Grélet Museum in Omoa holds a collection of local artifacts, including war clubs, tikis, and carved wood bowls. Politics and government Politically, the island belongs to French Polynesia (Pays d'outre-mer - POM) and is therefore affiliated with the European Union. It is administered by a subdivision (Subdivision administrative des Îles Marquises) of the High Commissariat of the Republic in French Polynesia (Haut-commissariat de la République en Polynésie française) based in Papeete. Fatu Hiva forms an independent municipality (Commune de Fatu Hiva) with 636 inhabitants (2012), the population density is about 7 inhabitants/km2. The official language is French. The main town and administrative center is the village of Omoa, on the west coast, with about 250 inhabitants. Infrastructure The inhabitants of this 8400 hectare island live mainly in the villages of Omoa and Hanavave, on the west coast, which are connected by a dirt road through the mountains. The largest of the villages is Omoa, with a Catholic church, a nursery and elementary school, a small store, a post office and a satellite telephone. Fatu Hiva has no paved roads between the two villages, no harbor dock for large ships, and no airfield. Safe landing on the difficult-to-access coast is only possible in the two bays on the west coast, where the villages are also located. The seventeen-kilometer road linking the two villages is very bumpy, especially near Hanavave, and the rains often make the road sweeping and dangerous for traffic. The inhabitants prefer to use a boat to reach the other village (a quarter of an hour of navigation is enough). Fatu Hiva in Literature The island became better known through the book of the same name by Thor Heyerdahl, who spent about eight months on the island in 1937 with his first wife Liv in a self-imposed robinsonade. The couple lived first near the west coast in the Omoa Valley, and later on the east coast in Ouia, which is now uninhabited. In 1937 there was also an old man named Tei Tetua, by his own account the son of one of the last true cannibals, who lived there accompanied by his twelve-year-old adopted daughter. A first book about the stay was published in 1938 by Gyldendal in Oslo, sold poorly despite the best reviews and was never translated, probably also because of the war. Heyerdahl's well-known book Fatu Hiva was later rewritten, according to the author's note: After