Tiripone Mama Taira Putairi

Tiripone Mama Taira Putairi, SS.CC., (1846–1881) was educated by French missionaries from birth and became the first indigenous Roman Catholic priest ordained in Eastern Polynesia.

They wrote E atoga no te ao eteni no Magareva (An Account of the Heathen Times of Mangareva) which was deposited in the archives at the Congregation of the Sacred Heart at Braine-le-Comte, Belgium.

As a catechist priest, he was not allowed to hear confessions and there were fears by his superiors that he would regress to his Polynesian heritage in his personal life.

[2][4] After Bernardo Putairi became regent of Mangareva in 1873, the French missionaries under Father Blanc and Bishop Jaussen thought the regency would pass from him to his son Tiripone – as a priest, he would bring the Gambiers archipelago into the possession of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Transferred to Papeete and later Pamatai, the seminary built to educate the indigenous clergy was discontinued by Bishop Jaussen on 30 May 1874, having failed to graduate any more native novitiates.