Teuira Henry

Tahitian scholar who preserved Polynesian cosmology against colonial erasure through monumental ethnography

In 1893, when European museums were looting Pacific artifacts, Teuira Henry (1847-1915) published Ancient Tahiti - a 1,200-page compendium of:

• Oro worship rituals
• Celestial navigation chants
• Indigenous botany classifications

Using her dual mastery of Tahitian oral traditions and Western academic methods, she recorded the complete creation chant 'Taaroa Nui' - preserving 2,000 years of knowledge nearly destroyed by missionaries. Her work enabled the 1970s Polynesian Renaissance, with scholars noting:

'Henry's texts let us reconstruct star compass routes to Hawaii'

Despite Victorian academia's sexism, she became the first Pacific Islander inducted into the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1903. Modern DNA studies confirm her documentation of pre-contact Tahitian sweet potato varieties predating Columbus.