Noa Noa
Mars is known as the red planet, a colour occurring owing to the presence of iron oxide. Mars the red planet appears in the old Tahitian nomenclature of the stars:
Taüroüa sailed at the left toward the north, where he slept with his wife, and begat the Red Star, the star which shines in the evening under two faces.
The Red Star, flying in the East, made ready his pirogue, the pirogue of the full day, and steered toward the skies. At the rise of the sun he sailed away.
Taüroüa fit voile à gauche, vers le nord, et là, dormant avec sa femme, il donna naissance à Etoile-Rouge, cette étoile qui brille, le soir, sous deux faces.
Etoile-Rouge, volant dans l'ouest, prépara sa pirogue, pirogue du grand jour, qui cingla vers les cieux. Il fit voile au lever du soleil.
Paul Gauguin Noa Noa
Noa Noa
Noa Noa (Tahitian for "fragrance") was Gauguin's journal or notebook for two years he spent in Tahiti (1893-4). On his return to France, unable to find a publisher, Gauguin himself published his diary, Noa Noa, minus the accompanying woodblock illustrations. More recently the journal and art have been reunited: the black-and-white woodblock prints stand in contrast to the usual, self-selecting palette of colour in Gauguin's paintings.
