Chapter III
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-thing Tahitian. Whatever these verses mean in prose, at all events they show that our great-ancestor Tuiterai arorua was regarded as an uncommonly arbitrary chief even by his own people, much as they may have admired an act which appealed to the sympathy of every true South Sea islander. Fortunately this story, at least, is too modern to be suspected of being a myth. Taurua of Tautira and Helen of Troy belonged to the same society; Tavi and Menelaus were relatives; the coincidence runs through every island in the South Seas, where no traveler has been able to keep the Odyssey out of his mind whenever he has approached a native village; but the truth of the Trojan story might be proved by that of Papara; for no sooner did Tuiterai's refusal reach Tautira than Tavi-Menelaus, acting up to his high reputation, summoned his warriors and sent them against Papara, with orders to destroy it and to kill its chief. Papara had no walls like those of Troy to stand a siege; its forces were beaten in battle. Tuiterai was taken, and Taurua recovered.
Among the score of wars fought in early societies about women, and then made the subjects of poetry or legend, the Tahitian variety has a charm of its own because its interest does not end as most of such stories end, with the revenge of the injured party. It should have ended in the usual way, and Tavi had intended to do what any Greek or Norse chief would have done: kill his rival and sack his villages; but the affair took another turn. Tuiterai was wounded, captured, and bound; but when his captors were about to kill him he remonstrated, not with any feeble appeal for mercy, but with the objection, much more forcible to a Polynesian, that a great chief like himself could not be put to death by an inferior. None but an equal could raise his hand against him. None but Tavi must kill Tuiterai.
Tavi's warriors, in spite of their orders, felt the force of the objection, which was, no doubt, in reality an appeal to religious fears, for Tuiterai, as head-chief of the Tevas, was a person of the most sacred character. They carried him, bound and blindfolded, along the shore, some thirty miles, to Tavi. The journey was long, and the wounded chief, feeling his strength fail, urged them on, and as they passed each
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© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 26, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-026.html