Spear of Pai

While Pai's mother was carrying her child in her womb, she had an irrepressible urge to eat uhi (Yam Ufi) photo opposite) and she told her husband. This yam then grew in profusion in the valley of Vaitepiha, so the husband went there. He began to dig at daybreak thinking he was alone in the valley. Alas, two witches lived in this forest; they spied on him, devised a stratagem, swore his death. The man dug again and again but lo and behold, the uhi root, bewitched, sank deeper and deeper.

He dug most of the day, cheerfully scooping up the earth he threw over his shoulder for he was very strong; when the sun had reached its zenith, it had dug so deep that, looking up at the sky, it now saw stars. It was then that the witches approached the edge of the abyss and buried the unfortunate man under the rocks.

As a young boy, Pai would ask other children, "Are you like me?" Do you only have your mother? These answered: "How? We have a mother and a father." He then asked his mother to explain to him why he was without a father. His mother then gave him the following answer: “When you were still in my belly, I wanted to eat uhi, that's why your father went to Vaitepiha where he was killed by the witches. »

The child rehashed this story and, little by little, his heart filled with a terrible thirst for revenge. He went back to his mother and asked her, "Where can I get a spear?" What tree should I use? She answered him: "In the Vaitepiha grows a tree of which your spear must be made." Go to the valley where you will easily find it, it is the tallest of all trees.

So he left, alone, or so he thought...

He found the tree, grabbed it, for it was very strong, and then tried to pull it out. But this tree belonged to the witches who clung to its roots; Pai fired and the witches fired harder. They continued like this, two against one, and the tree creaked under their repeated assaults. However Pai was of superior strength; he therefore managed to uproot the tree, but then saw, oh surprise, that the witches were clinging to the roots.

Pai killed them, tied them as one does with fish, then put them to dry in the sun. He took the tree to make his spear, then dug up a bone of his father to make the point.

He tried his spear in a jet that pierced a hill at the end of the valley. He picked it up and threw it again; it rose above the large island to fall back into the district of Punaauia. He followed it, picked it up and threw it a third time; it then rose above the channel, pierced a mountain at Moorea, and continued its race to reach the island of Raiatea who trembled when she planted herself there.

After relating this legend, Stevenson adds: “The holes made by this spear in the mountains are still visible today. The valley of many rivers, Vaitapiha, meaning more precisely according to what has been reported to me, "the chamber of waters", is one of the most beautiful valleys that exist; surrounded by mysterious mountains, its vegetation is lush and we are rocked by the song of the rivers and the wind. »