Johanna Marau Ta‘aroa

Johanna Marau Taʻaroa a Tepau Salmon (24 April 1860 – 2 February 1935) was the last Queen of Tahiti as the wife of King Pōmare V, who ruled from 1877 to 1880. Her name means "Much unique cleaning of the splash" in the Tahitian language.

Life

Family

She was born in 1860 to Alexander Salmon (Solomon), an English Jewish merchant, and Princess Oehau, later given the title ariʻi Taimaʻi, their third daughter and seventh child. Her mother was the adoptive daughter of King Pōmare II's widow, the mother of Pōmare III and Pōmare IV. Considered one of the highest ranking chieftainesses in the land, she was head of the Teva clan, the traditional rivals of the Pōmare family, and descended from Chief Amo and Queen Purea who received the first European explorer to Tahiti Samuel Wallis in 1767. In 1846, Ariitamai was considered a rival candidate to the throne by the French governor Armand Joseph Bruat in the event that Queen Pōmare IV did not return from her self-imposed exile to Raiatea during the Franco-Tahitian War and comply with a French protectorate over Tahiti.

Her parents had ten children. Marau's siblings were: brothers Tepau, Tati, Ariipaea, and Narii; and sisters Titaua, Moetia, Beretania, and Manihinihi; see family tree. The Tahitians considered her family to be royalty. Following their mother's death, Marau's relationship with her siblings was shattered, culminating in a seven-year feud and legal battle over their mother's lands and possessions. However, she was able to reconcile with her siblings and drop the lawsuits in 1904. Marau and her sister Moetia outlived all their siblings and died only months apart.

Education

The Salmon children, and their relatives from the Brander family, attended schools in Europe or Australia. From the late 1860s, Marau was educated in Sydney, Australia. She attended a private school, Young Ladies’ College, operated by Miss Fallow in the city until she went home to Tahiti to marry. Her brother Narii and nephews John and Alexander Brander, who were the sons of her older sister Titaua, had preceded her to Sydney and commenced at Newington College in 1867. The boys had arrived by ship in Sydney on 29 October of that year with two native servants. Marau arrived in Sydney sometime after that as it is reported that she attended the picnic on 12 March 1868 at Clontarf where Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, was wounded in the back by a revolver fired by Henry James O'Farrell. The Duke visited Tahiti in 1870 and met Marau's sister, Titaua Brander.

Marriage On January 28, 1875, she married Crown Prince Ariiaue, the future King Pōmare V, at Papeete. Ari'i-manihinihi Te-vahine-rere-atua-i-Fareia, better known as Princess Takau Pōmare-Vedel (January 4, 1887 — June 27, 1976) Ernest Albert Teri'i-na-vaho-roa-i-te-tua-i-Hauviri Tetua-nui-marua-i-te-ra' i Aro-roa-i-te-mavana-o-Tu Te pau, (May 15, 1888 — December 4, 1961) Among her other friends were Paul Gauguin, Pierre Loti, Somerset Maugham, Rupert Brooke, Robert Keable, Alain Gerbault. and Robert Louis Stevenson.

She died on 2 February 1935 in Papeete Hospital following an operation.

Honours French Honours Officer of the Order of the Legion of Honour (1924).

Ancestry

Family tree