Moorea

Moorea was settled by Polynesians long before European contact and was known as 'Aimeho or Eimeo, the name Cook and his contemporaries used; Mo'orea, usually glossed as "yellow lizard", came into general use later. The island was divided between chiefly districts, and the Ōpūnohu valley holds numerous marae — stone temple platforms spread through the forest, part of a landscape of terraced gardens and breadfruit groves that supported a considerable population.

European ships came in the later eighteenth century, and the island's position next to Tahiti made it important early in the missionary period. The London Missionary Society settled on the island in 1817, and the missionaries even tried a sugar works and a textile works, without success; the Ebenezer church at Papetō'ai recalls that early Protestant mission. Christianity took hold quickly, and with it a new social order under the Pōmare family. The French protectorate over Tahiti in 1842 brought Moorea with it, and the island became part of the colony and later of French Polynesia.

For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this was farming country: copra, coffee, vanilla and, from the twentieth century, the pineapples that still terrace the inland slopes and feed a juice and liqueur factory. Tourism arrived in earnest in the 1960s, after Tahiti's international airport opened and the first hotels were built on the north coast, and the ferry service from Papeete turned the island into both a holiday destination and a commuter suburb of the capital.

Moorea's culture is Tahitian, Christian and closely tied to the land and the lagoon. Sunday services fill the churches of Papetō'ai, Afareaitu and the coastal villages, with himene — the deep, layered choral singing that grew out of mission hymns and older chant — sung unaccompanied. Catholic and Protestant congregations, together with more recent churches, organise much of village social life, from choirs to youth groups and fundraising feasts.

The revival of Mā'ohi arts since the 1980s is visible here in dance schools, tatau studios, drumming groups and the making of flower crowns, pareu and woven pandanus. Va'a, outrigger-canoe racing, is the sport that matters: crews train in the bays at dawn and dusk, and island clubs compete in territorial races. During Heiva in July, villages put on dance and singing competitions alongside javelin throwing, stone lifting and fruit-carrier races.

Because Moorea is close enough to Papeete for daily commuting, it lives between two worlds — island quiet and city work — and has a strong local identity built around district loyalty and family land. Research stations on Cook's Bay and at the head of Ōpūnohu Bay give the island a scientific community studying coral and lagoon ecology. Manners are courteous and unhurried: a greeting before business, an invitation accepted politely, and a mild tolerance of visitors who mistake the lagoon for private property, which almost none of the shoreline is.

About 17,000 people live on Moorea, spread around the ring road in villages rather than in any single town; Pao Pao, at the head of Cook's Bay, is the largest village and Maharepa the busiest commercial stretch. Many households combine several incomes: a hotel or restaurant job, a plot of taro or pineapple, fishing in the lagoon, and public-sector or construction work. A sizeable number take the early ferry to jobs in Papeete and return in the evening, which makes the Vaiare quay the island's busiest place twice a day.

The rhythm follows the heat and the boats. Bakeries open before dawn, schools and offices start early, shops often shut for a long midday break, and the late afternoon brings paddlers, football and swimmers to the shore. Fresh food comes from gardens, the small market and the supermarkets; nearly everything else arrives by barge from Tahiti, which keeps prices high.

The pressures are those of a small island close to a capital: rising land values, houses built on family land held undivided between relatives, traffic on the single road, and the strain of waste, water and sewage on a lagoon that supports both fishing and tourism. Coral bleaching, outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish and cyclone damage are followed closely, not least by the island's marine research laboratories, and young people continue to leave for study and work in Tahiti and France.

Everyday food on Moorea is Tahitian with French and Chinese threads running through it. Poisson cru — ia ota in Tahitian — is the constant: cubes of raw tuna briefly marinated in lime juice, then mixed with coconut milk, cucumber, tomato and onion. Lagoon fish are grilled whole or served raw with lime, and tuna arrives seared or as sashimi. Fāfā, chicken stewed slowly with taro leaves, is the classic family dish, eaten with taro, cassava, rice or breadfruit ('uru).

Sunday lunch and feasts come out of the ahima'a, the earth oven, where pork, fish, breadfruit and taro wrapped in leaves are cooked over hot stones for hours, finishing with po'e, a pudding of mashed banana, papaya or pumpkin bound with starch and soaked in coconut milk. Firi firi, doughnuts made with coconut milk, and baguettes from the village bakeries are the standard breakfast.

Moorea's own produce shapes the rest: pineapples from the plateau, eaten fresh and pressed into juice, rum and liqueur on the island; pamplemousse, the large sweet local grapefruit; mangoes, bananas and limes from gardens; and vanilla and honey from smallholders along the ring road. Roulottes and snack bars serve casse-croûte sandwiches, chow mein and steak with chips, a reminder of both French and Chinese settlement, while Hinano beer from Tahiti and fresh fruit juices are the usual drinks.