Marquesas Hiva Oa
Calvaire Cemetery on Hiva Oa
November 2006
Hiva Oa is the second-largest island in the Marquesas Islands and the largest in the southern Marquesas group. French and Southern Marquesan, known locally as ʻeo ʻenata, are spoken on the island. In a Marquesan account of the archipelago’s creation, the islands form parts of a house; Hiva Oa represents the “long ridgepole.” This interpretation belongs to Marquesan oral tradition rather than documented geological history.
The photographs document Calvaire Cemetery above Atuona. Its graves include Christian crosses, carved stone and metal memorials, and the burial places of Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel and French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin. Both men spent their final years on Hiva Oa and are buried a short distance apart.
Gauguin moved from Tahiti to Hiva Oa in 1901 and died in Atuona in 1903. His years in French Polynesia had a major influence on his work, although that work was created within the conditions and unequal relationships of the French colonial period.
Brel reached Hiva Oa by sailboat in November 1975 and settled near Atuona. He died in France on October 9, 1978, and his remains were returned to Hiva Oa for burial.
