Cook put it down as Otaheite, pronounced by him Otahytee.  It was Cook’s carpenter who was building a house for a chief, a friend of Cook’s, and lost all his tools during the visit of the high priest of the god Hiro and his acolytes.  Hiro was the first king in their myths, and, until Christianity came, the god of business.  When Cook sailed away, the tools were taken to the marae, or temple of Hiro, where the priest said he would cause the prized tools to reproduce their kind, like fruit.  He planted them in a field near by and watched for results.  The lack of any result except rust was an able argument for the Christian missionaries, when they came, to destroy his cult by laughing at the foolishness of his ideas and the weakness of his god.

The discoverers reported that the Tahitians and all other Polynesians were thieves and liars, for the reason that they often seized pieces of iron, tools, and firearms that they saw on the ships or ashore in the houses occupied by the first whites, and then lied about their actions.  The whites killed scores for these crimes, one of the initial murders of Cook’s crew being the shooting of Chief Kapupuu as he departed in his canoe from their ship with some bits of metal he had taken.  Malo, the native historian, who heard the account from eye-witnesses, explained the incident as follows, first mentioning the sighting of Cook’s vessels and the wonder of the natives: 

One said to another, “What is that great thing with branches?” Others said, “It is a forest that has slid down into the sea,” and the gabble and noise was great.  Then the chiefs ordered some natives to go in a canoe and observe and examine well that wonderful thing.  They went, and when they came to the ship, they saw the iron that was attached to the outside of the ship, and they were greatly rejoiced at the quantity of iron.

Because the iron was known before that time from wood with iron [in or on it] that had formerly drifted ashore, but it was in small quantity, and here was plenty.  And they entered on board, and they saw the people with white foreheads, bright eyes, loose garments, corner-shaped heads, and unintelligible speech.

Then they thought that the people [on board] were all women, because their heads were so like the women’s heads of that period.  They observed the quantity of iron on board of the ship, and they were filled with wonder and delight.

Then they returned and told the chiefs what they had seen, and how great a quantity of iron.  On hearing this, one of the warriors of the chief said, “I will go and take forcible possession of this booty, for to plunder is my business and means of living.”

The chiefs consented.  Then this warrior went on board of the ship and took away some of the iron on board, and he was shot at and was killed.  His name was Kapupuu.  The canoes [around the ship] fled away and reported that Kapupuu had been killed by a ball from a squirt-gun.