Clan

History Of Teva

Interesting Glimpse of Old Tahiti

READERS of Cook’s “Voyages”, and of the many volumes dealing with Tahitian history that have been written since his day, meet with numerous ref erences to the Teva Clan.

The most authoritive history of this powerful tribal organisation is contained in the scholarly introduction to Volume II of “Quest and Occupation of Tahiti by Emissaries of Spain during the Years 1772-1776”, written by Doctor Bolton Glanvill Corney, the author of that monumental work.

“Much of the family history of their clan, the Teva, has been preserved in native sagas and other forms of oral tradition, and was gathered together into writing by the late Arii Taimai. Time was. she explains, when (some three centuries or so ago) the heads of two families in Tahiti used the right to gird themselves with the maro ura. or sacred cincture of scarlet loriquets’ feathers, which constituted the insignia of most exalted rank and godliness. They were the chief of Vaiari. a small district ad joining the isthmus on its western border, and the chiefess of Punaauia, situated farther along the same coast’ of Tahiti- Nui.

“The titular designation of the Vaiari chief was Terii-Nui-o-Tahiti: that of the lady was Teua-Nui-e-Marua-i-te-ra'i.

But the overlord of Papara, whose dis trict lies between the two above named, possessed alone the right to wear the maro tea, the nap of which was formed of saffron-coloured feathers- and he was officially styled Terii-rere-i-To'oara i

“These august personages were termed arii rahi, or overlords; and, being esteemed to be descended from the gods of the nation, their persons were re garded as sacred, so that subordinate arii and ra’atira (or gentry) stripped them selves to the waist in their presence, in token of respect.

“In the remote past, the arii rahi of Vaiari was, in likewise, Patriarch of the Teva, a large and influential clan occupy ing the south-western part of Tahiti-Nui and all the lesser peninsula called Taiarapu. It seems to have been the only clan- of its quality and magnitude in the island: its prestige had no parallel, and was rivalled only by that of certain chiefly septs of Ra’iatea (the Olympus of Eastern Polynesia), Moorea, and Atehuru —which last included the Punaauia family.

“The patriarchal dignity passed long ago, however, from Terii-Nui to Terii- Rere, his kinsman of Papara; whether by devolution or by usurption is, I think, a matter of doubt. But - thenceforward the right to convoke the Teva chieftains and their clansmen for moot, raid or defence vested in the last-named chief—the wearer of the maro tea, in the Marae To’oara’i.

“The Teva lands extended over eight districts (a typical number in Polynesia), but the clan comprised two stocks only: The inner division, or Teva-i-uta, who occupied the districts west of the isthmus, as far as the borders of Paea; ana the seaward division, or Teva-i-tai, who dominated the south-eastern, or lesser peninsula.

“The principal chieftain of the Teva i-tai, was the lord of Hui and Taiarapu, two districts united under the name Teahupoo (skull haan) and situated at the southernmost part of the peninsula, now called Taiarapu as a whole.

“The hereditary title or style of this

chief was Vehiatua, and, in some re spects at least, he acted as lord-lieuten ant of the peninsula under the suzerainty of the Papara Patriarch; for it was to Vehiatua only that the latter addressed his summons to council of war for all the Teva-i-tai districts, and it was Vehiatua’s office to pass on the call to each of his peers and barons. Thus we know that, as far back as tradition pre serves their history, the Vehiatuas were hereditary chiefs of the most notable rank and influence in Taiarapu.”

In the course of time the dominions of the Vehiatuas were extended to Hatutira (or Tautira, as it is now called) and “Vehiatua’s family became lords in residence of Hatutira, and built their manorial homestead and marae on the breezy and pleasant strip of flat land that juts into the lagoon beside the embouchure of the Vai-te-Tiha, where the Spaniards found them established in 1772-1776.”

Events conspired to add “influence and lustre to the Vehiatuas’ hereditary su premacy over other districts of the lesser peninsula. They did more: for Vehiatua i-Mata’i grew to be not only a power ful ally but a standing menace to the senior stock of his clan, and its overlord, the Patriarch of Papara—who, before this time, had acquired' the sacred, as dis tinguished from the temporal, character from Terii-Nui-o-Tahiti of Vaiario. This menace became extinguished, later on, by a marriage between Vehiatua, of the next generation but one. and a Papara chieftess, Te-eva Piroi. Prom this marri age issued another Vehiatua; and this last one’s son was the ‘thin old man, with a very white head and beard’ who con versed with Banks and Captain Cook on

the 27th of June, 1769.”

A.C.R.