User:KAVEBEAR/Teriitaria II

Teriitaria II, alson known as Pōmare Vahine or Ariipaea Vahine (1790–1858) was a Queen of Tahiti as wife of Pōmare II. She also served as regent to his successor Pōmare III and ruled the island kingdom of Huahine in her own right until 1852. Teri'i is a contraction of Te Ari'i, meaning sovereign, prince or princess. Teri'itari'a means "carried-sovereign" and Ari'ipaea means "sovereign-reserved" in Tahitian. There is no set spellings for the names of most Tahitian historical figures, nor is there any consensus on when to use the ʻeta (the Tahitian glottal stop); variation of her name include Tareederria and Ariipaia.

Life
Teriitaria was born around 1790 to Tamatoa IV and his wife Tura'iari'i Ehevahine. Her father was King of Raiatea while her mother was the daughter of Queen Tehaapapa I of Huahine. She was named after her uncle King Teriitaria I of Huahine.

She and her younger sister Teriʻtoʻoterai Teremoemoe married King Pōmare II of Tahiti. Her sister, the more attractive one, gave birth to Pōmare II's only surviving children: Prince Teriʻitariʻa and Princess ʻAimata. The young Prince Teriʻitariʻa succeeded as Pōmare III, and a council of regency was appointed consisting of the two widow queens, Teriʻitariʻa and Teriʻtoʻoterai Teremoemoe, and the five principals district chiefs of Tahiti. Teriʻitariʻa remarried to Ariipaea, one of the regents, and she took his name and called herself Ariipaea Vahine (Lady Ariipaea). Pomare II had meant to give most of the power to Tati, the chief of Papara, but instead, she became head of regency and guardian of the young king.

Unfortunately Pōmare III, died in 1827, leaving the throne to her sister Princess ʻAimata who succeeded as Queen Pōmare IV, while Ariipaea Vahine remained regent until the new queen reached maturity.

Excommunicated

In 1815, she was invested with the rule of the neighboring islands of Huahine and Maiao. After the death of her uncle Teriitaria I, Huahine had been ruled by her half-uncle Tenani'a and then his brother Mahine Tehei'ura. Mahine converted to Christianity in 1815 and abdicated in favor of his niece as formal monarch of Huahine. During her the early part of her reign, she ruled nominally from Tahiti while Mahine remain the residing ruler on the island.

The European missionaries didn't look to kindly to her reign on the island and called her a tyrant queen, most likely due to her hostility to Christianity and foreigners.

She was desposed in a civil war in 1850, and in 1852, her relative Ari'imate was installed as the new king of Huahine in her place. Teriitaria lived out the remainder of her days in Tahiti, under the care of her stepdaughter Pōmare IV. She died in Papeete in 1854.

The Trance of Arii-Paea-Vahine
"Early in the beginning of the nineteenth century, before Christianity was embraced in Huahine, the young queen of that island, named Teri'itaria (Queen-carried) or Ari'e-paea-vahine (Wife-of-sovereign- elect) had a strange experience. One afternoon while enjoying the breezes with her maids in waiting, as they sat upon a mat spread out beneath the shade of a breadfruit tree upon the lawn of her beautiful dwelling place in the village of Fare in Huahine, the queen sank back in a stupor, lay prostrate as though asleep for a few moments, and then stopped breathing, to the great consternation of her maids and finally of all her subjects, who supposed her to be dead. In a trance she lay wrapped in scented tapa during four weeks without showing the least sign of life. Meanwhile the ceremonies for the royal dead were performed over her, which ended by bearing her in state to the great marae of Point Manunu at Maeva (p. 148), and placing her upon an altar on the marae grounds, under a roof and covered over with a net. Here she was left, in charge of the clergy, to await her final burial, which, from affection for her, was indefinitely postponed. While thus entranced Ari'i- paea-vahine was conscious of nothing around her, but her spirit roamed. She thought she was travelling over the islands in company with other spirits, visiting places familiar and unfamiliar to her, till she met a spirit lover who carried her in his bosom to his home — a beautiful place with a large house, where two sisters also dwelt with him..."

Beside helping to raise her sister's children, she was also the adoptive mother of Eugenie Ninito..


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Battle of Maeva
They were supported almost unanimously throughout the Leeward group, where Pomare sheltered with her relatives — Tamatoa of Raiatea; Teriitaria, Queen of Huahine; and King Tapoa, Pomare's first husband, of Borabora and Tahaa. Bruat made up his mind in January 1845 to take over the group, but lacked sufficient forces to back up attempts to raise the French flag. He precipitated, instead, an unwelcome international investigation of the status of Pomare's “sovereignty” outside Tahiti and an eventual exchange in 1846 of British and French memoranda on the independence of the Leeward Islands. But before their fate was settled, Raiatea was declared to be under French blockade from April 15, 1845; a French Resident was landed on Huahine; King Tapoa was fined; and Capt. Bonard was ordered to take the Uranie and the Phaeton to Huahine to intimidate Queen Teriitaria and encourage a few French allies. 35 On January 17, 1846 Bonard landed 400 soldiers and marines at Fare harbour. The Queen's forces and some 20 European allies “most fiercely defended themselves by a hot and desultory guerilla warfare which the rugged nature of the ground, and the dense bush greatly favoured”. 36 At the - 14 end of two days, the French re-embarked after losing 18 killed and 43 wounded. 37

http://books.google.com/books?id=YEDHWT0bg9AC&lpg=PA7&dq=teriitaria%20regent&pg=PA30#v=snippet&q=queen&f=true

Maeva or Maiva

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=bonard+huahine

http://hercolano2.blogspot.com/2010/08/resistance-and-collaboration-in-french.html

http://www.hanahou.com/pages/magazine.asp?Action=DrawArticle&ArticleID=291&MagazineID=18 pipe-smoking and musket-wielding