Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/197

Rh "Here is Te Tai-tonga; thou art as one dead!" Said Tangiia, "Has he many men?" "A great many; they are numerous!" "Ah! what is to be done?" "What indeed? thou must deliver up to him the rangi-ei, the plume of rank upon thy head" (give up the supremacy to Karika). The vessels now draw together and Karika comes on board that of Tangiia, who has been careful to send his warriors below, keeping only the slaves, children and the decrepit on deck, so that Karika might not know his strength. Then follows a scene in which Tangiia attempts to present Karika with the emblems of chieftainship, in which he is prevented by the faithful Pai, the navigator of the vessel. A struggle ensues in which Tangiia, in urging on his people, used the word takitumu, which thenceforth becomes the name of his vessel. Karika seems to have got the worst of it, and his canoe is towed away to Maiao, and to Taanga (Taha'a, near Ra'iatea) where Mokoroa-ki-aitu, Karika's daughter, becomes Tangiia's wife, to cement the peace then made.

Tangiia now learns from Karika the directions for finding Rarotonga, after which the two vessels separate—Karika going his way, whilst Tangiia sails south; but misses his mark and reaches a part of the ocean where great currents meet, and Tangiia concludes he has reached the "mountainous waves" of the south referred to in tradition, in which he is supported by finding the sea quite cold. Putting about ship he sails north, and finally sights the east coast of Rarotonga, and lands at Nga-tangiia, where like a good and true Polynesian, he at once proceeds to build a marae for his gods at Te Miromiro, close to the present church there.