aitos

Updated: May 27, 2025

"My ancestor, the old chief Tati," he told me, "cut down the sacred trees of our clan marae near by, the aitos, tamanus, and miros. He had become a Christian, as was fashionable, and at the instigation of the English missionaries destroyed many beautiful and ancient trees, statues, carvings, and buildings.

Frederick O'Brien - Mystic Isles of the South Seas.