TAHITI (continued 2)

Tavi had only undisputed claim over Tautira, Afaahiti, Hiri, and in Tai.

Vehiatua ruled over the southern and western parts of Taiarapu, as far as Teahupo and Vairoa.

The little Teu, who was born of Tetuae-huri, the daughter of the Vehiatua that defeated poor Tavi, became the big and important Teu founder and first of the Pomarés, called kings by the missionaries, who did much to establish them in that position, unknown to the mind and the customs of the Polynesians of the East Pacific. The son of Tavi, who came back from the Pomotus, and was received in royal style and given the district now called Afaahiti, was killed at the marae of Farepua of Vaiari, as I have just related.

Among the chiefs who helped Teu to his new position was Terii nui o Tahiti, who bears a very interesting name: The Great Chief of Tahiti. In this case the word Tahiti refers to a marae of Vaieri, not to the island. Besides Farepua, Vaieri had this marae of Tahiti, which very probably gave its name to the island at some remote period; and it must have been a Teva name.

The fortune of the Papara family seems to have come up at various times, and to have culminated at the time of Purea (our Oberea). Her pride and the pride of the Tevas brought about disaster long after she had passed from power. The woman began and the woman ended. She was married to Amo (of Cook), as we know (Teviahitua), and was herself the daughter of Vaetua, Chief of Faaa, the district between the Tevas and the Purionu; whence later were to come the Pomarés, enemies of the Tevas and of the house of Papara. Her real name was, as I have said before, Te Vahine Aviorohe i Ahurai. Her brother Teihohe i Ahurai had a daughter who married Vairatoa, whose daughter Marama was the mother of our old chiefess, and consequently the grandmother of our queen and princesses. In this way, then, Pomaré II, who became king, was the second cousin of this last Marama; and, as in Tahiti cousins are brothers and sisters, Pomaré called her sister.

Hence, again, the tendency between the last Pomarés and the old lady to make matters right again, and to join the families by marriage, as when Marau married the last Pomaré (V), or when Pomaré III wished our old chiefess to be queen, instead of the famous lady whom we know as Queen Pomaré, with whom our adopted chiefess was always most friendly and intimate.

And so at the time of the last century, Purea, or Oberea, had no superior, unless the head of the older Vaiari branch. Teriirere, the son of Amo and Purea, was a child when Wallis came, hence must have been born in the neighbourhood of 1760; and in his honour and for his advantage, a rahui or taboo was placed upon all the Tevas for the child. The might of the rahui was great; the power to impose it, as it confirmed rights and prestige, gave great umbrage, and there was a way of breaking it without war that could be resorted to. That was to have a chief or person of equal rank, or a relation of the same degree, come as a guest to the place where the rahui existed. According to custom the guest was entitled to receive as guest all that could be given, and that meant all the accumulations of the rahui. Terii Vaetua, Purea’s own mother, determined to break it, and came from their home in Faaa, in her double canoe, with the tent upon it indicative of royalty (fare-oa).

The canoe bearing her mother entered the sacred pass in the reef opposite the outu of Mataiatea. This pass was reserved for princes alone. Purea was living at that time opposite the pass, some little way (two miles) from Papara, and called out to the canoe as it entered:

“Who dares venture through our sacred pass? Know they not that the Tevas are under the sacred rahui for Teriirere i Tooarai? Not even the cocks may crow or the ocean storm.”

Her mother answered, “It is (I am) Terri Vaetua, Queen of Ahurai.”

“How many royal heads can there be?” said Purea. “I know no other than Teriirere. Down with your tent!”

In vain Vaetua wept and cut her head, according to custom, with a shark’s tooth, until the blood flowed. She was obliged to return without a reception from Purea. Then a grand-daughter of Terii Vaetua, a girl under twenty, a niece of Purea’s, made an attempt in the same direction. But the same cry came from Purea: “Down with your tent!”

Tetuanui (Reaiteatua) the girl, came ashore, sat down upon the beach, and in the same way cut her head until the blood flowed into the sand, according to the old custom, asking, if unredeemed, blood for blood. Manea,[27] the high-priest, her brother-in-law, then came upon the scene. He feared the danger of making enemies of the Auhrai princesses, and he said thus: “Hush, Purea! Whence is the saying, the pahus (drums) of Matairea call Tutunai for a maro ura for Teriirere i Tooarai. Where will they wear the maro ura? Maro ura—the red girdle of royalty and surpreme chiefhood. In Nuura i Ahurai. One end of the maro holds the Purionu, the other end the Tevas; the whole holds the Oropoa.”

(Words that I do not quite understand, as given by Marau, but which implied the danger of breaking up their union.)

“I recognize no head here but Teriirere,” answered Purea.

Then Manea, unable to do more than to clear himself, and make what amends were in his power, for the insult he could not prevent or turn away, wiped with a cloth the blood shed by Tetuanui, and took her to his house. When, forty years after, Tetuanui took her revenge in the massacre of the family of Papara, this action of Manea saved part of them; and through him we descend, in the male line, from the Tuiterai of the preceding generation. From Tetuanui, by her marriage with Varatao, the first Pomaré chief of the unfriendly Purionu, was born Pomaré II, the first king and he who became the chief enemy of the Tevas.

Marau, in relating all this story, on different occasions, felt, I believe, the old pride of Purea beat through her: her voice rose in repeating the words: “Down with your tent!” and “I know no other royal head than Teriirere.” I could almost believe that it was she who asserted herself in the person of her great ancestress.

But for all that, now before the final disaster, the house Papara seems to have met a great check again, in a display of the power and pride of Purea. She and Amo built for Teriirere a new marae on that same point where the ladies of Ahurai shed their blood in protest—Mahaiatea and Amo took its foundation stone (if I may so call it) from the original marae of Taputuoarai. Cook has described it as he saw it in 1764—the most important building of the kind he had seen. And over its remains I have scrambled, as you know, unawares of all that it had meant. How much better can I understand the resistance made by our old chiefess to letting it be used as a quarry for the buildings of the great plantation of Atimaono, the great sugar estate of the adventurer Stuart; now involved in a ruin like to that of the old temple. The chiefess, for this refusal, was removed from her position for a time; how reinstated I do not know. You know that I told you before, she is a chiefess, recognized by the French Government, as well as by inheritance, Tati acting for her. It was one of those outrages that the new generations perpetrate on the old; and in this case more disgraceful than usual. But few people sympathize with the “lachrymae rerum” that touched the pagan poet.

You must look up Cook’s description, which I have not by me. Everything in the way of books here is fragmentary, the public library usually unvisited, and many of its possessions scattered carelessly.

The completion of this monument coincided with the beginning of the war that drove Amo and Oberea away, and ruined Papara for a time; a war which occurred between Cook’s first and second voyages; so that he found his former friends reduced in power and dignity. The Vehiatua of that time, with Taiarapu and the Purionu, joined in the attack upon Papara thus breaking the Teva power from within.

There is a poem, difficult to render, which is associated with this completion of the marae, and which seems to bring the war from that. There has been much trouble to make a settled translation of it. The one which I add is a revised translation by Moetia, conferring with the others, whose translation in the rough I have kept separate. I give you Marau’s own copy.

This is Moetia’s and Marau’s translation, I do not know whose copy it is—Moetia’s or Marau’s. I got it from the latter. This song of reproof, cherished by the Teva, as a protest against fate, explains how the dissensions among the different branches of the eight clans allowed them to become a prey to the rising power of the Purionu clans, headed by Pomaré, the son of one of those Ahurai princes whose blood ran into the sand near where the great marae of Oberea was built, as I have told you a little further back. The vicissitudes of wars, the changes brought about by the influence of the foreigner, all of which worked in favour of the Pomaré, culminated in a final struggle in December, 1815. The partisans of the old order, both social and religious, were headed by Opufara, the brother of Tati, the Chief of Papara. On the other side were the partisans of Pomaré, the Christians, the white men and their guns. To accentuate still more the character of the contest, the final battle began on a Sunday, the attack being made by the pagans during the service which Pomaré attended. As in mediæval times, in our own history, the Christians did not begin the fight until the conclusion of the prayers in which they were engaged. On the other side the inspired prophets who guided the pagans urged them to predicted victory. The cannon of the Christians checked the fierce onslaught of the men of Opufara; though for a short time their courage had seemed to prevail, and Opufara fell first, at the head of his men. He urged them bravely to continue the fight, and at least to avenge his death, and the struggle continued long enough for him to see their brave resistance to the superior advantages of the guns in their enemies’ hands. But the end came, as we can well imagine, and Opufara drew his last breath as he saw the utter rout of his clan and their supporters.

For the first time in Polynesian warfare Pomaré stopped the massacre about to begin, and promised peace and pardon to all who should submit.

His friends, as well as his enemies, realized, in their astonishment, the enormous difference brought in by the new faith. This clemency did as much as actual power to win over those defeated. Most all men submitted to the new great chief, to the new religion; the maraes were destroyed, the image of the god Oro, a palladium long fought over, the cause of cruel wars, was burned; the people turned to Christianity, and the old order was completely broken up, carrying with it the power of the chiefs on which, unfortunately, the social system was based; because this power was more intimately connected with religious awe and belief than with military supremacy.

Had I more time, I should have liked to describe more fully the details of what I have only indicated. The whole story of the years between the decadence of Oberea’s control and Pomarés triumph is full of meaning to the Teva. With our clan, Opufara is still a representative of its courage and its pride. With no little feeling does Queen Marau urge me, when I return to Paris, to seek out the omare or club of the great Chief Opufara, preserved perhaps yet in the Musée des Souverains. In the Museum at Sydney in Australia, among the fragments and samples of cloth and dresses collected by Captain Cook, I shall perhaps find some bits of the garments of Oberea.

Saturday, June 6th at Sea.

Wednesday was to be our last day. We had decided to join the steamer chartered by us for Fiji not on its arrival but later at Hitiaa on the opposite southeastern coast of the island, partly to see the other side of the island, partly to say good-bye to Tati who would load our steamer with oranges.

We were to leave at noon for our drive around the island and there were to be prayers that day in all the churches against the illness now afflicting the island. The King was ill; our chiefess wished her family to be present at church. Before the breakfast to which we were asked, she bade us good-bye as she proposed to return to church: they have a way there of spending the day off and on—the natives—as we remembered at Tautira.

She drank our healths and made us a little speech, having kissed Tauraatua, and holding our hands in her soft palms, she wished us again good-bye. She was very dignified and simple. Nothing could have been simpler or more touching. As I remember, she wished us the usual safe journey home and health and “hoped that we might return, where, if we did not find her, we should at least find her children.” After that we had a long and cheerful breakfast with the remaining family, and then we drove away around the coast to Hitiaa which we reached in the early evening.

The drive, though a rough one, was beautiful; of course we could not see inland the high mountains and deep valleys, except when on one occasion we crossed a wide river and valley and could look back. But we skirted the sea everywhere, and our road ran between the cliffs, every few rods making new and exquisite pictures of sea and trees and rocks, and of waters running to the sea. I do not know if this side of the island be finer, all is so lovely in detail, but it is bolder and more rocky. I thought, as we drove along and had passed Point Venus, how well chosen had been Bougainville’s name of Nouvelle Cythere, for we were on his side of the island. The feminine beauty of the landscape and its “infinite variety” completed the ideal of a place where woman was most kind.

The charm of the day closed in our arrival at Hitiaa where we were to pass the night—in a little village of pretty huts set in cleanly order, in a grove of high bread-fruit trees. All was green even to the road, except a few spaces in front of houses, neatly pebbled. In the shade were the figures of Tati and of our hosts, coming to meet us—all in light colours, white, blue, red, and yellow, making a picture that might have done for a Watteau. We dined out on the green right by the shore, where the surf broke a few feet from us. The air was sweet with odours, and cool. It was pleasant to be with Tati again and hear his laugh, something like Richardson’s, whom he resembles in size as well as in many little matters. But I know that I said this before.

We slept in a cleanly native hut, of the usual style, a long thatched building, lifted on a stone base with a floor, and sides made of rods like a cage, but with European doors. At either semi-circular end, muslin was hung along the walls so as to exclude the light and to protect a little from draught. Each end had a curtain drawn across it, so that one’s bed was enclosed, but our host and hostess watched us to the last with unabated kindness. Everything was scrupulously clean. The next morning was like the evening. Blue clouds blown over a pink sky, all far above us, for all the trees rose high and we moved about from shade to shade. Tati had driven away before daylight to put oranges on board. The village was very silent, as if deserted. We spent the morning in idleness; walked to the great Tamanu trees at the end of the village of which Tati had told us when he tried to find words for the impression of solemnity which European Cathedrals had made upon him. The trees are like great oaks, but rise with a great sweep before branching. Right by the road is a cluster of them with great roots, all grown together in a lifted mass. We sat idly by the sea and looked at Taiarapu all in blue, and at the sea between us and our little Tautira also all blue, which we shall never see again. Men, on the inside reef alongside, were fishing, standing patiently in the water.

Over us, stretching far and touching the water at places, spread the great Tamanu trees. We sat there in their shade. The water came up to my feet and washed out my drawings in the sand, as memories of things are effaced.

It was pleasant to be absolutely idle, listening to the soft noise of the tide rolling minute pebbles on the sand, looking at its edges fringed with bubbles, that folded one over the other like drapery, and watching the wet fade smoothly off the shore.

The trade wind blew strong. The air was very cool. Mrs. Tati gave us breakfast with a smile of welcome and iorana, and little Tita flirted with us.

Then I slept; and waking determined to have some record of this our last day, and sat again on the shore, and made a note of Taiarapu across the water on which the rainbow played. Near me the surf ran in rapidly on the shallows, all in blue shade; the Tamanu’s branches above me were reflected in the motion—and underneath the trees, boys paddled in and out, in their little boats without outriggers, using their hands for paddles, so that as they swung their arms they looked as if swimming hand over hand. It was still very cool, and I felt that I had probably exposed myself to what is the danger of this place at this time. It can be so cool after heat, and so damp with such draughts that I do not wonder at the constant colds and troubles of the lungs that I have noticed. I should call it a lovely climate—and an exquisite climate—but not one for a pulmonary patient. Now I am astonished that Piri’s doctors sent her back here.

In the evening we had Tati again at dinner and talked with him about his perhaps coming over in ’93, Exposition time, and about the correctness of his sister’s translations of poetry. We tried in vain to get some love songs, though he promised to send some to me later, but he told us stories of Turi, famous for prowess in love—the Arabian love of the South Seas—also of the tradition of an isle inhabited by women only, such as is told of on the farther shores of the Pacific, and such as Ariosto wrote of; and some anecdotes, not to their credit, of Pomaré the great or his father Teu, some of the scandalous scenes of which had been enacted not far from there, and had been commemorated in the names of the rivers. “But perhaps after all,” Tati said, “they were no worse than other chiefs who lived before them, for as they all had unlimited power that power led them to many excesses.”

The next morning we arose to find the little steamer some three miles off. Perhaps there were fewer rocky ledges upon our path nor did we see the olive gray mist of the aito trees (iron wood) against the blue sea, or the shining wet rocks. But otherwise it was like a continuation of the ride of the day before, a dragging through grassy, wet roads, and plunging into small streams, where coral rocks whitened the clear grey bottom. A very few people nodded to us as we passed. I suppose that most every one was engaged at the packing of the oranges further away; orange trees filled the roads, the peel of oranges in long, yellow spirals, dotted the grassy edges of the rivers hear the huts. Small black pigs scampered and tore away into the “brush” on either side, where in a hollow of the road undisturbed by our passing so close, old Eumaeus the swine-herd crouched alongside of his black hogs who ate savagely what he had provided. And again we came to such a place as we had seen on our drive of Wednesday, something never noticed elsewhere by us, where some ledge of rock came up toward the sea, leaving only a narrow passage. There a little wicker fence had been built across the road resting against the rock on one side and the trees on the slope below; and there we opened a gate, as if all this lovely land had been but some domain, and had been set out in its beauty of arrangement by skilful hands, to please owners who lived perhaps inland, behind the vague spaces of forest trees, or up the hazy valleys. All that was wanting to the idyl was what we had seen before, red bunches of wild bananas brought down from the mountains and hung on bamboo poles or left supported by branches and roots, on the wayside, along with heaps of cocoanuts half hidden in grassy hollows, giving the idea that other owners and gatherers had but just placed them there while they went off for a moment; for a plunge into cool water perhaps, after the hard toil of the carrying.

Tati has explained to us how that really the owners were not far away, but that afraid at our coming or at that of others they were concealed. It was what is called their consciences, or rather what the French have subtly called “le respect humain,” that drove these good people into concealment behind pandanus or orange trees. That day that we drove away, leaving our dear chiefess go to church, was all through the country, apparently, a church holiday, and no one having gone to the mountains for such worldly things as banana food wished to be seen at work, when all were apparently moving to and from the churches, clad in brightest garments, and looking like the lilies of the field.

But this morning, like yesterday, was a day of work; and soon we saw along the shore and drove past it, a very long shed, with shining thatch, and with hanging curtains of matted palm, where were many people, men, women and children, who had been packing oranges and now were resting and eating. The place was as joyous and full as the previous land had been solitary; work had stopped, the last boxes of oranges were being taken to the ship in double canoes, that is to say, two canoes joined together by an upper planking or deck of canes. On one of these with our luggage, we also embarked—the ropes that were fastened to the trees on shore to steady the steamer, were loosened, the anchors lifted, and with a good-bye to Tati we were off. That afternoon we saw little of the island lost in cloud until we turned the corner of Point Venus, and looked up the gorges that led toward the Aorai. Then soon we were in Papeete and could go ashore and watch the packet from San Francisco just sailing in behind us, and try to say good-bye again. Again I felt the curious twinge of parting, again Ori’s wife Haapi kissed my hands. The late afternoon flooded the island and the clouds half covering it with a dusty haze of yellow light. The sea tossed fresh and blue as if lit by another sky. We passed the fantastic peaks and crags of Moorea, seen for the first time on its other side and wrapped above in the scud of the trade winds blowing in our favour. So in a gentle sadness the two islands faded into the dark; the end of the charm we have been under—too delicate ever to be repeated.

There I thought, five hundred years ago, I was young, happy and famous, along with Tauraatua.

If only when I received my name and its associations I could have been given the memories of my long youth; the reminiscence of similar days spent in an exquisite climate, in the simplest evolution of society, in great nearness to Nature, that I might find comfort in those recollections against the weariness of that civilized life which is to surround my few remaining years.

D. M. Oberea S Posuit Teraitua