mĀpe ou châTAignieR TAhiTien (InocArpus fAgIfer)./The MĀPe or TAhiTiAN ChesTNuT (INoCARPUS FAGIFER). 72 A legend of taro, māpē, sugar cane,’ava and hotu : Teihoturau (Manifold Fertility) When the world began, there was only darkness, te Pō, a night of beginnings that throbbed with possibility, from whence everything arose, even the light of day, and where everything returns. in the beginning, the egg that protected Ta’aroa floated in a void. Ta’aroa broke its shell. Perceiving his utter solitude, he returned to his eggshell curling himself into another that was better suited to the size of the young man he was. When he was grown, he decided to leave his shell once more, to face the outside world and make it somewhere for him to live. To make a place to welcome the various forms of life, he made the universe as a base. From his shell he created flattened rocks and sand ; from his spinal column he created mountain ridgelines ; from his sides, the slopes of mountains ; from his sexual organ and flesh, he made the earth’s riches ; from his hands and feet the solid earth ; from the nails of his fingers and toes, the shells and scales of marine animals ; from his hair and feathers, the plants and lianas ; from his intestines, freshwater creatures. Ta’aroa’s blood seeped into the red sky and the rainbow. his head remained sacred placedupon his still immutable body. he called forth other gods, who came into existence to create the world and fill it with all living things. Then, accompanied by Tū, he broughtup, out of the mysterious depths of the darkness, the first human in the world : Ti’i. To keep him company, they gave him hina-the insatiable- satisfied-onlyby- abundance, mother of humans, daughter of the gods Te Fatu and Te hotu. FliR TRH1T : LégENdE PoLyNésiENNE/POLYNESIAN LEGEND Text  : Simone Grand/illustration  : Vashee P.BACChet This first human couple, Ti’i and hina gave rise to the nobility and created servants for themselves. all their children were human, more or lessinbred closely related to the gods. in Tahiti, the groups lived in their designated fiefdoms, divided by rivers, whose resources they shared according to the exacting laws of tapu (taboos, sacred prohibitions) and rāhui (seasonal restrictions of gathering and fishing). When one group considered that they had been slighted by the breaking of a prohibition, often only a war could repair the offense. Teihoturau, (Manifold-fertility), the son of a noble family (arii ri’i), was for this reason drawn into a combat and killed. his family were able to recover his body. after having lamented, exceptionally, his body was cut into pieces and shared between those who loved him. They devoutly buried the pieces they received. To great astonishment, where his kidneys were buried grew a tree : inocarpus edulis, māpē, or Tahitian chestnut, with its trunk formedgreat buttresses of resonant wood and fruits shaped like kidneys. Those who interred his backbone, saw appearing from the earth shoots of sugarcane, tō, and piper methysticum,’ava. Those who carefully covered over the feet and lungs of their friend, were astonished to discover taro plants with large lung-shaped leaves. as for the heart, it offered its hosts a fine-looking tree, the hotu, Barringtonia speciosa, with its heart-shaped fruits that are used to stun fish and make precious medicines for external use.