The quarrel must have been unusually bitter, for this was one of the few instances where a great family was driven fairly out of the island. Vehiatua did not imitate Tavi in generosity, but seized his land. Some say that Tavi went to the Paumotus, but certainly after the war of the Rahui he was never again seen or heard of in Tahiti. His son, Tavi-hauroa, the cause of the disaster, came back and was protected by his old neighbors and relations, the chiefs of Hitiaa, Mataoae and Vaiari. By giving him land and servants they made up a small district for him, the modern Afaahiti, five or six miles of the coast beyond the isthmus of Taravao. He had also the names of Teriitua in Hitiaa and Terii oite-rai in Vaiari.

One day the unfortunate young chief was flying or racing his kite, a common amusement in ancient times when the men made kites as big as a house, and raced them against each other. The strong southeast trade wind which blows across the isthmus of Taravao carried the kite some miles to the westward, and he pursued it until it lodged in a tree within the Marae of Farepua in Vaiari. The high-priest happened to be conducting some sacred ceremony in the Marae, and at such a time the intrusion of a stranger was death. Terii oiterai climbed the tree to recover his kite, and was then and there instantly killed.

The extinction of this line must have been a serious matter for the island, because it gave to Vehiatua so great an increase of power as to make it a mere matter of time when he should do to Papara what Papara had done to Vaiari, and become the political head of the Tevas, and therefore the most powerful chief of the island. The Papara chief could escape the danger only by an alliance with Vehiatua, and accordingly in the next generation Vehiatua had for a wife Teeva Pirioi, an elder sister of the Papara chiefs Aromaiterai and Tuiterai Papara

Indigenous Histories