THE VAKA TAUMAKO PROJECT
The Story of Lata

Paramount Chief and Navigator Koloso Kaveia of the Duff Islands, founder of the Vaka Taumako Project. (Meph Wyeth)

The Story of Lata as told by Kaveia Koloso for Wooden Boat Magazine The Last Heirs of Lata    The Story of Lata remains the definitive guide to the building and sailing of tepuke. It is the Polynesian story about the first person to build a vaka. That person is named Laka in Hawaii, La'a in Tahiti, Rata in New Zealand, and Lata at Taumako. The full story is fragmented or lost in many places, just as the practice of Polynesian voyaging almost completely stopped in this century. But, the Taumakoan Story of Lata is especially informative about who, how and why to build and sail authentic vaka.    Perhaps Taumakoans know more of the story because the people of Taumako kept building tepuke until the late 1940's or early 1950's. Another part of this may be that, according to the story, Lata was born at Taumako and built the first vaka there, calling it a tepuke. Today at Taumako we may still see the tepuke mooring stones used by Lata, the place where Lata sharpened his tools, and the reef passage where Lata sailed out from never to return. There one may still hear the Story of Lata from the direct descendents of Lata, including Paramount Chief Koloso Kaveia..    The story is only really told by Taumakoans during the process of building and sailing a tepuke, and so the authentic 'story' takes many years. Here is a short summary of some parts of the story. The Story of Lata as told by Kaveia Koloso for Wooden Boat Magazine    'A pregnant woman demanded that her husband kill a particular father eel, of the type called tuna, that was the only one that would satisfy her cravings. The father eel sent each of his ten children out of their stone house to try to fool Lata, but finally went out himself to be caught into the waiting noose. The dying eel told the husband to tell his wife to cut off his tail and keep it in a bowl of water. When the baby was born his parents left him to live in that bowl of water and suckle on the tail of the tuna. This gave the child special creative powers (mana).'    'One day he walked out of his bowl and said "My name is Lata." '    'Eventually Lata decided to build a vaka. Lata was following a large group of people into the forest to see how they were going to try to build a vaka, when a teube bird asked him to untangle its leg from a vine. Ten people before him had ignored the pigeons plea. So when Lata helped him the teube told Lata he would show him how to build a tepuke, and how to do all the labor using spiritual means.'    'Teube showed Lata the tree and Lata (with the spiritual help of teube) felled it. The next morning Lata returned to the tree and saw that it was standing again! Lata was confused at first, but then he made sure of which tree it was and he felled it again. This time some chips from the tree fell into his basket. That night he heard those chips rustling around. The next morning the chips were not in his basket and that same tree was back together again, including every chip.    'Then a woman of mana named Hinora came out of the forest and said to Lata "this tree is mine." Lata disagreed. So Lata and Hinora went to the mountaintop to look at the traditional property lines extending from the mountaintop down to the end of the reef. Lata saw that she was right, the tree was in her area. So, Lata apologized. Then he asked her properly for permission to use her tree, and she granted it. Later on Lata gave Hinora a conch shell to blow in answer to his own each time Lata would sail the tepuke out of, or into, the reef passage.'    'When it came to lashing the vaka, Lata used sennit cordage as teube suggested. But Lata did not want the other people to see his lashings so he covered them with pandanus leaves. When the other people saw those lashings they copied them and lashed their own vaka with pandanus.'    'After Lata built the tepuke he sailed out beyond the reef. There he encountered ten people swimming in the sea. They had lashed their vaka with pandanus and it had broken up. One by one they begged Lata to come aboard and crew for him. Lata asked each one what he could do. The first said "I will bail for you." Lata replied "come aboard." The second said "I will manage the drinking coconuts for you." Lata welcomed him. The third said "I will steer for you." ...etc., etc., until the ninth man said "I will steal food for you." and Lata said "come on," and the last man said "I will have sex with your wife," and Lata paused, and thought to himself, "this man's family will be very grateful if I take him along, so I will simply watch him closely." Then Lata said "come aboard." '    'Lata and his crew sailed around during the day and in the evening Lata tried to return to Taumako, but could not. The passageway was blocked. The shell Lata gave Hinora to blow did not work, and Hinora was angry. So Hinora threw coconuts across then passage and they turned to stone, blocking the way back. That is why Lata never came back.'    'In his absence, we the people of Taumako are miserable and we fight among ourselves. When Lata returns we come together as a people and we feel joy.'