Tyrant King

Descendants of a Tyrant King

Two stories of the Gilberts, by R. W. Robson, in May and June “PlM’s” {“How Trader Murdock’s Grandson Became King”, and “How the Head got into Hogshead ”) reminded Rob Wright, Fiji Public relations Office photographer, that he had visited Abemama in 1944 and had taken some photographs of the descendants of Tem Binoka.

AS the May and June stories explained, Tern Binoka (spelled Timbinoka in the PIM version) was the tyrant king of Abemama in the last 20 or so years of the I9th century. He is reputed to have had 40 wives and 20 concubines but nonetheless, failed to father a son, and Tern Binoka’s line was carried on through a niece, Nei Rita, who was still living when Rob was in the Gilberts.

Also still living, according to Rob Wright, were two wives of Tern Binoka —although the old king must have been dead then at least 40 years.

Tern Binoka’s “prime minister” was a blown-away Scot called George Murdoch. Murdoch married a Gilbertess woman and they had a daughter, Agnes, who was sent to America to school.

When she returned, Murdoch married her off to Tokatake, the son of Nei Rita. They had a son, Tekenaiti, and apparently other children.

It seems that Tekenaiti became

King of Abemama late in World War 11, but there seems to be some doubt as to whether he retained the title. He married the daughter of Captain Jimmy Smith, another famous trader of the Gilberts.

During the latter part of Tern Binoka’s reign, Robert Louis Stevenson stayed for a while in the Gilberts and Tern Binoka built him a series of houses which he called “Equator Town”. One of RLS’s friends on the island was Te Kop (properly Te Kapu) whom the writer described as the “loveliest animal on Abemama”.

Rob Wright took a picture of Te Kop, then a very old man, sitting on the coral block that marked the site of Equator Town.

Rob said to the old man: “Stevenson said that when you were young you were the handsomest man on Abemama. I can see from looking at you now that it must have been true”.

“Yes,” said Te Kop, gravely. “It was true.”

These are the descendants, and one of the contemporaries, of Tem Binoka, tyrant King of Abemama, as Rob Wright's camera saw them in 1944. Above left, Tem Tekenaiti and his sister (children of Agnes Murdoch) stand beside the tomb of Tem Binoka, who was their great-grand-uncle. Right, Te Kop sits on the stone that marked the site of Stevenson's Equator Town. R.L.S. thought Te Kop the 'handsomest man on Abemama", and Te Kop concurred. Below, is Nei Rita, niece of Tem Binoka, through whom the chiefly title descended to Agnes Murdoch's son.