Tahiti, the island paradise

by Nicholas Senn

POMARE, THE ROYAL FAMILY OF TAHITI

The Pomare family are descendants of chiefs called Tu of Faaraoa, one of the atoll islands of the Paumotu Archipelago, some two hundred and fifty miles northeast of Tahiti. The exact date of the first Tu's arrival in Tahiti is unknown. Even the generation can not be fixed. The Pomares were always ashamed of their Paumotu descent, which they regarded as a flaw in their heraldry, and which was a reproach to them in the eyes of the Tahitians, for all Tahitians regarded the Paumotus as savage, and socially inferior. The first Tu who came to visit the distant land of Tahiti, came in by the Taunoa opening, which is the eastern channel, into what is now the harbor of Papeete. Landing at Taunoa a stranger, he was invited to be the guest of Manaihiti, who seems to have been a chief of Pare. He was adopted by the chief as his brother, and at the death of the chief, he became heir and successor in the chief's line. He married into the Arue family, which gave his son a claim to the joint chiefdom of Pare Arue; and at last his grandson, or some later generation, obtained in marriage no less a personage than Tetuaehuri, daughter of Taiarapu. One of the members of this family, Teu (born 1720, died 1802) made new and important advances in the social and political circles of Tahiti by marriage, and became the father of Pomare I. (1743-1803), the first king of Tahiti. Teu seems to have been a very clever and cautious man. He never assumed to be a great chief or to wear the belt of feathers. He was more jealous of his son than of Amo or his son Teriirere. His son, Tu, was born about 1743. Related by birth with two of the most influential families, he strengthened his native ties by marrying Tetuanui-rea-i-te-rai, of the adjoining independent chiefdom of Tefauai Ahurai, who was not only a niece of Purea, but quite as ambitious and energetic as Purea herself. The English, who could not conceive that the Tahitians should be able to exist without some pretense of royalty, gave Tu the rank and title of king, notwithstanding that he was only one, and at that not the most influential of several Arii rahi. To the great dissatisfaction of the other chiefs, Tu received the lion's share of presents from Captain Cook. At this action, the Ahurai and Attahura people were enraged, and Cook was quite unable to understand that they had reason to complain. To them, Cook's partiality for Tu must have seemed a deliberate insult. When Cook returned on his third voyage, in 1777, several Tahitian tribes were in a state of war with Moorea, in which Tu took no active part. Cook then deliberately intervened in the support of the plan he had adopted of elevating Tu at the expense of the other chiefs. In his estimation, Tu was king by divine right, and any attack on his authority was treason in the first place, and an attack on British influence in the next. British influence and British threats made a radical change in the government of Tahiti, in opposition to the expressed wish of the great majority of the people. England wanted to control the political affairs of the island for commercial gain, and to extend her sovereignty in the South Seas, which only confirms that

All government—indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act—is founded on compromise and barter.

BURKE.

PRINCE HINOI Son of the last King of Tahiti, Pomare V.

After Cook's departure, nearly eleven years elapsed before another European ship called at Tahiti, and, during this time, Pomare paid dearly for the distinctions forced upon him by the foreigners. When Lieutenant Bligh arrived in the Bounty, in 1788, Tu told him that after five years from the time of Cook's last departure, the people of the island Moorea (Eirrieo) joined with those of Attahura and made an attack on his district, and many of his subjects were killed, while he had himself fled, with the survivors, to the mountains. All the houses and property had been destroyed or carried away by the enemy. Bligh landed at Matavai in the Bounty October 26, 1788. He came for a supply of breadfruit, which was to be introduced and domesticated in the various tropical colonies of Great Britain, and indirectly to advance the interests and power of Tu, who had nearly lost his influence over the natives. His position was so desperate that he begged the lieutenant to take him and his wife, Tetua, to England. He had a son, at this time six years old, who became the first Christian king of Tahiti. Before leaving the island, April 3, 1789, Bligh did what he could to strengthen Tu's position, and supplied him with firearms. For this act he gave the following explanation:

He (Tu) had frequently expressed a wish that I would leave some firearms and ammunition with him, as he expected to be attacked after the ship sailed, and perhaps chiefly on account of our partiality to him. I therefore thought it but reasonable to accede to his request. I was the more readily prevailed on, as he said his intentions were to act only on the defensive. This, indeed, seems most suited to his disposition, which is neither active nor enterprising. When I proposed to leave with him a pair of pistols, which they prefer to muskets, they told me that his wife, Tetua, would fight with one and Oedidee with the other. Tetua has learned to load and fire a musket with great dexterity, and Oedidee is an excellent marksman. It is not common for women in this country to go to war, but Tetua is a very resolute woman, of a large make, and has great bodily strength.

History shows that Tetua was not the only fighting woman in Tahiti, as at different times, in tribal wars, it was not uncommon for women to take an active part, and in more than one instance the leading part.

On great occasions it is almost always women who have given the strongest proofs of virtue and devotion; the reason is, that with men, good and bad qualities are in general the result of calculation, whilst in women they are impulses, springing from the heart.

COUNT MONTHOLON.

Lieutenant Bligh left the island April 4th. As he was passing the Friendly, or Tonga group, April 28th, the larger part of his officers and men mutinied and set him and some eighteen others adrift in the ship's launch. The mutineers then put the ship about and returned to Tahiti, where they arrived at Matavai Bay, June 6, 1789. There they took in all the live-stock they could obtain, and twenty-four Tahitians, and sailed again June 16th for Tubuai, but appeared once more, September 22nd, and landed sixteen of the mutineers, who were tired of their adventures. The rest sailed suddenly the next night, and vanished from the sight of men for twenty years. The sixteen mutineers who remained scattered more or less over the island, but made Pare their headquarters and Tu their patron. Here they set to work, November 12, 1789, to build a thirty-foot schooner, with which to make their escape. The effect of the example of these ruffians and criminals on the morals of the simple, receptive Tahitians can be readily imagined. These men, who had enjoyed the confidence of their commander and the advantages and pleasures of a trip to foreign strange countries, proved ungrateful, and "the earth produces nothing worse than an ungrateful man" (Ansonius). The schooner was launched August 5, 1790. The war which immediately followed, and which reestablished Tu in his power for the time, deserves to be called the War of the Mutineers of the Bounty. When Tu died, thirteen years later, the missionaries in their Journal recorded many details about his life and character, and among other things, they said: