Marau Queen consort of Tahiti
- Category : 1860-births
- Type : GE
- Profile : 1/3 - Investigating / Martyr
- Definition : Split - Small (42)
- Incarnation Cross : RAX Unexpected 1
Biography
Tahitian princess, who became the last queen consort of the Kingdom of Tahiti as the consort of King Pōmare V who ruled from 1877 to 1880. Her name means "Much-unique-cleansing-the-splash" in the Tahitian language.
She was born to Alexander Salmon (Solomon), a British 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.
Her parents had ten children. Marau's siblings were brothers Tepau, Tati, Ariʻipaea, and Narii; and sisters Titaua, Moetia, Beretania, and Manihinihi. Her family were considered royalty by Tahitians.
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.
On 28 January 1875, she married Crown Prince Ariiaue, the future King Pōmare V, at Papeete. She was only fourteen years old, and he was many years her senior and had been married and divorced before to Teuhe, who later became Queen of Huahine in her own right. The marriage was an unhappy arrangement and the couple constantly fought.
Her mother-in-law, Pōmare IV (1813–1877) died after a long reign on 17 September 1877. Marau and Ariiaue were crowned King and Queen of Tahiti on 24 September 1877, and her husband took the name of Pōmare V. They had three children.
Queen Marau travelled to Paris in 1884 where she was greatly received. Her fashion style was admired and copied by many Parisian society women. On her voyage home, she fell in love with a French naval officer by whom she had her two younger children. Her marriage to Pōmare V ended in divorce on 27 July 1887; the king repudiated her two younger children, and in retaliation, the queen denied his paternity of all three.
In later life she became acquainted with American writer Henry Adams who wrote a biography of her mother and herself. Among her other friends were Paul Gauguin, Pierre Loti, Somerset Maugham, Rupert Brooke, Robert Keable, Alain Gerbault and Robert Louis Stevenson.
She died, aged 74, on 2 February 1935 in Papeete Hospital following an operation.