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By Root 1973 0

emerging from these analyses were unequivocal. All analyzed pieces of volcanic glass found on Henderson originated at the Down Rope quarry on Pitcairn. That conclusion had already been suggested by visual inspection of the pieces, even before chemical analysis, because Pitcairn volcanic glass is colored so distinctively with black and gray patches. Most of Henderson’s basalt adzes, and its basalt flakes likely to have resulted from adze-making, also originated from Pitcairn, but some came from Mangareva. On Mangareva itself, although far fewer searches have been made for stone artifacts than on Henderson, some adzes were also evidently made from Pitcairn basalt, imported presumably because of its superiority to Mangareva’s own basalt. Conversely, of the vesicular basalt stones excavated on Henderson, most came from Mangareva, but a minority were from Pitcairn. Such stones were regularly used throughout Polynesia as oven stones, to be heated in a fire for cooking, much like the charcoal bricks used in modern barbecues. Many of those putative oven stones were found in cooking pits on Henderson and showed signs of having been heated, confirming their surmised function.

In short, archaeological studies have now documented a former flourishing trade in raw materials and possibly also in finished tools: in oyster shell, from Mangareva to Pitcairn and Henderson; in volcanic glass, from Pitcairn to Henderson; and in basalt, from Pitcairn to Mangareva and Henderson, and from Mangareva to Henderson. In addition, Polynesia’s pigs and its bananas, taro, and other main crops are species that did not occur on Polynesian islands before humans arrived. If Mangareva was settled before Pitcairn and Henderson, as seems likely because Mangareva is the closest of the three to other Polynesian islands, then trade from Mangareva probably also brought the indispensable crops and pigs to Pitcairn and Henderson. Especially at the time when Mangareva’s colonies on Pitcairn and Henderson were being founded, the canoes bringing imports from Mangareva represented an umbilical cord essential for populating and stocking the new colonies, in addition to their later role as a permanent lifeline.

As for what products Henderson exported to Pitcairn and Mangareva in return, we can only guess. They must have been perishable items unlikely to survive in Pitcairn and Mangareva archaeological sites, since Henderson lacks stones or shells worth exporting. One plausible candidate is live sea turtles, which today breed in Southeast Polynesia only on Henderson, and which throughout Polynesia were prized as a prestigious luxury food consumed mainly by chiefs—like truffles and caviar nowadays. A second candidate is red feathers from Henderson’s parrot, fruit dove, and red-tailed tropicbird, red feathers being another prestigious luxury item used for ornaments and feather cloaks in Polynesia, analogous to gold and sable fur today.

However, then as now, exchanges of raw materials, manufactured items, and luxuries would not have been the sole motive for transoceanic trade and travel. Even after Pitcairn’s and Henderson’s populations had grown to their maximum possible size, their numbers—about a hundred and a few dozen individuals respectively—were so low that people of marriageable age would have found few potential partners on the island, and most of those partners would have been close relatives subject to incest taboos. Hence exchanges of marriage partners would have been an additional important function of the trade with Mangareva. It would also have served to bring skilled craftspeople with technical skills from Mangareva’s large population to Pitcairn and Henderson, and to reimport crops that by chance had died out in Pitcairn’s and Henderson’s small cultivable areas. In the same way, more recently the supply fleets from Europe were essential not only for populating and stocking but also maintaining Europe’s overseas colonies in America and Australia, which required a long time to develop even rudiments of self-sufficiency.

From the perspective of Mangarevans