Maeva!
1774

The altar under the miro trees at the family marae was seldom visited anymore by Tetua Avari’i. Hinuia the priestess went alone there, passing hours in prayers and chants, in a cloud of smouldering sandalwood.

Tetua instead stayed on her mats in the fare shade, leaving only to bathe, and accompanied only by her granddaughter. The pain and swelling of her leg she mentioned to no one except Hinuia and Mauatua, and she kept herself covered with long lengths of cloth, letting none see the shame of affliction.

She spoke no more of her lost son Tautoia and made no enquiries into the affairs of the district, or of Tu’s household at Pare. She no longer beat cloth or joined the singing by torchlight after dark, though she would send Mauatua to these activities.

Hinuia massaged the swelling leg, used poultices steeped in tamanu oil, and medicines distilled from the nono fruit, but the fe’e was a sickness without cure, and Tetua’s was a grief without respite, although she never mentioned the curse upon her family to Mauatua. When her husband Ti’ipari’i died suddenly at Pare, still in the service of Tu, Tetua ignored the formalities left the priests at the high marae to decide upon the matters of mourning.

Ti’ipari’i’s anointed remains were still lying upon the bier in the sacred grove on the day that Tute returned.

The word had been circulating for some days already that Tute was back, that he was at Taiarapu, befriending the old enemy Vehiatua, that Mai had returned with him, and his ship was loaded with more strange animals. Anxious in case Vehiatua should claim all the glory of hosting the great white chief, the people searched the horizon daily, looking for the sail that would announce his return to Matavai.

Mauatua was fanning her grandmother to the soft drone of Hinuia’s chanting when they heard the shouting begin. ‘Sails, white sails! It’s Tute! Heiii, Tute’s coming!’

The fan fell still in Mauatua’s hand and Hinuia’s chant trailed away. The girl’s legs made to leap up and run but the looks of her elders kept her seated. Joy and anticipation leapt up in her belly. Long stillness had been the mood, like a day without wind or sun, but now the shade of unspoken grieving lifted and melted like morning cloud. As the drums began to call she looked with a silent plea from the eyes of Tetua to those of Hinuia.

‘You must go,’ said the priestess.

She sprang to her feet, dropping the fan.

‘But you will not go aboard the ship, e hine. Do not let it come to my ears that you have swum out to it. Remain upon the shore, e hine. Keep away from the foreign men. There should be no stain of Popa’a disease upon your blood, remember your noble ancestresses and hold fast to their purity. Now go!’

Stopping only long enough to pluck two red fau blossoms for her hair, Mauatua joined the crowds that hurried shoreward. Around the houses the morning’s work lay abandoned. Coconuts half grated, chickens half plucked. Weaving tossed aside, tools scattered. Even the sleeping dogs looked up and raised their ears at the unwonted commotion, and two of the tall, thin foreign dogs which Tute had left last time came bounding to join the throng, yapping and springing as if they could smell their Popa’a cousins coming across the water.

At the water’s edge the people were gathering. Already one big drum was calling for a partner, striking loud, trembling notes that vibrated though the crowd. People were arriving with arms full of plants to weave garlands, the priests had found time to fasten on their tallest headdresses and finest belts as they hastened from the marae, babies were carried at their mothers’ breasts. Another drum joined the first, setting up a double rhythm which fanned the fire of excitement.

Along the beach canoes were being pushed out now, and anyone whose relative or friend owned one was seeking a place, even clinging to the outriggers. Some bold swimmers, young men accustomed to the depths beyond the reefs, were stroking out into the bay. The drums set Mauatua’s body alight. Her eyes were fixed on that trembling imminence across the water.

Soon they saw Tu’s great double canoe, the Rainbow, with many paddles flying in harmony, round the head of Tahara’a, skimming across the water from the Bay of Pare. ‘Tu hastens to meet the white men, whilst at Matavai we no longer have a royal canoe to greet our guests,’ rose the lament, for the great canoe of Matavai had been destroyed in the wars against Vehiatua and no new one built. But that regret was soon forgotten again in the approaching excitement.

The long-haired dogs leapt and bounded among the people on the sand, running in and out of the water, barking loudly, and someone called out, ‘Listen! The dogs on the white ship are calling to their cousins of Tahiti!’ Everyone listened for the voices of those foreign dogs arriving across the water, even before the men were visible on the decks, and this was a new wonderment.

Soon the men could be seen climbing up the tall masts, rolling up the sails and fastening them as if to the branches, whose many limbs were like a tall forest afloat, with the ropes hanging down like vines. At the rear of the ship the red flag of Peretane was reflected in the lagoon, and a man in the big hat of a Peretane chief appeared at the prow. The one with the sharpest eyes saw first, but soon the word was passing along: ‘Tute!’

The word becoming cry, the cry becoming song – ‘Tute, Tute, it is Tute!’ the drum beat underlining these words. ‘Haere mai, o Tute no Peretane, haere mai a Tahitinui Mare’area! Welcome to our land once more, may the rain of Tahiti fall softly upon your shoulders, may the food of Tahiti give you strength. Welcome, welcome, return to our land!’

The girls were flinging off their pareu and plunging into the sea, keeping their garlanded heads above the water. ‘Peretane! Peretane!’ was the call.

‘Mauatua, come with us!’

But she did not run to join them. She remembered the noble blood of her ancestresses.

Now they could see the cannons being primed on the ship. Those who knew put their hands to their ears, and those who did not know cried ‘Aue!’ and ‘Hei!’ as the lightning flowers exploded from the cannons’ black mouths and the sound of thunder filled the valleys up to the peaks, and the mountain gods gave the answering drum roll.

The best dancers were gathering, pressing forward with songs and steps of welcome ready, and other women pushed in beside them, their hands beginning to fly to express their joy. Haere mai Tute!

They watched the great anchor of metal falling swiftly on its metal rope into the bay of Matavai, and one voice announced, ‘Here is the anchoring place of white ships, only here at Matavai is the water deep enough and the harbour sheltered enough for the Popa’a vessels. Let Matavai welcome Tute!’

But it was the double canoe Rainbow, with Tu of Pare in command and feathered pennants flying, which hovered under the tall prow of the foreign ship, and it was the high priest of Pare calling out the greetings to Tute.

A boat was lowered and Tute – in his two-legged garment, his glittering hat and coat – climbed down into it, while the people in the canoes and the girls in the water threw flowers and held up choicest fruits, calling to the white men on board who were holding their arms out to welcome those girls and help them climb up.

The press upon the shore was tight now and Tapuetefa’s men pushed the people back to make a space on the sand, a space for Tute to approach the land. Mauatua pushed closer to her uncle Tapuetefa, chief of Matavai, who waited dressed in his finest robes with a gorget of feathers and pearl shell shining on his breast.

Someone had identified a man with Tute in the small boat, a tall man dressed in foreign clothing, a three-cornered hat pressed down on his curling black locks. ‘It is Mai! Mai has returned to Tahiti.’

‘Aue, he will be full of tales and racked with pride, that stripling, for being the only one who has seen Peretane,’ said another.

‘Look at him, dressed like a Peretane chief, he who was but a priest’s apprentice, failed at his calling.’

Yet a thousand eyes scanned his amazing costume.

The foremost dancers now came to the front, their performance coming to a final crescendo in time with the drumming. Rainbow, carrying Tu, was beached first, and he came ashore. What was Tu wearing! A splendid coat of thick foreign cloth, a new gift from Tute, closed from his chin to his knees, and stiff with metal fastenings and ornaments. In admiration they made space now for him, the great friend of Tute, which made him the most powerful man on Tahiti at this moment. Shoulders and breasts were respectfully bared, murmurs of awed approval ran through the crowd.

Now Tute’s men pulled the small boat up the sand. Profound silence fell as Tute stepped onto the land, accompanied by Mai, done up from head to toe in tight foreign clothing.

It was Tu who claimed the honour of the welcoming ceremony, who made the long speech with its many references to the glories and riches of Tahiti. It was Tu who was greeted first in reply. Only then could Tapuetefa step forward to extend his own welcome, which should have been his honour by right, for it was his territory that Tute had landed at.

Mauatua’s eye took in the foreign chief with all the hunger of one who loves. His nose was sharper and harder edged than any Tahitian nose, this she had remembered. He had taken off his big hat and it dangled from one hand, his elaborately curled hair did not move in the breeze but remained stiff around his pale face. He spoke slow, careful words of Tahitian, inclining his head respectfully to each of the ra’atira and priests.

When he had greeted all the high-ranking men his eye turned upon the crowd and glanced from face to face as if seeking. It fastened upon Mauatua and he moved towards her. His smile was one of recognition. ‘It is Mauatua,’ he greeted her.

Swiftly now, the chief Tu stepped up and pulled her forward, saying, ‘My cousin Mauatua – has she not grown since last you saw her, o Tute? Gladly will she be yours. She is of noble birth, an ornament to her family here at Matavai. Gladly will she be hostess to such a great chief from across the ocean, a man hungry for the delights of our land ...’

But Tute held up his hand to stay this invitation, and he addressed only Mauatua when he spoke. ‘Ah Mauatua, you are grown like a flower of your people,’ he said kindly, and in his eyes she recognised something, something she knew from watching her grandmother. The silent shadows of grief.

So when he said to her, ‘My own daughter, she is this tall now,’ indicating a girl about the same size as herself, she knew that the daughter he spoke of was no longer in the world of light, but gone, gone where Popa’a children go to after their deaths.

Now she must reply, and she could not be seen to struggle. Words must not fail her, but leap forward as gracefully as a dancer between them. ‘Welcome o Tute!’ she began, and then the words sprang lightly to her tongue. ‘Welcome to Matavai! O Tute, if your daughter were here in Tahitinui she would be as a sister to me. Our land, our river, our mountain peaks would be hers, and she would be as blood of our own blood, the daughter of Tute. Welcome!’

She took the red fau bloom from above one ear and reached up to fix it behind his, and then the people pressed forward without restraint, and so many wreaths and garlands were thrown upon him that soon he was up to his ears in flowers and leaves and his brow was overhung with every sweet blossom of the land. ‘Maeva, maeva, maeva!’ they called, and Mauatua, following his every move and look, saw tears brimming in his narrow eyes.

‘Aroha, arohanui!’ she cried. ‘Great love have we for you, o Tute!’

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From the coconut palms on the waterline to the plantains of the highest mountain slopes, soon all kinds of fruits were being stripped from the trees and carried to the cookhouses, or out to the ship to trade. Pigs were driven in from every distant quarter and squeals of slaughter rent the air. Although it was not the season of the great ocean fish, the smaller fishes of the lagoon were chased into nets to fill the ovens.

Tu presided over the festivities at Matavai and at Pare, and all the nobles and chiefs of the two districts, and all their families came to eat and mingle and to see the white men. Tu came in person, with two of his attendants, to invite me to the heiva. Grandmother Tetua received him on her mats in the shade. She was sitting up, suffering the pressure on her leg which caused her pain, but she had not bared her shoulders as a sign of deference to him, an omission which could have offended.

‘Chiefess,’ began one ra’atira, speaking on Tu’s behalf, but he did not berate her for any discourtesy. Instead he gave her all the many titles and distinctions of rank which belonged to her family. ‘It is right for you to be proud, a woman of your status. Your husband was a man of honour and duty, your son died as a warrior of the highest rank. Let me tell you that now your granddaughter Mauatua has been favoured by Tute.’

‘How so?’ she asked, although she had already heard it all from my own mouth.

‘She was chosen by him, and she did honour to both our families in her reply. It would be fitting for her to be at the guest house for all the festivities.’

Only now did Tetua lower her robes and reveal the shrunken shoulders and fallen breasts of her old age, a sign of capitulation at long last to a power she had disclaimed for all the time of my childhood.

‘She may come,’ she replied, ‘But she should have pride of place, for she represents both our families.’

‘Nothing less.’

‘And our priestess, Hinuia, must accompany her. Mauatua has come to womanhood and will have high-ranking suitors soon. She should not be polluted by the foreigners. I fear they bring diseases and bad spirits among us.’

‘She shall be protected as my own sister. But will you not accompany Mauatua yourself Tetua Avari’i?’

‘Grief does not permit it,’ she replied. ‘Would it be right for an old woman to be feasting and revelling with foreign guests while her husband’s corpse still lies in the ghost house? No, Tu, your family has arranged all this hospitality, even though my son Tapuetefa stands as chief of this district. We alone could not provide lavish entertainment, alas. Make free with our land, and let our families be at peace with each other, and our people be as one, so we may all have benefit of the foreigners’ gifts without quarrel.’

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