Fatu Hiva is also the title of a book by explorer and archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, in which he describes his stay on the island in the 1930s.

However, the name was recorded by Europeans as Fatu-Hiva, perhaps under the influence of other Marquesan islands containing the element Hiva (Nuku-Hiva and Hiva-Oa) and also because in French the letter "h" is silent.

The latter, defeated, fled the island on bamboo rafts and ended up in the Tuamotus, on Napuka Atoll, where their descendants still live.

The Tiu sorcerer, who remained on Fatu Iva, revealed to the victors the names of the places in the valley (a way of acknowledging their sovereignty), and had himself buried alive, head down, symbolizing his defeat and the end of his tribe.

In 1897, the German explorer Karl von den Steinen described nine tribes inhabiting the Hanamoohe, Hanateone, Hanahouuna, Ouia, Hanavave and Omoa valleys.

Linton found the remains of several tohua (ceremonial and power centers) with dwelling platforms (paepae) and small me'ae in the Omoa Valley.

From a Western perspective, the first explorer to discover Fatu Iva was the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña, on 21 July 1595.

[5][6] In 1937 and 1938, Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his wife Liv lived for a year and a half in Fatu Iva, first in Omoa and then in Ouia, a now deserted valley on the eastern coast of the island.

He recounted his experience in the book Paa Jakt efter Paradiset (1938), rewritten in 1974 and published as Fatu Hiva, the return to nature.

[7] In the early 1960s, until 1966, most of the island's men went to work in Moruroa, in the Tuamotu archipelago, on the construction of the Pacific [Nuclear] Experimental Center.

[3] On 11 March 2011, Swiss explorer Raphaël Domjan, expedition leader of the PlanetSolar adventure, the first ship to circumnavigate the planet on solar power, called at Fatu Hiva.

The first caldera, about eight kilometers in diameter, has a sharply cut rim, formed by a hemicircular series of peaks rising to over 1000 meters.

It was created by a powerful eruption, as evidenced by the impressive basalt columns, the "statues" of the Virgin, in Hanavave Bay, caused by lahars.

The landscape surrounding the settlements in the coastal zone and in the valleys has been extensively remodelled for human food production, so little of the original vegetation remains.

Massive interventions, already in historical times, probably caused the extinction of an unknown number of endemic and native plants in the lower and middle areas of the island.

Pterophylla tremuloides is an endemic shrub which grows in low ridge top and cliff shrubland with Metrosideros, Dicranopteris and Lycopodium from 700 to 850 metres elevation.

[8] A systematic study of the flora with the support of the Smithsonian Institution in 1988 revealed the number of 175 native, 21 endemic, and 136 anthropochoric plants.

Selling monoi oil, carvings and painted bark raffia to infrequent cruise ship tourists and other sailors generates some income.

[17] The Grélet Museum in Omoa holds a collection of local artifacts, including war clubs, tikis and carved wood bowls.

[15] Politically, the island belongs to French Polynesia (Pays d'outre-mer - POM) and is therefore affiliated with the European Union.

The inhabitants of this 8,400 hectare island live mainly in the villages of Omoa and Hanavave, on the west coast, which are connected by a dirt road through the mountains.

The largest of the villages is Omoa, with a Catholic church, a nursery and elementary school, a small shop, a post office and a satellite telephone.

In 1937 there was also an old man named Tei Tetua, by his own account the son of one of the last true cannibals, who lived there accompanied by his twelve-year-old adopted daughter.

In the story "Feathers of the Sun," Fitu-Iva falls under the influence of a cunning Solomon Islands swindler who, with the connivance of the ever-elusive chief, introduces paper money and exchanges all valuables for domestically manufactured currency.