The Sin at Awarua

Abstract

During the quiet hours before dawn, twin-hulled voyaging canoes from all around Polynesia began to gather off the coral reef fringing the southwestern end of Ra‘iâtea, a high, volcanic island a day and a half’s sail from Tahiti. Hawai‘iloa and Hokule‘a had just crossed the equator, sailing all the way from Hawai‘i, the northernmost outpost of the dispersed Polynesian nation. The elaborately carved Tahiti Nui, the largest canoe of the fleet, had made its way from neighboring Tahiti. The smallest, lively Takitumu, had come from Rarotonga, a week’s sail away to the southwest. The aptly named Te Aurere (the Flying Spray) represented Aotearoa, that massive land located still farther to the southwest beyond the warm seas and trade winds of the tropics. Two more voyaging canoes—Makali‘i from Hawai‘i and Te Au o Tonga from Rarotonga—were too far out at sea to arrive in time. The sailors aboard the assembled canoes waited expectantly, maneuvering their vessels in the darkness, taking great care to keep clear of the reef outlined intermittently by white flashes of surf. Gradually the eastern horizon began to brighten, washing out the stars and bringing into focus the mountainous silhouette of Ra‘iâtea. Then, when the sun rose above the island’s green peaks and flooded over the almost windless sea turning it from black to a deep translucent blue, the crews stirred. Taking up their paddles, they stroked toward the break in the reef known far and wide as Te Avamo‘a (literally, the Sacred Pass), into the lagoon that leads directly to Taputapuâtea, a great stone temple built just beyond the shore. Leading the procession was Te Aurere, the canoe from Aotearoa. As its twin hulls passed between the coral heads at the opening of the pass, Te Ao Pehi Kara, a Mâori elder, began to chant these somber words:

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