“Afu! Afu! Afu!” he said, the sound that in his tongue means the groan of the dying. “You came by the Fatueki?”.
“I tasted the water and smelled the smell,” I answered.
“It was there that Tufetu died,” he observed. “I struck the blow, and I ate his arm, his right arm, for he was brave and strong. That was a war!”
“What caused that war?” I asked the merry cannibal.
“A woman, haa teketeka, an unfaithful woman, as always,” replied Kahauiti. “Do you have trouble over women in your island? Yes. It is the same the world over. There was peace between Atuona and Taaoa before this trouble. When I was a boy we were good friends. We visited across the hills. Many children were adopted, and Taaoa men took women from Atuona, and Atuona men from here. Some of these women had two or three or five men. One husband was the father of her children in title and pride, though he might be no father at all. The others shared the mat with her at her will, but had no possession or happiness in the offspring.
Tepu, a Marquesan girl of the hills, and her sister
Her ancestry is tattooed on her arms
