Chapter XV
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who is still living [1837] was chief; but fortunately a man who had escaped from the carnage of Punaauia came to warn the inhabitants of Papara, so that they had time, not to unite in defence, but to fly. Nevertheless, in that infernal night and the day following, a great number of persons perished, especially old men, women and children; and among the victims were the widow and children of Aripaia [Ariifaataia], Amo’s son, who, surprised the next evening near Taiarapu, were pitilessly massacred with all their attendants. Tati, and some of his warriors, succeeded in reaching a fort called Papeharoro at Mairepehe; but they were too few to maintain themselves there, and were forced to take refuge in the most inaccessible parts of the high mountains, from whence this chief succeeded in getting to a canoe which some of his faithful followers procured for him, arid kept ready on the shore, at the peril of their lives. With him were his brother and his young son whom he had himself carried in his arms during all this time of fatigues and dangers."
Our tradition of the massacre is somewhat different and more picturesque, for it carries the murders back to the old feud of Purea and Pomare’s mother Tetuanui reiaite, and the scene on the beach at Mahaiatea in 1768. Whether Tetuanui, whom the English called Iddeah, Idia, and the like, was still living in 1807 is unknown to me; but she was alive as late as 1803 when her husband Pornare Vairatoa died, and the feud lived with her. The island custom required that the chiefs children should be brought up not with their parents but with their nurses, for the etiquette of the island was more than royal; it was hereditary and sacred, and the nurses had a religious right to the charge of the children. In 1807 the children were living with their household at Vaiari. Pomare sent out men from Tarahoi to kill them in order to atone for the blood of Terii Vaetua and Tetuanui reiaite that had been spilt for the insult offered by Purea. The revenge resulted in the murder of two of Tati’s sisters and three cousins, but Tati with his cousin Ariipaea, commonly known as Veve, escaped across the mountains to Mahaena on the east coast where they were pursued
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© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 152, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-152.html