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Updated: June 19, 2025
And that mighty-armed and high-souled one, acquainted with the divisions of time and place, could not settle his course of action. Having thus bewailed much in this strain, the virtuous Yudhishthira, the son of Dharma or Tapu, restrained his soul and began to reflect in his mind as to who had slain those heroes. 'There are no strokes of weapons upon these, nor is any one's foot-print here.
The pool itself was tapu save for those consecrated to the gods, yet this wretched pair crept through the lantana there on the bank, and watched her. She stood on the rock above the pool and put off her pae, her cap of gauze, her long robe, and her pareu, all of finest tree-cloth, for in those days before the whites came our people were properly clothed.
Men and women rose to influence and chiefly rank only by deeds that won popular admiration. These people were hero-worshippers, and in the bloodiest of the old days those of fine soul who had a message of entertainment or instruction were tapu to all tribes, so that they could travel anywhere in safety and were welcome guests in all homes.
"That must have been the way they went," said Old Colonial, looking in a direction where a strip of the Arapaoa was visible through a gap made in the ranges by a narrow gully. "Who went?" I asked, for I did not follow his thought. "Hoosh!" cried he. "Do you mean to say you've never heard the story of the battle and capture of Marahemo, the tale of Te Puke Tapu?" No, I had not heard it.
Tapu was a man who, with his wife Tea, lived there and had a daughter named Tapuitea, from the union of the names of her parents. The spot on which their house was built they called Leviuli, or "Black apple," from the appearance of the sun one day when covered with a cloud. When Tapuitea grew up she became the wife of the king of Fiji, and went there to live.
A betrothed maiden defended by tapu was as sacred as a vestal virgin of Rome; a shrine became a Holy Place; the head of a chief something which it was sacrilege to lay hands on. The back of a man of noble birth could not be degraded by bearing burdens an awkward prohibition in moments when no slave or woman happened to be in attendance on these lordly beings.
One of these, known as George, was a young chief, though serving before the mast. During the voyage he was twice flogged for refusing to work on the plea of illness. The captain added insult to the stripes by the words, "You are no chief!" The sting of this lay in the sacredness attached by Maori custom to a chief's person, which was tapu i.e. a thing not to be touched.
Hooio-hooio uku hai unio Kippiputunonaa aaa titi huti O tefi tapu, O eio hoki Hooio-hooio, one naani-tui How it all came back to me! Leaning towards her, I gently pressed the lobe of her ear with my chin, the native method of expressing deep affection. Her dusky cheeks flushed and with infinite shyness she lifted her left foot and placed it on my knee.
They are tapu; about them flit the veinahae, the matiahae, and the etuahae, dread vampires and ghosts that have charge of the corpse and wait to seize the living. Well have these ghoulish phantoms feasted; whole islands are theirs, and soon they will sit upon the paepae of the last Marquesan. I reached the top of the gulch and paused to gaze at its extent.
Paepae signifies a floor or platform such as a native house is built on; and even such a paepae a paepae hae may be called a paepae tapu in a lesser sense when it is deserted and becomes the haunt of spirits; but the public high place, such as I was now treading, was a thing on a great scale. As far as my eyes could pierce through the dark undergrowth, the floor of the forest was all paved.
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