These stories seem to show that in December, 1768, the peninsula of Taiarapu in the south, Pare Arue in the north, and the Oro-paa or Paea on the west, combined to attack Papara from both sides and succeeded in crushing it. Vehiatua and the Taiarapu army came from the south and ravaged Papara, after defeating Amo and massacring the people. The human bones still covering the beach in June, 1769, proved the severity of the disaster, and the Taiarapu people showed Cook as trophies, in a single village far down at the extreme corner of their peninsula, fifteen human jaw-bones, perfectly fresh and none of them wanting a single tooth. At the same village Cook saw a goose and a turkey-cock which had been given to Purea by Wallis in 1767, and had become a part of the plunder of Papara. While the Taiarapu people carried off the heads and the property of the victims, Tutaha and the northwestern districts carried away the symbol of supremacy, the standard and feathered girdle, from the Marae of Tooarai and Mahaiatea, and placed it in the Marae of Maraetaata in the district of Paea in the Oropaa, or, as it was usually called by the English, Attahuru. Amo and Purea were forced to make what terms they could with Tutaha, and to recognize Otoo, as having a right to the dignity of the Maro-ura at Maraetata. Papara lost her political supremacy. The coalition of Ahu-rai and Pare Arue with Taiarapu made a new centre of power; but Teriirere remained chief of the Teva districts, retained his social position and the Maro-tea, and was still the most powerful single chief in the island. No one seems to have tried to drive the Papara family out, as Vehiatua drove out Tavi and as Pomare was driven out in

Indigenous Histories