Europeans, who are puzzled to understand what the early races mean by poetry, look for the rhythm as likely to explain a secret which they cannot guess from the sense of the words; but Polynesian rhythm is, if anything, rather more unintelligible to European ears than the images which are presented by the words. Tahitian poetry has rhythm, but it is chiefly caused by closing each strophe or stanza by an artificial, long-drawn, é-é-é-é! The song is sung with such rapidity of articulation that no European can approach it or even represent it in musical notation, and as for the sounds themselves, one can best judge of them by glancing at the native words.

Other Polynesian dialects have a way of using indifferently k or t. Tahiti is then Kahiki; Tamehameha, the king of Hawaii, became Kame-hameha. We use t always, and the l becomes r in Tahitian. The Mariage de Loti is properly the Mariage de Roti. The dialect is never guttural or harsh; the verses seem to run off the tip of the tongue with a rapidity impossible to any one but a native. Singing was as natural as talking, and one danced as naturally as one walked.

Now that I am on the subject of family poetry, I must give here another song which was made by Taura atua i amo, and is still a favorite with the Tevas, the more because it is a love-song. The name of Tauraatua belongs to the little district of Amo, in Papara, and has been one of the family names for so many centuries that I cannot say which of the Tauras was the poet; but the motive of the poem was probably common to all of them, for it was common enough throughout the world. The young chief was in love with a girl of lower rank, who lived at the Ruaroa, a cluster of houses near the beach, by the Marae of Mataoa at the western end of Papara. The paepae, as I have said, was the paved

Indigenous Histories