Why go
Taputapuatea on Raiatea and the remains at Maeva on Huahine give pre-European history a physical setting. Papeete's churches and the royal tomb of Pōmare V offer another starting point. This background helps connect those visits while keeping Polynesian history distinct from the later colonial account.
The full story
Polynesian voyagers reached the Society Islands through ocean navigation long before European visitors arrived. Their history is more than a prelude to exploration: ceremonial places such as Taputapuatea on Raiatea and the marae around Maeva on Huahine belong to that earlier world. Tahiti drew successive European expeditions in the eighteenth century. Samuel Wallis visited in 1767, Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1768 and James Cook in 1769. Missionaries brought a different and lasting influence. The London Missionary Society established itself in 1797; Pōmare II and his subjects converted to Protestantism in 1812. Catholic missionaries arrived later, and religious rivalry became entangled with French intervention. Tahiti became a French protectorate in 1842 and was annexed in 1880. Those changes help explain why a visit can move between Polynesian ceremonial remains, Christian churches and monuments associated with the monarchy. Read them as successive, overlapping histories rather than interchangeable landmarks.