Chapter II
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of her skin or the roundness of her figure. Such a beauty was at that time the daughter of Panee of Amo, an intimate friend of Oro's father, Tiaau. Her reputation for beauty reached the ears of Hurimaavehi at Vaiari, as was to be expected, seeing that the places are only ten or fifteen miles apart, and the people, besides fighting, fishing, climbing the hills for Fei or wild plantains, and singing and dancing at all times, had little to do except to talk about each other. Hurimaavehi, like most Tahitian chiefs, had a fancy for handsome women, and he carried the girl away by stealth to Vaiari. Panee, the father, not knowing what had become of his daughter, sought her in every direction, and, stationing himself on the Mataiea boundary, questioned every one who passed, until one day two men came along, and he asked them where they were from:
"How is Hurimaavehi and those who surround him?"
From question to question he came at last to his point:
"What new beauty have you in Vaiari?"
"Talk of beauties," the strangers answered; "a wonderful beauty has just appeared there, and belongs to Hurimaavehi."
"No; he has turned her over to the servants and the dogs and the pigs and the fish of the sea."
At this news Panee burst into a frenzy of rage, and rushing into Mataeia attacked every one he met, until he had killed five of Hurimaavehi's people; and to make the quarrel still more violent, he charged the two travelers with a message of insult for the Vaiari chief such as could be atoned for only by death. Then, having made an instant war certain, he hurried back to his friend Tiaau and told him what had happened. Both hastened to Oro to warn him that Hurimaavehi with his warriors was coming.
Oro was asleep, drowsy with kava, which, as every one knows, was the kind of intoxication Tahitian chiefs most loved, and when they most resented being disturbed. Only a great war-chief could throw off the influence of kava suddenly, to go into a fight; which shows how
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Indigenous Histories |  |
© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 19, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-019.html