THE MYSTERY paradise Island hosting Olympic surfing was once home to human sacrifices and nuclear testing.
Tahiti – which means “wall of skulls” in English – has a third gender and sacred spots on the islands that tourists risk death visiting.
World-class surfers are shredding waves at Teahupo’o reef pass – roughly 9,300 miles (15,000km) from Paris.
While Paris is known for having some of the best European art, architecture, and food, Tahitians live completely different lives.
France formally colonised the thousands of islands in the 19th Century after European explorers like Captain James Cook had navigated there for decades.
Cook found human sacrifices and a civilisation that was once the most advanced seafarers in the world.
The explorer also found a third gender on the island – that exists to this day.
Tahiti’s māhū are outside of the male-female divide, they are born as male but are recognised as different from early in their lives.
Māhū play social and spiritual roles, as guardians of cultural rituals and dances in Tahiti, or they help care for the island’s elders and children.
Third genders in Pacific cultures have existed from “time immemorial”, but have been demonised and banned after the introduction of Christianity.
France continues to own the islands, which are formerly am overseas collective of the country.
But anyone planning to visit the island and see the crystal blue waters and friendly people face the prospect of death.
Open air marae temples are also only allowed to be entered by royalty, with commoners risking death if they enter the lava stone sites.
Tahiti is home to the surfing for this games as it offers some of the best surfing conditions on the planet.
When surfing was introduced as an Olympic sport in Tokyo 2020, it was held on a windy beach where the waves were not great, meaning the event wasn’t quite the spectacle it could have been.
The 28 athletes competing in Tahiti are being housed on a cruise ship off Tahiti, with some saying the accommodation looks nicer than the Olympic village in Paris.
Between 1966 and 1996 France used Mururoa atoll as a nuclear testing ground.
Despite French attempts to make the nuclear explosions safe for the nearby islanders, radiation did fall across the island.
Locals have complained of increased rates of cancer from the 41 atmospheric tests they conducted.
In 1974, one cloud drifted over the island after a test.
Locals were left to shelter in huts with contaminated fresh food and canned goods, while French engineers were brought in food from off the island.
Investigations found that France incorrectly predicted how high the mushrooms clouds would go.
That left radiation at a much lower level in the atmosphere than predicted and wind blowing it over islands.
Irreversible damage was done to their island home, with animals dying and crops ruin as the fallout irradiated.
110,000 people were affected by the tests, almost the entire population at the time, researchers found.
