Ruatapu
Ruatapu was a son of the great chief Uenuku, and a master canoeist in Polynesian tradition who is said to have lived around 30 generations ago.
[4] Ruatapu and his father Chief Uanuku Rakeiora lived at Taputapuatea on Ra'iātea some 30 or so generations ago, and were descendants of Iro-nui-ma Oata.
[4] After many days and nights at sea, Ruatapu arrived at Tongatapu where the first person he met was Tapotuki Tonga, who informed him that the island's ariki was Chief Kaukura.
[3] While the child was still young, Ruatapu decided to leave again, but first instructing Tapotuki Tonga's father Rangiura to take Moenau back to Rarotonga to be with Uanukukaiatia and Tamaiva, to share chiefly authority.
Two warriors named Taratekui and Taratekurapo were chosen to kill Moenau using a fine cord made out of coconut-fibre (kaa natipui).
After luring him out of his house, they caught him by the testicles with the cord and overpowered him, killing him with spears before throwing the body into a cave in the Makatea.
Due to the amount of time that had passed, he feared the worst, and tracked down his eldest son Tamaiva to ask where Moenau and Rangiura were.
[3] Alternatively, Te Aukura had told him on their first meeting what had happened to Moenau, and so he killed a large number of the island's inhabitants by rolling the logs of coconut trees atop of them from a higher place.
[4] The next evening he arrived at Atiu Island and went ashore, meeting the ariki Chief Renga, who asked him to help improve a natural passage through a reef called Taunganui, and make it fit for canoes.
So Ruatapu gathered the bark of an au tree and treated it with kiriau - a process of leaving it in the sea for a few days before bringing it to land, to keep it from rotting for about a year.
The next time the nets were left and pulled out, the brothers did the same as before, Kirikava's actions only making Ruatapu angry for not following tapu traditions.
At this Kirikava left the home, and settled his own marae called Aputu and married Te Nonoioiva, with whom he had a son named Maevarangi.
He gave them the canoe Tueumoana, and it took three days for them to arrive at the smaller island where Ruatapu had earlier planted the flowers and coconuts.
This he did, landing at a passage called Ruaikakau near the settlement of Reureutematao Te Erui, where he took Tiapara and Punanga-atua as his wives before visiting Ruatapu to deliver news of his son.
One day, Ruatapu went up to the highest point of Aitutaki where he rested under an utu tree, out of anger towards his son Kirikava, in search of a new home.
He asked him to sit down so they could talk to each other, and they arranged two lines of black stones as they resolved their differences, calling the spot Te Ruatoke.
This Kirikava did and Ruatapu continued on into the Arutanga district to a settlement called Anainga, where he found the people bringing food to the ariki, Chief Taruia.
Ruatapu decided to take Taruia's place as ariki, and created a small model canoe called a kopae out of coconut leaves.
Taruia, living at Orongo, said this was an akairo (sign) that another ariki was present on the island and that his people should find this ariki somewhere at a place called Te Upokoenua in the northern end of the island, where indeed Ruatapu was found sitting in the sand, and was brought back to Taruia via an inland route as opposed to by the coast, else the god Rongo would devour him.
Some days later Ruatapu suggested they dam a small creek named (Vai)Reirei from running into the ocean, wasting fresh water.
Ruatapu quickly righted his canoe and headed back for Aitutaki, calling all the mataipo together and telling the people that he did not know whether Taruia was alive.
Taruia, having safely landed at Avarua in Rarotonga, slowly began to realise what Ruatapu had done, and feared he had stolen the title of ariki from him.
The people of Aitutaki saw Taruia's war party heading back near Tapuotuki, and Ruatapu decided to engage them in a fight, so they battled at the Ruaikakau passage, in the water.
[3][4] In some traditions, his early descendant Urirau returned to Aitutaki and reclaimed the position of ariki through his success in performing a ritual at the marae of Rongo.
Soon, news came from Ruatapu's home village Taputapuatea that a new warrior named Tuotakura had become known amongst many islands as talented in martial arts skills such as wrestling and spear-fighting.
This defeat, which Ruatapu could not correct himself as he was too old, depressed him so much that it sent him into bad health, and before long he had passed away, making Kirikava the new ariki of Aitutaki.
As revenge, Ruatapu enticed most of Uenuku's children into his canoe, sailed them to the ocean, and then sank it in an event called Te Huripureiata.
[7] In yet another telling says that Chief Uenuku made a canoe for the nobility and was preparing the hair of all 70 of his noble children for their first sail inside of it.
[8] In a tradition of Ngāti Porou, Ruatapu became angry when his father Uenuku elevated his younger half-brother Kahutiaterangi ahead of him in status.
Ruatapu lured Kahutiaterangi and a large number of young men of high birth into his canoe, and took them out to sea where he drowned them.
