tahoa

Updated: June 20, 2025

Marquesans are not deep thinkers. In fact, they have a word, tahoa, which means, "a headache from thinking." Ten years of ardent and nobly self-sacrificing work by missionaries left the islands still without a single soul converted. It was not until the chiefs began to set the seal of their approval on the new outlandish faiths that the people flocked to the standard of the cross.

Frederick O'Brien - White Shadows in the South Seas