The French Polynesia includes many groups of islands, one of the best known is the Society Islands archipelago, which includes Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Taha'a, Huahine and Ra'iatea, and some more smaller ones (see Google map). Their Polynesian name is Tōtaiete mā
Since my childhood I dreamed about visiting Polynesia, Capt. Troy with his sailing boat in "Adventures in Paradise" showed me the wonders of that region. Later Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard with the "Mutiny on the Bounty" gave me a Technicolor view of Tahiti. Luckily, my wife and I had the chance to visit these islands in 2017, and really enjoyed the experience!
Two views of Taha'a (top) an Huahine (bottom). Copyright © 2025 by Austin Whittall
Were these islands uninhabited?
The current chronology for the peopling of these islands, according to a genetics paper published in 2022 is the following: "Settlers also fanned out from Rarotonga northeast to the Society Islands (represented by Tahiti in our dataset but also containing the culturally significant island Raʻiātea) around 1050 CE, thence northeast to the Tuamotu Archipelago (represented by Mataiva in the Palliser group in our dataset) by 1110 CE." There is no formal records of any previous inhabitants. However, during the late 1800s, the missionaries who lived in the region collected ancient tales and myths about the original "first people" in these islands.
An article published in The Polynesian Society in 1895 included an interesting description of little people in Tahiti by the Rev. John B. Stair, describing the "early Samoan Voyages and Settlement". Under the heading (10. The Sixth Voyage Tangiia to Tahiti Eastward - Discovery of Dwarfs or Pigmies [sic] at Tahiti) says the following:
"In the narrative of this voyage we have a remarkable discovery of pigmies at Tahiti by Tangiia and subdued by him and ruled over by him or his adopted son. They were found at a place called Puna auia and are described as of four classes or tribes called O le Neke O le Mana une O le Kai lila and O le Avakevake They were very ugly and very short
... Dr Pickering makes mention of the wild people who used to inhabit Tahiti as being described to him as those who were accustomed to go all over the mountains by tracks and pathways which were utterly unknown to natives of that day.
... interesting relics of the distant past. Commenting upon the description of these pigmies (sic), S. Percy Smith says 'Probably they are the same as in the Hawaiian stories of the Menehune people said to have been pigmies and the first inhabitants of Hawaii. They are known to the Maoris as a people of Hawaiki under the name of Manahune' which is precisely the name as given in the records as the name of the third of the four classes of little people conquered by Tangiia who are called Manaune; an interesting fact, as showing how much the back history of the different islands is interwoven."
I will look into the Manahune in my next post.
Stair mentions another interpretation given to these ugly people: "it is thought the account must refer to some monkeys that had been seen by Iro [also called Whiro] on some distant land which he is assumed to have visited." which he dismisses stating that it was Tangiia and not Iro who discovered and subjected them to his authority. They were people, not monkeys.
The map above shows the current global range of primates, if someone in Tahiti had to travel to see monkeys, they'd have to head east to the coast of South or Central America, across the Pacific, or west to Sulawesi, Borneo, or the Philippines, and the latter is what some authors have suggested, as we will see below.
Primitive People who had not yet mastered the art of making fire
The story of Whiro - Iro (a Maori god and navigator) and the monkeys, mentioned above, according to J. M. Orsmond, commented by S. Percy Smith, is the following: "The description of the people called Te aitanga a nuku mai tore who lived in trees in the wharawhara plants and amongst the kiekie, and who had small heads, large chests and waists, and who the story says 'were not human beings' seems to be some indistinct recollection of monkeys, the more so as these 'people' were not acquainted with fire. Knowing traditionally Whiro's powers as a navigator it is not improbable that he visited the East Indian Archipelago and brought back stories of monkeys who in process of time have acquired the name given above."
Interestingly, there were tales about the natives of the Mariana Islands, stating that the natives didn't know about fire either! This was first noted by French historian Charles Le Gobien in his Histoire des Isles Mariannes (p. 44), published in 1700 where he states that: "What is even more astonishing, and what will be hard to believe, is that they had never seen fire. This essential element was entirely unknown to them. They knew neither the use nor the qualities, and but they very surprised when they saw it for the first time when Magellan descended upon one of their islands and burned about fifty houses to punish them."
The Chamorro made pottery, so surely they knew how to light fires. However, this story probably reflects some ancient myth of the locals, probably regarding a hominin (like the Flores Island Hobbit, or the Fuegian Yosi) that had not yet learned to manage fire.
French philosopher Voltaire repeated this unusual fact in his Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations (Chapter CXLIX): "These Mariana Islands, located near the line, deserve special attention. The inhabitants did not know fire, and it was absolutely useless to them. They fed themselves on the fruits that their lands produce in abundance, especially coconut, sago (the pith of a type of palm tree that is far superior to rice), and rima (the fruit of a large tree called the breadfruit tree, because its fruit can be used as a substitute for rice)."
The Mu
Another group of small people who didnt master fire were the mysterious Mu people of Hawaii (see p. 25 in Luomala, Katharine, The Menehune of Polynesia And Other Mythical Little People of Oceania, 1951) quoted below. The Mu are sometimes mistaken for the Menehune. But they are different types of dwarves. The Mu are "brown, diminutive (about the same height of the Menehune), stocky and active. Their heads are shaggy and their beards and eyebrows bushy. Their speech -full of strange, uncanny grunts and cries- differs from the Hawaiian. The people are wild, easily frightened... They lack fire."
The Mu are not related in any way to the pseudo-scientific lost continent of Mu in the Pacific, a counterpart of Atlantis in the Atlantic. Mu was "invented" before plate tectonics, and attempted to explain the Polynesian myths and the dispersion of mammals and marsupials, and similar species found in South America and the Western Pacific. So the explanation that was concocted was a continent that vanished under the seas and only small fragments (the islands) survived.
The Fair Fairies of Moorea
There is also another myth, probably linked to the Urukehu and the Patupaiarehe of New Zealand, fair, fairy-like people. According to Frederick William Christian (1910), in his work Eastern Pacific Lands; Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, p. 45, there were blond creatures on Moorea:
"On a placid Sabbath morning we sight Moorea, the island of fairy folk with golden hair.1
[1] Cf. Paumotan mokorea, a fairy woman with red-gold tresses, a mermaid. Niué, moka, blonde, auburn-haired."
The footnote [1] says "Cf." which comes from the Latin word confer, and means "compare"; and then it gives the word mokorea, used by the people of Paumotan (Tuamotu) and the other word "moka" is used by those of Niué Island which have a similar meaning "golden fair hair".
Moorea is an jungle-covered island that is just 16 km (10 mi.) west of Tahiti, with an extinct volcano, Mount Tohivea standing like a pinnacle over it (height: 1,207 m - 3,960 ft), it has a steep relief, and two large inlets. It is surrounded by an atoll. I have not been able to find any other references to fair haired fairies. Instead, I came across several texts about the Tahitian and Society Islands Manahune people. These have a similar name to Hawaii's Menehune, but were real people. I will write about them in my next post.
Patagonian Monsters -
Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
