which Bougainville affixed to his Journal,' was, as he complained, passed over, because people wished to have their minds made up. Last of all came Captain Cook, whose name has absorbed all others. Twice he visited Tahiti, and helped to fix in European minds the impression of a state nearer to nature, which the thought of the day insisted upon. 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. Her residence and that of her husband Amo was at Papara, on the south shore of Tahiti. Both belonged to a family whose ancestors were gods; and they lived a ceremonial life recalling, at this extreme of civilization, the courtesies, the adulation, the flattery, the superstitious veneration, of the East. This family and its allies had reigned in these islands and in the others for an indefinite period. The names of their ancestors, the poetry commemorating them, were still sung long after the white man had helped to destroy their supremacy. Now Oberea was the great-great-grand-aunt of the old chiefess Arii Taimai, or Hinarii (Mother of Chiefs), whom I visited in her country home. This great lady, the greatest in all the islands, is the last link of the old and new. With her will go all sorts of traditions and habits; and both she and her daughter, Queen Marau, were very affable and entertaining, telling us legends and stories. The mother of our old chiefess was known by at least thirteen different names, each of which was a title, each of which conveyed land: so for instance she was Marama in the island of Moorea, and owned almost all of it; so she was Aromaiterai in Papara. This investiture would be received by a child, as child to a chief, and it would be carried to the family temple to be made sacred, as was done in this case,thirteen different temples having received the child, the mother of our chiefess. She repeated to us, with curious cadences and intonations unknown to the people here to-day, some of the forms of salutation through which a visitor addressed the honored person that he visited, or was addressed by him. These words gave names and surnames, and references to past history, and made out the proper titles to descent. They were recited in the form of a lamentation, and there were pauses, she said, when the speaker was supposed to weep; and in committing them to memory, she learned also when this wailing was to come. Once, she said, she had visited the island Raiatea with her friend, the famous late queen, Pomare, to call upon the queen of that island; and Queen Pomare, less versed than herself, asked her to speak these salutations for her, as they walked along upon their official visit. "It was difficult," said the old lady: "I had to walk just so, and to repeat all this at the same time, without an error, and at the proper places to lament." For our hostess is a lady of the greatest family,- of greater family than Queen Pomare's, though her affection for her prevents her saying what she thinks. The famous Queen Pomare's name was known to all sea-going people in that half of the globe. She was the Pomare of Melville's 'Omoo' and of Loti's 'Marriage.' The Pomares date only from the time of Cook. They were slowly wresting the power from the Tevas by war, and by that still more powerful means, marriage. The old lady Hinaarii is the chiefess representing that great line of the Teva, alongside of which the Pomares-the kings through the foreignerare new people. Some years ago King Kalakaua of Hawaii had wished to obtain the traditions and genealogies of her family; but the old lady had never been favorable. This, the earliest of the traditions of the family, was told me at different times by Queen Marau; so that in many cases what little I shall quote will be the very words of our royal historian. The great ancestress Hototu, from whom come all the Tevas, was the first queen of Vaieri. She married Temanutunu, the first king of Punauia. (Temanutunu means Bird that Let Loose the Army.) This was 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. ... In the course of time this king left the island, and made an expedition to the far-away 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 maroura or royal red girdle of his son. The investiture with the girdle, red or white according to circumstances, had the same value as our form of crowning, and took place in the ancestral temples. While the king was far away in the pursuit of these red feathers, to be gathered perhaps one by one, the queen Hototu traveled into the adjoining country of Papara, and there met the mysterious personage Paparuiia. This wonderful creature, half man, half fish, recalls the god of Raratonga, who himself recalled to the missionaries the god Dagon. With Paparuiia, or Tino-iia as he was also called, the queen was well pleased; so that from them was born a son who later was called Teva. But this is anticipating. 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." Then he arose and departed in anger, -telling her, however, that she would bear a son whom she should 14394 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; his mother the queen, and her husband the king, being the only ones that had the right to the maroura, the red maro or girdle - for which, you will remember, the king was hunting. Then he departed, and was met by Temanutunu, the king, who entreated him to return; but he refused, saying that his wife was a woman too fond of dogs. When I asked if he never came back, the queen told me that since that day the man-fish had been seen many times. When I asked about the old divinity of the family, the shark, I was told that he still frequents - harmless to his friends- the water inside the reef; changing his size when he comes in or out, because of the small passage. The old songs that she orders to be sung to us are not hymns but himenes, a name now applied to all choral singing. The mode of singing has not changed for its being church music-it is the South Sea chant: a buzzing bass brum-brum that sounds almost instrumental, and upon this ground a brocading of high, shrill cadencing, repeated indefinitely, and ending always in a long i-é-e—i-é-e, -a sound that we first heard in Hawaii, and afterwards as an accompaniment to the paddling of Samoan boats. Some I shall transcribe in prose some of the poems that are Woven into the story of the family. of these form parts of methods of addresses; that is to say, of the poems or words recited upon occasions of visiting, or that serve as tribe-cries and slogans. Such for instance are the verses connected with the name of Tauraatua that are handed down. The explanations may confuse it; but they make it all the more authentic, 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 chief, Tauraatua, of that far-back day was enamored of a fair maiden whose 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. The bird messenger (euriri) repeats the places and names of things most sacred to the chief,- his mount, his cape, his temple. To which the chief answers that he will look at his mistress's place or person on the shore. «Tauraatua, living in the house of Roa,» (Says) the bird that has flown to the rua rua, "Papara is a land of heavy leaves that drag down the branches. Thy golden land. The mount that rises yonder Is thy Mount Tamaiti. The point that stands on the shore is Thy Outumanomano. It is the crowning of a king that makes sacred (the chief's name as ruling over Papara). (Answer.) "Then let me push away the golden leaves Of the rua rua, That I may see the twin buds of Maraeura On the shore.» Tati, the brother of Queen Marau, takes another view of the poem, regarding as frivolous the feminine connection, and giving the whole a martial character. His version ends with this, which is fine enough: «Tauraatua is swifter than the one who carries the fort. He is gone and he is past before even the morning star was up. Every point, the proverb says, has a chief. A poem traditional in the family gives expression to the value of these points-to the attachment to and desire to be near them again—in the mind of an exile, Aromaiterai, who had been sent into the neighboring peninsula and forbidden to make himself known. From his place of exile he could see across the water the land of Papara with its hills and cape. The poem which he composed, and which is dear to the Tevas, revealed his identity: LAMENT OF AROMAITERAI From Mataaoe I look to my own land Tianina, My mount Tearatupu, my valley Temaite, My "drove of pigs" on the great mountain. The dews have fallen on the mountain, And they have spread my cloak. Rains, clear away that I may look at my home! Aue! alas! the wall of my dear land. The two thrones of Mataoa open their arms to me Temarii. Tiaapuaa (Drove of Pigs) was the name of certain trees growing along the edge of the mountain Moarahi. The profile against the sky suggested-and the same trees, or others in the same position to-day as I looked at them, did make a procession along the ridge The "cloak" of the family is the rain; the Tevas are "the children of the mist." Not so many years ago one of the ladies objected to some protection from rain for her son who was about to land in some ceremony: "Let him wear his cloak," she said. By the "two thrones" I understand two of the hills that edge the valley. I have received from Queen Marau three poems: one about a girl asked to wed an old chief; one in honor of King Pomare. The third, a song of reproof, cherished by the Teva as a protest against fate, explains how the dissensions among the different branches of the eight clans of Teva allowed them to become a prey to the rising power of the Purionu clans headed by Pomare. Ino. Latargen SONG OF REPROOF AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS BETWEEN TEVA AND PURIONU, IN 1768, A YEAR BEFORE THE COMING OF COOK A STANDARD is raised at Tooarai, Like the crash of thunder And flashes of lightning. The rays of the midday sun Surround the standard of the king, Honor the standard Of the king of the thousand skies! A standard is raised at Matahihae, If your crime had but ended there! Thou art guilty, O Vehiatua, Of the standard of thy king. Broken by the people of Taiarapu, By whom we are all destroyed. Thou bringest the greatest of armies. To the laying of stones Of the temple of Mahaiatea. |