Rurutu Living Between Memory and Modernity Travel Documentary

At the heart of the Austral Islands Rurutu is nothing but cliffs limestone caves and rugged landscapes Its rugged appearance is the result of intense underwater volcanic activity For centuries it has been a land of oral tradition striving to survive by transitioning into writing This land also belongs to Mamipare the island's only writer on an island of 2 400 inhabitants At 82 she remains indispensable Mamipare That's the spirit of Rurutu—mischievous and always up to something she never gets bored This is my country this is my island I was born here My parents are from here especially my father —he’s no longer just from Rurutu My mother once again comes from a Samoan and Japanese family Here we're very happy we love each other deeply The people of Rurutu the elders even the children and young people—we protect one another and we're not selfish Rurutu means united and standing tall— that's the true meaning of Rurutu She also has her favorite spots Mamipare The airport is almost his second home with a near- daily celebration Newcomers don’t always realize that Sometimes an entire village would work through the whole night just so the Tiare could serve as their crown There aren't many people on Rurutu That's why Mamipare is constantly traveling across the island She fully embraces the present while ensuring the transmission of memory The children are already betrothed while still in their mother's womb When you know you're going to have a daughter and only one child And that I will have a son so already the two of us we'll betroth our children When they are born at the age of thirteen they will marry The two children who are to be born must not become parents before the seventh generation She is known in Polynesia by the name Tarja Walker In her memoirs *Memories of the Southern Nile* She described the legends and life traditions of Rurutu Here she is the one who returned because she was needed I was urgently called to Rurutu because the local nurse had been struck with a baton by a madman He was extremely ill and had to be replaced immediately So the senior nurse who had come to plead with me to go to Rurutu I said I only have a nursing diploma and no midwifery training because in Rurutu you have to do everything even surgery The chief doctor said "You're going to do a rotation— we need a Rurutu person for Rurutu " Rurutu we love to welcome guests And events like this are a chance to share our culture and traditions Nothing in common with the world of Tahiti 600 kilometers to the north or anywhere else Rurutu sees the difference between the two worlds Mamie Paré is the one who established the connection between oral tradition and the written society Life in Rurutu is simple we live better on the islands than in a city We're all family here on the island We are all cousins aunties uncles or great-aunts and great-uncles So for the parents it's better that we go find our husbands our brothers our wives elsewhere I'm married to a dad a Breton He was supposed to stay only for three or four days on the island just long enough to set up the TV antenna I was at the register and he asked me if I wanted the check I told him I'll take the check and the man Yves has had three lives: the first in the automotive industry the second in telecommunications as a legionnaire the third as Rurutu How does one become Rurutu Slowly by managing to forget most of one's habits We're far removed from everything because it's a culture entirely different from any we've experienced before The only way to truly become Rurutu is to embrace this new culture And it happens very slowly Traditional knowledge isn't written down there's no formal record You have to discover everything on your own It's not always immediately clear at first even though I've been fortunate to have a wife from Rurutu who translates many things for me With their pension Yves and Hélène are managing quite well In less than a decade they went from 10 to 400 visitors each year Hélène would love her children to come back but with unemployment exceeding 30 percent that won't happen anytime soon In Tahiti there are nightclubs On Rurutu there's nothing—there aren't enough distractions for young people beyond the Heïva festivals Young people leaving school returning to Rurutu with a BTS level or a professional baccalaureate to work on development projects o earn 80 000 a month it's somewhat disheartening to see these young people returning with qualifications just good enough to be baggage handlers or to go clean the roadside areas Just forty years ago people still lived almost entirely in clan-based communities oday we're nearly at the point of the Western nuclear family with parents and children Still we remain an example just like countless other examples throughout Polynesia of the Polynesian family since we have two of our children who are in adoption what is known as FAMU in French Polynesia We raise them but since there's no official documentation they keep their last name We have a third one who belongs to both of them And then the last one who is fully adopted so they bear our name There we're preparing for the welcome Okay And what about me—don’t I deserve a crown too Yes Are you doing alright Everything’s here Are you all alone Everyone is invited Everyone must come today everyone Here is the park of the crowns Ah well there you go I was told twelve people and there are twelve crowns When you're in town coming here is a ritual The Touhapé never docks but it is the only vessel serving the Australes twice a month so one must simply adapt to the distance It's not just the distance since we still have an airstrip We're well connected today despite everything But preserving traditions also plays a key role The Church is heavily involved in that because they are very conservative The Church is the social glue in these islands extremely important But when it comes to development Well civil society is struggling And in a way that's good since the local population has managed to preserve its traditions Learn to live well in agriculture for if we had lost our traditions it would take a great deal of money Rujutu is also a land of prayer Religions and traditions continue to coexist harmoniously there This harmonious relationship lasted until a day in 2002 when politics became involved The Protestant Church of Mao He forbade his deacons from engaging in politics Tensions were already high over the financial contributions requested by the churches It was here that Nahouma a dissenting deacon would establish the Rujutu Protestant Church with about a hundred members a religion rooted in the communal tradition of their island This is where the Rujutu Protestant Church will establish itself with about a hundred members Every Sunday braiders deacons and farmers gather for a meal to make collective decisions Nahouma isn't just the owner of that cap He is also the keeper of the elders' words Within families including his own Over generations the tradition has become more flexible My father did not approve of this relationship It was too late for me It could still have been fixed but that attachment was simply too strong I had fallen in love with him and he with me—our feelings were mutual No one not even parental laws could change that who could have known would create a rift between us Within my family the two of us we've always upheld this code We don't want our children to marry with close cousins or I don't know But from the fifth generation onward we accept it Because today some young people stay set starting from the third and fourth generations Within families tradition becomes more flexible In the workplace it serves as a response to insecurity Patia is part of the Patia community it houses the largest drill rig on the hills above the village of Avera For him without a tapeworm one is not Rujutu Taro remains the island's staple food Yet young workers are becoming scarce either moving to Tahiti or living abroad making the tradition a necessity We initially went to the community first so we could access a resource a bit sooner Since families are in too great need of money to help cover their essential expenses we're forced to take action stead of working four hours for nothing at all We all work together and the harvest we gather we share equally among the young people present It's work not absent On the lands of Patia the community has recently diversified through its livestock farming and vegetable cultivation The drill press is the inheritance he will pass on to his children according to tradition She assumes only sons inherit the land Daughters must be supported by their husbands Patia who has nine children doesn't dream of such a future The anxieties I've inherited from my parents and also for madam it will be for all the children It will be a sharing for everyone Not just for boys Girls should be given too My daughter is the one who mainly handles the sale of agricultural products but she also manages the handicrafts She is the one who supervises both Half of Loutou's population has left the Popétés and half of the Popétés now resides in other countries It's better to come back It's hard at first extremely hard When I returned from Tuamotu myself I struggled I came back and it completely transformed my life My perspective on things I’ve changed Previously I was selfish I only cared about myself I lived in Tuamotu There were people around me but I didn't help them I didn't help them It was every man for himself Arriving in Rouroutou I began to gradually grow and change In our family we learn to help one another With my parents We are taught to share with others The people from Rouroutou who are here in Tahiti those without land those on the road those with nothing Back to Rouroutou everyone has a piece of land Life is good in Rouroutou I liked it when she came back because she really enjoys crafting too and she's the one who helps me I even taught him how to make my hat Our tradition is pandanus From our place from Rouroutou We also formed a community of girls to work together and share Back then we didn't pay for water And bread we didn't eat every day Twice a week before Now it's every morning You always need spare parts Rouroutou exists between two worlds Is it because of her past A thousand kilometers away a submarine volcano McDonald's pushed him out of the water As the tectonic plate moved northwestward a weakness in the Earth's crust gave rise to an island and Rouroutou emerged 12 million years ago The ancient coral reef has become a cliffside riddled with about thirty caves each with its own legend A tourist treasure that Yves the former legionnaire had to learn to master in order to organize his island tours That means everyone around here—every single person in this area—belongs to me right now and I need it so nobody touches it That way we don't need to make recordings—we're staying true to the oral tradition I come by I pick the flower And there it is—everyone knows the flower has been cut This regime is reserved for the one who cut the flower Someone stole a tarot deck from this tarot cabinet the owner retrieved a piece of wood shaped it into a fork a small tarot foot on it everyone who passes by will see it dry up there and know that someone has stolen Don't go back to that tarot reader you've been there already Step by step Yves became part of Rurutu a process of remembrance inspired by the unique writings of Mamipare on the origins of the clans She who had translated the legend of the Anna Aeo cave for a former president of the Republic a certain François Mitterrand What the ancestors have always told us was the temple of Ati-Airi Yes because The first peoples of Rurutu were the Oropas of Punahwi and the Ati-Airi of Paer Then these Ati-Airi They are called Ati-Airi which means disgusting creatures man-eaters evil killers So they would come here themselves gathering everything they could find and bringing it here to kill They had their oven here to burn and then to eat them Finally their enemies of course Rurutu was lucky The most welcoming prevailed Thus each in their own way revives the memories of Rurutu Traditions have remained very present more so than elsewhere in the Australs Even though we have the 4x4s the TV just like everywhere else But in everyday life It's truly staying very present Oral tradition without writing does not easily align with tourism To attract visitors Yves must sell dreams and memories With his wife Hélène he continues to do everything possible to recover and pass on the shared memory of the legends At the Council of Elders presided over by Naouma the idea is gaining ground but resistance from some of the elders remains strong They old ones want to keep everything It was war between us Maybe they don't want to share their knowledge but that's a pity—because perhaps my grandchildren won't have this opportunity o know the island's legends Even today a few families secretly preserve the famed Putatupuna ancestral writings on the orig clans and legends The Council of Sages has another mission to resolve the inheritance issue Passionate about his genealogical research Yves grasps the enormity of the task When it comes to my wife We speak of Yves Vahiné the wife of Yves And when the first child was born and they took it to the chief's residence At the chief's office they were asking Whose son is this He's the son of Yves Vahiné His last name became Yves And then they gave him a first name So with each generation the last name changed It took 150 years to begin To set all this up A shared book of Rurutu's memories represents a colossal compilation effort One of its stages the collection of legends It had been entrusted to Nahouma Three old men in front of me told me to come closer to them And they enlarged me They shouted at me tears were streaming down my face I just stared like that and I finally understood I understand perfectly When they finished enlarging me they told me "Go home and tomorrow come do your work " To everyone's great surprise Nahouma gained the trust of the elders who finally handed him a portion of Rurutu's legends Mamie Paré she keeps attending the parties She's in great shape and life is beautiful Even the children know that Rurutu Caught between two worlds The High Commissioner came to open a new market the only one on Rurutu and the three villages have come out Mamie Paré doesn't necessarily have to hold on so long After all she's already taken the first step with its memories of a future South Pacific island To Rurutu to do the other