Tai Pī (province)

Tai Pi is a province of Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands, an administrative subdivsion of French Polynesia. The settlement follows the line of the valley and the stream that passes from its mountainous island surroundings.

Herman Melville was famously marooned here when, as a young whaling ship sailor, he deserted ship with his shipmate, Toby Greene ('known as Tommo in Melville's narrative'). This experience which lasted a total of four weeks was the subject of Herman Melville's first book Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. He arrived the day the French sailed into Nuku Hiva and began firing their cannon, thus proclaiming it a French Protectorate.

Melville's story thus represents the tribe's (and all the Nuku Hiva islanders') native way of life before their island's opening-up to the outside world and the suppression that would follow. Their lifestyle, surroundings & condition made the young Melville think he had stumbled into the Garden of Eden. He portrays their daily life as joyful, nonchalant and innocent, and strikingly free of the worries of the Western World. Man makes a living by simply foraging in the abundant tropical surroundings, and teaches his son himself, within the community. There is almost no difference between the possessions of the islanders, and their homes are erected by everybody and not entirely fixed-abodes. This way of life was to rapidly decline and change with the arrival of the Europeans, as explored in Melville's second book, Omoo (although Omoo has nothing to do with Tai Pi).