The legend of Sinakapeimarama

As told by Kunaika

Te henua e nnoho...

Akaetantanoa was an earthly king. Sinakapeimarama was a heavenly queen (Her abode is called telani). Akaetantanoa had two wives, Pakana and Teokana. Some days Akaetantanoa would go swimming in a private pool. He would take off his loin cloth and go swimming. After swimming he would put back on his loin cloth and go home.

The next day, he would go through the same routine.

Every day Sinakapeimarama would be looking down from her heavenly abode, with interest at Akaetantanoa's antics. One day she descended on her kauhata (A kauhata is an elevator or raft). After she got off, her kauhata ascended, and Kauhata crept toward where Akaetantanoa had put his loin cloth, and stole it and hid it. After Akaetantanoa had finished his bath he climbed out of his pool but could not find his loin cloth. He started looking for it. After looking for some time he heard a female voice laughing in the bushes. He went toward the sound and found a woman holding his loin cloth.

"Are you a human being, or a ghost ?", he asked.

"I am am a human being", answered Asinakapeimarama.

Akaetantanoa asked again "Are you a real human being ?" Where did you come from?

"My name is Sinakapeimarama, I came from above (te lani). My abode is in the heavens, where I am queen ".

"I am Akaetantanoa", said Akaetantanoa. " I am king of this land". He then took his loin cloth from Sinakapeimarama , put it on and the two went Akaetantanoa's home; they got into Akaetantanoa's bed and ...

Meanwhile Pakana and Teokana had been busy preparing food for their husband Akaetantanoa. After the food was ready they waited for their husband to come and eat. After a long while they took the food and went into the house to check on Akaetantanoa. When they went into the house they found Akaetantanoa wrapped up in bed wrapping (purou), but there were four legs pointing out of the purou, instead of the expected two !!

This set the scenario for the days to come... Each day Akaetantanoa would go swimming in his pool, and come back and sleep with Sinakapeimarama, while Pakana and Teokana would have spend the day preparing and cooking food.

Each day after Akaetantanoa went out these two women would gossip (tupetupe).

"What sort of a woman is this, who sleeps all the time, and expects us to prepare food for her? ", they said.

However each morning, Sinakapeimarama's kauhata would descend from her heavenly abode, with her "raurau", or food-basket. This was laden with all types of food.

The other women never gossiped when Akaetantanoa was at home ... they would always wait for him to go out of the house. After this went on for some time Asinakapeimarama started to feel resentful and angry. She cried as follows

"Haimai haimai o kai e Pakana
Haimai haimai okai e Teokana
Tomanava epiko
Raurau tasi raurau rua e
Pi lo sake
Pi lo sake
Tukuihoooo

............

(You can listen to this tanni by clicking on the real audio clip or the WAV audio format)

She would keep crying until Akaetantanoa came from from his swim. He went straight to the bed to sleep with Sinakapeomarama. Discovering that she had been crying Akaetantanoa asked

"Why do you keep crying? Let's go to sleep"

But Sinakapeimarama kept on crying, she longed for her kauhata to come back and take her back to her home. This time she cried :

Taua moe moe tepo
Vasiria taua inoa
Akoe ko Akaetanotanoa se ariki oraro
Anau ko Sinakapeimarama se ariki oruna
Tuku ihoooo

...........

You can listen to this ttani by clicking on the real audio clip or the WAV audio clip

She kept on crying until her kauhata came down. She lept onto the kauhata. Akaetantanoa also tried to leap into the kauhata but was too late. The kauhata move upwards and as it went up Sinakapeimarama shouted

"Akaetantanoa e a noho " ("Good bye Akaetantanoa "). Akaetantanoa became very angry. He beat his two wives until they died. He then loosenned the posts of his house until it fell on top of him and crushed him to death.

The end.


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