Three days after this the men from Te Ava-nui came along, and they shouted across from the mainland, “We have killed the men in the net”; and Marotiri shouted back, “We too have killed a man,” and they were all full of joy. The island men swam ashore, and they killed all the men at Ana Havea. The men from Marotiri went in one direction and the men from Te Ava-nui in another, killing and slaying every one; but Kainga went with neither, for he wished to find Poié. He went to Ana Havea, but his enemy had fled, and he followed him all along the south coast, till they were not far from Vaihu. Poié was a very big man, but Kainga was a little one, and he had nothing to eat. He called to Poié, “You have food, I have none; I shall not kill you, I will go back; but another day I will kill you.” The two parties of Hotu Iti men had now joined one another, and Kainga went with them. Men and old men, old women and children they killed all, but the fine women they took; the sixty men divided the women between them. A man would say to a woman, “Do you like me?” and if she said “No,” then he killed her. Kainga told the men from Te Ava-nui to go to one place, and the men from Marotiri to go to another, and live with their wives and beget children, and so they did; but Poié went to Hanga Roa.
Kainga told a Tupahotu called Maikuku to give his daughter to Poié, so she went to him and bore him many children, and one day, when years had gone by, Kainga called together his men and went over at night to the other side of the island to fight. Maikuku was staying in the house of his daughter, and Kainga had told him, “If Poié is not in the house, sleep with your head outside the door”; and Kainga came and looked and saw that the head of Maikuku was outside, and he said to him, “Then Poié is not here?” and he said, “No, he has gone to the sea.” The grand-daughter of Maikuku heard, and was angry for her father, and she went a little way up the hill outside, and cried aloud, “The enemy are coming to fight, and your father-in-law is very bad, although he has had bananas and fish and much to eat.” Poié heard the child speak, and he and his five brothers hid their net and the fish, and they ran along the coast towards Rano Kao, and Kainga went too, and then they swam to Motu Nui. Kainga followed, and they went on to Motu Iti and then swam to the land again, and came ashore at the foot of the cliff below Orongo, and Poié’s brothers tried to run up the hill, but Kainga’s men caught them and killed four. As Poié came up, the blood of his brothers flowed down, and he wept; but Poié they did not kill, because he had married the daughter of Maikuku, and because they were all afraid. Now Kirireva, a child of Hotu Iti, whose father had been killed by Poié, stayed at Orongo, and the child asked if they were not going to kill Poié, and the old men said, “No, we have already killed four.” Kirireva shaved all his hair and his eyebrows, and put on red paint and told Poié to stand up, and he ran three times between his legs, and the third time Poié fell, and the boy killed him with a club because he had slain his father. Now, when Poié was dead, Kotuu was finished and Hotu Iti victorious according to the words of Hotu-matua.
The middle part of this story is briefly told by Thomson, but his account differs in important points from the foregoing. Moa is represented as the son of Oho-taka-toré, instead of his son-in-law, and his action is designed to avenge his father; this is a more comprehensible version. Kainga is dead. Huriavai is on Marotiri, and on swimming ashore is killed by one of the enemy. Vaha is Huriavai’s friend, who kills the slayer, and swims back to Marotiri with the enemy’s body.
Our informant, Kapiera, was quite positive that the events took place during the time of Ngaara’s grandfather, and refused to be dislodged from his position because Juan pertinently pointed out that this was inconsistent with the boat being made by Tuukoihu, who landed with Hotu-matua.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE PROBLEM
“Do not be afraid of making generalisations because knowledge is as yet imperfect or incomplete, and they are therefore liable to alteration. It is only through such generalisations that progress can be made.”—Dr. A. C. Haddon as President of the Folk Lore Society, 1919.
As we leave Easter Island, we pause to review our evidence and find how far we have progressed towards the solution of its problems.
We may dismiss the vague suggestion that the archæological remains in the island survive from the time when it was part of a larger mass of land. Whatever may be the geological story of the Pacific, no scientific authorities are prepared to prove that such stupendous changes have taken place during the time which it has been inhabited by man.[[73]]
Instead of indulging in surmises as to the state of the world in a remote past, it is safer to begin with existing conditions and try to retrace the steps of development. It has already been seen that various links connect the people now living on Easter Island with the great images. Tradition is not altogether extinct; in a few cases the names of the men are actually remembered who made the individual statues, and also those of their clans which are still in existence. But the two strongest bonds are the wooden figures and the bird cult. The wooden figures were being made in recent times, and they have a design on the back resembling that on the stone images, while they also possess the same long ears. There is no reason why a defunct type should have been copied, and it is probable that they date at least as far back as the same epoch. The bird cult also was alive in living memory. It is allied to that of the statues by the residence of the bird-man among the images, by the fact that the bird rite for the child was connected with them, and above all by the presence of a statue of typical form in the centre of the village at Orongo.