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isolated island group in the world, and yet were home at the time
to as many as 300,000 people who knew their islands as
Te Henua
,
Te Enata
, “the land of men.”
    It was an extraordinary meeting of civilizations.
The Marquesans considered their islands to be the end of the world, the last
stop on a mythical journey that had carried their ancestors along wind and
waves from the west. Every human being was a descendant of Tiki, the first
human, and each clan could trace its genealogical history to the primordial
diaspora that had come out of the setting sun. Beyond the horizon to the
east were the lands of the afterworld, where spirits departed the body and
plunged into the sea. Thus, to the Marquesans, the Spaniards were as demons,
embodiments of depravity born beyond the far reaches of the eastern sky.
Carnal and deceitful, cruel beyond reason, the Spaniards offered nothing.
They had no skills, no food or women, no knowledge of even the most
fundamental elements of the natural world. Their wealth lay only in what
they possessed, curious metal objects that were not without interest. But
they had no understanding that true wealth was found in prestige, and that
status could only be conferred upon one capable of acquiring social debts
and distributing surplus food to those in need, thus guaranteeing freedom
from want. The white Atua — these strangers who came from beyond all shores
— had no place in the order of life. Such was their barbaric state that
sorcery did not affect them, or even the power of the priests. So complete
was their ignorance that they did not distinguish commoners from chiefs,
even as they treated both with murderous disdain.
    The Spaniards, for their part, were confounded by
an island people who appeared both gentle and merciless, often in the same
moment. Here were great warriors fully capable of ruthless violence. Yet
their conflicts were seasonal, preconceived, scheduled, and ritualized. A
single death could signal the end of battle. The Marquesans had no sense of
time, no notion of sin or shame. Their young women flaunted their beauty and
were openly sexual, and yet were scandalized and disgusted when the
Spaniards relieved themselves in public, as any normal man would do. If
sexual licentiousness titillated and confused, cannibalism and human
sacrifice horrified, as did the practice of polyandry and the impossible
irrationality of
tapu
, the indigenous system of magical rules and
sanctions that later gave rise to the notion of taboo. Yet other signs of
savagery were the glowing blue-black tattoos that covered every part of the
Marquesan male body between the waist and the knees, including the most
sensitive surfaces of the genitalia.
    For the Spaniards the most perplexing question
was how such a primitive people could have accomplished so much. Entire
mountainsides and river valleys had been domesticated with monumental stone
terraces, irrigation canals, and massive platforms where thousands could
gather for ceremonial events, the feasts and celebrations that marked the
end of war or the accession of a chief. At such moments, a priest would
recite the entire mythological history of the world, hundreds of lines of
sacred verse held in the memory of a single man. If he faltered or stumbled
on a single phrase, he would be obliged to begin anew, for the words defined
the contours of history, even as they anticipated the promise of the future.
Around the platforms stretched emerald fields of taro and yams, pandanus and
coconuts. The tree of life was breadfruit, and in the cool earth the
Marquesans built massive stone pits where literally tons of the starchy food
could be stored in anaerobic conditions, an eight-month supply held in
reserve at all times, so that the people might survive even the most
terrifying and destructive of typhoons.
    Pedro Fernández de Queirós, second in command of
the Spanish expedition, concluded that the natives he and his comrades met
on the beach could not possibly have