There could be but one King, and he was Tu of Pare. The chance that made Matavai the most convenient harbor for the English ships made Tu the most important person on the island to provide fresh meat for the English crews. Tu, therefore, greatly to the disgust of the other chiefs, got most of the axes and other gifts, and all the social civilities of the British. This jealousy almost roused a serious fight at Pare, where Tu’s rivals for Cook’s favor became so violent that Tu himself fled from his own district to Matavai for safety. The Ahurai and Attahuru people were furious, and Cook was quite unable to understand that they had reason to be so. Ahurai and Paea had never before been treated as the inferiors of a Purionuu chief, and they could understand Cook’s conduct as little as Cook could understand theirs. To them Cook’s infatuation for Tu must have seemed a deliberate insult.

Cook’s conduct must have been the more irritating because the chiefs of Ahurai and Paea were then preparing all their forces for an attack on Mahine of Eimeo and wanted Tu’s assistance, which was necessary for their success. They had the whole force of Paea, numbering one hundred and sixty war-canoes; they had forty-four war-canoes from Ahurai, and even had ten from Matavai but they had none from Pare Arue; yet Tu was as closely interested in the result of the war as they could be. As usual, the Eimeo war was a family quarrel, as the opposite table shows. Mahine of Opunohu was an uncle of Teriitapunui of Vavari. Both of them belonged to the Ahurai family, but for some reason not now to be understood Mahine had quarreled with his nephew. Tetuanui, Tu’s wife, was sister of Teriitapunui, and would naturally support her brother against their uncle; but although her family, under the lead of Towha, or Tahua, together with the chief of Paea, collected their strength to support Terii ta punui, Tu could not be induced to aid them. When Cook left the island, in May, 1774, the

Indigenous Histories