Tiki the First Man

 Tiki the First Man 

(A Legend from Mangareva/Tuamotu/Marquesas)

Tiki was the first man.

It was said among our people that when Tiki was born Atea himself set Tiki apart to bring forth all the children of men in this world below.

When Tiki was young his parents said to him, 'You, Tiki, go outside and play,' and they remained together inside the house.

One day when he was playing by himself Tiki grew tired of the games he knew. He returned to the house and saw his parents at their own enjoyment. Tiki desired this. He therefore went away from the house and he heaped up earth in the form of a woman. He gave it a body and a head, with arms and legs, and breasts and ears and all that was required to make a woman. Having done this he acted in the manner of his father, and he there became a man.

Tiki took that woman for his wife, and her name was Hina one, that is Earth Maid.

The child that was born to Hina one was a human being, and they named her Tiaki te keukeu. She grew handsome. One day Hina one asked her husband to go to the world below to fetch some fire for them, for all the fires in that village had gone out. But Tiki was lazy and he refused, and so his wife said, 'Then indeed I shall go myself to get us fire.'

'No, no,' said Tiki, 'let us stay here quietly,' and they argued thus; but Hina was strong in her will. She said to her husband, 'You stay here. You have your daughter. I will go to the world beneath, as the moon goes.'

And Hina went below. And she was swollen with child, like the moon. In the world below she gave birth to her twin sons Kuri and Kuro, who knew not their father.

***

Tiki remained in Havaiki with his daughter; yet it was not seemly that he should have her openly. He therefore built an inland house in a valley of that land, and he said to his daughter: 'You live up there, and I shall live down here by the sea. Up there you will find the house that I have built and a man there who resembles me in every way. You will think it is Tiki, but you will be mistaken.' So Tiaki te keukeu did as her father had told her; she went up the valley to that other house.

Now Tiki ran swiftly by another path, and he reached the house before her. When Tiaki arrived he greeted her saying, 'Welcome, respected one! Enter this house of mine! Be seated on this mat!' That girl did so, she went into the house, and Tiki desired her. He took her with his hands. She cried out, 'No, I do not wish to. You are my father.' And Tiki pressed her, saying,'It is true that your father and I are as like as two drops of water, but he is down there by the sea. I am of the upland.'

Soon that girl consented to live with Tiki in that house, and children were born to them. But after a time she became disgusted with her father, and she left him to seek her mother in the world below.

Her mother was disgusted also when her daughter told her, and they two made a plot to kill Tiki. They lit an oven in which to cook him, and sent the god Tuako up to fetch him. But Kuri and Kuro, the twin sons of Tiki, who knew not their father, made objection, and they prevented it. When Tuako went to the world above he brought back a man named Katinga. It was Katinga whom they cooked and ate instead of Tiki.

***

While Tiki and his daughter were living together he told her one day that he was going out to catch fish. He asked her to follow him later with a basket for the fish. 'You will come to the beach,' he said, 'and go to a place where you will see a flock of birds hovering about something which is sticking out of the sand. That will be the place.'

And so Tiaki did as he had told her, she went to the beach with her fish basket. She saw the flock of birds and also something standing up above the sand. Thinking that it was their pointed stick for stringing fish, she took hold of it and pulled. And Tiki, who had covered his body with sand, jumped up crying, 'Who's this, pulling on my ure?' And he laughed at her shame.

When she saw that it was her father and that what she had in her hand was his, Tiaki reproached him: 'O Tiki, this is a dreadful thing that you have done, a most horrible act of yours!' And he laughed at her again; and she called him : ‘Tiki the slimy’, and ‘Tiki the rigid', and 'Tiki the trickster'. That is how Tiki earned those names of his.

After these events were known, the women of that land did not like Tiki. They called him ‘Tiki the god of kaikaia’, meaning a person who eats human flesh or who sleeps with his relations.

***

It was said of Tiki that he was two men, a handsome Tiki and an ugly Tiki; and the people saw his ugly and his handsome side at different times.

One day Tiki asked his womenfolk to make him a maro to wear around his waist. To tease him they gave him a maro full of slits and holes. He therefore made one for himself, and he wore it back-to-front so that the tail hung down before him. Then with his eyes and nose all streaming with the mess that comes from there, and uttering noises from his bottom, he made his way up the valley, taunting them.

'Kill him! Kill him!' cried the people when they saw this. But when they tried to catch him Tiki disappeared, and suddenly he returned to them in his handsome form. It was said that Tiki kept all his ugly features in the hole in his bottom and took them out when he wished to wear them.

One day when Tiki appeared in that valley in his evil form the people caught him. They tried to pull his eyes out but they could not. They pulled out his tongue and tied it in a knot, but he untied it. They tried to knock his teeth out but they would not loosen. They cut his ears off, but he picked them up and stuck them on again. They cut off his ure, but he picked that up and put it back. They cut off his feet, but he put them on again, and the same when they cut off his arms. At length those people cut open Tiki's belly and they unravelled everything in there. At that he burst into tears and he ran away from all those people to the beach, and he remained there for a long time, sleeping in the sand.

They caught him again. They tried to rub off his skin with pieces of coral, but it would not leave his body. They lit an oven to roast him, but they could not drag him into it. Suddenly while the people were doing all these things the ugliness of Tiki left him, and he was handsome again before their eyes. Immediately all the women desired Tiki, and there was a great commotion. The women cried out to the men, 'Now leave him alone! Leave him alone!' So the men gave Tiki to the women, and at once he was ugly again; therefore they seized him and tore him to pieces. Yet every time they did this, Tiki was restored.

When they had torn him apart three times Tiki escaped from those women, and he slept once more in the sand by the sea, all covered up except his eyes. As he lay there a great sea-eel came, and it seized him by the foot.

Tiki cried out to his wife, Hina one, 'Bring me my knife, my cutting-shell!' Hina one was wearied of Tiki's tricks, and she answered, 'I am tired of sleeping with a demon.' But she took his head and pulled, and the eel pulled also, and there was a tugging match between them. Suddenly while the eel and the woman were pulling. Tiki disappeared.

This story of Tiki is concluded.

Tiki - Marquesas Islands, circa 1800

Source:

Legends of the South Seas

Antony Alpers

1970

Pages: 68-72