Chapter XVIII
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were there together. The house being unable to hold every one, our meeting was proposed to be taken to the church building. Teohu then came forward and said to me: "Let us all go!" I called Nuutere to be near me. I then explained to him what I intended him to ask in my name. I informed him that I had seen the French governor, who had given me only a short time to come and meet with these people in their different camps, to present to them a proposition of my own to undertake to prevent bloodshed. He then called first Teaatoro. They talked together a little while without my hearing them, and just before entering the church, Nuutere whispered to me that Teaatoro would be all right. I could see that pretty near the whole of the island was represented at this meeting, those of Tautira only being absent.
After they had heard the object of my visit amongst them, Teaatoro got up as the chief speaker, and stated in the name Tu: "We are all as one person in this meeting, and we have suffered together as brothers. We have heard what the object of this lone woman's visit amongst us is -- solely for our good and that of our children. What can we say to this? We can only return her one answer, which is to thank her for the trouble and danger she has taken upon herself for the peace she has brought, and she must return to the French commander with this, our answer. We have been here for months, on the point of starvation. We have lost a great many of our men by fighting. We lost a great many at Taravao. The best of our blood was spilled at Mahaena. At Piha-e-atata, our young men were slain. Our queen left us in the midst of our troubles and went away to a different island without the least sorrow for us. We have heard no words of the help which was promised us by Great Britain." Another of the chiefs then got up, named Roura. This one turned to me and said: "Ariitaimai, you have flown amongst us, as it were, like the two birds Rua taa and Teena. Your object was to join together Urarii and Manu, and you have brought them into this valley. You have brought the cooling medicines of vainu and mahainui-eumu into the hearts of the chie
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Indigenous Histories |  |
© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 185, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-185.html