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 reviewed the 'primitive' indigenous tribe that held him tacitly captive. Revolutionary for his time he dared question the missionaries and spoke up for their native way of life. He reaslised that with the arrival of the Europeans the lot of the average Polynesian would be a lot worse. This is explored in Melville's second book Omoo.