from a ship and secretly landed on Nuku Hiva. The natives not only did not eat the sailor - they accepted him as a friend. Later, becoming a writer, he described the history of his stay with the islanders in the book "Typee". There is even a monument on the island in memory of the sailor.
So the tastes and preferences of cannibals are incomprehensible and it is worth delving into them. Moreover, there are more interesting riddles on Nuku-Hava.
Hikokua, Nuku Hiva Island, Marquesas Islands. Photo by Rita Villiert.
Statues without analogues or monuments to the other world
Unique statues of tiki idols, which have no analogues anywhere in the world, are the main mystery of the island. No one knows who is carved in stone and the history of what creatures is captured in these statues.
Outlandish figures of two types, very often carved by groups (or families?), Suggest that it was here that aliens stayed, or maybe they even lived, about which earthlings are so much controversial.
Huge, wide-set eyes of a round shape, similar to portholes, a flattened large nose and stretched full lips do not make a very pleasant impression and evoke a certain feeling of insecurity and fear.
The largest tiki sculpture is 2.5 meters high. No idol repeats another. Their number and variety eloquently testifies to the completely incomprehensible religion and culture of the island.
At one time, Christian missionaries tried to bring elements of their faith into the life of the islanders. Nuku Hiva even has a small Catholic church, the Catholic Notre Dame Cathedral, built of stones of different colors and shapes, as well as a statue of the Virgin Mary on a mountain peak above the bay. But Christianity spread hard and was reluctantly accepted. Local beliefs and views are deeply rooted in the heads of residents. Many of them are convinced that each tiki idol carries a different power: assistance in battles, salvation from various troubles, the growth of crops, and more. What kind of God is there?
But no one knows for certain what tics carry in themselves, nor is it known how they appeared on the island.
Only one thing can be said with complete certainty: our planet is filled with wonders and mysteries, and no one knows when the secret of the idols of the mysterious island of Nuku Hiva will be unraveled.
"The majestic land in the middle of the water" - this is how the name of the island of Nuku-Hiva is translated from the local dialect, and one can only guess about the essence of the "majesty" of the island.
The panoramic view of the island from the plane leaves no doubt about its volcanic origin. The volcanoes that once rose above the water and created the island have long gone out, and their craters have collapsed.
Geography
Nuku Hiva is located in the Northern group of the Marquesas Islands, it is the largest island in the entire archipelago. It is located almost in the center of the Pacific Ocean, at a considerable distance from the continents. And even from Papeete - the capital of French Polynesia, of which it is part - it is separated by one and a half thousand kilometers. Across the island are scattered basalt rocks several hundred meters high, forming the Tobia plateau, overgrown with tall grass. They remind us that Nuku Hiva, like everyone else, is of volcanic origin. The summit of the highest mountain - Tekao - is the highest point of the cone of a huge extinct volcano. It appeared 2-5 million years ago, forming an island, since then its activity has gradually decreased.
Although the island is located in the tropics, easterly winds prevail here, they do not bring humid air masses, so drought on the island is not uncommon.
History
Nuku Hiva is one of the few islands in this area of the Pacific Ocean, where the exact date of arrival of people from Samoa is set. Archaeological excavations definitely point to 150 AD. These people also brought pottery with them, which had already been widespread on the islands of Samoa and Tonga. Nuku Hiva became one of the main centers of civilization in Eastern Polynesia.
For almost a thousand years - until 1100 - people settled on the island, which turned out to be quite difficult. Archaeologists were able to trace how the locals gradually managed to master the technique of working the stone, which they used to build their homes, leaving huts made of palm leaves.
The period from 1100 to 1400 - the heyday of stone construction: during these three centuries, most of the stone structures on the island were built. These include the world famous tiki sculptures.
The first famous Western traveler to land and describe the island was the American Joseph Ingram. In April 1791, his ship reached the shores of the island, and thanks to him the island was mapped. The Frenchman Etienne Marchand, who came ashore in the same year, was only a few months behind Ingram.
In the future, the island was used by the ships of sandalwood traders, whalers and adventurers, who replenished the supplies of water and provisions on Nuku Hiva. In 1804 the Russian traveler Admiral Ivan Kruzenshtern visited Nuku-Khiva.
Relations with the local population were not easy. In 1826 the Russian expedition sloop "Krotkiy" approached the island. The visit ended with the natives killing the midshipman and two sailors, and their bodies were ritually eaten.
The islanders began to abandon cannibalism only after the first Catholic missionaries appeared on Nuku Hiva in 1839. In 1842, when the island was captured by France, the population was 12 thousand people.
Then the usual story for the islands of Oceania of that period happened: the Europeans brought smallpox to Nuku-Hiva, against which the natives had no immunity, and they died en masse. The population also declined due to the activities of the Peruvian slave traders who took people to South America, as well as due to the spread of opium brought here by the Chinese in 1883.
And so it happened that by 1934 the population of Nuku-Khiva was only 635 people.
The island is now part of the French overseas community.
The island of Nuku Hiva turned out to be in the very center of the Pacific Ocean, which some researchers believe is sufficient reason to consider it an ancient spaceport for aliens.
The presence of aliens on Nuku-Khiva has not yet been proven, but the real "aliens" - European sailors - left behind diseases, from which the island almost died out completely.
Nuku Hiva is the main island of the commune of the same name in the Marquesas Islands, which includes four more islands: Motu Ichi, Motu One, Hatutu and Eiao. The capital of the commune and the island is the city of Taioahae, located on the southern coast, near the bay of the same name. This bay is part of an ancient volcanic crater that partially collapsed, and its wall slid into the ocean. The town appeared and grew on the site of an old fort, which the French built, fearing not an attack from the sea, but an attack by the natives: the local tribes waged endless bloody wars.
In addition to the capital, there are two more very small villages on the island - Taipivai and Khatiheu.
Nuku Hiva is the most densely populated island of the Marquesas archipelago with a population of only 3 thousand people. (the result of smallpox epidemics). But at the same time, the population density is one of the lowest in all of French Polynesia: the size of the island affects.
At different times, the population of the island fluctuated, and this sometimes depended on the most unexpected factors. So, in the first half of the XIX century. Peruvian slave traders began to take the islanders to South America and sell on plantations. But the Catholic Church intervened, which managed to return to the island those slaves who were still alive. However, when they returned to Nuku-Khiva, it turned out that they had brought typhus with them.
The islanders speak both in the language of the metropolis - French, and in the dialects of the Northern Marquesas, surprising with a small number of consonants.
The local population lives, like hundreds of years ago, at the expense of subsidiary farming. They grow breadfruit, taro, cassava, coconuts and many types of fruits.
The French authorities tried to breed cattle here, since the grass on the Tobiah plateau is abundant. But the islanders did not know how to look after the pigs, many animals fled and ran wild. Now wild pigs are hunted with guns. Pigs are raised in households, but few, preferring goats. They go out to sea for fish, catches are abundant here.
The island of Nuku Hiva is of great interest not only among archaeologists, but also among ufologists who are looking for possible traces of alien civilizations on Earth.
The island has an extraordinary collection of stone statues - tiki, installed in the XI-XIV centuries. For many years, scientists have been struggling with a riddle, trying to determine what or who these pot-bellied creatures depict with elongated heads, a flattened nose, a protruding jaw, mouth to ear, twisted lips and huge eyes. "Little men" froze in different poses, and the ancient masters captured them at the moment of expressing a certain feeling: amazement, thoughtfulness, ridicule, contempt ...
The statues are presented in groups, carved on one side of the stone block, or they are free-standing statues under 2.5 m in height. No sculpture repeats another. But all with some common features: a large head, mouth, eyes ... Because of the external resemblance to reptiles, these creatures were called reptilians.
The creatures really resemble aliens - as they are presented in the pages of ufological publications. These statues have no analogues in the world.
Local residents worship tiki statues, believe that they fulfill wishes if they are treated with respect.
general information
Location: the center of the Pacific Ocean.Administrative affiliation: Nuku Hiva commune, Marquesas Islands, overseas community, France.
Administrative center: the city of Taioahae - 2132 people. (2012).
Other settlements: the villages of Taipivai - 464 people (2012) and Khatiheu - 370 people. (2012).
Languages: French and Tahitian - official, dialects of North Marquis and Taipee.
Ethnic composition: Polynesians - 92.6%, French - 5.6%, others - 1.8% (2002).
Religion: Catholicism.
Currency unit: French pacific franc.
Numbers
Length: 30 km.Width: 15 km.
Area: 387 km 2.
Population: 2,966 (2012).
Population density: 7.7 people / km 2.
Highest point: Mount Tekao (1224 m).
Distance: 1500 km. northeast of Papeete (Tahiti, capital of French Polynesia), 4800 km west of North America (Mexico).
Climate and weather
Equatorial marine.Average annual temperature: +26 - + 27 ° C.
Average annual rainfall: about 1300 mm.
Relative humidity: 70%.
Economy
Agriculture: crop production (breadfruit, taro, cassava, coconut, fruit), livestock (goats, pigs).Marine fishing.
Services sector: tourism.
sights
Natural
Clark, Lawson, Jean Gogel seamounts, Tobiya plateau, Tekao mountain, Vaipo waterfall, Te Henua heath, Muake hill (864 m).
Historical
Statues-tics (XI-XIV centuries), petroglyphs.
Ethnographic
Settlements of Waa and Taipivai.
Cult
Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady and Church in the village of Anaho.
Curious facts
■ Unlike most islands in French Polynesia, Nuku Hiva, like all of the Marquesas, is not surrounded by a protective coral barrier reef.■ American writer Herman Melville (1819-1891), author of the classic novel Moby Dick, left a detailed description of the island and the customs of the local population. From the age of 18, he sailed the seas on a packet boat. In 1841 Melville sailed on the whaling ship Akushnet to the South Seas. Here he quarreled with the boatswain, escaped from the ship and was captured by the natives of Nuku-Khiva. Lived on the island until he was freed by the crew of an American warship. He described his life on the island of Melville in the novel "Typee, or A Glimpse of Polynesian Life" (1846), which brought him immediate fame.
■ In the XIX century. France declared the island a "zone of deportation": according to the law of 1850, especially dangerous criminals were exiled here, accused of attempting to assassinate the king (it was Napoleon III, the last monarch of France), and later the President of France, as well as those with weapons in hands opposed the French authorities. The most famous exile on the island is the Republican Louis Langomazino, a participant in the "Lyons conspiracy" of 1850 against Napoleon III.
■ The island of Nuku-Hiva was mistakenly “rediscovered” several times, and every traveler called it by his own name. Therefore, on old maps, the island is called Marchand or Madison.
■ The Waipo Falls, which flow down the slope of Mount Takeo, is the largest in Polynesia (outside of New Zealand and Hawaii). Its height is 350 m.
■ Zoologists have established that wild pigs on the island of Nuku Hiva appeared as a result of natural crossing of a Polynesian pig, brought here by the first settlers, and a wild boar, introduced by Europeans.
■ The island of Nuku Hiva appears in the novel Paris in the 20th century by the French science fiction writer Jules Verne, created in 1860. Describing the world of the future as he imagined it, a hundred years later, in 1960, Jules Verne writes, that Nuku Hiva will become one of the world's leading exchange centers alongside London, Berlin, New York and Sydney.
■ Having carried out excavations at the site of ancient settlements on the island, archaeologists have suggested that its population several centuries ago ranged from 50 to 100 thousand people.
■ According to the legislation of the European Union, French Polynesia, and with it the island of Nuku Hiva, had to be included in the EU along with France. But in 2002, France achieved a 20-year moratorium on the inclusion of the FP in the EU, thus discouraging foreign investment in the island's economy and wanting to keep it exclusively for itself.
■ Ufologists claim that Reptilians are the most ancient and evil creatures in the Galaxy.
Temehea Tohua is located on the island of Nuku Hiva, which is the largest atoll in the Marquesas archipelago in French Polynesia.
This unique island is home to some of the most outlandish statues ever seen by man. Some ancient sculptures depict creatures that appear to be aliens. And everyone who comes to this land wants to solve the riddle: who are they - the fruit of the sculptor's wild imagination or something that really descended from the distant space wastelands to this island?
At first glance, they seem to be just “big statues”, but upon closer inspection, you notice more and more interesting features: unusually large eyes, massive oblong heads, frail / huge bodies and other attributes, the presence of which causes confusion about the origin of the “models” that inspired the creator of these statues.
Nuku Hiva is the largest island of the Marquesas archipelago in French Polynesia and the overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. Previously, the atoll was known as Madison Island.
Herman Melville wrote the book "Typee", which is based on his experience in the Taipiwai Valley in the eastern part of Nuku Hiva Island. The first landfall of Robert Louis Stevenson during his Casco expedition in 1888 took place in the Hatihoi area, located in the northern part of Nuku Hiva. Also, Nuku Hiva became another site for filming the 4th season of the American reality show "Survivors", which took place throughout the archipelago of the Marquesas Islands.
Warrior of the island of Nuku Hiva, 1813
In ancient times, Nuku Hiva was divided into two areas: more than 2/3 of the island was occupied by the province of Te Lii, and the rest of the territory belonged to the Tai Pi community.
Recent studies show that the first settlers arrived here 2,000 years ago from Samoa and then colonized Tahiti in Hawaii, the Cook Islands and New Zealand. Legends say that the all-creating deity Ono promised a wife to the one who would build a house in a day, and having gathered the earth together, he created the islands, calling them parts of the house.
Thus, the island of Nuku Hiva is considered a “roof”. And all that remained unused, he dumped in a heap, forming the hill of Wa Huka. For centuries, the population of this island has increased, and at such a rate that by the time the first European arrived on this land, it ranged from 50 to 100 thousand inhabitants on this small piece of land in the middle of the ocean.
Of course, food was of prime importance here. The basis of the diet was made up of breadfruit, as well as taro, bananas and cassava. As for protein products, fish prevailed here, although its quantity was limited, given the number of people that it needed to feed. Pigs, chickens, dogs were also the object of culinary preferences of the inhabitants of the island.
Breadfruit
There is still a scientific debate about why so many Polynesian tribes practiced cannibalism. According to one theory, eating their own kind was more likely to compensate for the lack of protein in the diet, rather than serve for ritual ceremonies. However, cannibalism played a large role for ritual purposes. Thus, the sacrifice offered to the sea deity Ica was “caught” in the same way as a fish, and was suspended by a hook above the altar like an underwater inhabitant.
Anyone who was supposed to become a victim of a sacred ritual was tied up and hung from a tree for a certain time, after which his brains were blown out with a baton. It is believed that women and children engaged in cannibalism only for the sake of food, while male warriors sacrificed to deities and ate opponents defeated in battle in order to gain their power. For the same purpose, they kept the skulls of defeated enemies.
