Mark's Pages

"When Cook went ashore the next day [8 September 1773], he paid a visit to the Borabora regent of Ra'iatea, a chief named Reo. Reo was a middle-sized, well-built man with a thin reddish beard and a lively, intelligent face, who asked to exchange names with his visitor. He also enquired after Tupaia, and was interested to hear about his death in Batavia. The atmosphere in Reo's house seemed cheerful and relaxed, and he joked and laughed with the Europeans in a very friendly manner. He had an elderly wife and two teenage children, one of them a pretty girl about fourteen years old. Later that day, when the Forsters went off to hunt birds, they shot three kingfishers and a grey heron, although George Forster should have known better, since he had already been reproached for killing such birds on Huahine. When they met Reo and his family shortly afterwards the young girl wept to see the sacred birds dead, and Reo told them very solemnly no to kill any more kingfishers and herons on his island." — Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog