Among Hotu-matua’s company there was a concealed passenger whose name was Oroi; he was an enemy of Hotu, who had killed his children in the place whence they came, and had hidden himself on board. He got on shore at Anakena, without anyone having guessed at his presence, and killed everyone. One day the five children of a man named Aorka went to bathe at Owaihi, a small cove east of Anakena, and as they lay on a rock in the sea, Oroi came from behind and killed them and took out their insides. When they did not return, the father said to the mother, “Where are the children?” The mother said, “On the rock”; but when Aorka went to look, the rock was covered with water, for it was high tide; when by and by the water went down, he saw the five children and that they were dead. Aorka then told Hotu-matua: “Oroi, that bad man, is here, for he has killed my children.” Now Hotu-matua went to see his daughter who was married, and as he went Oroi put a noose in his path and tried to catch his foot in it, but Hotu stepped on one side. When he had finished his visit to his daughter, he said to her and her husband, “Follow me as I go home.” And as he returned he saw that the cord was still there, and his enemy hidden behind the rock. This time Hotu-matua intentionally stepped on to the rope and fell, and when Oroi came up, he got hold of him and killed him, and then called to his daughter and son-in-law to see that he was dead. When, however, they put the corpse in the oven to cook him he came to life again, so they had to take him over to the other side of the island to where the ahu is called Oroi (fig. 122), and there he cooked quite satisfactorily, and they ate him.
Hotu-matua had many sons from whom the different clans are descended, and whose names they bear. He quarrelled with the eldest, Tuumaheki, and with his own wife, Vakai; the two having behaved badly to him, he finally gave up his position to Tuumaheki and retired to the top of Rano Kao, where he lived on the south side of the crater, that opposite to Orongo. He was old and blind and became also very ill; his elder sons came to see him, but he kept asking for Hotu-iti, the youngest, who was his favourite. When Marama appeared, the old man felt the calf of his leg, and said, “You are not Hotu-iti, you are Marama; where is Hotu-iti?” Koro-orongo answered as if he were Hotu-iti, and said, “I am here,” but he lied, and his father took hold of his leg, and said again, “You are not Hotu-iti”; and the same thing happened with Ngaure, and Raa, and Hamea, and the others; and at last came Hotu-iti, and Hotu-matua knew him, for he was small, and his leg was slight, and said to him, “You are Hotu-iti, of Mata-iti, and your descendants shall prosper and survive all others.” And he said to Kotuu, “You are Kotuu, of Mata-nui, and your descendants shall multiply like the shells of the sea, and the reeds of the crater, and the pebbles of the beach, but they shall die and shall not remain.” And when he had said this he left his house, and went along to the cliff where the edge of the crater is narrowest, and stood on it by two stones, and he looked over the islet of Motu Nui towards Marae Renga, and called to four aku-aku in his old home across the sea, “Kuihi, Kuaha, Tongau, Opakako, make the cock crow for me,” and the cock crew in Marae Renga, and he heard it across the sea; that was his death signal, so he said to his sons, “Take me away.” So they took him back to his house, and he died. Thus Hotu-matua came to his end and was buried at Akahanga.
Many of the gods of Marae Renga, who were the ancestors of Hotu-matua, came with him in his boat, and he knew they were there though the others did not see them. The names of eleven of them were given, four of which were independently quoted as amongst the aku-aku associated with Akahanga.
The Story of the Long Ears
Now the Long Ears (“Hanau Epé”) and Short Ears (“Hanau Momoku”) lived together mixed up all over the land, but one of the Long Ears, Ko Ita by name, who lived at Orongo, had in his house the bodies of thirty boys, whom he had killed to eat. Among his victims were the seven sons of one man, Ko Pepi. Ko Pepi went mad, and ran round and round till he fell down, and his brothers took their mataa and killed the Long Ears at Vinapu and at Orongo. They were joined by the other Short Ears, till the Long Ears took refuge in the eastern headland, across which they then dug a ditch and filled it with brushwood in order to make a fire in self-defence. Now a body of the Short Ears were drawn up in array in front of the ditch, but another party were shown the way round at night by an old woman, and thus turned their flank; so when morning dawned the Long Ears found themselves attacked both from behind and before, and then were swept into the ditch of their own making.[[69]] There they were all burnt except two, who made their way to a cave, near Anakena, where they hid, but they were dug out of it and killed, calling aloud “Oroini,” the meaning of which is not known.
Such is the outline of these stories; the most definite and agreed points are the most incomprehensible—namely, the landing of the six men prior to that of the main wave, and the concealed arrival of Oroi. The sons of Hotu-matua are not known exactly. Kotuu is sometimes identified with Ko Tuumaheki, and is sometimes a separate person. Miru occasionally figures as one of them, which is inconsistent with the statement that four of Tuukoihu’s descendants are the ancestors of four subdivisions of that clan. Miru is also the name given in all the lists to Tuumaheki’s son, the third ariki. Hotu Iti was always a district, never the name of a clan. On the most interesting point—namely, the origin of the Long Ears—there is the most vagueness. According to Kilimuti, who was a recognised authority, and whose account of the landing has been followed, Hotu-matua and those in his boat were the Short Ears, Hinelilu and the crew of the second boat the Long Ears. When asked how it was that the two came together, he merely replied that it was in the same way as we ourselves had various nationalities on the yacht. According to this authority, the destruction in the ditch took place in the time of Hotu-matua’s children. Another version, given by three old men in conclave, was that the Long Ears came into existence on the island through the “mana” of the third ariki. Discussion one day waxed quite fierce on the point till Te Haha’s wife, who was a shrewd middle-aged woman, turned and said, “Never mind them, Mama, they don’t know anything about it,” which probably summed up the situation. The story of the ditch and the final extinction is well-established legend. The term Long Ears seemed to convey to the natives not the custom of distending the ears, but having them long by nature.
It is interesting to compare the versions of these stories given to the Expedition with those taken down from Salmon by Paymaster Thomson of the Mohican. The statement made by him, and repeated by various travellers, probably from the same source, that Hotu-matua came from the east, was never met with by us. Kilimuti did not know whence he came; the direction in which Hotu-matua looked when dying would be west, or more accurately, south-west. Juan put the home of the first immigrants in the Paumotu; as a young man his knowledge of legend was a step further from the original, but it was often useful as summing up the general impression he had received. According to the Mohican story the six early arrivals included the brother of Hotu-matua and his wife; Oroi had been the rejected suitor of this lady, and it was the competition for her favour which had caused the quarrel with the family. The same authority states that Hotu was in the boat which went by the south and east and his wife Vakai in the other; Hinelilu does not appear. Hotu is depicted as dividing the land between his sons, but there is no mention of the ultimate triumph of the descendants of Hotu-iti over those of Kotuu, which, as told to us on more than one occasion, was the chief point in the story. The finale, in which the old man looked towards his old home, is omitted. The Long Ears suddenly appear on the island at a much later time.[[70]] The story of the ditch is much the same.
Wars between Kotuu and Hotu Iti
Kainga was a great man, and he lived near Tongariki. He had three young sons; two of them lived with him, one of whom was named Huriavai, and the other was called Rau-hiva-aringaerua (literally, “Twin two faces”), for he had been born with two faces, one of which looked before and the other behind. Kainga’s third son was named Mahanga-raké-raké-a-Kainga; he was not treated well at home, and had been adopted by a woman who lived not far away, and there he had much fish to eat. Now one day two men came to Kainga’s house and slept there; they were Marama from Hanga Roa, and their names were Makita and Roké-ava. Kainga killed two chickens, and cooked the food and took it to his guests. Roké was asleep, and Makita said, “What is this?” and Kainga replied, “Chicken,” and Makita said, “I do not like it; I want man.” Kainga did not like to refuse, and went outside and said to his two boys, “Go and tell Mahanga to come here.” So the children went and gave the message. When Mahanga heard it, he cried, but when he had done weeping he went back with his brothers. Kainga said to him, “Lie down and go to sleep,” and Kainga took a club and hit the child on the head and killed him. Then he cooked part of the body and gave it to Makita, saying, “Here is food,” and went back to the cooking-place. Makita saw that it was human flesh, and wakened Roké and told him, and Roké was alarmed, and said, “I do not like it.” He broke the house of Kainga, and hurried away. Makita also departed quickly. Kainga was very angry, and said to the two men, “Why do you throw away my food?” And he took the body of the child and wrapped it in reeds and put it on the ahu.
Kainga then said, “Bring me much wood to make a boat”; and all men worked at the boat of Kainga, and he gave them much food—chickens and potatoes and bananas, sugar-cane, hens and fish and eels—but they did not make it well. Then Kainga sent for Tuukoihu, the chief who lived at Ahu Tepeu, on the western side, and said, “Come to me to make the boat”; and Tuukoihu came, and he made a good boat twenty fathoms long, and when it was finished it was launched, and thirty men went in it to row. Now Makita and Roké and the people from Hanga Roa and that part of the island had taken refuge on Motu Nui and other islets of the coast off Rano Kao. Kainga went in the boat to Motu Nui and rowed all round it, and Kainga called to the people on the island, “Come out that I may see you”; and they were all very frightened of Kainga because he was a big man, so one after another all the men on the island came out that he might see them, and he said, “Are there no more?” and they looked and saw that there were two more hidden; so they brought them out, and they were Makita and Roké, and Makita he slew, but Roké he let go.