The more you know the less you need: Palm frond hats!
“The more you know, the less you need.” –Aboriginal Proverb On one of our last evenings together, Blight pulled a long palm frond from the back of his car, split it down the middle., and counted off 13 leaves. He fit it around Raiarii’s head and said, “Need a new hat?” We’d both been itching […]
and I thought I was Tough…
Reunited in the neighboring valley, we brought ashore some fish we’d caught for Mami Faatiarau, Maoni, and Georgina–the woman with whom they were staying. The goat and the puppy had come along too! They’d just returned from a morning of foraging in the mountains with a sac full of mangos, and were pulling a steaming […]
Quiet heros in the forgotten valley.
Mami Faatiarau is 79 years old. She lives in an isolated valley in the Marquesas Islands. Only a walking path connects this valley to the main village, but she doesn’t want to move to the more populated valley like the rest of her family. She and Maoni, her disabled adoptive son prefer to stay in […]
Pacific Arts Festival…Culture is Beautiful!
Every four years, the ‘Festival des Marquises’ brings representatives from all over the Marquesas Islands and around the Pacific to celebrate the culture that makes each island unique. Food, dance, traditional medicine, palm and pandanus leaf weaving, tattooing, sculpture, and various other cultural arts were performed and shared with the other islanders and guests from […]
