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Ethnology of Manihiki and Rakahanga

Traditional History

page 14

Traditional History

Discovery

The traditional story of the discovery of Rakahanga and Manihiki is a blend of historical narrative and myth. The human discoverer, Huku (see p. 19), is stated to have sailed from Rarotonga on a fishing expedition. When he came to a part of the ocean referred to as “te tukuanga i Whaka-hotu” he noticed an upgrowth of rock or land (tapua whenua) projecting from the sea bottom but not rising above the water, an image evidently culled from the experience of an atoll-dwelling people to whom coral upgrowths on an encircling reef were familiar. Huku, on seeing the coral upgrowth, recited these words (pehe), which are always recited by native historians: “Titiro iho Huku, tapua e—” (Huku gazed down, [and saw] an upgrowth.) From this incident Huku named his canoe Tapua. Gill's informant (13, p. 140) gave the canoe name as Tapuaua, which is really Tapua-hua and means “an upgrowth only.” Huku returned to his home with the idea that the upgrowth would eventually reach the surface and become land.

Pure myth is introduced by interpolating the island-fishing exploits of the well-known Polynesian hero, Maui. The myth states that Tangaroa-tuhi-mata, with his wife, Hina-mata-porari, dwelt in Hawaiki-ki-raro, which was under the earth's surface. Their son, Tongoi-whare, dwelt with his wife, Makuwai-whare, in Hawaiki-ki-runga, which was on the earth's surface. Tongoi-whare, had three sons, Maui-mua, Maui-roto, and Maui-muri, and a daughter named Hina-mai-raro-te-takere. The three brothers planned a fishing expedition and caught some flying fish (maroro) for bait. Maui-muri, unknown to his brothers, went to Hina-i-te-papa who dwelt at the bottom of the sea. He told her of the proposed expedition and asked her to put certain fish on the hooks according to the manner in which they were baited. On the first hook let down, baited with flying fish, she was to put a shark (mango), and on the second hook, also baited with flying fish, she was to put an urua. His own hook was to be baited with a small branch of the puka tree (tauru raupuka), dried coconut husk (puakoua), coconut flower stalk (puroro), and a dry, immature young coconut (aoa). When she saw it, she was to hook it into the rock bottom of the sea.

The next day the brothers set out in a canoe named Pipi-ma-hakohako. Tupou-rahi stated that the name of the canoe was Whakahotu and quoted the following chant as proof:

Wharekura-ariki i noho ia Hina-i-te-papa,
Nohona te waka o nga atua;
Whakahotu, nohona te tukunga.
To rire to, e tapu.

Wharekura the ariki married Hina-i-te-papa,
His was the canoe of the gods;
Whakahotu, his was the fishing ground.

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Tupou-rahi has evidently associated the name Whakahotu with the canoe, whereas it is really associated with the fishing ground. The historic spot in the ocean visited by Huku was termed “Te tukunga i Whakahotu.” The construction of the chant shows that the tukunga (fishing ground) was owned by Whakahotu. Although Whakahotu does not appear elsewhere in Rakahangan tradition, in neighboring Tongareva (29) the name appears as Hakahotu. Hakahotu was the wife of Atea, and the two were the primary parents whose progeny were the gods Tangaroa, Tane, Rongo, and others. It may be that Rakahanga had some legend of Whakahotu similar to the Tongarevan story, and that the details have been lost.

Arrived at the fishing ground, Maui-mua (Maui-the-first-born) let down his hook baited with flying fish. When a fish took the hook, he began to chant a question (tautopa):

Maui-roto, Maui-muri, e uia mai
Te ingoa i taku ika, mei aha?

Maui the middle, Maui the last,
ask The name of my fish, what is it?

Maui-roto remained silent but Maui-muri, relying on his compact with Hina-i-te-papa, replied:

E haha mango tau ika tutae, hutia!
A large shark is your filthy fish, haul it up!

A shark was duly hauled up. Tupou-rahi said that the fish was an albacore (kakahi). Maui-roto let down his hook baited with flying fish, and when he hooked a fish he also chanted a question. Maui-muri named an urua, which was duly hauled in. Maui-muri then baited his hook with the leaves and husk according to plan. Hina-i-te-papa, on seeing the hook so baited, stuck it into the papa or rock at the bottom of the sea. From what follows, it is to be inferred that the rock was the upgrowth seen by Huku. When Maui-muri felt the hook take hold, he called (uru) a question to his elder brothers, who named a shark and an urua. Maui-muri thereupon hauled on his line. As the fish rose, the sea began to boil and foam (kua wheta te moana), and land appeared (kua haha te whenua). The rising land lifted the canoe on its steep edge. Maui-mua and Maui-roto were in the bow and Maui-muri in the stern. The canoe broke in the middle. The bow part with the two elder brothers fell into the seething water, and they were swept away. The stern part remained on the land, and Maui-muri stepped ashore. He then recited a chant (amu):

Tataka. tataka e, tataka ki muri,
Tataka, tataka e, tataka ki muri.
Tokomiti, tokomiti,
Tokowheta, tokowheta.
Haha, haha te whenua,
Tutu Maui.

Fall off, fall off, fall off to the stern,
Fall off, fall off, fall off to the stern.
The sea recedes,
The sea seethes.
It appears, the land appears,
And Maui stands upon it.

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In the chant recorded by Gill (13, p. 141) the words “Motu Manihiki, motu Rakahanga” (Manihiki is severed, Rakahanga is severed) are added, but they are not severed from each other until the later reappearance of Huku. Maui-muri, having lost his brothers and his canoe, explored the new land. A curious reference is made to his seeing a house of sand (whare one). Gill (13, p. 148) states that the house contained eighty spirits. Tupou-rahi stated that Maui saw an opening in the sand and dug down. The hole contained ugly fish from the bottom of the sea (ko te au ika kikino anake i raro i te moana). Such details were evidently intended to embellish the tale and perhaps to emphasize the fact that there were no human occupants on the land discovered. Maui-mua remained on the land.

The story goes back to Huku, who, in his sleep (turamoe), had a dream (rikamoe) that the upgrowth he had seen had reached the surface. His dream was expressed in the chant:

Whakarika mai ana, turamoe ana,
Turamoe ia Rakahanga, ia Rakahanga.
Kua haha, kua haha,
Kua roharoha.

It came as a dream while sleeping,
A dream about Rakahanga, about Rakahanga,
Which has emerged and risen,
And lies spread out.

Tupou-rahi states that Huku did not think out the name Rakahanga, but that the name came to him in a dream.

Huku sailed back to the site of the upgrowth and saw that the land had risen above the surface. He landed at Waiawa and commenced to explore. He met Maui-muri and immediately attacked him to expel him from the land which he considered to be his. In the struggle a portion of the land broke off. It floated away (rewa atu) and became Manihiki. Maui fled successively to the places on the atoll named Tumu-whenua, Kaeru, Tumukau, and Paaki. As Huku pursued Maui to Paaki, the rain fell (kuru te ua), the lightning flashed (rapa te uira), the thunder rolled (tuki te whatitiri), and Maui fled away to the heavens (kua rere Maui ki te rangi).

After his victory, Huku, returning along the coast, saw a drift coconut (ponga) cast ashore. After his return to Nukuangaanga he planted the nut at a spot which he named Te-maru-o-araiawa. He named the nut, or the plant which was to grow from it, Te-huru-awatea. In Gill's account (13, p. 148) no mention is made of a drift coconut. Gill states that Huku returned to Rarotonga because the land was desert (ha) and no coconuts had yet been planted. The coconut named Te-huru-awatea he includes with seven others that were subsequently brought. The story of the drift coconut as given by Tupou-rahi fits in better with the subsequent narrative.

According to Tupou-rahi's version, Huku, after planting Te-huru-awatea, returned to Rarotonga. He then made a third voyage in a canoe named page 17 Hotu-rangaranga, taking a supply of planting nuts with him. He also took two paddlers (hoe waka) named Ruia and Papera. Seven nuts named Tiro-hanga, Turuki-wairaro, Papuka, Kai-akuaku, Tumata-whare, and Nuku-angi-angi were planted at Te-maru-o-araiawa. Gill (13, p. 148) gives names which differ slightly, but includes Te-huru-awatea, the name given by Tupou-rahi to the drift nut of a previous voyage. Te-maru-o-araiawa, where the nuts were planted, is situated on the island of Te Kainga in the atoll of Raka-hanga. The two paddlers both died and were buried on Te Kainga. Tupou-rahi quoted this pehe as proof of his tale:

Tanu Ruia tei te turuki,
Tanu Papera tei te paapuka.
Haroi ha.

Ruia was buried at the turuki,
Papera was buried at the paapuka.

Some of the Rakahangans were inclined to think that the inclusion of the paddlers in the tale was an elaboration, as ruia and papera are names given to two species of shark.

Huku returned to Rarotonga. Sitting one evening in front of his house, he began to wonder whether the first nut he had planted on Rakahanga had grown into a stately palm. His thoughts found expression in the following chant (haka):

Tera paa Te-huru-awatea te tahirihiri mai ra
i Te-maru-o-araiawa.
Perchance Te-huru-awatea is waving its fronds
over there at Te-maru-o-araiawa.

The literal translation of the haka conveys merely the thought, but to the descendants of Huku there is music and sentiment in the native words. They take pride in quoting them over and over again. During my stay in Rakahanga the words were called out to me from houses along the village street, for they formed a bond of our mutual interest in the past. When I called them out to my history teachers, their gratification was apparent.

Huku had kept his discovery of a new land secret. A man named Wheatu heard Huku and conjectured that the chant referred to some other land. He embarked in a canoe named Paparinga-tahi, eventually came to Manihihi, and landed at Tarakite. From there he set out and came to Rakahanga, where he saw the palm named Te-huru-awatea waving in the breeze at Te-maru-o-araiawa. He landed at Omoka and dragged his canoe ashore, naming the place Te-amonga-waka (the carrying of the canoe). He went on to a place on the reef called Awanui. There he commenced to cut a channel through the reef to connect the lagoon with the sea and so to provide a passage for canoes. As he worked he sang the following chant, which Gill (13, p. 142) has recorded in full:

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Ana mai, ana mai, kurua!
Ana mai ko Wheatu, kurua!
E ano ki Rakahanga,
Kurua iho, kurua e koe,
Kurua te papa i Awanui,
Kurua, kurua, kurukurua!

E noho i Tarakite, kurua!
Takahia e koe, kurua!
Te matangi ko te tonga,
Kurua, kurua, kurukurua!

Ki waenga moana
Kurua ko te mata o Wheatu,
Kurua te uru o Rakahanga,
Kurua te awa i Omoka,
Kurua, kurua, kurukurua!

Come along, come along, batter away!
Come along, it is Wheatu, batter away!
Go to Rakahanga,
Batter it down, batter O thou,
Batter the rock at Awanui.
Batter, Oh, batter, Oh, batter away!

Stay at Tarakite, batter away!
Stamp on it, thou, and batter away!
The wind is the south wind,
Batter, Oh, batter, Oh, batter away!

In the midst of the ocean,
Batter the face of Wheatu,
Batter the head of Rakahanga,
Break out the channel at Omoka,
Batter, Oh, batter, Oh, batter away!

The words kurua, kurua, kurukurua of the refrain mean literally “to batter,” for Wheatu used a piece of coral boulder to hammer away at the reef and break pieces off in his attempt to cut out a channel. In view of the fact that the Cook Islands Administration has considered the advisability of cutting channels through the reef, the chant is interesting, showing that the problem exercised the minds of the early Polynesian settlers. The early voyager, Te Herui, is credited by tradition with having cut the passage called Te-rua-i-kakau through the reef at Aitutaki, but he had the advantage over Wheatu of having an adz. Another ancestor, Ruatapu, commenced a similar engineering task on the reef at Atiu, but as the food supplies of his employer fell short, he abandoned the work.

Meanwhile, Huku had a premonition that something was happening on the land he regarded as his. According to Tupou-rahi, Huku set sail in a canoe named Te Rawhiti and was accompanied by his sister, Tapairu, and her husband, Toa. According to Gill (13, p. 149), Huku came without them. In Rakahanga, Huku found Wheatu still battering away at the reef at Awanui. To Huku's fierce inquiry as to what he was doing on his land, Wheatu diplomatically replied, “I am battering this rock to make a canoe channel for you.” (E tuki ana au i te papa nei tei ara waka nohou.) According to one version, Wheatu was allowed to remain on condition that he did not go inland, as Huku was afraid he might pull up the coconuts that had been planted. The version adopted by the people in their historical dramas (see p. 198) is that Wheatu was driven off the island. A short, wide indentation on the inner side of the reef at Awanui is pointed out as the scene of Wheatu's labor, and the opinion is held that he would have completed the channel had he not been driven away. The name of Wheatu does not appear in the local genealogies.

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Huku subsequently departed for Rarotonga, leaving the land in charge of his sister and her husband. Gill (13, p. 149) states that Huku sent his sister and her husband to Rakahanga after his return to Rarotonga, and that the canoe in which they came was named Reiapata. Huku here disappears from history, and the peopling of the atoll commences with Toa and his wife.

Huku is generally believed by the people of Rakahanga and Manihiki to have come from Rarotonga. Tupou-rahi stated that he belonged to the land division of Tukuvaine, that Ikurangi was his chiefly mountain (maunga ariki), and that his god, Mokoroa-i-taupo, was located at Maungatea. Tukuvaine, Ikurangi, and Maungatea are all well-known localities close to the main village, Avarua, in Rarotonga. So much communication, however, has existed between the atolls and Rarotonga since the advent of Christianity that the possibility of elaboration between the two peoples cannot be disregarded. Mr. Savage told me that Huku appears as “Iku” in the Rarotongan genealogies, but careful checking up is required before the two can be accepted as identical. The number of voyages Huku is reputed to have made between Rarotonga and Rakahanga is probably exaggerated.

The interpolation of the Maui myth is interesting in view of the dialectical affinity between the atolls and New Zealand. Both areas have the story of Maui fishing up the land with a hook and line. The New Zealand story differs in that it presents five Maui brothers instead of three. In both areas the hero of the adventure is the youngest son, Maui-potiki in one, and Maui-muri in the other. Both potiki and muri refer to the last-born of a family. In the New Zealand story the hook entered a house at the bottom of the sea and caught on the back of the house, which suggests the Rakahangan incident in which Hina-i-te-papa hooked the line into the papa or rock where she dwelt at the bottom of the sea. In outline the two stories show an affinity, but they naturally differ in minor details.

Toa and Tapairu settled as permanent colonists on the island of Te Kainga in the atoll of Rakahanga. Tradition states that Tapairu was the sister of Huku and that it was through this blood kinship that Huku gave her the land. Pedigrees of the ancestry of both Tapairu and Toa are lacking. Some informants stated that Huku and Tapairu were the children of Hiro of Hawaiki, but Gill (13, p. 143) records that Tapairu was the daughter of a son of Hiro who came from Hawaiki, presumably, to Rarotonga. An interesting complication is due to the definite mention of a son of Hiro in Rarotongan history. Hiro, the celebrated explorer, was a contemporary of Tangiia, the great Rarotongan ancestor. Tangiia adopted Tai-te-ariki, a son of Hiro, and made him high chief over a section of his people. The Pa-ariki title of the Takitumu tribes of east and south Raro- page 20 tonga descends from Tai-te-ariki. If Huku and Tapairu belonged to Rarotonga, they should have been associated with the Takitumu people. Tupourahi, however, places them in Tukuvaine in north Rarotonga, which is Makean territory, derived historically from a totally different family. It is evident, however, that the Rakahangan historians knew of Hiro, but that knowledge could have been derived from other areas besides Rarotonga. They may have followed the strong tendency that existed among genealogists to connect their ancestors with celebrated historical characters, thus adding luster to their pedigrees.

According to Gill (10, vol. 2, pp. 281, 282), Toa was a great warrior but was defeated in Rarotonga. Gill gives this defeat as the reason why Toa and his wife came to settle in the land discovered by Iku (Huku). He says further, “The Rarotongan chiefs confirm this testimony by relating the departure of ‘Toa’ from this island many generations ago. He was a great warrior of the Ngati-Tinomana tribe.” The tribe referred to inhabits the western part of Rarotonga. Gill also mentions the habit of saying something after sneezing, as though addressing a spirit. On Manihiki it was usual to say, “Alas! alas! Go to Rarotonga.” The evidence cited would appear to confirm Rarotonga as the original habitat of Toa and Tapairu.

Genealogical Records

Because traditional history in Rakahanga attributes the settlement of the atolls to one biological family, the head of that family a defeated warrior accompanied by no priests, the genealogical records of the two atolls thus peopled are poor in extent and detail. As in Tongareva (29, p. 16), the genealogical records cover three periods, settlement, exploratory or migratory, and mythical. The settlement period commenced with the historical settlement of the land and extends to the present time. The exploratory phase covered the period from the departure from an ancient homeland to the beginning of the present occupation. The mythical period dealt with the creation of the gods and the origin of human life. Even in the mythical period the order of creation and natural phenomena were personified and arranged in genealogical order. In the preservation of genealogies, an outstanding element of all Polynesian culture, native scholars have provided a chronological skeleton for traditional history. Whereas the Western historian refers to a calendar date of solar years, the Polynesian refers, then, to the number of generations of human beings (uki tangata) in dating past events. Because the genealogies covering the three periods are elaborate, their preservation and teaching were delegated to persons trained to feats of memory. These people, in Polynesia, formed the educated priesthood. It can there- page 21 fore be understood that unless priests accompanied the first settlers to an island the historical records of that island are likely to be abridged and unsatisfactory. The noted explorers of high rank, accompanied by chiefs of status and skilled priests and astronomers, did not seek out small atolls. They preferred the high islands with ample area for distribution and fertility for the production of food supplies. The character of the explorers is reflected in the traditional history, genealogies, and social structure subsequently revealed by the field research of foreign students.

In Rakahanga the only voyages of the long migratory period recorded are those of Huku and Wheatu from Rarotonga. Beyond the statement that Huku and Tapairu were either the children or the grandchildren of Hiro, no pedigrees are recorded to extend over the migratory period from the mythical past. The widespread myth of Maui was evidently one of the few things remembered, and it was interpolated to link with the recent period of Huku. No definite mythical period is recorded, nor are primary parents, represented in some areas by Atea and Papa, remembered. Whakahotu appears in the name of the spot in the ocean whence Rakahanga emerged, but though there is an indication that Whakahotu was personified, she does not appear as a primary nature mother as she does in Tongarevan myth. The god Tangaroa appears as the father of Maui as he does in Rarotongan myth. No reference is made, however, to his brothers, Tane, Rongo, and others who occupy such a prominent position in the Polynesian pantheon. The gods worshiped were local gods not elsewhere known. Rakahanga has preserved even less of Polynesian myth than Tongareva (29, p. 85). The first settler, Toa, must be held responsible for what knowledge of outside history and institutions was brought into the country. Rakahangan chiefs and heads of families subsequently learned the family pedigrees covering the settlement period, for inheritance and succession were based on these, but much has been forgotten since the advent of Christianity.

The family pedigrees covering the settlement period were recorded for this study from evidence given by witnesses before the Native Land Court held in Rakahanga in June, 1929. All the witnesses were acquainted with the main facts concerning Toa's marriages, but only a few could trace a connected line from Toa to themselves. Most could trace pedigrees to ancestors through 6 to 12 generations but could not connect them with the main lines. The families of Toa's daughters were confused, and some ancestors were given different names and different parents.

Out of this confusion a lineage given by the pastor, Kairenga, is selected, as it gives his lineal descent from Toa (Table 1). Another connected line was given by Haumata-tua, but it includes a list of persons who held one of the ariki titles. In pedigrees which include lists of ariki, younger brothers page 22 who may have held the title are apt to be recited in a direct lineal descent, and the number of generations is thereby incorrectly increased. Unless the collaterals can be checked, it is safer to use a junior line to judge length of occupation.

Table 1. Descent from Toa

Table 1. Descent from Toa

If the allowance of the Polynesian Society of 25 years to a generation is accepted, the 22 generations from Toa to Kairenga's adult nephew, Mata, would make a settlement period of 550 years. Toa would have landed in Rakahanga in about the middle of the fourteenth century. This date agrees with the date of the last migration to New Zealand and with the approximate date of settlement by Mahuta in Tongareva. Rarotonga was settled by Tangiia about a century earlier.

The first part of Table 1 ends with Kanohi in the 10th generation. Kanohi married Tautape, the last ariki to rule singly over the atolls. The period of the dual ariki commences with the 11th generation and consists of page 23 12 generations. The column on the right of the table gives the descent in the 11th generation from Te-patiti, a younger brother of Tuteru-matua. This line is three generations shorter than the line given in the left column. Two other lines which connected with the Kanohi-Tautape generation (10) are also about nine generations long, so the second period may be only a little more than 200 years, instead of 300 years as the Kairenga line would indicate. A discrepancy as to the length of the first period from Toa to Tautape on another line is discussed on page 46.

A pedigree skeleton has now been provided to which collaterals may be linked as the story develops.

Marriages of Toa

The human population is referred to in Rakahanga as the kura tangata, the line of descent as the katiri tangata, and the biological family as the puna. Toa and Tapairu and their four children are referred to historically as the puna mua (the first family). In New Zealand puna means a wife and puna rua, a second wife. In Hawaii punalua means the two wives of one husband or the two husbands of one wife. The two husbands of one wife may be regarded as a late development with a limited distribution. To the Polynesian in general the dominant reason for marriage was the procreation of children to perpetuate the line of descent. Though to the native mind the term puna may apply particularly to the offspring, the parents are not entirely disassociated. The very mention of the puna recalls the parents, and the puna cannot be described without mentioning the parents—“Te puna mua a Toa raua ko Tapairu, e wha tamahine: ko Kae, ko Poe, ko Naunau, e Nanamu.” (The first family of Toa and Tapairu consisted of four daughters: Kae, Poe, Naunau, and Nanamu.) The children of this marriage were all girls, and their names are given in order of birth. Some pedigrees give a different order, making Poe first and Naunau last. Gill (10, vol. 2, p. 281) gives their names as Vai, Navenave, Pae, and Nannau, but as every consonant must be followed by a vowel, Nannau at least has been spelled incorrectly. Throughout this early period considerable confusion exists in the pedigrees given by different families.

It is obvious that in the settlement of an uninhabited island by one biological family the perpetuation of the human stock must be continued through incestuous marriages. The members of Toa's first family were all females and he desired male issue (kua hinangaro ki te kapi tane). Had some of the first family been males, it is probable that brother and sister marriages would have been consummated to meet the problem. No sons having been born to Tapairu, Toa married his eldest daughter to obtain male issue (kapi tane) whereby the line of descent (katiri tangata) might be continued.

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With a few exceptions, as in Tongareva, close marriages were favored by Polynesians. In the highly sophisticated cultures of Hawaii and Rarotonga brother and sister marriages took place for the purpose of perpetuating chiefly lines of high rank. The theory that peoples of lower cultures have an instinctive horror of incest is not substantiated in Polynesia; where prohibitions exist they may be attributed to a cultural development. Father-daughter marriages probably would not have occurred in Rakahanga, however, except that there was apparently no other solution to the difficulty. The eldest daughter, Kae, bore a female child, and the problem remained unsettled. The child was named Tupunoa, which carries the idea of “growth to no purpose” and bears witness to the disappointment that must have been engendered by the birth of a girl child. Any psychological inhibition against a father-daughter marriage having been once broken down, Toa married his second daughter in search of male issue. Again the child was a daughter. He married his third daughter, Naunau, and, according to some authorities, the issue was again a daughter. Other genealogists state that male issue was born. Toa then married his youngest daughter, Nanamu, in his determination to obtain male issue. Later, he even married his daughter-granddaughter, Tupunoa. The necessity of providing male issue to perpetuate the human species was the dominant consideration.

The people of Manihiki and Rakahanga do not express any repugnance at the action of their ancestors, for they say that had such marriages not been made there would have been no kura tangata. By both Nanamu and Tupunoa, Toa had male issue. The problem of the perpetuation of the stock having been settled, father and daughter marriages ceased and were not repeated from Toa's period to the present day.

Considerable contradiction exists regarding Toa's families by his daughters. Gill, who visited the atolls in 1852, recorded the following genealogy (10, vol. 2, p. 281):

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Ikutau (Hukutahu) married his first cousin and had five children, whose sexes are not given. Attention has already been drawn to the incorrect spelling in this list. The Ikutau family given cannot be traced by the present generation.

From a manuscript written in the native language by Tairi, one of the two first Rarotongan missionaries who went to Rakahanga in 1849, Gill records the following genealogy (13, pp. 143, 144):

The parentage of Hoturangaranga and Tutonga is not given. They may have been among the retainers of Toa, if he had any retainers. After male issue had been produced by Toa, any restriction that may have existed against marrying with retainers' stock may have been relaxed.

Kairenga gave his own pedigree from Matangaro. He stated that Matangaro married his aunt, Poe, but Gill's pedigree showing that Matangaro married Poe's daughter is more likely to be correct. Kairenga gave Matangaro's family as consisting of two daughters, Paevaka and Horoeka, and a son, Rua-ariki.

Haumata-tua gave the pedigree in Table 2 before the Native Land Court. page 26
Table 2. Issue of Toa

Table 2. Issue of Toa

If this pedigree is compared with that given by Gill, the confusion is apparent. In the two tables, though the names of the mothers are reversed, the brothers Matangaro and Hukutahu are given as the sons of the youngest daughter.

Of the second families, those who became most important were the male children of the youngest daughter. Of these, Te-pori-o-kaivai evidently died young and without issue. The outstanding ancestors are the second and third sons, Matangaro and Hukutahu. On the evidence adduced, Table 3 probably represents more nearly what took place with the main characters in the second group of four families.

Table 3. Second Families

Table 3. Second Families

In the second generation, except for the marriage of Toa, incest was avoided, as first cousins were available for marriages. It is likely that other first cousin marriages took place, but the records are as confused. It may page 27 possibly be, as Kairenga maintained, that aunt and nephew marriages took place and that the confusion in the pedigrees is but a reflex of the confusion that actually existed at that period. Matters subsequently righted themselves and it is now immaterial which daughter of Toa produced which family. Certain it is that Matangaro and Hukutahu are the outstanding ancestors from whom descent is traced. Their brothers and cousins, whose alliances are not clear, nevertheless had families whose offspring formed the mass of the community which clustered around the more dominant, or chiefly, lines.