The French Polynesians have a legend about a famine that occurred on the island of Ra'iātea. A family of six were so desperate for food that they went to live in a cave and ate wild ferns that grew in the surrounding valley. The family patriarch couldn't bear to watch his loved ones suffer, so he told his wife that he was going to bury himself beyond the cave. There, he would blossom into a tree that could feed them. When he wife awoke one morning to find him missing, she knew exactly what had happened. For nearby stood a fast-growing uru tree, its branches bearing loads of breadfruit. Today, this place is called Mahina, but many locals still refer to it as Tua-uru, which means ‘valley of the breadfruit’.

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