The adoptive father cooked the food and waited on the child in the house of seclusion without letting even his own wife see the child. Tonga was fattened with the best of foods so as to make a spectacular appearance when he was ready to be exhibited at adolescence at some public festival.

When the time drew near, the adoptive father said to his wife Irutea, 'I am going to a distant fishing ground for some choice fish. If I am delayed, prepare his food and feed the boy.'

Irutea could hardly wait for her husband to get out of sight before she began preparing food. She was very curious to get a glimpse of Tonga before he was released. She hurriedly tore away the leaves covering the fermented breadfruit pit, kneaded the breadfruit cakes quickly, barely allowing them time to cook, and pounded the food in the wooden trough with hurried blows of the stone pounder.

Tonga, within the house, heard the hurried preparations outside, so different from the slow, deliberate method of his father and (as my informant said), 'He was koa'. In Maori and most other dialects that I know, koa means glad, happy. I naturally inferred that Tonga was happy on hearing the rapid preparations because he was hungry.

Irutea brought in the prepared food, and Tonga was koa. When Tonga had finished eating, Irutea closely appraised his handsome figure and said, 'Young man, if you and I were to recline together on a couch of fragrant leaves, what would be the harm?'

On hearing her words, Tonga became very koa and Irutea, observing his outward manifestations of koa, said, 'When your father returns and asks why you are koa, tell him that you yearn for your people in the Underworld.'

When his father returned, Tonga gave him the dictated answer. The father said, 'If your yearning is so great that it makes you koa, I will conduct you to the entrance of the Underworld tomorrow morning.'

Next morning, the two set out. They crossed three ridges and, when they rested at the top of each, the old man asked, 'My son, why were you koa?' The boy replied, 'I yearn for my people in the Underworld.'

At the top of the fourth and last ridge, the father said, 'My son, we are about to part. Tell me truthfully why you were so koa on my return yesterday.'

Tonga, at last, told the truth. He said, 'Yesterday I heard Irutea preparing the food in a hasty manner so unlike your way of doing things. She came into the house which no one but you had entered. She placed the food in a spot different to where you place it. The food was not properly cooked and tasted differently from yours. She subjected me to a trying scrutiny and then proposed that we should lie down together. For all these things I was koa.'

The father looked up with relief and said, 'My son, had you told me this on the first ridge, we would have returned home. But now it is too late. We are near the boundary to the Underworld and it is fated that you should go on. Your adoptive mother is no blood kin to you. All she wanted to do was to instruct you in one of the greatest lessons in life. The time will come soon when you will bitterly regret the lack of that knowledge which was offered to you.'

And so it came to pass, but that is another story. While the story was proceeding, I began to realize that my meaning of koa did not fit the tale. I asked at the end, 'What is the meaning of koa?'

My informant replied, 'Uneasiness, fear, alarm, grief.'

'Oh,' I said, 'in New Zealand and other places, koa means joy and gladness.'

'Maybe,' he replied, 'but in Mangareva it means just the opposite. The word for joy in Mangareva is koakoa, which is quite different.'

'Quite', I acquiesced."

(Buck)