The 141 square.km (54 square miles) of land surface in the Austral Islands is home to some 6,5 Polynesians, who live peaceful lives in their attractive villages, where their houses and churches are usually built of coral limestone. Due to the rich soil and the cooler climate of the Australs, good quality vegetables can be produced, including taro, manioc, potatoes, sweet potatoes, leeks, cabbage and coffe, as well as apples, peaches and even strawberries.

Archeological diggings in these isolated islands have uncovered, habitation sites, council platforms and marae temples in the village of Vitaria on Rurutu, showing man’s presence around the year 900 A.D. Tubuai and Rimatara also have the ruins of open-air stone temples and giant sized stone tiki have been found on Raivavae that resemble those in the Marquesas Islands and on Easter Island. On Rapa there are the remains of seven famous pa fortresses on superimposed terraces, that were found nowhere else in Polynesia except New Zealand where the Maori People settled. Exquisite wood carvings, now in museums, tell of an artistic people highly evolved in their craft, who were also superb boat builders and daring seafarers.

Captain James Cook discovered Rurutu in 1769 an Tubuai in 1777. Fletcher Christian and his band of mutineers from the H.M.S Bounty tried to settle in Tubuai in 1789, but were forced to flee the island because of skimishes with the men of Tubuai. Spanish Captain Thomas Gayangos discovered lovely Raivavae in 1775 and remote Rapa was first sighted by English Captain George Vancouver in 1791. Rimatara, the lowest of the high islands, was not found until 1821, when Captain Samuel Pinder Henry of Tahiti arrived, returning the following year with two native teachers who converted the entire population to the Protestant religion. The Austral Islands are mostly Evangelistic today and all have flown the French flag since 1901.

European and South American crews aboard whalers and sandalwood ships during the 19^th century brought epidemic diseases to the islands, which practically decimated the strong, proud and highly cultured Polynesian race that once existed in the Australs.

Austral Islands (Tubai) group, French Oceania

      From the ethnic and cultural point of view, Polynesia is fundamentally a single unit possessing advanced social organization and a complex religious system. The Polynesian migration to Oceania (usually regarded as originating in Asia) took place in two separate waves. In the first place, there was a twofold migration between 1500 BC and AD 300 which brought the Polynesians to their historical home, Raiatea (the Society Islands?) and Samoa. They then spread out in successive waves across the entire Pacific Ocean over the thousand years between the 4th and 14th centuries AD. Another remarkable and strange aspect of the Polynesian culture is that artistically their creations are progressively more original the further east one goes. The fact that the culmination of this process occurs on Easter Island makes the problem of dating the population of the Pacific a highly controversial one.

      Equally important is the fact that the Polynesians possessed a theological system in which the heavenly and earthly gods each have a link with cosmogonic principles and natural phenomena, over and above the simple function of each as the protector of a defined human activity. In earliest times the position of Zeus in the Polynesian pantheon was held by the god of the arts, among other things creator of the first woman, whom he made from clay. In more recent times, however, this central role has been assigned to the god of the sea and fishing, and in eastern Polynesia to the god of war. The position of the artist in Polynesia is significant in that the artist's work is no longer identified simply with domestic traditions, as in Micronesia and Melanesia: he is recognized as a professional and has a privileged place by right among the nobles.

      A closer look at the aesthetic production of this area shows it to be one in which the culture coincides almost perfectly with the ethnic group. The Cook and Austral (Tubai) Islands are particularly interesting, for in these areas the carving and sculpture ranges from an original and eloquent realism to a decided abstraction. This occurs in works and objects linked with religious cults and makes an elaborate progress through a variety of decorative modulations, from simple carving to full scale filigree work, embellished with brilliant glazes. Some of the anthropomorphic wooden sculptures are surrealist in appearance. Their facial and other physical features are indicated by minute human figures in relief twenty times smaller than the main figure and scattered over the surface of the body in the most absurd positions; some have even been found in the hollow interior of the statues.

      The Austral Islands may have been settled by Tahiti though little is known about them archaeologically. Austral Island temples are considerably different from the Tahitian structures, consisting merely of courts walled on three sides with upright carved slabs placed at intervals. Such an unusual plan may be the result of local elaboration from the basic Tahitian types, however. The principal islands of the Austral Group are: Tubai, Rurutu, Rimatara, and Raivavae. The island of Rapa Iti is usually regarded as belonging to the Austral Islands, but it lies well to the southeast of the main cluster. High elevations prevail in these islands. The artifactual material from this area is sparse; however, that which exists is accomplished in craftsmanship and notable in style. Raivavae is famous for large images and the finely decorated paddles traded to passing ships. Rurutu has a famous iconography, while Rapa Iti has its terraced hill forts. The material culture of the area relates principally to the Society Islands from where, it would appear, this group was settled.