TE PITO TE HENUA, OR EASTER ISLAND. 531 



Swimming towards him ; it proved to be the chief Huriarai, who was so 

 much exhausted that he was clubbed to death without making much 

 resistance. Vaha. however, landed some distance off, and creeping upon 

 the sentry killed him while he was bending over the body of his victim. 

 Vaha hastily buried the body of his chief among the rocks and taking 

 his victim upon his back swam back to his companions on the islet. The 

 people there were without means of making a fire and the body had to 

 be eaten raw. In the morning, when they saw the escape of their com- 

 rades from the cave and the desperate lighting on the cliff, they all swam 

 ashore and joined forces. 



The traditions, from this point, are a record of tribal wars, abounding 

 in feats of personal bravery and extraordinary occurrences, but of little 

 value to the history of the island. The discovery of the island by Hotu- 

 Matua and his baud of three hundred, together with the landing already 

 referred to, is probably correct and seems natural enough down to the 

 division of the laud and the death of the first king. The wars and 

 causes that led to the migration of the people from that unknown land, 

 called Marae-toe-hau, are no doubt based upon a foundation of facts. 

 There is no good reason for doubting the description of the climate of 

 their former home, which would, if accepted, locate it somewhere about 

 the equator, or at all events in the tropics. The heat could not be the 

 effect of volcanic action, or their legends would not state that the crops 

 were burned up by the sun at certain seasons. 



The improbable, not to say impossible, part of the story comes in, 

 where Machaa steals away and lauds upon the same island which his 

 brother's party reach two months later, by simply steering towards the 

 setting sun. There is not one chance in a million, that two canoes could 

 sail for thousands of miles, steering by such an uncertain and indefinite 

 course, and strike the same little island. The tradition states that Ho- 

 tu-Matua found the island uninhabited, and immediately contradicts 

 this, by the ridiculous story of his brother and his followers having been 

 there two months. It is not unlikely thai the natives, anxious to main- 

 tain the credit of the discovery of the island, attempt to account for 

 the presence of an earlier people in this way. This might account for 

 the killing of one of Machaa's men by the turtle, for it has no possible 

 bearing upon the story, beyond the fact that it would account for Ho- 

 tu-Matua finding a tomb or burial-place- on the beach al Anekena, when 

 he first landed. 



The story of Oroi disguising himself as a servant and sailing for 

 months in an open canoe, tilled with naked savages, without his identity 

 being discovered, is too absurd to be considered, beyond ascribing an 

 origin to the enemy or enemies who murdered Hotu-Matua's people, and 

 whose stronghold was on the rocky cliffs near Orongo. One peculiar 

 feature of the tradition is the allusion to the fighting-net, which must 



have been something after the fashion of those i\s^\ in old Roman times. 

 These nets are represented to have been square and weighted at the 



