Legend of the Emigration of Manaia

The cause which led Manaia to come here from Hawaiki was his being very badly treated by a large party of his friends and neighbours, whom, according to the usual custom when a chief has any heavy work to be done, he had collected to make his spears for him, for they violently ravished his wife Rongotiki.

It chanced thus: One day Manaia determined to have his neighbours all warned to come to a great gathering of people for the purpose of making spears for him; so he sent round a messenger to collect them, and the messenger arrived at the place of Tupenu, who listened to his message, and be, being chief of the tribe who lived at that place, encouraged his people to go in obedience to the message of Manaia. They went and set to work, and after some time it happened that Menaia felt a wish to go and catch some fish for his workmen; so he went off in his canoe, with several of his people. After he had been gone for some time, the workmen proposed amongst themselves to assault Rongotiki, the wife of Manaia; and they carried their intentions into execution without anyone knowing what they were doing. All this time Manaia, suspecting nothing, was paddling in his canoe out to sea; and when he reached the fishing ground, they lay on their paddles. Manaia's people soon caught plenty of fish, but he had not even a single bite, until at last, as they were on the point of returning, he felt a fish nibbling at his hook; so he gave a jerk to his line to pull it up, and when he got the fish up to the side of the canoe, to his surprise he saw that the hook was not in the mouth of the fish, but fast in its tail; and as this had long been esteemed as a sign that your wife was being insulted by somebody, he at once knew how his had been treated by his workmen. Without waiting, therefore, a moment longer, he said to his crew, "Heave up the anchor: we will return to the shore. " So they hove up the anchor, and shaped a course for the landing place on the main. Whilst they were pulling in to the shore, Manaia took the fish he had caught, and with the hook still fast in its tail, tied it on to one of the thwarts of the canoe, and left it there, in order that when Rongotiki saw it, she might know, without his telling her, that he was aware that she had been badly treated by his workmen.