"October 21 [1800].... Heard of the death of Mahei-annoo, the wife of Matte-ah. Her disorder was the evil in her neck, by which the passage of her throat was so destroyed as to prevent her receiving food. About three days before she died she was delivered of a dead child. She was in a district on the south side of the island called Puppe-haare, to which place she was taken the latter end of last month.... She was a young woman of good sense, considering her education, and in a great measure free from that levity which characterizes the inhabitants of this island."...

The person whom Otoo had thus terrified was no other than the beautiful Maheanuu of Papeari (Puppe-haare), the head of island society, as much the social superior of Tu as Tu was, by virtue of his English arms, the political superior over Matavai. To the natives, and especially to the Tevas, Tu in threatening to kill her and her husband was guilty of every atrocity known to the island code of morals and manners. Napoleon did not so much shock Europe by killing the Due d’Enghien as Tu would have shocked Tahiti by treachery to the Maheanuu and her husband.

The next example of the terror inspired by Tu among the greatest chiefs was in the case of Teohu, chief of Hitiaa, who came in March, 1801, to Matavai, with all his double canoes, in full chiefly state, with two human sacrifices, to make a treaty with Pomare and Tu. After the ceremony was over, and Pomare had returned to Pare, the missionaries recorded:

"April 15. During the night a woman came from Opare by water and brought Teohu and party word that it was Pomere’s intention to kill him. This information threw them into a consternation, and the fighting men instantly armed, and placed themselves round the old chief as a guard. It appears that the woman who brought the intelli-

Indigenous Histories