Chapter VIII
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to meet them, having first uncovered their heads and bodies as low as the waist: as they came on, the same ceremony was performed by all the natives who were without the fort.... The chief came into the tent, but no entreaty could prevail upon the young woman to follow him, though she seemed to refuse contrary to her inclination: the natives without were indeed all very solicitous to prevent her; sometimes, when her resolution seemed to fail, almost using force: the boy also they restrained in the same manner; but Dr. Solander, happening to meet him at the gate, took him by the hand and led him in before the people were aware of it; as soon, however, as those that were within saw him they took care to have him sent out. These circumstances having strongly excited our curiosity, we enquired who they were, and were informed that Oamo was the husband of Oberea, though they had been a long time separated by mutual consent, and that the young woman and the boy were their children. We learnt also that the boy, whose name was Terridiri, was heir apparent to the sovereignty of the island, and that his sister was intended for his wife, the marriage being deferred only till he should arrive at a proper age. The sovereign at this time was a son of Whappai, whose name was Otou, and who, as before has been observed, was a minor. Whappai, Oamo, and Tootahah were brothers. Whappai was the eldest, and Oamo the second; so that Whappai having no child but Otou, Terridiri, the son of his next brother Oamo, was heir to the sovereignty."
Tahitian genealogy at best was hard to understand, but Captain Cook’s struggles with it, aided by English rules, were almost pathetic. On one point he was right. Oamo was Oberea’s husband and our great-great-granduncle. Whappai or Hapai is commonly known as Teu, and his son, then called Otoo, was afterward known as Pomare and Vairatoa. As for the relationship of Hapai, Amo and Tutaha, as I have shown, it was not that of brothers. All foreign visitors to Tahiti were misled at first by the Tahitian expressions which meant indifferently brothers and cousins to an indefinite degree. Purea and Otoo were closely connected, as I mean to explain presently, and that Cook
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© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 67, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
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