Enata (Men)           Vehine (Women)
Na tupa efitu         Metui te vehine
Tupa oa ia fai        Puha Momoo
O tupa haaituani      O haiko
O nuku                Oui aei
O hutu                Moeakau
O oko                 Oinu vaa
O moota               O niniauo
O tiu                 Moafitu otemau
Fekei                 O mauniua
O tuoa                Hotaei
O meae                Oa tua hae
O tehu eo             Kei pana
O ahunia              Tui haa
O taa tini            Kei pana
Nohea                 Tou mata
Tua kina              Papa ohe
Tepiu                 Punoa
Tui feaa              Tuhina
Naani Eiva            Eio Hoki
Teani nui nei         O tapu ohi
Ani hetiti            Opu tini
O kou aehitini        O take oho
O taupo               O te heva
Tui pahu              Otiu hoku
O hupe                Oahu tupua
O papuaei             O honu feti
Pepene tona           Honu tona
Haheinutu             O taoho
Kotio nui             Taihaupu
Motu haa              Mu eiamau
Hope taupo            Tuhi pahu
Taupo tini            Anitia fitu
Ana tete              Pa efitu
Kihiputona            Tahio paha oho
Taua kahiepo          Honu tona
Mahea tete            Titihuti
Aino tete tika        Tua vahiane
Kui motua             Titihuti

Loud sang the names themselves, proclaiming the merits of their bearers or their fathers in heraldic words, in titles like banners on castle walls, flying the standard of ideals and attainments of men and women long since dust.

Masters of Sea and Land, Commander of the Stars, Orderers of the Waxing and Waning of the Moon, Ten Thousand Ocean Tides, Man of Fair Countenance, Caller to Myriads, Climber to the Ninth Heaven, Man of Understanding, Player of the Game of Life, Doer of Deeds of Daring, Ten Thousand Cocoanut Leaves, The Enclosure of the Whale’s Tooth, Man of the Forbidden Place, The Whole Blue Sky, Player of the War Drum, The Long Stayer; these were the names that called down the centuries, bringing back to Titihuti and to us who sat at her feet in the glow of the torches the fame and glory of her people through ages past.

How compare such names with John Smith or Henry Wilson?  Yet we ourselves, did we remember it, have come from ancestors bearing names as resonant.  Nero was Ahenobarbus, the Red-Bearded, to his contemporaries of Rome, at the time when Titihuti’s forefathers were brave and great beneath the cocoanut-palms of Atuona.  Our lists of early European kings carry names as full of meaning as theirs; Charles the Hammer, Edward the Confessor, Charles the Bold, Richard the Lion-Hearted, Hereward the Wake.

Titihuti, having gravely finished her chant, stood for a moment in silence.  Then, “Aue!” she said with a sigh.  “No one will remember when I am gone.  Water, my son, nor Keke, my daughter, have learned these names of their forefathers and mothers who were noble and renowned.  What does it matter?  We will all be gone soon, and the cocoanut-groves of our islands will know us no more.  We come, we do not know whence, and we go, we do not know where.  Only the sea endures, and it does not remember.”