Chapter II
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of Vaiari, as one of his titles, bore the name Maheanuu of Farepua. His other title of Teriinui belonged with the Marae called Tahiti. The name of Marae Tahiti has puzzled us all. Whether the Marae was named after the island, or the island after the Marae, or what the name meant in either case, no one knows. If the iti is a diminutive, as in the mysterious Hawaiiki, from which the New Zealanders came, perhaps the original name might be Taha-iti; or, if the terminal is hiti, it might mean only eastern, and point backward to some western Taa. In either case the word must have been taken at a very early time by Vaiari as a sort of property; Tahiti must have been an original Vaiari name, for, after other great chiefs had grown up as equals, no Vaiari chief, however proud his family might be, could, in the courtesy which marked the old social relations, have asserted himself to be the one great nobleman of the whole island -- Teriinui o Tahiti.
Papara, as has been told, took its Marae of Mataoa from Vaiari, and the chief of Papara was Teriirere or Temarii or Tauraatua i Mataoa by right of this descent; but the original Marae in the territory now known as Papara was on the small subdistrict called Amo, a mile from the sea and close under the mountains. The Marae of Amo was called Taputuarai; from this Marae a stone was taken to found the Marae of Tooarai near the shore; and close to the Marae of Tooarai, almost within the same enclosure, Purea and Amo built for their son Teriirere the great stone pyramid at which, as I shall tell in the course of my story, Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks wondered, on the point of Mahaiatea. Some of the principal names or titles of the chief of Papara, with their Maraes, were: Teriirere i Mahaiatea; Aromaiterai i Outuraumatooarai; Tuiterai i Taputuarai; but the chosen head, of the family had the right to all the Maraes. With each of these names and seats in the Marae went the lands attached to the title and the rights attached to the whole.
Paea or Attahuru was the next district to Papara, and belonged not to the Tevas, but to Teoropaa. Paea had two chief Maraes: Maraetaata and Teraiapiti. The next district, Punaauia, had a Marae of the same name, as I have already told. Faaa or Tefana had the Marae
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Indigenous Histories |  |
© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 16, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-016.html