TAHITI

largest island of the Windward Group (les du Vent) of the Society Islands, French Polynesia, in the central South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Moorea, 12 miles (20 km) to the northwest. The island of Tahiti consists of two ancient eroded volcanic cones, Tahiti Nui and Tahiti Iti (the Taiarapu Peninsula), connected by the Isthmus of Taravao. Its total area is 402 square miles (1,042 square km). Papeete (q.v.) is the capital and administrative centre of the island and of French Polynesia. Apart from a fertile coastal plain, the terrain of Tahiti is jagged and mountainous, rising to Mount Orohena (7,339 feet ) on Tahiti Nui and to Roniu (4,340 feet ) on Tahiti Iti. Many swift streams, the largest of which is the Papenoo in the north, descend to the coast. The island, 33 miles (53 km) long, is fringed by coral reefs and lagoons. Natural vegetation includes coconut palms, pandanus, lantan, hibiscus, and tropical fruit trees. Tahiti, lying within the easterly trade-winds belt, is divided into a wet southern portion (more than 100 inches [2,500 mm] of rain annually) and a drier northern (about 70 inches [1,800 mm]), the greatest amount falling from December to March. Temperatures range from 76 F (24 C) in July and August to 84 F (29 C) in January and February. This climate lends itself to the cultivation of coconuts (copra), sugarcane, vanilla, and coffee, all of which are grown on the coastal plain and are shipped from Papeete on the northwest coast. The original Tahitians were Polynesians who arrived from another of the Society Islands, Raiatea, a Polynesian cultural diffusion centre. On Tahiti they developed political districts, closely connected with a graded system of rank and authority, resting on the extended family organized around each temple. The high chiefs (arii nui) exercised considerable authority, supported by supernatural sanctions and a priesthood, but their relationship with lesser chiefs and people was reciprocal. This society disappeared under European influence, and intermarriage and the French policy of assimilation produced a people basically Polynesian, though with much admixture of other blood (chiefly French and Chinese) and deeply influenced by French culture. More than two-thirds of the population of French Polynesia lives on Tahiti. In 1767 Tahiti (then usually called Otaheite) was visited by Captain Samuel Wallis, of the British navy, who named it King George III Island. It was subsequently visited by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1768), who claimed it for France, and by two English navigators, James Cook in 1769 and William Bligh in the HMS Bounty in 1788. The first permanent European settlers were members of the Protestant London Missionary Society (1797), who helped the local Pomare family to gain control of the entire island. Pomare II (180324) embraced Christianity, triumphed over the other Tahitian chiefs, and established a missionary kingdom with a scriptural code of law. Under Pomare III (182427) and Queen Pomare IV (182777), a reaction by Tahitian rivals, the effects of disease, prostitution, and drunkenness, and the influence of European traders and beachcombers challenged the missionaries' hold. Queen Pomare IV's deportation of two French Roman Catholic missionary priests in 1836 led the French to dispatch a warship in 1842 to demand reparations and to arrange a French protectorate. When Pomare V (Queen Pomare's son) abdicated in 1880, Tahiti was proclaimed a French colony. The island is now part of the les du Vent circonscription (circumscription) within the self-governing overseas territory of French Polynesia. Tahiti has become an important tourist centre, receiving visitors through the Papeete transpacific port and the airport of Faaa, near Papeete. Pop. (1988) 131,309.