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"... He cleared the trunks of
their branches and bark, hewed them into shape, and with strong
fau ropes he and his men drew them down the valley over cliffs
and ravines, seeming to feel it merely light work.
Thus King Puna was robbed
of his fine aha-tea tree, his mara-uri tree, a toi (Alphitonia)
tree, and a hauou (pua, Fagraea) tree; and Hiro spared not the trees sacred to the gods around the marae.
He cut down a great tamanu
(Callophylum), stripped the trunk of its branches and bark,
split it up for planks for the bows of his canoe, and trimmed the
branches for outriggers and crossbeams. He cut down a most sacred
miro (Thespesia) tree for planks for the after part of
his canoe, and he took two tall straight breadfruit trees for planks
for the deck houses. Then he went into the woods and cut down
straight fau trees (Hibiscus
tiliaceus) for paddles and for floor planks, and three slim hutu (Barringtonia) trees for masts.
After all this depredation,
Hiro and his men helped themselves to wood and thatch and reeds
and all other material needed for a shed in which to build the canoe
and for rollers to place under it, King Puna not daring to
oppose them, as Hiro was too powerful and dangerous to vex
...
Amid all the required ceremonies
and prayers and good omens, they set to work. On rising ground they
erected a great shed thirty fathoms long, six wide, and five fathoms
high, facing the sea endwise. The builders had their baskets of axes
and adzes of stone, gimlets of coconut and sea shells, and sennit of
fine tight strands, prepared and consecrated to the god Tane
for this special purpose. Hiro
marked out the keel, the knees, the beams, and the planks, and the
men cut them into shape. All the material for the work was carefully
sorted and handily placed in the shed, Hiro passing it to the
men as they required it ...
They set the keel of avai,
toi, and mara wood, polished and
firmly spliced together with hard spikes of wood secured with
sennit, upon rollers in the shed and painted it with red clay mixed
with charcoal so as to preserve it from wood borers. Then they
fastened the knees onto the keel with spikes and sennit. Holes were
bored into the keel and planks at even distances apart, and the men
set to work in the following order:
Hotu,
the chief of Hiro's artisans, worked on the outer side to the
right of the canoe, and Tau-mariari, his assistant,
worked on the inner side; Memeru, the royal artisan of
Opoa, worked on the
outer side to the left of the canoe, and his assistant, Ma'i-hae,
worked on the inner side. Each couple faced each other, fixing the
planks in their places and drawing the sennit in and out in lacing
the wood together; and the canoe soon began to assume form, the bows
facing the sea. To make work light they sang ...
Every seam and all the little
holes in the wood from the keel and upwards were well calked with
fine coconut-husk fiber and pitched carefully with gum, which
Hiro drew from sacred breadfruti trees of the marae, and
when all the streaks were on the canoe was washed out clean and
dried well and painted inside and outside with red clay and
charcoal.
As the hull of the canoe reached
almost to the roof, the builders could work no longer within the
shed, and so they broke it away. Then the boards of the deck were
set upon the beams and fixed in place with spikes and sennit, and
the ama or outrigger of tamanu wood, which had been
well steeped in water to preserve it from borers, was polished with
limestone and firmly lashed with sennit on to the left side of the
canoe, the upper attachment of wood forming across each end of the
canoe a beam, called 'iato, and lashed on to the right side
in the same manner as on the left side ...
Next came the finely carved
towering ornaments for a reimua (neck-in-front, the
figurehead) and a rei muri (neck-behind, stern ornament),
which were fastened on to their respective places, and they were
named Rei-fa'aapiapi-fare (Necks-filling-up-the-house),
because the shed was broken away to allow placing them and finishing
the canoe.
The two deck houses, called
oa mua and oa muri (fore house and aft house), were then
set in their places and thatched with fara leaves, after
which Hotu, the chief artisan, cut out the holes in the deck
and down in the keel, in which he stood the three masts, before
mentioned, which had been steeped in water, well seasoned, dried,
and polished. The the canoe was completed.
Hiro dedicated it to Tane, naming
it Hohoio (Interloper) …
Finally the day arrived for
launching the canoe, and a great multitude assembled to see the
wonderful sight. The props were removed from the sides of the canoe,
and the men held it ready to launch over the rollers.
Hotu invoked the gods
Ta'aroa, Tane, 'Oro, Ra'a, Ro'o, and
Moe, to their aid, and soon their presence was felt impelling
the canoe.
The rollers began to move, and
then the canoe went forwards, slowly at first as the men's hands
steadied it and then swiftly and well poised as it gracefully
descended alone and sat upon the sea, which rose in great rolling
waves caused by a wind sent to meet it by the aster Ana-mua
(Antares in Scorpio), the parent pillar of the sky. The spectators
greatly admired Hiro's ship and raised deafening shouts.
Then the canoe was made to drink
salt water; it was dipped forwards and backwards in the waves of the
great moving altar of the gods and thus consecrated to Tane.
A marae was made for him in the little house aft of the deck,
and the three masts were rigged with ropes and strong mats for sails
and long tapa pennants streaming from them ...
Within a few days the canoe was
loaded with provisions. Great fish baskets were made of bamboo,
filled with many kinds of fish, and attached to the outside of the
canoe so as to be in the water. Bamboos and gourds were filled with water and stowed away on board, and
there were fe'i, bananas, taro, and mahi (fermented breadfruit) in abundance.
A bed of sand and stones was made upon the deck, upon which to make
a fire for cooking the food, and soon Hiro was ready to go to
sea.
Hiro
was the captain and pilot, and he had other competent seamen, who
like him were acquainted with the heavenly bodies and their rising
and setting. Women and children also accompanied their husbands and
fathers on board, and on one fine day, with a strong favorable wind,
they set sail, applauded by many spectators, among whom were
prisoners of war (called tîtî), whose shouts were heard above
all others.
They saw Hiro's great pahi
sail out to sea and disappear beyond the horizon, never again to
return to Tahitian shores." (Henry) |
