According to our tradition the Hiva at Papara would not recall Tati. The outrage of June, 1807, had exhausted the last remnants of patience in the islanders, and this time the whole island rose, determined to make clean work of Pomare and all his surroundings. For this purpose they needed a warrior, and as a warrior Opuhara had no superior. So Opuhara became chief of Papara, and soon afterward head chief of the island; for he and his army advanced to Papenoo in 1808, and there, on December 22, Pomare attacked them, and was totally defeated. Pomare and his household, and the whole missionary establishment, without waiting for further notice, abandoned the island, and fled to Eimeo. During the next seven years, Opuhara was the chief personage in Tahiti.

"Upufara", says Ellis, the historian of the missionaries, "was an intelligent and interesting man." Although he was the last hero of Paganism and the chief opponent of the missionaries, the missionaries always spoke well of him, and belived that he meant them no personal harm. Of Pomare, on the contrary, they spoke with horror. I have already quoted enough of their language on that subject, and neither the manners nor the morals of the king were such as one cares to insist upon; but as a politician Pomare offered an example fully as bad as that which he set for private morality. He had never at any time a large following of his own; and outside of his own

Indigenous Histories