Chapter XII
Index
Search
Contact us
in a wrapper of Otaheitan cloth, and over it an officer’s coat doubled round him. At his first approach he appeared timid, and was invited in. He was but just seated when the cuckoo clock struck and filled him with astonishment and terror. Old Pyetea had brought the bird some bread-fruit, observing it must be starved if we never fed it. At breakfast we invited Temarree to our repast, but he first held out his hand with a bit of plantain and looked very solemn, which one of the natives said was an offering to the Eatooa and we must receive. When we had taken it out of his hand and laid it under the table, he sat down and made a hearty breakfast. Brother Cover read the translated address to all these respected guests, the natives listening with attention, and particularly the priest, who seemed to drink in every word, but appeared displeased when urged to cast away their false gods, and on hearing the names Jehovah and Jesus he would turn and whisper."
Two days afterwards Temarii came again to the mission-house, and this time with the young Otoo, Pomare II, and his first wife, Tetuanui.
"9th. Temarree accompanied the king and queen and staid to dine with us. He is, we find, of the royal race and son of the famed Oberea. He is the first chief of the island after Pomarre, by whom he has been subdued, and now lives in friendship with him and has adopted his son. He is also high in esteem as a priest. "
This was May 9. Temarii must have returned at once to Papara, for two of the missionaries found him there May 14, and reported that they "were most hospitably entertained by Temarree, who prevailed on brother Main to be his tayo, and gave him and brother Clode each a double canoe, showing them all his stores and fire-arms which he got from the mutineers; the guns, however, by the policy of the Swedes, are all bent."
The Swedes must have bent the guns in Pomare’s interest, for the treachery would otherwise have been against their own, since they must have been in Temarii’s service if he trusted them with the care of the guns, and allowed them a chance to injure his most precious property -- property on which his life depended.
 |
Indigenous Histories |  |
© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 119, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-119.html