The mystery of Easter island: the story of an expeditionRoutledge, Katherine
History
The mystery of Easter island: the story of an expedition
Routledge, Katherine
Easter Island; Oceania -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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