ahu: stone platform, sometimes built of layers in pyramidal fashion, typically placed at one end of a marae. This was not an altar, but a sacred resting place for spirits who attended the ceremonies.
’ape: wild plant with large, glossy leaves. The thick root required long baking, and was eaten only in times of famine. Alocasia macrorrhiza.
ari’i (ariki): a chief, or a person of the highest class.
Arioi society: a cult devoted to worship of Oro in his peaceful aspect as Oro-of-the-laid-down-spear. In this role he also served as a fertility god. atoll: a ring of coral islands that surrounds or partially surrounds a lagoon.
ava: a relative of black pepper. The roots and stems were used to make an intoxicating, nonalcoholic drink. (Known as kava, and still popular today in the Fiji Islands and elsewhere.) Piper methysticum.
breadfruit: the staple food of ancient Tahiti. A single tree can produce hundreds of pounds of fruit. When eaten baked, it resembles the flavor and texture of yam or squash. Artocarpus incisa.
candlenut: oily nut of the candlenut tree, Aleurites molucanna. The shelled seeds were strung on a coconut leaf midrib and one was set afire, each nut burning in turn, to light the interior of a house.
Eimeo: the island known today as Moorea, about eleven miles northwest of Tahiti.
fax: the art of making string figures, popular throughout Polynesia; “cat’s cradle.”
fara: pandanus or screwpine trees. A principal source of food (seeds and fruit) for many atoll people. Also an excellent source of thatch for roofs.
fe’i: mountain plantain. Bears small banana like fruits that turn reddish yellow when ripe. Eaten cooked. Musa fehi.
Fenua Ura: an atoll known today as Scilly Island or Manuae, lying at the western extremity of French Polynesia.
hanihani: to caress, fondle.
hara: transgression, guilt. Often thought of as a substance that could flow from one person to another.
heiva: a festivity that typically includes feasting, performances, and dancing.
hotu: a large tree of the Brazil-nut family. The seeds were used as a fish poison. Barringtonia.
ihe: a dart or spear.
mafera: to fish for aahi at night.
mahi: sour paste made of fermented breadfruit; certain types of mahi will keep for months.
mahimahi: the dolphin fish, not the marine mammal.
mana: sacred power, which was considered capable of transmission by touch. Humans as well as objects possessed mana to varying degrees.
manahune: the lowest class of landowning people.
manava: expression of welcome.
Maohi: the Tahitians’ word for themselves; literally “native.”
marae: an open-air place of worship, usually a rectangular courtyard bounded by low stone walls, with an ahu at one end.
maro: a narrow piece of cloth worn by men about the hips, made of bark-cloth or finely plaited matting.
mati: a tree whose berries were an ingredient of the Tahitians’ crimson dye. Ficus tinctoria.
Matopahu: lit., “steep-sided rock.”
miro: Tahitian rosewood, Thespesia populnea. Considered sacred, it was planted about the marae and its boughs were used in religious ceremonies.
monoi: aromatic coconut oil, scented with such ingredients as sandalwood, gardenia, and jasmine.
motu: a low island created by the exposed part of a coral reef.
nevaneva: an ecstatic frenzy said to be caused by a god possessing a dancer or actor.
nono: small green warty fruit. Morinda citrifolia.
opu-nui: marae attendants. The name may be translated as “big bellies” or “august stomachs,” referring to their partaking of food that was imbued with mana. Oro: Polynesian god of war. Son of Ta’aroa and Hina.
Patron god of the Arioi. One of the major gods of Tahiti at the time of European contact. Worship of Oro spread to
Tahiti from Raiatea. paeho: a weapon made of a length of wood with shark’s teeth bound along one edge.
pandanus: see fara.
Papara: a district of Tahiti’s western coast.
Paparangi: an atoll word for the sweet-smelling paradise where people of high birth went after death.
pipi: beach pea, a Tahitian vine used for making sashes worn by initiates into the Arioi society.
poi (poipoi): a pudding. In Tahiti, cooked and/or fermented breadfruit was generally the main ingredient. Many versions of poi were eaten.
po’o: a chest-slapper, or novice in the Arioi society. Porapora: island known today as Bora Bora.
rata (mape): the Tahitian chestnut tree, Inocarpus fagiferus.
Rimapoa: lit., “one who fearlessly handles the unpleasant.” sennit: a cord made from softened fibers of the coconut husk.
Ta’aroa (Tangaroa): generally viewed as the god who created all else. Considered too far removed from human affairs to be addressed directly in worship.
taio: a sworn friend, joined with another through a formal friendship pact.
tane: man, husband, lover. Tane: a principal god of Tahiti, to whom many marae were dedicated.
tapa: bark-cloth, made by pounding the softened inner bark of the paper mulberry, breadfruit, or hibiscus tree. Cloth was often dyed or painted, the best colors being scarlet and yellow. Rolls of tapa were prized as gifts, not only for their utility and beauty but because of the amount of labor they represented.
Tapahi-roro-ariki: legendary female atoll chief (lit. “Brains-cleaving-chief’).
tapu: sacred, forbidden. Something that is restricted.
taro: a widely cultivated plant of Tahiti. The root, when baked, is somewhat like a potato. The cooked leaves have the taste of mild spinach. Colocosia esculenta and Colo-casia antiquorum.
tatatau: person who marks the skin; a tattoo artist.
te: definite article, “the.”
Tepua-mua: lit., “foremost flower.”
teuteu: landless people, servants or laborers.
ti: small tree with many colorful varieties. Used for decoration and in sacred rituals. Cordyline terminalis.
tiare-maohi: famous Tahitian flower known for brilliant white petals in stellate formation, and delicate fragrance. Gardenia tahitensis.
lira: a twin-hulled canoe used in surface trolling for albacore.
toa: ironwood (casuarina), a hardwood tree with many uses.
Urietea: the island known today as Raiatea, located about 130 miles northwest of Tahiti. The center of the Oro cult was located here. Ruins of the great marae at Opoa can still be seen today.
ura: red feathers, the most valuable commodity the Tahi-tians possessed, essential for religious rituals and decorating sacred objects.
vahine: woman, wife, lover.
Selected Reading
Adams, Henry Brooks, Tahiti; Memoirs of Arii Taimai. Gregg Press, Ridgewood, N.J., 1968.
Bovis, Edmond de, Tahitian Society Before the Arrival of the Europeans, translated by Robert D. Craig, second edition. The Institute for Polynesian Studies, Laie, Hawaii, 1980.
Danielsson, Bengt, Love in the South Seas, translated by F. H. Lyon. Reynal & Co., New York, N.Y., 1956.
Davies, John, A Tahitian and English Dictionary, with Introductory Remarks on the Polynesian Language and a Short Grammar of the Tahitian Dialect. London Missionary Society Press, London, 1851.
Dodd, Edward, Polynesia’s Sacred Isle. Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1976.
Emory, Kenneth P., Material Culture of the Tuamotu Archipelago—Pacific Anthropological Records No. 22. Department of Anthropology, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, 1975.
——-, Stone Remains in the Society Islands. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin No. 116, Honolulu, 1933.
Ferdon, Edwin N., Early Tahiti As the Explorers Saw It 1767-1797. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Az., 1981.
Finney, Ben R., “Voyaging,” chapter 14 in Jennings, Jesse D., The Prehistory of Polynesia.Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1979.
Haddon, A. C, and Hornell, J
ames, Canoes of Oceania: Vol. I, The Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji and Micronesia. Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Special Publication No. 27, Honolulu, 1936.
Henry, Teuira, Ancient Tahiti. Bishop Museum Bulletin No. 48, Honolulu, 1928. Morrison, James, The Journal of James Morrison Boatswain’s Mate of the Bounty Describing the Mutiny and Subsequent Misfortunes of the
Mutineers Together with an Account of the Island of Tahiti. Golden Cockerel Press, Great Britain, 1933. Moulin, Jane Freeman, The Dance of Tahiti. C. Gleizel/Editions du Pacifique, Papeete, Tahiti, 1979. Nordhoff, Charles, “Notes on the Off-Shore Fishing of the Society Islands.” Journal of the Polynesian Society, 39 (1930): 137-173, 221-262. Oliver, Douglas L., Ancient Tahitian Society, three volumes. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1974.
Parkinson, Sydney, Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas. Caliban Books, Hampstead, London, 1984.
Saquet, Jean-Louis, The Tahiti Handbook, translated by Nancy and Dominique Bernard. Tahiti, 1989.
Varady, Ralph, Many Lagoons. William Morrow and Co., New York, N.Y., 1958.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1992 by Clare Bell and M. Coleman Easton
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