Manea quoted the maxim of family statecraft in vain. Purea replied only that she was going to allow no rivalry to her son. "I recognize no head here but that of Teriirere." Then Manea dried the blood of Tetuanui with a cloth, wiping away the feud as far as he was concerned; and so long are these things remembered that forty years afterwards, when the Purionuu savagely raided Papara, Manea’s great-grandchildren were supposed to have been spared in memory of Manea’s act.

This scene must have occurred at about the time when Wallis discovered the island, and had he taken forty-eight hours to make the visit to Papara which Purea invited him to make, perhaps he might have seen the preparations for the great feast at which Teriirere i Tooarai was to wear the Maro-ura for the first time in his great new Marae at Mahaiatea. Thus far I have had to depend mainly on tradition, but here Captain Wallis and Captain Cook begin their story from the European stand-point.

Indigenous Histories