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Updated: June 21, 2025
His arsenal was stocked by the French, whose ally he was, and to whom he was very useful in furnishing men for work and in upholding French supremacy. In Hapatone he was virtually a king, and the fear of him extended throughout the southern Marquesas. One day he came as a guest to a feast in Taaoa. There was a blind man, a poor, harmless fellow, who was eating the pig and popoi and saying nothing.
Aue! There was a headache query! At this point in the discussion an aged stranger from the valley of Taaoa, a withered man whose whole naked chest was covered with intricate tattooing, laid down his pipe and artlessly revealed his idea of the communion service. It was, he thought, a religious cannibalism, no more.
Liha-Liha, the natives called her father, which means corporal, and that they had hated and yet feared him when Hiva-oa was still given over to cannibalism outlined his character. He had lived and died in his house near the Stinking Springs on the road to Taaoa. The sole white man in that valley, he had lorded it over the natives more sternly than had their old chiefs.
The bones of Beaten to Death were fishhooks before we knew of his death. All Taaoa was angry. The family of Beaten to Death demanded vengeance. The priest went into the High Place, and when he came out he ran all day up and down the valley, until he fell foaming. War was the cry of the gods, war against Atuona.
It was a chance remark from Mouth of God that led me to take a journey over the hills to the valley of Taaoa, south of Atuona. Malicious Gossip and her husband, squatting one evening on my mats in the light of the stars, spoke of the Marquesan custom in naming children.
Brands were improvised and hurried home to light the fires for breadfruit-roasting, while Kahuiti laughed scornfully. "A hundred of this tribe I have eaten, and no wonder!" he said as he strode away toward Taaoa. The monopoly of O Lalala was no more. Atuona Valley had turned back the clock of time a hundred years, to destroy the perfect world in which he sat alone.
Then old Kahuiti, that handsomest of cannibals, who lived in the valley of Taaoa, strolled into Atuona and made it known that he would hold a meeting in the High Place where of old many of his tribe had been eaten by Atuona men. Exploding Eggs, Malicious Gossip, and I climbed the mountain early.
"Learning that Honi was no longer with us, the Tiu tribe of Taaoa declared war again, and the red-headed tribe had an alliance with them through their chief's families intermarrying, so that Honi fought with them. His gun being without powder, he took his harpoon, and he came with the Tui and the Kau-i-te-oho to the dividing-line between the valleys where we used to fight.
He did not reply to my question, but sipped his bowl of kava. The crime of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats; story of Tahia's white man who was eaten; the disaster that befell Honi, the white man who used his harpoon against his friends. During my absence in Taaoa there had been crime and scandal in my own valley. André Bauda met me on the beach road as I returned and told me the tale.
This harpoon had a head of iron and was fixed on a spear, with a long rope tied to the head, so that when it was thrust into the whale he was fastened to the boat that pursued him through the water. There was no weapon like it on the island, and it was much admired. "Honi fought with us when our tribe, the Papuaei, went to war with the Tiu of Taaoa.
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