Part 23

At times the only sound is the wavering fall of the little column of water that drips from the mouth of a fountain into the sea--to which we go for our supply of pure water. Its threads, thicker or thinner, with the pulsations of the headstream thousands of feet far back, or with the draught of the wind, make a corded silver fan against the blue sea during the day; in the night a line of tinted light.

These are fine days; but our first stay after our return from Moorea ran over a week of wet weather that kept all asoak, filled the house with damp and mould, and carried into and about it disagreeable things taking refuge in comparative dryness: the centipede that runs away, but bites if interfered with; the scorpion that lurks around dark corners, and scuttles off harmlessly enough, but looking like a child’s dream of a devil. The cockroach seems to rule over them, however, and to drive them away; and as the scorpion appears rarely in the house, and only in the verandah or outhouses, we have been lucky. Tauraatua has been bitten, but after a sharp pain like a cut, the matter has faded away. The memory is there, however, and I am glad of the changed weather. Our house, from whose verandah we look upon the sea across the road, and the reef near the horizon and Moorea swimming in light, is the historic consulate empty of the Consul, whose place we take, his duties only being filled by Captain Hart, the Vice-Consul.

Behind us, across the yard, is our dear old Chiefess’s home, where the Queen, Marau, and her sisters Piri and Manihinihi reside; so that we are near our new family, and we call in as often as our fears of intrusion may allow, or need of society, or freedom from so-called occupation. Tauraatua goes over more than I do; he has given up painting, and has returned to congenial and accustomed studies, by working at the genealogy of our new family, and helping to get it into written shape.

For the old lady, Hinaarii, has begun to open the registers of memory, and to correct and make clear things kept obscure, partly from purpose as defences, partly from kindly motives toward others; partly because it is written that memories must perish and the past continually fade and disappear, in part at least. Genealogy, you know, in the South Seas, indicates not only one’s standing but one’s rights to land. Nothing is ever sold, nothing alienated by any law; so that in one’s name and in the names of one’s relations are the title deeds of what one has. And now the French Government, in its anxiety to extend all benefits of civilization, and to make all its peoples equals has desired to have everything put into proper shape; and as in Samoa, so everybody here must put in his claim to the land, which thus will be duly recorded for good and all. For never again will be the time when a family might claim the fruit of a branch of a given tree. These genealogies, kept by hearsay, will be unfolded to the public, so far as needed, and claims settled; there will be no need of concealment, no fear that some side relation, in a little country, where such relationship must exist, will know enough to make out a tree of his own and come in with some claim. Everything conspires for getting some definite record just before the last veil closes over a past already dim enough. And Marau and Moetia are writing out songs and legends, and may be inspired, if their ardour can continue, to help to save something.

Some years ago King Kalakaua of Hawaii had wished to obtain the traditions and genealogies; but the old lady had never been favourable; so that we feel that at least we have done no harm to the family, at least in our western notions, since we may help to save its records.

It is a part of the charm of Tahiti that with it there is a history: that it has been the type of the oceanic island in story; that the names of Cook and Bougainville and Wallis and Bligh belong to it most especially; that from it have radiated other stories: the expeditions of the mutineers of the _Bounty_, and the missionary enterprises that have gone through the Pacific.

With its discovery begins the interest that awoke Europe by the apparent realization of man in his earliest life--a life that recalled at least the silver if not the golden age. Here men and women made a beautiful race, living free from the oppression of nature, and at first sight also free from the cruel and terrible superstitions of many savage tribes. I have known people who could recall the joyous impressions made upon them by these stories of new paradises, only just opened; and both Wallis’s and Bougainville’s short and official reports are bathed in a feeling of admiration, that takes no definite form, but refers both to the people and the place and the gentleness of the welcome.

That early figure of Purea (Oberea) the Queen, for whom Wallis shed tears in leaving, remains the type of the South Sea woman. With Cook she is also inseparably associated and the anger of the first missionaries with her only serves to complete and certify the character. One will always remember the imposing person who, after the terrors of the first mistaken struggle, approached Wallis with the dignity he describes, welcomed him and took care of him, even, as he says, to carrying him, since he was ill, in her arms, as if he were a child. One would like to go back in mind to the time, if it were possible to realize the thoughts that must have come upon Oberea and Amo her husband on this appearance of the great ship and the strange men--a floating island as they first thought it, which they attacked as a portent of ill. Something like this will be felt by our descendants when from some distant planet the first discoverers shall drop on earth. And so Amo and Oberea come in and out of the stories of the first discoverers, even until forty years after, when the missionaries of the _Duff_ speak of the poor lady with harsh words and (1799-1800) no pity for her frailties.

Now Oberea (Purea) was our old Chiefess’s great-great-grand-aunt, as Amo was her great-great-grand-uncle; and now, with one remove further, she is ours by adoption.[20] (You must ever remember that we belong to Amo; that is the special name of place attached to ours.)

And everything that concerns the family of the Tevas interests us exceedingly. Does it not interest you also? This _living connection_ with the indefinite archaic past, does it not bring back the freshness of early days, in which, reading of the voyages, our minds shaped pictures of what these places and their people were? Now for me it is a pleasure, half touching, half absurd, to look upon the queer pictures of the little place we lived in at the end of Uponohu Bay, as it is represented in the prints of Cook’s voyages, or the later one of the _Duff_; that place where Melville last lived during his last days on Moorea, as he tells in “Omoo”; and then to think of my own sketches, and the different eyes with which I must have seen it. In the same way, or a similar way, my impressions of to-day become confused and connected with these old printed records of the last century, until I seem to be treading the very turf that the first discoverers walked on, and to be shaded by the very trees.

I have been drawing and painting somewhat lately, so I have been able to take fewer notes than Tauraatua. He is working assiduously, partly because he is engaged in congenial work, partly to urge Marau to go on and write her memoirs, which would then go back to a record of her ancestors. I, on my part, could not do it so well; and I am busy at my drawings, trifling as they are. But I regret it, as I see less of our neighbours, all of whom have their various degrees of charm.

But I like to gather in without strict order these records and memories, even at the risk of Marau’s supposing that I am going to put into verse the extremely difficult poems she recites to us. This idea of hers is evidently a devilish suggestion of Tauraatua, who thereby shares the responsibility or throws

[Illustration: SUN COMING OVER MOUNTAIN, EARLY MORNING, UPONOHU]

it off on me at will. Still I shall transcribe into prose some of the poems at least, to please you. They are woven into the story of the family and form part of its record, if one may say so; some of these form parts of methods of address, if one might so call it--that is to say, of the poems or words in order recited upon occasions of visiting, or that serve as tribe cries and slogans. So with the verses connected with the name of Tauraatua that are handed down. The explanations may (and do) _embrouiller_ or confuse it; they did for me; but they make it all the more authentic, if I may so say, because all songs handed down and familiar must receive varying glosses. Where one sees, for instance, a love song, another sees a song of war. The Tauraatua of that far back day was enamoured of a fair maiden (her name was Maraeura) and lived with or near her. This poem, which is an appeal to him to return to duty or to home, or to wake him from a dream, is supposed to be the call of the bird messenger and his answer:

(To) Tauraatua that lives on the “Paepae” Roa (says) “euriri” the (bird) that has flown to the Rua roa: Papara is a land of heavy leaves that drag down the branches: Go to Teva, at Teva is thy home: to Papara that is attached to thee, thy golden land. The mount that rises before (thee) that is Mount Tamaiti. (“Outu”) The point that stands on the shore is Outo monomono: It is the (place of) the crowning of a king who makes sacred Teriitere of Tooarai.[21] (Teriitere is the chief’s name as ruling over Papara) (Answer) Then let me push away the golden leaves of the Rua roa That I may see the twin buds of Maraeura on the shore.[22]

Of this translation Tati made mincemeat one evening, describing as frivolous the feminine connection, and giving the whole a martial character. The few lines he changes I shall not give here in full; suffice it that he ends with this, which is fine enough:

“He is swifter (Tauraatau who is supposed to rush off) than the one who carries the fort.

“He is gone and he is past before even the morning star was up.

“The grass covering the Pare (Mapui-cliff) is trampled by Tauraatua.”

I shall not have time to reconcile the versions, but Moetia seems impressed with the possibility of getting these things translated; and if all will unite, even if two versions are made, the songs will at least be _saved_.

I have received from Marau two poems: one about a girl asked to wed an old chief, one in honour of Pomaré; but Adams has become more Teva than the Tevas, and will not note it.

And as a woman has come again into the story, as she has done often with the Tevas, for good and ill, let us go back to Oberea, the Teva princess whom Wallis first met, and met almost by chance, for she and her husband Amo were on a visit to the place where Wallis anchored and landed, and by this accident helped to displace later the centre of power, as has always happened where the white man has made his harbour.

Oberea was on a visit to Haapape, where is the anchorage of Matavai; its chief Tutaharii. Tutaha (in Wallis’s book) was connected with the Papara family to which Amo, Oberea’s husband, belonged (and stripped, as a sign of respect, in presence of Amo and his little son Teriitere).

The Tevas, whom Amo and Oberea represented, held the political supremacy of Tahiti. Their lands were further down the coast to the south than the districts which the first discoverers first knew, and separated from them by inimical chiefs, momentarily quiescent from fear and doubt. They were especially the Purionu and Teaharo, from whom the first discoverers received a great part of their information; then came, on the west coast, the little district of Faaa (or Tefanai Ahurai), from which came Oberea (Purea; her proper name, Tevahine Avioroha i Ahurai), the daughter of its chief, Teriivaetua.

Then came a large district known as the Oropaa, consisting of Paea, adjoining Papara, the chief place of the Tevas, and of Punavia, both these connected by family alliances with the Tevas.

The Tevas (and family) held after them, further to the south, the whole south of the main island, and the whole of that half island called Taiarapu, which joins the main island at the narrow Isthmus of Taravao. The east was divided into three districts, but had no common head. Hence the Tevas, usually well combined, with strong clan feelings that last until to-day, controlled all the south and west of the island and Taiarapu, or two thirds of the population, and had only themselves to blame when deprived of their ascendency.

The Tevas were divided, as they still are on the map to-day, into Inner and Outer Tevas; the Outer Tevas on Taiarapu (into which we were adopted by Ori), and the Inner Tevas on the main island (into which we were adopted by our good chiefess of Papara). These made the eight Tevas. Their origin, like that of all clans, is hidden in the night of legend, with the old myths of a semi-divine ancestor and an earthly mother.

And as the women were to play a great part in the history of the Tevas, it is but fair to begin, then, with that part of the life of Queen Hototu that made them.

THE ORIGIN OF THE TEVAS

This, the earliest of the traditions of the family, was told me at different times by Queen Marau.

At certain hours Tauraatua goes to the low cottage behind our house, that is open toward the King’s palace and the government house, but is entirely shut in by trees that fill the little garden, and which has a strange resemblance to many a little American home and is all the more wonderfully unreal. Then the Queen comes from some inner apartment and repeats the legends, poems and genealogies, and one or more of the sisters are often there and add comments or contradiction. During our absence the ladies are supposed to have prepared the material and to have arranged what documents they have, so that in many cases what little I shall quote will be the very words of our royal historian. Sometimes in early evening the Queen has walked down to the shore with her sister Manihinihi, and, sitting on the rocks under the lofty trees, answered my questions about these early ancestors. I can tell you the bald story. I cannot give you with it all that would have made any old story charming--the faces and forms of my instructors, their beautiful voices, the slight wash of the sea into which Manihinihi sometimes put her bare foot, the wonderful stillness, the slight rush of the surf far out on the reef, the light of the afterglow, the blue ocean far away, the mountains of ancestral Moorea lit up after sundown, the shadows of the big trees moving over the water, and on our side right above us the great heights of the Aorai appearing and disappearing behind the many coloured clouds. At such moments I could forget for the present the little meannesses introduced by us Europeans and feel as if I were back in the time when my name was Teraaitua.

They were my ancestors in fairyland of whom fairy stories were being told, and even the absurdities had the same charm of the stories of our nurseries which they so much resembled.

The great ancestress Hototu, from whom come all the Teva, was the first queen of Vaieri. She married Temanutunu,[23] the first king of Punaauia. All this is in the furthest of historical records, as you will see by what happened to this king and queen at the time when gods and men and animals were not divided as they are to-day, or when, as in the Greek stories, the gods took the shapes of men or beasts to come and go more easily in this lower world which they had begun to desert.

In the course of time this king left the island and made an

[Illustration: EDGE OF THE AORAI MOUNTAIN COVERED WITH CLOUD.

MIDDAY, PAPEETE, TAHITI]

expedition to the far-away Paumotu (pr. Pomotu). It is said that he went to obtain the precious red feathers that have always had a mysterious value to South Sea Islanders, and that he meant them for the _maro ura_ or royal red girdle of his son, for he had a son by Hototu who was named Terii te Moanarao. The investiture with the girdle, red or white, according to circumstances, has the same value as our form of crowning, and took place as a solemn occasion in the ancestral temple or _marae_ of these islands of the South Sea, but the red girdle seemed even in some Samoan lore to have an ancient meaning of royalty; I remember Mataafa, the great chief, asking me why the English Consul wore the red silk sash which he probably affected in his dress as being of an agreeable colour.

While the king was far away in the pursuit of these red feathers to be gathered, perhaps, one by one, the queen Hototu travelled into the adjoining country of Papara, where we were the past month, and there she met in some way the mysterious personage, Paparuiia.[24] With this wonderful creature the queen was well pleased so that from them was born a son who later was called Teva, but this is anticipating.

This was the time as we have told you when men and animals and gods were mixed, and this great ancestor of the Tevas was evidently some form of god. The story came to an end in a sudden way. While the king was still away, his dog Pihoro returned, and finding the queen he ran up to her and fawned upon her to the jealous disgust of Tino iia, one half of whom said to the other, “she cares for that dog more than for me. See how he caresses her!”

So then he arose and departed in anger, telling her, however, that she would bear a son whom she should call Teva: that for this son he had built a temple at Mataua, and that there he should wear the _maro tea_, the white or yellow girdle, the chiefs of Punauia or Vaiari, who in this case were the king and queen, being the only ones that had the right to the _maro ura_, the red _maro_ or girdle, for which you will remember that the king was hunting. Then he departed and was met by Temanutunu, the husband who had landed at Vairoa, and who entreated him to return. He refused just as the two Shark-princes, of whom I told you at Vaima, the little river that ran so clear near Taravao, refused another husband for a similar reason, saying that his wife was a woman too fond of dogs. “Vahine na te uri” (woman to the dogs). When I asked if he never came back, the queen, or was it Moetia, told me that since that day the man-fish had been seen many times.

The dog is however much connected with the Papara family, and his presence is occasionally felt. Tati the brother of the queen told some stories of him. One of these stories refers to what happened to Narii when a child. His mother had him with her at the occasion of the building of a bridge near Papara. There were many hundred people there. Tati was there with his two nurses according to custom, and Narii had also the two who had charge of him. At evening one of the nurses saw something like a dog run up a tree above them, and into the branches, and at the same time something waved from him like rags. Just then the child was drawn from the arms that held him, his mother’s, but something grasped him firmly, while a ball of fire rushed out above him and went on to the sea some quarter of a mile distant. So many people saw part of this, namely, the ball of fire that there was no doubt of it.

Nor must I forget to say that all about Papara there is a good deal in the way of ghosts or queer sights. For instance, just beyond the little enclosure of our hereditary Amo, where the little sluggish river runs in the woods beyond the ancient stone foundation, evergrown with trees, there are spaces where occasionally the figure of a man appears and disappears through the trees, and old rags of clothing flitter behind him. There last Saturday, while two men were at work, what at I don’t know, perhaps looking after vanilla, one of them looked up and saw on the face of the little cliff, a small hole, not noticed before, out of which at once stepped an old man dressed partly in an ancient manner, who dusted his clothing as he got erect and then disappeared. The two men went to the spot and found the hole. There was some talk of enlarging it and digging into it, but the discoverer objected so strongly, and has still kept up his objection so well that nothing more has happened.