The Journal of Pacific History

ISSN: 0022-3344 (Print) 1469-9605 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjph20

Remnants of the ‘Wallis Maro ‘Ura’ (Tahitian

Feathered Girdle): History and Historiography

Guillaume Alevêque

To cite this article: Guillaume Alevêque (2018) Remnants of the ‘Wallis Maro ‘Ura’ (Tahitian
Feathered Girdle): History and Historiography, The Journal of Pacific History, 53:1, 1-24, DOI:
10.1080/00223344.2017.1411311

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2017.1411311

Published online: 18 Dec 2017.

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The Journal of Pacific History, 2018
Vol. 53, No. 1, 1–24, https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2017.1411311

Remnants of the ‘Wallis Maro ‘Ura’ (Tahitian Feathered Girdle):

History and Historiography

GUILLAUME ALEVÊQUE

ABSTRACT

Following the identification of remnants of a maro ‘ura (Tahitian feathered girdle) in the
Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris, this article reassesses some of what has been
written about maro ‘ura from first contacts with Europeans to 20th-century historical
anthropology. Maro ‘ura were always described and analysed as traditional high-status
regalia from the Society Islands. But this common description appears to be the result of
the historical and political contexts in which texts were produced. Thus, this article
analyses how the early disappearance of maro ‘ura led to their reshaping as traditional objects.

Key words: Maro ‘ura, French Polynesia, first contacts, ritual objects, historiography

In most Polynesian societies, feathers (red, yellow or black) were associated with power,
divinity and fertility.1 In that way, ritual objects of the Society Islands testify to the aes-
thetic and religious value attributed to feathers before the Christianization that occurred
from the 1810s. Museums across the world currently hold in their collections striking
examples of these objects, such as the Tahitian mourning dress with a cloak made of
a net covered with black (green sheen) feathers, while the mask was adorned with
long tropicbird tail feathers.2 The tāumi (pectoral ornament) and the fau (headdress)

Guillaume Alevêque — Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain, Paris.

alevequeguillaume@yahoo.fr

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Justine Gonneaud and Timothy Caroll for their helpful feed-
back on the first version of this article. My thanks also to the anonymous readers and the editors of
The Journal of Pacific History: their comments really helped me improve this article. Finally, thank
you to Philippe Peltier for his precious advice and Christophe Moulherat, Céline Kerfant and
Hélène Guiot for their valuable expertise.
1
Nicholas Thomas, Oceanic Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 1995), 151–64.
2
The British Museum (hereinafter BM), ‘Costume (“Parae”)’, Oc,TAH.78. Available online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?

© 2017 The Journal of Pacific History, Inc.

2 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

are other impressive examples, and also the to‘o, a sennit oblong effigy that was at the
core of a ritual circulation of red feathers and played a major role in the competition
between ari‘i (chiefly families) at the time of initial contacts with European sailors.3
However, the more precious and rarest objects were without doubt maro ‘ura
or feathered red girdles. Every historical text, from 18th-century English navigators’
logs to the oral traditions compiled by Teuira Henry, Henry Adams or Jacques-
Antoine Moerenhout after Christianization, states that maro ‘ura were a privilege of
the highest ari‘i.4 Being invested with one of these girdles seems to have conferred a
paramount position in the worship of ‘Oro, who was the prevailing deity in these
islands during the 18th century. Although most modern discussions of pre-Christian
Tahitian society highlight the significance of feathered girdles, research concerning
them has been restricted to historical documents, as all known examples had appar-
ently disappeared during the first decades of the 19th century.
In this article, however, I argue that an object stored in the Musée du Quai
branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris (MQB) consists of remnants of a maro ‘ura, and more
precisely the one that Douglas Oliver called the ‘Wallis maro ‘ura’ on account of the
English flag sewn on it after Samuel Wallis (or more accurately his second lieutenant)
raised it onshore to take possession of the island in 1767.5 I discuss maro ‘ura not only as
a thing, but through an analysis of what the historical sources made of it, from the
accounts of the Englishmen who actually saw it, to what it became after every
example apparently disappeared. In other words, I aim to historicize the process by
which maro ‘ura, as vanished objects, exemplify the framing of pre-Christian Tahiti
as a traditional society.

DESCRIPTION

The artefact under consideration (Figure 1) was sold to the Musée de l’Homme by
Charles Ratton in 1964, alongside other pieces from the Society Islands, including

objectId=514664&partId=1&searchText=Oc,TAH.78&page=1. Accessed 17 October 2017;

Alain Babadzan, Les dépouilles des dieux: essai sur la religion tahitienne à l’époque de la découverte (Paris:
Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1993); Te Rangi Hiroa, ‘The Feather Cloak of Tahiti’, Journal
of the Polynesian Society (hereinafter JPS) 52:1 (1943): 12–15.
3
On fau, see Stevenson Karen and Hooper Steven, ‘Tahitian fau, Unveiling an Enigma’, JPS 116:2
(2007): 181–211. On to‘o, see Babadzan, Les dépouilles des dieux; Adrienne Kaeppler, ‘Containers of
Divinity’, JPS 116:2 (2007): 97–130. Ari‘i is usually translated as ‘chief’ or ‘king’. They were heredi-
tary, high-status territorial rulers who competed through warfare, exchange, prestige, alliance (mar-
riage and adoption), and so forth.
4
Teuira Henry, Ancient Tahiti (Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1928); Henry Adams, Memoirs
of Arii Taimai (Paris: Henry Adams, 1901); Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout, Voyages aux îles du Grand
Océan … (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1837).
5
Douglas Oliver, Ancient Tahitian Society (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai‘i, 1974), vol. 3, 1215;
Meredith Filihia, ‘‘Oro-dedicated Maro ‘Ura in Tahiti: Their Rise and Decline in the Early post-
European Contact Period’, Journal of Pacific History 31:2 (1996): 127–43.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 3

FIGURE 1: Front view of the Tahitian feathered girdle at the Musée du quai Branly. Source:
Musée du quai Branly.

a to‘o currently displayed in the permanent collection of the MQB.6 It consists of rec-
tangular pieces made of braided and woven sennit, stitched together to form the
backing (35 cm × 18 cm) (Figure 2) on which are patched four (now tattered) strips
of bark cloth (tapa) of similar length (from 33 to 35 cm), but of different width. The

6
Musée du quai Branly, ‘Représentation de figure divine’, art Océanien, 71.1964.24.1.1. Available
online at https://www.photo.rmn.fr/archive/15-542638-2C6NU0A3AUX63.html. Accessed 19
October 2017.
4 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

FIGURE 2: The backing made from three pieces of woven and braided sennit stitched together.
Source: Musée du quai Branly.

three smallest pieces (from 3 to 4 cm wide) are sewn to the rectangular backing along
both lengths, while the largest (10 cm wide) is stitched to the middle of the backing
by only one of its lengths, thus obscuring one of the small strips. A great number of
small bunches of feathers are bound on every strip of bark cloth in successive hori-
zontal lines. Each of these lines is made of two parallel yarns making an overhand
knot around each bunch of feathers, which is simultaneously tied to the bark cloth.
The bunches are spaced approximately 0.5 cm apart. The feathers have deterio-
rated to the point that only the calami (quills) remain. Most are white but some
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 5

FIGURE 3: The back of the tapa (bark cloth) showing small fragments of red fabric. Image cour-
tesy of the author.

are red and a few are black. Considering that each of these bunches holds three or
four calami, these four strips must have been covered by approximately 2500
feathers.
Additionally, two bigger bunches, made of small ropes of coconut fibre tied
together with a few calami feathers at their ends, are also stitched to the rectangular
piece of cloth. The red calami on these seem to have come from longer feathers than
the many tied on the bark cloth. Finally, small fragments of red fabric are stitched
behind the larger strip of bark cloth (Figure 3).
6 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

IDENTIFICATION

This object has probably remained unnoticed because it is far from fitting the usual
mental image of a feathered girdle. The feathers, the distinctive component, are
now gone, while the four bark cloth strips themselves represent only a small part of
the original object. Having been patched onto the backing may also have made the
girdle more difficult to recognize.
What, then, may suggest that this is indeed a remnant of a maro ‘ura? First, it
possesses the fundamental aesthetic and technical qualities of a maro ‘ura. Ordinary
maro, which used to be the masculine day-to-day dress, comprised a simple band of
bark cloth without the finesse and grain of high-quality tapa. In fact, maro were
usually made with banyan bark and, according to Henry, maro ‘ura were also made
from banyan bark, and the fibre patterns of the bark cloth strips on the object
under study are also consistent with banyan tapa.7
Second, the way the feathers are gathered in bunches and tied in parallel lines
on bark cloth by two yarns appears very similar to the display of feathers on the fau,
shield-shaped frontal piece.8 This technique also resembles the fastening system used
for tāumi pectoral ornaments, although no bark cloth is involved in the latter. The
British Museum holds tāumi with and without their feathers,9 revealing the inner fas-
tening methods and the original appearance. The patterns of feathers of a maro ‘ura
probably looked originally like those on the tāumi, whose inner structure remained
invisible below a delicate, bright surface of feathers. However, the tāumi are rigid,
whereas a maro ‘ura has to be supple, and so its feathers overall might not have had
exactly the same covering effect.
The fastening technique of stitching every bunch of feathers on to the bark
cloth makes this object extremely fragile and may explain why the four strips of
tapa are now in such poor condition. Piercing the bark cloth so much has weakened
its composition and created numerous tears between the intertwined fibres. This fra-
gility may be the reason why these strips of bark cloth were sewn on the braided
backing.
This backing is of a very unusual material. It consists of three strips patched
together, each of the same dimension and the same very thin, complex inner pattern.
The important questions here are when were the strips of bark cloth sewn to the
backing and who did this? A close examination reveals that the threads attaching

7
Henry, Ancient Tahiti, 189.
8
Detailed images of fau are available on the Pitt-Rivers Museum website. See, for example, Pitt-
Rivers Museum, ‘Wickerwork headdress’, 1886.1.1683. Available online at http://objects.prm.
ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID26040.html. Accessed 19 October 2017.
9
BM, ‘Gorget/breast-ornament’, OcmVAB,344. Available online at http://www.britishmuseum.
org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?
partid=1&assetid=970533001&objectid=507952. Accessed 19 October 2017; BM, ‘Gorget/
breast-ornament’, Oc1904,-.255. Available online at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/
collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=
1076758001&objectid=505054. Accessed 19 October 2017.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 7

the feather bunches are not the same as those tying the pieces of bark cloth to the
backing. In this regard, the seams are independent and each tapa strip was clearly
sewn on separately. Moreover, the fact that the larger strip was stitched in the
middle of the backing piece, obscuring another feathered strip below, does not fit
with any available information about maro ‘ura. These tapa strips could have been
joined to the backing for preservation or to enable transportation: the collector
might have done so before sending the whole item by boat. On the other hand, I
have found no artefact showing the same braiding feature. It does somewhat resemble
a loincloth from the Tuamotus,10 but is in fact much thinner and is composed of
braids woven together, rather than strands. It is also possible that this backing was
a lining for a specific part of the maro to ease dressing. This would explain why this
specific part of the maro (the centre of it, as we will see) survived.
At this point, we seem far from a straight identification. Yet three further
pieces of evidence suggest not only that these strips of bark cloth are remnants of a
maro ‘ura, but link them specifically to the one seen by James Cook and William Ander-
son on 7 September 1777 and by William Bligh on 28 April and 12 July 1792. First,
although these witnesses attributed very different lengths to the maro ‘ura they saw ‒
five yards according to Cook, 10–12 feet according to Anderson, and 12 feet accord-
ing to Bligh11 ‒ Cook and Bligh gave a similar width, 14 and 15 inches respectively,
while Anderson was not precise in this respect. This figure matches the length of the
bark cloth strips (around 13–14 inches). I am certain that these strips are part of the
same longer maro ‘ura.
Second, on the recto of the larger strip may be seen remnants of thin red wool
fabric. The way these remnants are stitched along the length of the bark cloth indi-
cates that they are all pieces of one patch. Now, Cook, Anderson and Bligh attributed
the same characteristic to the maro ‘ura they saw: half was made from a red flag, pre-
cisely the very pennant displayed on shore by Wallis, when he took possession of the
island in 1767. Cook wrote:

One of the bundles was now untied and it was found, as I have before
observed, to contain the Maro which they invest their Kings with
Royalty. It was carefully taken out and spread out at full length on
the ground before the Priests, it was about five yards long and
fifteen inches broad, and composed of red and yellow feathers but
mostly of the latter; the one end was bordered with eight pieces,
each about the size and shape of [a] horse shoe, with their edges
fringed with black pigeon feathers; the other end was forked and
the ends not of the same length. The feathers were in square
10
BM, ‘Loin-cloth’, Oc1828m1213.33. Available online at http://www.britishmuseum.org/
research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=
1&assetid=880881001&objectid=514587. Accessed 19 October 2017.
11
J.C. Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery. Vol. 3, The Voyage of
the Resolution and Discovery, 1776–1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 202,
980; Douglas Oliver, Return to Tahiti: Bligh’s Second Breadfruit Voyage (Carlton: Melbourne University
Press, 1988), 125.
8 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

compartments ranged in two rows and other ways so desposed to

have a good effect being first paisted or fixed to their Country
cloth and then the whole sewed to the upper end of the English
Pendant, Captain Wallis desplayed, and left flying a shore the first
time he landed at Matavai, so at least we were told and we had no
reason to doubt it as it was part of an English pendt.12

Anderson had witnessed the same ceremony and gave a similar description, although
the length and the number of rounded pieces differ:

it is a broad girdle ten or twelve feet long with a kind of flouncing of

seven rounded piece at one end, and from the name seems to be
put on in the same manner as the common Maro or piece of
cloth us’d to cover their privitys, though at this time the Chief
was not invested with it. It is composed of bright yellow feathers
taken from a dove found on the Island, with some red and a few
green ones interspers’d. It seems to be a new Maro, for its
ground work is a piece of cloth of which our colours are made,
said to have been left by Captn Wallace when he discover’d the
island, but there is a kind of bonnet with a square snout made of
the red tail feathers of a species of Tropic Bird which belongs to
it, that seems to be of a much older date.13

Bligh also noticed this characteristic in 1792, even if at the time he was not aware
that it was a flag from the Wallis expedition.14 It is worth noting that on the rem-
nants presented here, the red pieces of fabric were sewn with the very same yarns
that sewed the feather bunches on the tapa. Therefore this section was put together
at the same moment, which would date its manufacture to between 1767 and
1777.15
Third, the object held in the MQB is consistent with the last known descrip-
tion of a maro ‘ura from 1823:

Tati, the chief, with whom we dined to-day, made us several presents
of native manufacture; but those which we most valued were parts of
the dress of Oro … also a remnant of the maro, or sacred mantle,
with which Pomare had been invested, when he was publicly made
king, by a ceremonial too detestable to be described. This robe had
two lappets attached, signifying that two monarchs had been
arrayed with it, and two human sacrifices offered at their

12
Beaglehole, Journals, vol. 3, 202–3.
13
Beaglehole, Journals, vol. 3, 980.
14
Oliver, Return to Tahiti, 125.
15
The National Maritime Museum holds few pieces of red English ensigns from the same period in
its collection which look very similar to the wool on this object. See, for example, Royal Museums
Greenwich, ‘Flag’, AAA0919. Available online at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/
objects/919.html. Accessed 19 October 2017.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 9

inauguration. The whole was overlaid with red and yellow feathers,
ingeniously stitched upon fibrous cocoa-nut cloth of the country.16

This account is from the published journal of Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet,
who comprised a deputation sent to the South Seas by the London Missionary
Society (LMS) to witness and report on the progress of evangelization. The passage
cited already defines this maro ‘ura as a remnant and the authors identified two
lappets, which may tally with the two larger bunches of feathers present in the
object under study here. Finally, according to Bennet and Tyerman, this maro ‘ura
had belonged to Pomare II but was ultimately kept by Tati. This is an interesting
clue as the maro ‘ura in question held together the histories of their families, discussed
later. Bennet is particularly known to have collected a great number of Polynesian reli-
gious objects,17 and he might have sent these remnants of a maro ‘ura to England where
they found their place in a private collection or museum before Charles Ratton
acquired them during the 20th century.
To summarize these arguments, the object I observed in the MQB store-
room in December 2015 can be identified as a remnant of the Wallis maro ‘ura. It
fits the technical and aesthetic properties of a maro ‘ura. Its poor condition tallies
with the last description of a maro ‘ura that had belonged to Pomare and was given
to a known collector, George Bennet. Lastly, the small pieces of red fabric beside
one of these strips are consistent with the major feature of the maro ‘ura witnessed
by Cook, Anderson and Bligh, on to which a red English pennant was sewn.
Until now, however, maro ‘ura have only received a material existence through
the words and a drawing that described them. Consequently, to analyse what maro ‘ura
might have been, one must look first at what they represented for the people who
wrote about them and how the corpus of available material has been constituted.

EXISTING THROUGH WORDS: THE AFTERLIFE OF MARO ‘URA

Across late 18th-century historical texts, mentions of maro ‘ura are largely similar. All
are eyewitness reports by Englishmen of a ceremony in which the ari‘i of Pare-Arue
(Tu, later Pomare I, in 1777 and afterwards his son) appeared to have a paramount
role. Cook and Anderson in September 1777 saw what seems to have been a pro-
pitiatory ritual for a war to come, with offerings (including a human sacrifice) and
omens from the entrails of a pig. On this occasion, the maro ‘ura was only laid upon
the ground. A few days later, King witnessed another ceremony during which Tu
was vested with a maro ‘ura. Unfortunately, King did not describe the maro ‘ura he
saw.18

16
James Montgomery, ed., Journal of Voyages and Travels by the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet,
Esq … (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1832), vol. 2, 193–4.
17
Karen Jacobs, ‘Inscribing Missionary Impact in Central Polynesia: Mapping the George Bennet
Collection’, Journal of the History of Collections 26:2 (2014): 263–76.
18
Beaglehole, Journals, vol. 3, 1380.
10 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

Why did these navigators write about maro ‘ura? The main purpose of a naval
log was to provide useful information for future visitors. At that time, Tahiti was a stra-
tegic island, at the centre of the Pacific. Unlike the numerous atolls of the Tuamotu, it
had abundant natural resources (fresh food and water and wood). Moreover, after the
violence which had dogged the initial stages of Wallis’ visit, Tahitians had adopted a
strategy of friendship and were eager to exchange hogs and other goods. Conse-
quently, any information about the state of affairs on the island, pre-eminent chiefs,
customs, and so forth, promised to help other English navigators prepare for their
journey. However, the journals of scientific voyagers were also meant to record infor-
mation of interest to science, in this case ‘ethnography’. By describing the maro ‘ura and
the ceremony, Cook aimed to memorialize a striking object and a dramatic moment
which seemed to confirm Tu’s high status. While careful not to identify the preroga-
tives of a Tahitian ‘king’ with those of a European monarch, he used a familiar
analogy to categorize ‘the Maro which they invest their Kings with Royalty’.
Another precious eyewitness account is by Morrison, one of the Bounty muti-
neers, in 1791:

This day the Ceremony of Investing the Young King [Tu, later
known as Pomare II] with the Marro Oora or Royal Sash took
place; the Sash is of fine Network on which Red and Yellow Feathers
are made fast, so as to cover the netting; the sash is about three yards
long, and each end is devided into six tassels of Red Black & Yellow
feathers, for each of which they have a name of some Spirit or Guar-
dian Angel, that watches over the Young Chief while the marro is in
his Possession and is never worn but one day by any one King; it is
then put into a Sacred Box and with a Hat or Shade for the Eyes
Made of Wicker & Covered with feathers of the same kind and
never used but on the Same occasion it is delivered to the priests,
who put it Carefully by the Sacred House on the Morai [marae],
where no person must toutch it.19

The ceremony reported by Bligh in 1792 seems like a shorter version of this: an eye
from a human sacrifice was presented to Tu, and he was invested with the maro ‘ura.20
After Bligh’s account, there was no more direct sighting of a maro ‘ura reported
in historical texts, except that by Bennet and Tyerman cited earlier. This gap may
result from the little interest in Tahitian ritual practices shown by the first two contin-
gents of English Protestant missionaries and their reluctance to get close to marae
(temples). Even if they sometimes mentioned religious activities, they rarely described
them. They did, however, refer to an investiture of an ‘Oro image with a maro ‘ura in
1806.21

19
Owen Rutter, ed., The Journal of James Morrison, Boatswain’s Mate of the Bounty … (London: Golden
Cockerel Press, 1935), 116.
20
Oliver, Return to Tahiti, 125.
21
Filihia, ‘‘Oro-dedicated Maro ‘Ura’, 139.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 11

Maro ‘ura are mentioned indirectly in the context of the offering and collection
of objects, as in a letter written by Tamatoa from Opoa in Raiatea to the Directors of
the LMS. Now Christian, Tamatoa was one of the few ari‘i, like Pomare, to be called a
‘king’ by the missionaries:

We have known Satan’s deceit and lies; therefore we have cast down
our Morais, and burned our gods in the fire. If they had not have
been burned, I would have sent them to you: they were burned in
consequence of a severe sickness I had. I had covered up the evil
spirits well, in order to send them to England to you; but some
men said to me, that I had taken care of the evil spirits, and that
was the reason I was overtaken with sickness. I was requested by
the people to burn the evil spirits; and I said burn them. Oro e o
Hiro were the two evil spirits that were burned.
There is one evil spirit: it is the red Maro. Tero rai Putata22 is the name
of this Maro, an evil spirit. Great also is this red Maro. Very many
men have been killed in consequence of this Maro. The practice
has been continued from of old down to time; and now I know the
word of Jesus Christ our Lord.23

Tamatoa’s letter can be called a transitional document, as it is the last in which a maro
‘ura appears as a concrete thing and not as a reminiscence of what it was. The letter is a
local text, positioned generically between early European accounts of maro ‘ura and
retrospective compilation of traditions.
Something of a hierarchy of material power is implied in Tamatoa’s short
letter which explains how two ‘gods’ – probably to‘o, regarded as ‘idols’ by the mission-
aries and now classed by Christian Tahitians as lethal ‘evil spirits’ – had been burned
rather than sent to the LMS in London. By implication, the maro ‘ura was to replace
them as a gift to the society. The letter, phrased in a translated local rendition of mis-
sionary terminology and rhetoric,24 signals the relationship Tamatoa wanted to main-
tain and develop with the LMS. Exchanging and collecting objects had been part of
the relationship between Englishmen and ari‘i since Cook’s voyages. With conversion

22
According to Marau Taaroa, every maro ‘ura was called Te Rai Puatata; see Marau Taaroa, Mém-
oires de Marau Taaroa, dernière reine de Tahiti (Paris: Société des Océanistes, 1971), 70. In a creation
myth cited by Teuira Henry in Ancient Tahiti, 413, gods named Ra‘i-pua-tata are associated with
the first dawn, with this translation: ‘Sky of the blossom rods, the aurora’. According to William
Ellis in Polynesian Researches (London: Fisher, Son & Jackson, 1829), vol. 2, 217–18, the blossoming
of reeds (puā – miscanthus) used to mark the beginning of first fruits offering (Maoaraa matahiti) that
coincides mostly with winter solstice (i.e., first dawn). Then, tata may be related to tātaiao (dawn).
Hence, the correct spelling should be Te Ra‘i Puātāta as a metaphor of dawn as the beginning of
the world, the year and the day, as well as a reference to overall fertility.
23
‘Translation of a Letter from Tamatoa, the King of Raiatea, to the Directors’, n.d., American Mis-
sionary Register 2:11 (1822): 447. Available online at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.
ah3n2b;view=1up;seq=469. Accessed 19 October 2017.
24
See, for example, Montgomery, Journal of Voyages, vol. 2, 113.
12 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

to Christianity, other artefacts became part of this relationship. During the 18th
century, Tahitians exchanged regalia like fau or tāumi and even a mourner’s dress,
but very few to’o and no maro ‘ura. Pomare had ‘relinquished’ his ‘family idols’ and
sent them to the missionaries ‘either to be burnt, or sent to the Society’.25 Tamatoa
now followed his example, in the process reinforcing a new ritual partnership:
Tyerman and Bennet reported that he despatched the maro ‘ura ‘as another trophy
of the gospel victories here, to the Museum of the London Missionary Society’.26
By insisting on the evil consequences of the maro ‘ura, Tamatoa emphasized its
value as a worthy substitute for the two god images, destroyed because of their pre-
sumed deadly capacity to inflict ‘severe sickness’.
In the 1820s, the LMS missionaries had collected numerous Polynesian
artefacts for their London museum, yet they did not seem to care much about
maro ‘ura. Tyerman and Bennet wrote only few words about the gift of Tamatoa.
In this we are far from the treatment of A‘a, an image from Rurutu, for which
the missionaries held a special ceremony by which they transformed it into a mis-
sionary trophy.27 In the eyes of English missionaries, A‘a was the archetypal idol.
On the contrary, a maro ‘ura did not figure much as a pagan object and was
regarded as obsolete royal regalia, and we do not know whether it finally
reached England.
After Christianization, maro ‘ura became objects remembered rather than
objects seen. Following their disappearance, they were reconstituted by words
and discourses in compilations of traditional knowledge – in general, this means
Euro-Americans wrote about what Polynesians said about their past material
culture. In the wake of Christianization, missionaries became local religious and
moral authorities who propagated both their own doctrine and their views on
pre-Christian Polynesian religion and social relations. Their prejudices and atti-
tudes strongly inflect the massive corpus of missionary texts. For instance, Tama-
toa’s letter was published in a missionary review to exemplify the progress of
Christianity: not for the information contained therein about Tahitian gods or
the maro ‘ura, but because it looks like a declaration of faith. Nonetheless, the
letter is patently infused by the dignity of the ari‘i and the ongoing power attrib-
uted negatively to local ‘evil spirits’. Moreover, it is obvious that all the infor-
mation provided at this point by Bennet and Tyerman about maro ‘ura came
directly or indirectly from Tamatoa, whose words were appropriated in the inter-
ests of the mission. So, historians depend heavily on missionaries and their choices
in editing, publishing and archiving information about ancient Tahitian society.
This is explicit in the following account about Tamatoa’s maro ‘ura by Tyerman
and Bennet:

25
‘The Family Idols of Pomare’, Missionary Sketches 3 (2nd edition, 1820). See also: Maia Nuku, ‘The
family idols of Pomare, Tahiti, French Polynesia’, in Trophies, Relics and Curios: Missionary Heritage from
Africa and the Pacific, ed. Karen Jacobs, Chantal Knowles, and Chris Wingfield (Leiden: Sidestone
Press, 2015), 29–36.
26
Montgomery, Journal of Voyages, vol. 2, 125.
27
Montgomery, Journal of Voyages, vol. 2, 111–12.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 13

When a new king was consecrated, by ceremonies too filthy to be

detailed, he was invested with the maro, or hereditary robe of
royalty, of net-work covered with red feathers, and to which an
additional lappet is annexed at the accession of each sovereign.
This splended train, which was wont to be wound about the body,
and flowed upon the ground, is twenty-one feet in length, and six
inches broad. The needle by which the fabric was wrought is still
attached to it, and according to report no stitch could be taken
with it, but thunder was forthwith heard in the heavens. The symbo-
lical marks, which are apparent on the plumage and texture, indicate
that many hundreds of human victims have been sacrificed, during its
gradual making and extension, when the sundry monarchs, by whom
it has been worn in succession, wrapped themselves with its folds, as
their insignia of authority. This sacred maro has, therefore, never been
completed, nor might have been, so long as the ancient system con-
tinued, for it was intended to be lengthened to the end of time, or at
least to the end of empire in the island. Hence, almost every hand-
breadth of the patchwork that composed it represented a separate
reign, and reminded the national chroniclers of the prince’s name,
character, achievements, and the main incidents of his time; this
robe might be regarded as an hieroglyphic tablet of the annals of
Raiatea. Tamatoa has cast off this relic of idolatry, and sent it, as
another trophy of the gospel victories here, to the Museum of the
London Missionary Society.28

In form and substance, this extract closely resembles another edited by Henry, includ-
ing a reference to hieroglyphs.29 Henry could have read the published version of
Tyerman and Bennet’s journal, to complement what she attributed to ‘Pomare,
Mahine and unamed priests’.30 Her grandfather, the missionary Orsmond (who pro-
vided most of the original notes used by Henry), may have recorded Tamatoa’s
account, as he was present in Raiatea at the same time as Tyerman and Bennet, or
more likely he provided their information. From the 1830s, published texts on
Tahiti and the Society Islands were more varied. Traders like Moerenhout or histor-
ians like Adams had other interests in Tahitian pasts than those of missionaries.
If historians studying Pacific islands face an almost one-sided corpus, they are
nonetheless free and able to subject historical texts to informed critical reading in
order to decipher traces of Indigenous agency and local ontologies of power and spiri-
tuality. In this context, retrospective collections of traditional knowledge are unavoid-
able, yet in my view there are three issues to consider when reading them. First, the
editing process was substantial and often attempted to generalize from different
accounts in order to reconstitute pre-Christian society. Moreover, making information
synchronic or diachronic was itself the choice of writers and their interlocutors.
Foreign and Indigenous commentators alike had varied but powerful political
28
Montgomery, Journal of Voyages, vol. 2, 125.
29
Henry, Ancient Tahiti, 189.
30
Henry, Ancient Tahiti, 182n.
14 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

stakes in the new colonial order and wrote or spoke of the past accordingly. With
respect to maro ‘ura, Henry mostly related the king’s investiture ceremony while Moer-
enhout gave a similar version with some new details.31 In both volumes, this descrip-
tion is presented as generic, applying to every ari‘i rahi or ‘king’.
Second, during the 19th century, oral history as an institution in Tahiti and
the Society Islands underwent an overall transformation, not only facing the influ-
ence of writing but also in terms of authority and contexts of transmission and enun-
ciation. Moreover, oral history was becoming a tradition not about the past, but
about a (pre-Christian) past morally condemned by missionaries and local Christian
élites.
Third, Henry, Moerenhout and later Adams’ writings tend to support the
point of view of their preferred local interlocutors. From the onset of contacts
with European navigators, the history of Tahiti was usually represented as a succes-
sion of confrontations between the Pomares and the ari‘i of the district of Papara. As
such, it reflected the family identification and allegiance of Tahitian knowledge
owners who belonged to the élite and, like Moerenhout and other writers, were
deeply involved in politics in a context where tradition still mattered, at least
with respect to land rights. This does not mean that oral histories were not politi-
cally loaded before colonization by France. However, it does mean that traditional
knowledge in the mid-19th century refers not only to the situation between the first
encounters with Europeans and Christianization, but also to changes occurring
during half a century which have been retrospectively reconstituted as tradition.
There is a limit to recoursing to tradition to throw meaning on the very historical
events (political centralization, Christianization, etc.) that shaped the social contexts
in which the documents themselves later emerged. Maro ‘ura are a relevant case of
this traditionalist bias.
In that sense, at the time of Bennet and Tyerman’s visit, King Pomare II was
attributed the unconditional legitimacy of having won the war that spread Christianity
over Tahiti. From Pomare II’s death in 1821 to the declaration of a French protecto-
rate in 1842, his successors were too young to actually rule. The missionaries had
strong (but dispersed) influence as moral, religious and economic guides for the ari‘i
and the ra‘atira (landholders), who monopolized political and judicial prerogatives.
At that time, Tati from Papara was becoming an important local entrepreneur,
and with Utami (who had been a prime ally of Pomare II):

retained much of the power, which they had been in danger of losing
under Pomare II. Under the Regency, they attempted to consolidate
their power and build up their prestige. Tati and Utami were, in
many respects, the effectual rulers of Tahiti. As Supreme Judges of
Tahiti, they gathered around themselves much of the old pomp of
their former high chiefly status.32

31
Henry, Ancient Tahiti, 187–96; Moerenhout, Voyages, 26–30.
32
Niel Gunson, ‘Account of the Mamaia or Visionary Heresy of Tahiti, 1826–1841’, JPS 71:2
(1962): 222.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 15

However, in 1830‒31, Pomare IV had tried to gain some influence as queen of Tahiti
by re-establishing a homage ceremony consisting of cloth presentation, which had
been forbidden by missionary-influenced law codes.33 This was the political context
in which Moerenhout, unaware of it, came exploring and trading in the South Seas
and collected the material that led to the publication of his Voyage dans les îles du
Grand Océan in 1837. Ari‘i close to the Māmāiā revival – a prophetic movement emer-
gent in 1826 and defiant of the new laws – supported the young queen. Tati, however,
was strongly opposed to Māmāiā, which was a political as well as a religious move-
ment.34 Apart from being queen, Pomare IV was not a person of power like Tati.
If royalty nonetheless offered her more than honorary status, Tati had an interest
in representing her to Moerenhout as a descendant of a usurper and the Teva of
Papara as the more rightful rulers of Tahiti.
The political context changed in 1842. Following diplomatic and political
manoeuvring, the Tahitian authorities signed a protectorate agreement with
France. During the remainder of the 19th century, the protectorate was extended
to other archipelagos and progressively converted into annexation of the islands
that became what is now French Polynesia. The French protectorate involved an
organized and institutional enforcement of colonial power. Obviously, colonialism
revived the legitimacy of the Pomare dynasty, as the protectorate treaty was signed
by the queen and extended to her territories and ‘subjects’. Moreover, with colonial
power came new honorary titles for members of the royal family: Son altesse, Sa
Majesté. The political ambiguity resulting from Queen Pomare’s prestige and Tati’s
influence at the beginning of French colonization is underlined by the minutes of a
chiefs’ assembly held in December 1845, during the French–Tahitian war of 1844–
46. The French Governor Armand Joseph Bruat convoked the assembly in order to
assert Pomare’s sovereignty over the Leeward Islands, in a failed attempt to extend
the protectorate there. In an official letter, Bruat argued that only the chiefs of
Tahiti could attend the assembly because English missionaries had too much influence
on chiefs in the Leeward Islands.35 Only two Leeward Island chiefs in exile (including
Mai from Pora Pora) were present while dissident chiefs from Tahiti itself refused to
attend the convocation. The assembly was to discuss the evidence provided by Mare, a
renowned specialist in genealogy and tradition, concerning Queen Pomare’s
sovereignty.
Bruat’s document provides an interesting insight into oral history as it was in
fact spoken, even if the debates primarily relied on written evidence. The document
reveals the politicking involved, not only at the level of French authorities but between
the chiefs. The debates referred to the maro ‘ura only in passing, and the maro was not
invoked as primary evidence for claiming sovereignty. In the course of outlining a
genealogical justification for Pomare’s claim to the Leeward Islands, Mare mentioned
two maro ‘ura brought to Tahiti from Raiatea: one to Mahaiatea marae in Papara in

33
Gunson, ‘Account’, 229–30.
34
Gunson, ‘Account’, 214–37.
35
Bruat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies, 21 Sept. 1845, Archives nationales d’outre-mer,
série Océanie (hereinafter ANOM-OC), Aix-en-Provence, A 34 c 8.
16 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

about 1760; and one ‘called Terai pua tata’ (Te Ra‘i Puātāta), which was vested in the
Pomares around 1790 by ‘Hamanimani’ (the high-ranking priest Ha‘amanemane).
Linked symbolically to ‘Oro, this maro ‘ura was one of a succession of ritual objects
listed by Mare as emblems of the historical processes whereby the people of
Raiatea ‘had come under Pomare’s order’.36
Recounting traditions in the context of the assembly of chiefs, Mare had to
acknowledge Queen Pomare’s sovereignty, even if she had fled in disgrace to the
Leeward Islands because the colonial protectorate had withdrawn its legitimation of
her authority. However, he had to do so in a way admissible to the assembled
chiefs and to Tati, in particular, who at the time was the more influential chief and
a strong ally of the French governor. Tati sat at the assembly as both grand chef
(high chief) and grand juge (head judge). I contend that maro ‘ura were here cited as a
symbol of traditional power only to reflect the political situation at the onset of
French colonization. Mare gave no other information about maro ‘ura on this occasion.
The main evidence he asserted for Pomare II’s sovereignty was recent, dating from
1815, when he was already married to Teri‘itaria, daughter of Tamatoa, had con-
verted to Christianity and was victorious in Tahiti. Moreover, ari‘i like Tefaaroa
from Pora Pora stated that un roi (king) was the head of an alliance and not an inherited
status. Yet Tati insisted on depicting the earlier union between Teu (father of Pomare
I) and Tetupaia (of Raiatea) as the source of the Pomares’ sovereignty as dynastic
rulers over the entire archipelago and this argument finally prevailed in the assembly’s
declaration. However, by claiming that the legitimacy of Pomare II in the Society
Islands came from ancient matrimonial connections with Opoa, Tati positioned
himself or his daughter to aim for the throne should Queen Pomare be deposed
with the official acknowledgement that the ari‘i of Papara have a similar and even
older connection.37
French colonial authorities also began to register the names and ownership of
land in the early 1850s. Naming lands and land ownership in Tahiti (and later in the
Leeward Islands) were a matter of genealogy. Consequently, aside from the Tōmite
(certificate of land title) that gave names and ownership of the lands, genealogy
again became of crucial importance, especially for the old ari‘i families facing
changes in both social organization and political power.38 Accordingly, manuscripts
known as Puta tupuna (ancestral books) were written during the second half of the
century.39 Puta tupuna inscribe family memories, or at least subjects considered

36
‘Procès verbal de l’Assemblée des chefs’, in Bruat to Minister of the Navy and Colonies, 14 Dec.
1845, ANOM-OC, A 34 c 8.
37
Ernst Salmon, Alexandre Salmon (1820–1866) et sa femme Ariitaimai (1821–1897) (Paris: Société des
Océanistes, 1964), 53, 82. According to Bruat, Tati had already been approached to become
Pomare II’s successor on the death of Pomare III; see ‘Notes sur les chefs & juges de Tahiti et
de Mooréa’, ANOM-OC, 9 A 52 1847.
38
Colin Newbury, ‘Aspects of Cultural Change in French Polynesia: The Decline of the Ari‘i’, JPS
78:1 (1967): 7–26.
39
See for example, Bruno Saura, ed., La lignée royale des Tama-toa de Ra‘iātea (Iles-sous-le-Vent)
(Papeete: Ministère de la culture de Polynésie française, 2003).
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 17

appropriate and significant enough to be written down. With respect to the Society
Islands, puta tupuna primarily record names of people, marae, land and established gen-
ealogies, together with some songs and myths. The two main differences from compi-
lations of traditional knowledge edited by Western writers are the limited mention of
pre-Christian rituals and that they do not antagonize pre-Christian and Christian
time.
There are few references to maro ‘ura in these documents and their ritual
aspect is no longer mentioned. Relevant information about them was limited to
where they came from and where they arrived. These texts generally accord with
Henry’s distinction between two kinds of feathered girdles: maro ‘ura and maro tea,
made from yellow feathers (tea ‒ light, blond, bright).40 Only one maro tea is mentioned,
in association with marae Vaiotaha (previously named Farerua) in Pora Pora, but orig-
inally coming from Opoa in Raiatea, the birthplace of the cult of ‘Oro.41
The last significant documents that can be labelled historical texts are the
memoirs of Ari‘i Taimai and Marau Taaroa, the main Tahitian interlocutors of the
American historian Adams who substantially rewrote the material he received from
them.42 As Tati’s granddaughter and great granddaughter, these women unsurpris-
ingly took the same approach to the island’s history as he had, vaunting the high
rank of the Teva over that of the Pomares. These books introduced new maro into
the islands’ mythical past: two maro ‘ura associated with Vaiari and Punauuia; and
the Papara maro tea, traced either to Raiatea or to Pora Pora.43
How are maro ‘ura represented in all of these historical texts? From a Western
perspective, they looked like a crucial acknowledgement of sovereignty. Both 18th-
century navigators and 19th-century writers linked maro ‘ura to the display of the
highest political status. However, on the known occasions when tradition subsequently
became a crucial political matter – during the Māmāiā revival or the French–Tahitian
war – they received little attention and were not subject to rival claims. At the chiefs’
assembly in December 1845, maro ‘ura were only mentioned alongside other lost pre-
Christian artefacts.
Throughout the 19th century, maro ‘ura were no more than a passing topic of
traditional knowledge. Lacking concrete existence, they were referred to in only three
separate specific contexts: in a generic description of a ‘royal’ investiture; with respect
to the coming of a maro ‘ura or the original settlement of an ari‘i family; and in the anec-
dote of the Wallis maro ‘ura. Eighteenth-century accounts are also specific, in that all

40
Henry, Ancient Tahiti, 120.
41
According to Cuzent, this maro tea became later the ensign of great priesthood after the ari‘i of
Opoa defeated the ari‘i of Faanui and seized it; see Gilbert Cuzent, Iles de la Société Tahiti (Rochefort:
Imprimerie Ch. Thèze, 1860), 45.
42
Adams, Memoirs of Arii Taimai, initially self-published as Memoirs of Marau Taaroa, Last Queen of
Tahiti (Privately Printed, 1893); Niel Gunson, ‘Note on the Difficulties of Ethnohistorical
Writing, with Special Reference to Tahiti’, JPS 72:4 (1963): 416.
43
Marau Taaroa, Mémoires, 166. In a letter to Handy, cited in Kenneth P. Emory, ‘Traditional
History of Maraes in Society Islands’, manuscript (Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1932),
118, she suggests that Porapora and Papara maro tea would be one.
18 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

describe the ceremonial use of a maro ‘ura as royal regalia by Tu or his son. However,
there is a significant gap between the particular maro ‘ura reported by English naviga-
tors and those later mentioned in the 19th-century compilations of tradition. No maro
‘ura referred to in the latter can be clearly identified with the few maro ‘ura actually
reported by eyewitnesses. Only Morrison’s account partially matches the generic cer-
emonial investiture described by later writers. This is the only description not invol-
ving the Wallis maro ‘ura. The fact that an English flag was stitched to a maro ‘ura is
noted in most of the 19th-century texts, but always anecdotally, dissociated from tra-
ditions representing maro ‘ura as among the oldest and most sacred objects of major
ari‘i families.
This survey of the literature on maro ‘ura has emphasized the problematic
nature of historical materials about pre-Christian Tahiti. Most scholars interested
in Polynesian history are aware of these historiographic complexities. I now raise
the question of how the consistencies and inconsistencies of the information available
on maro ‘ura might be construed and how they might influence the writing of Tahitian
history.

MARO ‘URA IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF TAHITI

In 1963, Niel Gunson published a short article on the ‘difficulties of ethnohistorical

writing’ with respect to Tahiti. The paper is historiographically significant because it
focuses on the context of the creation of a variety of documents used to throw light
on the Tahitian past. He highlighted historians’ over-reliance on Adams’ Memoirs of
Arii Taimai ‘to prove [their] own theories from the written sources’, considering that
the ‘editors of original materials’ are ‘probably the worst offenders’.44
Of specific interest here is the significance of maro ‘ura in such constructions of
the ‘nature’ of Tahitian society. References to them mostly appear in footnotes or in
editors’ prefaces. Taken as a symbol of the highest social rank, they are mobilized to
present the dramatis personae at the time of Wallis arrival. Gunson pointed out the
need for caution in using maro ‘ura claims to demonstrate which ari‘i family was pre-
dominant at that time.45 Nevertheless, presumed rights to wear a maro ‘ura have
been deployed as key evidence in a longstanding debate concerning the impact of
European vessels on Tahitian politics, and in particular on the Pomares’ centralization
of power.
In his preface to John Davies’ History of the Tahitian Mission, Colin Newbury
took for granted that the maro tea, as ‘the prerogative of the chief of Papara’, was
the ‘most important’ maro in Tahiti in 1771.46 Following Gunson’s challenge to this
assumption, Newbury proposed a more nuanced analysis of maro claims and their

44
Gunson, ‘Note’, 416–18.
45
Gunson, ‘Note’, 418.
46
C.W. Newbury, ‘Introduction’, in John Davies, The History of the Tahitian Mission 1799–1830
(Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1961), xxxvii.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 19

meaning in terms of ari‘i precedence.47 He argued that eyewitness accounts and tra-
ditions can be used to cross-check one another and also noted the issue of temporality,
in that some eyewitness accounts were eventually read by the collectors of traditions
and maybe also by their informants.48 Newbury made a useful distinction between
social rank ascribed by birth and political power ‘won by personal leadership’ and cor-
porate clan success. He argued, moreover, that the rank of an ari‘i could be enhanced
through connection to a higher-ranking, more potent, external source of ritual power.
This feature of Tahitian politics was exemplified in the spread of the cult of ‘Oro and
in the political competition between ari‘i during the 18th century. In this context,
Newbury emphasized two developments: the foundation in Tahiti of marae dedicated
to ‘Oro; and the importation of sacred regalia from Raiatea and Pora Pora. The
‘enormous significance’ of the arrival of maro ‘ura in Tahiti – apart from their represen-
tation as royal regalia in both eyewitness accounts and 19th-century tradition – is that
two ari‘i appeared to be in a position to claim and don them at the time of the first
European visits: Teri‘irere of Papara and Tu (Pomare I). Yet two other ari‘i evidently
exercised greater political and military influence: Tutaha of Paea (father’s brother to
Tu) and Vehiatua of Tautira.49 The key element here is that, while Tutaha was cus-
todian of ‘Oro-associated ritual objects held in a Taputapuatea marae located in Paea,
he lacked the right to don the maro ‘ura. This was Tu’s prerogative, as Cook and
Anderson testified. The death of Tutaha in 1773 might have enabled Tu to claim a
seat in Paea’s Taputapuatea.50
Since Newbury’s argument hinged on the significance of inter-island politics
in the relative rank of ari‘i and the particular status of the Pomares, he sought to dis-
entangle accounts of the arrival of maro ‘ura in Tahiti.51 Citing Mare’s evidence to the
chiefly assembly in 1845,52 he suggested that, even before Wallis’ visit, Tu had prob-
ably been invested with a maro ‘ura which came from Opoa with his mother Tetupaia.
47
Gunson, ‘Note’, 418; C.W. Newbury, ‘Te Hau Pahu Rahi: Pomare II and the Concept of Inter-
island Government in Eastern Polynesia‘, JPS 76:4 (1967): 477–514.
48
Newbury, ‘Te Hau Pahu Rahi’, 481.
49
Newbury, ‘Te Hau Pahu Rahi’, 478–80.
50
Newbury, ‘Te Hau Pahu Rahi’, 484–5.
51
Newbury, ‘Te Hau Pahu Rahi’, 480, 484–7.
52
The key passages in Mare’s evidence as cited by Newbury are:
Tetupaia [of Raiatea] is the cord binding Tarahoi to … [the main mountains of Huahine,
Raiatea, Pora Pora, and Maupiti] … This is a recent connection; looking from Papara, I see an
older link. Tamatoa took Teaonia [Teaoinaia] as his wife; they gave birth to animao [Ari‘i
Ma‘o] … Ani mao took as his wife Te eva [Te‘eva] of Papara who gave birth to Mana [Maua].
He established his Marae at Papara, the Marae Mahaiatea, which also took the name of Mana
rua, and he transported to Mahaiatea the Maro ura from Taputapuatea. That is an older chain
… I think also of Hamanimani [Ha‘amanemane] who comes to Tahiti bringing with him the
Maro ura called Terai pua tata (the half-open sky), the Taumata ote ata o tu (the headdress
which shades Tu), the Teraïarii menaa e hau [fan of peaceful populations], the Taputapuatea mar-
ae_Oro_The canoe Hotu [insignia of royalty], and the priests of Oro, ‘Procès verbal de l’Assemblée
des chefs’, Bruat to Ministry of Marine and Colonies, 14 Dec. 1845, ANOM-OC, A 34 c 8, cited in
Newbury ‘Te Hau Pahu Rahi’, 484, 486–7.
20 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

However, Mare also described the coming of a maro ‘ura to Papara from Raiatea a gen-
eration earlier, with the union of Te‘eva of Papara and Ari‘i Ma‘o, Tetupaia’s father’s
brother. Having already labelled Arii Taimai’s claim that ‘the maro tea was exclusive to
the chief of Papara’ as otherwise unsubstantiated, Newbury now wondered whether
this maro ‘ura and the maro tea were ‘so clearly distinguished’. He completed his cata-
logue of maro from abroad by citing Mare’s account of the coming of another maro
‘ura from Opoa to Pare around 1790 with Ha‘amanemane (Mauri), Tetupaia’s
brother. This was presumably the maro used in the ceremony witnessed by Morrison.
Since 1970, various scholars have published a range of interpretations of the
social relations and history of pre-Christian Tahiti.53 Despite differences, these works
share a common thread. Rather than privilege novel external influences, all situate the
fraught local politics at the advent of European contacts primarily within Indigenous
contexts: the ongoing relationships between ari‘i families of Opoa and Tahiti through
matrimonial unions and the spread of the cult of ‘Oro. These intricate patterns are
condensed in the complex trajectories and histories of maro ‘ura.
At the time of the Dolphin’s arrival, ‘Oro had become the favoured divinity in
Tahiti. His worship originated from Raiatea and he was both a major figure in the
Polynesian pantheon and strongly associated with a particular territory (Opoa) and
its ari‘i family. It is unclear whether, before the spread of ‘Oro’s importance
through most of archipelago, Opoa and its marae complex, Taputapuatea were
already of the high significance and prestige suggested by Henry. However, until
Christianization, maro ‘ura were certainly associated with ‘Oro and the ari‘i family of
Opoa. That is why it is generally assumed that an ari‘i’s capacity to trace his genealogy
to Opoa was a crucial element in validating claims to the highest rank of ari‘i rahi, a
paramount kin title and the right to don a maro ‘ura.
According to Henry, the first two marae dedicated to ‘Oro in Tahiti were
established during the second half of the 17th century in Taiarapu and Paea.54
There is no indication that maro ‘ura were involved in these events or of a political
or matrimonial connection between the ari‘i of Opoa and those of Taiarapu or
Paea. A foundational event seems to have occurred in the 1730s, as recounted in
the mid-19th century by the LMS missionary historian Robert Thomson, in
another version of the traditional history told by Mare:

a quarrel took place between the two districts of Te oropa and Teva
uta. A battle called Ohure popoi hoa (a name of filthy meaning) was
fought at Papara in which the latter were beaten and dispersed. A

53
Oliver, Ancient Tahitian Society; Colin Newbury, Tahiti Nui: Change and Survival in French Polynesia,
1767–1945 (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1980); Greg Dening, ‘Possessing Tahiti’, in Per-
formances (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 128–67; Anne Salmond, Aphrodite’s Island:
The European Discovery of Tahiti (Rosedale, NZ: Viking, 2009). See also Hank Driessen, ‘Tupa‘ia:
The Trials and Tribulations of a Polynesian Priest’, in Vision and Reality in Pacific Religion: Essays in
Honour of Niel Gunson, ed. Phyllis Herda, Michael Reilly, and David Hilliard (Christchurch and Can-
berra: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies and Pandanus Books, 2005), 66–86.
54
Henry, Ancient Tahiti, 130.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 21

party fled to the island of Raiatea, among whom were Faanonou the
grand father of Tati and Teiva [Te‘eva] a female who was soon after-
wards married to Ariimao [Ari‘i Mao] ancestor of Tamatoa and king
of Raiatea, by whom she had a son called Maua. Faanonou became
the friend of Maua, and when he resolved to return to Tahiti, though
the influence of his friends, and his mother he obtained an idol made
at the great marae of Oro at Opoa … Faanonou accordingly sailed
for Tahiti accompanied by Tupaia a priest of Oro and one or two
canoes, arrived in safety at Papara, where in the small family
marae adjoining the dwelling of the chief the god Oro found his
first resting place on Tahiti probably about the year 1760.55

This was an unprecedented convergence. For the first time, an ari‘i family in Tahiti was
supported by a great priest from Raiatea and possessed an ‘Oro-dedicated marae, a
sacred va‘a (canoe) with a to‘o coming from Opoa, and (according to Mare) a maro ‘ura.
Most historians assert or imply that claiming an ‘Oro-dedicated maro ‘ura was
an established traditional practice in Tahiti. I suggest, however, that it might have
constituted a recent political opportunity which was in the process of being concre-
tized at the time of the Dolphin’s arrival.

‘ORO-DEDICATED MARO ‘URA IN TAHITI AS INNOVATION

In 1792, Bligh not only described the Wallis maro ‘ura, but also sketched it (see
Figure 4).56 In this sketch, the maro ‘ura is clearly bicoloured: one half is red and the
other yellow, with only few clusters of red feathers. We can see also that the piece
identified in the MQB would be the centre of it, at the junction between the red
fabric and the feathered tapa. Bligh named it ‘Terràboo,uttatah’ (Te Ra‘i Puātāta)
and provided a complementary caption, ‘Buntin’, expanded in the text of his
journal as ‘Red English Buntin without any feathers’.57 My hypothesis is that,
before the red flag of Wallis was stitched to it to constitute its red half, this maro ‘ura
might have been a yellow-feathered maro tea. The fact that, without the red fabric,
this girdle was primarily made with yellow feathers was already implicit in Cook’s
and Anderson’s accounts (see earlier). Bligh’s drawing highlights this detail. Among
scholars, Dening was the only one to find this sketch worthy of interest.58 He specu-
lated that it represented a brand new maro ‘ura, containing both red and yellow
55
Rev R. Thomson, ‘History of Tahiti, 1767–1815 [incomplete]’, 16–17, Council for World
Mission Library, CWML MSS/121, SOAS, London, microfilm, State Library of New South
Wales, Sydney, FM4/3032, cited in Oliver, Ancient Tahitian Society, vol. 3, 1214. For a precise analy-
sis of this event, see Driessen, ‘Tupa‘ia’, 68.
56
William Bligh, ‘The Famous Maro Oorah, or Feathered Belt, Otaheite, 4 Yds. long, Called Ter-
ràboo,uttatah’, in ‘Drawings by Wm Bligh Commander of Her Majesty’s Ship Providence’ (Sydney:
State Library of New South Wales, manuscript PXA 565).
57
Oliver, Return to Tahiti, 125.
58
Dening, ‘Possessing Tahiti’, 166.
22 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

FIGURE 4: William Bligh, ‘The Famous Maro Oorah, or Feathered Belt, Otaheite, 4 Yds. long,
Called Terràboo,uttatah’, in ‘Drawings by Wm Bligh Commander of Her Majesty’s Ship Pro-
vidence’. Source: Sydney: State Library of New South Wales, manuscript PXA 565.
 TAHITIAN FEATHERED GIRDLE 23

feathers, which was made both to acknowledge British power and to possess it. Yet
thinking culture through time can be achieved without restricting social dynamics
and innovations to either adapting tradition or acculturation.
I further hypothesize that the meanings and uses of ceremonial maro were
subject to variations and innovations. Thus, as ‘Oro worship spread over Tahiti,
the ari‘i of Papara saw the opportunity to have their own ‘Oro dedicated maro ‘ura
by attaching a novel red fabric to their maro tea. Papara’s leaders, advised by
Tupaia, might have taken inspiration from the ari‘i of Opoa, the Tamatoa, and the
centralization of political and religious power they had achieved in Raiatea before
the mid-18th century, when Raiatea was conquered by the Pora Pora ari‘i Puni.
Whether a maro came to Papara with Tupaia (and was a maro tea, as Newbury sus-
pected), or whether it was already in possession of the Teva anyway, the ari‘i of
Papara might well have taken advantage of the coming of Wallis in 1767 by requisi-
tioning the English pennant and making a new ‘Oro-dedicated maro ‘ura by adding it
to their maro tea. By this reasoning, maro ‘ura were created by ari‘i not as traditional
regalia, but to enhance or display a high status they sought to achieve or secure.
During the 18th century, this status had to be associated with ‘Oro and the ritual cir-
culation of red feathers. In other words, Tahitian ari‘i did not compete to be acknowl-
edged as rightful descendants of Opoa in order to claim resulting privileges; rather,
they attempted to establish for themselves a new position by following the example
of an earlier Tamatoa. Indeed, being a direct descendant of the ari‘i of Opoa might
have mattered less than the right to claim a seat on a marae dedicated to ‘Oro (with
a founding stone from Opoa’s Taputapuatea). I suggest that the Wallis maro ‘ura
was not only a syncretic object resulting from the encounter between Tahitians and
English navigators, but also a Tahitian interpretation of Raiatean institutions.
Accordingly, when Teri‘irere of Papara was invested with the Wallis maro ‘ura
in the new marae Mahaiatea (the greatest ever seen in the Society Islands) around
December 1768,59 the event was more of a political gambit than a traditional cer-
emony. The ari‘i of Papara might have exercised political influence for some time
through an alliance with other ari‘i in the Taiarapu peninsula. In the mid-18th
century, the Taiarapu ari‘i Vehiatua of Tautira was evidently one of the most powerful
in Tahiti.60 The ceremony Tupaia wished to perform for Teri‘irere might have been
viewed by other ari‘i as a threat, not because it involved acknowledging him as ari‘i rahi
but because it would give him a paramount and unprecedented role in ‘Oro worship.
That is perhaps why the two leaders who defeated Papara and seized their to‘o and the
Wallis maro were Tutaha from Paea and Vehiatua of Tautira, where the two other
‘Oro-dedicated marae had previously been established. The Wallis maro ‘ura was con-
veyed to marae Taata61 at Paea. Tu never wore this maro on his own marae Tarahoi in

59
Oliver, Ancient Tahitian Society, vol. 3, 1217.
60
See the account of Maximo Rodriguez in The Quest and Occupation of Tahiti by Emissaries of Spain
during the Years 1772–1776, ed. Bolton Glanvill Corney, Vol. 3, The Diary of Máximo Rodríguez (Cam-
bridge: Hakluyt Society, 1919), 1–208.
61
For a convincing argument for marae Taata being in the same marae complex as ‘Utu‘aimahurau,
see Emory, ‘Traditional History of Maraes’.
24 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

Arue, as it was not dedicated to ‘Oro. Morrison clearly stated that the investiture of his
son (Pomare II) in 1791 in Pare took place in a brand new marae Taputapuatea specifi-
cally built to welcome the sacred canoe.62 Also, marae Mahaiatea in Papara had been
abandoned as it had no purpose without ‘Oro-dedicated ritual objects, although this
had not happened in the case of the ‘Oro-dedicated marae in Paea and Tautira.
As with the Papara maro, the origins of the maro ‘ura witnessed by Morrison are
unclear. Either it was already in Tu’s possession at Pare-Arue, perhaps thanks to his
grandmother Tetupaia; or it was seized by his father’s allies following the defeat of
Papara and was conveyed with the Wallis maro ‘ura to Pare-Arue in 1790 with the
support of the Bounty’s mutineers; or it came with Ha‘amanemane in 1788. As the
Wallis maro ‘ura was in use again in 1792, these two maro might have had different
uses and meanings which were possibly subject to experimentation. Finally, if the
Wallis maro ‘ura was in fact the Papara maro tea customized with the English
pennant, this would explain why it ended up in the hands of Tati from Papara.

CONCLUSION

In this article, aside from arguing for the identification of the remnants of a maro ‘ura
recently discovered in the MQB, I have tried to shed light on the complex historiogra-
phy of the Society Islands. As the information given in every extant document is con-
sistent with maro ‘ura being high-status regalia, they have mainly been studied as
symbolic artefacts. Yet the intricate imbrication of ‘religious’ and ‘political’ institutions
in Polynesia invites a more subtle analysis of the ritual–political uses of maro ‘ura, focus-
ing on the descriptions of Cook, Anderson, Morrison and Bligh. I argue further that
maro ‘ura might not have been as ‘traditional’ as retrospective wisdom suggests, echoing
the political contexts in which it was produced. The traditionalist bias with respect to
maro ‘ura led to the definition of the Wallis maro ‘ura as a mere curiosity. Yet it is the one
about which we have the most information. Hopefully, subsequent material analysis of
the MQB remnant will further enhance understanding of this object.

62
Rutter, Journal, 116.