Eiao

Eiao is the largest of the extreme northwestern Marquesas Islands. The island was discovered in 1791 by the American navigator Joseph Ingraham, who named it Knox Island in honor of the then-current United States Secretary of War, Henry Knox. Other names given to the island by Western explorers include Masse, Fremantle, and Robert.

Eiao is administratively part of the commune (municipality) of Nuku-Hiva, itself in the administrative subdivision of the Marquesas Islands.

The center of the island is a high plateau, rising on the east side to 576 m (1,890 ft), much of which has been devastated by herds of feral sheep. There is one good anchorage, on the west side of the island, at Vaituha.

In the late 19th century, the island was briefly used as a leper colony island, although that enterprise was eventually abandoned because of the frequent droughts, and the difficulty of reliably landing supplies on the island. In the 1970s, the island was the site of extensive French military activity, while it was being explored as a possible site for nuclear testing. The island and its surrounding rocks were declared the Eiao Island Nature Reserve in 1992, as a first step toward protecting the ecosystem, as well as a number of endangered species, some of which are endemic. Previous to the creation of the reserve, the Eiao Monarch went extinct.

In pre-European times, the bodies of chiefs from parts of Te I'i were transported to Eiao for burial.

It was at one time home to a Marquesan tribe called the Tuametaki.

Stone tools, especially adzes, made from Eiao basalt have been found in archaeological sites on other islands, providing evidence for prehistoric interisland voyaging within the chain.

See also

• French Polynesia
• Louis Le Breton
• Marquesan Nature Reserves