Biography isabella mia tsunami

Tahitian tapa weaver

Mauatua, also Maimiti or Isabella Christian, also known as Mainmast,^[1] (c.

1764 – 19 September 1841) was a Tahitiantapa maker, who settled on Pitcairn Island with the Bounty mutineers. She married both Fletcher Christian and Ned Young, and had children with both men. Fine white tapa, which was her specialty, is held in the collections of the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum, amongst others.

Biography

While the date of Mauatua's birth is not historically recorded, in later life she claimed to have witnessed the arrival of James Cook in Tahiti in 1769.^[2] This information, combined with an estimate that she was 23 or 24 years old in 1788 when HMS Bounty arrived, suggests that she was born circa 1764.^[2] She was reputedly the daughter of a chief,^[1] or at least was born in a high social group.^[3] The suffix -atua means 'for god/gods' and indicates a position within nobility