Atanua

The Marquesans’ memory of Atlantis, described in their oral epic “Te Vanana
na Tanaoa”: “Atanua was beautiful and good, adorned with riches very great. Atanua
was fair, very rich and soft. Atanua produced abundantly of living things. Atea [and
his brothers] dwelt as kings in the most beautiful palaces supported on thrones.
They ruled the space of heaven and the large, entire sky and all the powers thereof
[astrology]. The first lords dwelling on high. Oh, throne placed in the middle of the
upper heavens! The great lord Atea established in love to love the fair Atanua. A
woman of great wealth is Atanua. From within Atea came forth Ono [a terrible
sound, the explosion of Mt. Atlas erupting]. Atea produces the very hot fire.”
These lines from “Te Vanana na Tanaoa” vividly compare with Plato’s description
of Atlantis and its destruction. Atea’s, like that of Atlas’s association with a
volcanic mountain, was recognized by the early 20th-century anthropologist
Abraham Fornander: “In this sense, it would appropriately convey the idea of the
lurid light which accompanies an eruption of the volcano.”