Chapter I
Index
Search
Contact us
If the Papara family and people had any name, in European fashion, I suppose it would be Teva, for we are a clan, and Teva is our clan name. On the map of Tahiti the four southwest districts, from Papara to the isthmus, are always marked as Te Teva iuta, the inner Tevas, and the whole peninsula of Taiarapu, beyond the isthmus, is marked as Te Teva itai or outer Tevas. The island of Tahiti is shaped like an hour-glass or figure of 8; but as the natives knew neither hour-glasses nor figures, they used to call the island a fish, because it had a body and a tail. The head is the peninsula of Taiarapu, at its southernmost point, Matarufau, at the Pari, Pali, or cliff, which overhangs the sea there; identical, I suppose, with the English Palisade. The tail is at the northwest point of the main island, at Tataa, in Faaa or Tefana i Ahurai. From the head, at the Pari, over both coasts of the peninsula and across the isthmus of Taravao, along the west coast of the main island as far as the tail in Tefanai Ahurai, the Tevas and their connections held a sort of loose sway. The distance is not great to one used to travel, for the entire circuit of the island is but a hundred and ninety-one kilometres, making about a hundred and twenty miles, of which the
 |
Indigenous Histories |  |
© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 1, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-001.html