Church and Cathedral of Nuku Hiva

·   Catholic Church near a river which has sweetwater shrimp and eels. The church opened 1995.  

This is the Marquesan cross used throughout the French Polynesian Islands.

 

Musical instruments in church are a conga drum (using skin of cow now; long ago made from shark skin, stingray skin or human skin), guitar and ukulele.

 St. Joseph (with baby Jesus near) holds an adz because he was a carpenter. 

The pulpit with the face of Jesus is made from terminalia glabrata, a type of tree.

Madonna and child is made from hibiscus wood.

 Jesus holds a breadfruit since he is the Bread of Life.  (breadfruit is a staple in their diet that, like a potato, can be mashed, fried, au gratin, etc. and lasts for months). 

Driving back into the capital, we toured the Catholic cathedral, whose entrance was built in the 1850s and the outside of the cathedral, opened in 1975 with stones from all of the Marquesan islands.  In the back yard is a statue of the missionary from France who later became bishop of the cathedral.    

Two places hold evidence of the former island mysticism:  behind the crucifix is red stone signaling taboo (sacred), the altar is a huge slab of ancient stone supposedly where bodies were dried after they’d died.  Ancient burial practices were to dry the body, remove the head and keep it carefully since it contained he “mana” or spirit of the person.  The dried bones were then ground up and used by the village.

The pulpit has symbols of all 4 evangelists.  

Old and new baptismal fonts.  The old one is on the left and made of stone; on the right is one made from wood.