Dr. Marie-Noelle Ottino-Garanger

Marie-Noëlle Ottino-Garanger started to work on Fenua ‘Enata – the Marquesas islands – in 1984, joining her husband, archaeologist Pierre Ottino-Garanger, studying ethnohistory, Polynesian prehistory and the settlement of valleys, social organisation and culture. At this time they met Nicholas Thomas, and later Carol Ivory and Caroline van Santen. Since then, they have mainly remained on the archipelago, and now live in France. While working at the ANU (with Pierre at the Research School of Pacific Studies, Prehistory Department, under Prof. Golson) and in New Zealand (Otago University, under Prof. Leach), she prepared in archives and libraries her work on Patu Tiki – Marquesan tattoo – as a key factor of integration in Marquesan society, providing work to Le tatouage aux îles Marquises : Te patu tiki (1998). In 1996 she received her PhD in Prehistory, Ethnology and Anthropology at Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her aim was to contribute to the understanding of Marquesan culture in its wide acception: cultural as well as environmental.

She participates in archaeological research, restoration of ceremonial and religious sites (Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa, and Tahuata) but also to the publication and preparation of exhibitions in France, Tahiti, USA and Switzerland, as well as as tiny patrimonial places in Ua Huka and Hatiheu (Nuku Hiva). She is also concerned, since the very beginning, by study and preservation of traditional uses and oral traditions; she work on plant use, animal knowledge, management of the sea and preservation of vocabularies on fauna, flora, toponymy, history and legends. Her work on iconography (Marquesan Mata Tiki) was conducted in the same perspective of educative and preservation purposes.