A young man named Maru-tuahu left home in quest of his father, who had
abandoned his mother before the son was born because he had been
unjustly accused of stealing sweet potatoes from another chief.
Maru-tuahu took along a slave, and they carried with them a spear for
killing birds for food on the journey through the forest. One morning,
after they had been on the way a month, he happened to be up in a
forest tree when two young girls, daughters of a chief, came along.
They saw the slave sitting at the root of the tree, and sportively
contested with each other whose slave he should be.
All this time Maru-tuahu was peeping down at the two girls from the
top of the tree; and they asked the slave, saying, "Where is your
master?" He answered, "I have no master but him," Then the girls
looked about, and there was a cloak lying on the ground, and a heap of
dead birds, and they kept on asking, "Where is he?" but it was not
long before a flock of Tuis settled on the tree where Maru-tuahu was
sitting; he speared at them and struck one of the birds, which made
the tree ring with its cries; the girls heard it, and looking up, the
youngest saw the young chief sitting in the top boughs of the tree;
and she at once called up to him, "Ah! you shall be my husband;" but
the eldest sister exclaimed, "You shall be mine," and they began
jesting and disputing between themselves which should have him for a
husband, for he was a very handsome young man.
Then the two girls called up to him to come down from the tree, and
down he came, and dropped upon the ground, and pressed his nose
against the nose of each of the young girls. They then asked him to
come to their village with them; to which he consented, but said, "You
two go on ahead, and leave me and my slave, and we will follow you
presently;" and the girls said, "Very well, do you come after us."
Maru-tuahu then told his slave to make a present to the girls of the
food they had collected, and he gave them two bark baskets of pigeons,
preserved in their own fat, and they went off to their village with
these.
As soon as the girls were gone, Maru-tuahu went to a stream, washed
his hair, and combed it carefully, tied it in a knot, and stuck fifty
red Kaka feathers and other plumes in his head, till he looked as
handsome as the large-crested cormorant. The young girls soon came
back from the village to meet their so-called husband, and when they
saw him in his new head-dress and attired in a chief's cloak they felt
deeply in love with him and they said, "Come along to our father's
village with us." On the way they found out from the slave that his
master was the far-famed Maru-tuahu, and they replied: "Dear, dear, we
had not the least idea that it was he," Then they ran off to tell his
father (for this was the place where his father had gone and married
again) that he was coming. The son was warmly welcomed. All the young
girls ran outside, waved the corners of their cloaks and cried out,
"Welcome, welcome, make haste."
Then there was a great feast, at which ten dogs were eaten. But all
this time the two girls were quarrelling with each other as to which
of them should have the young chief for a husband. The elder girl was
plain, but thought herself pretty, and could not see the least reason
why he should be frightened at her; but Maru-tuahu did not like her on
account of her plainness, and her pretty sister kept him as her
husband.