Travel Guide Poutoru

This village begins after Apoopuhi Point and extends for 1 km. It is known to Polynesians for being the scene of a famous legend, that of the moray eel of Poutoru. Tuturiteautama married a young woman in Raiatea and abandoned her for another when she became pregnant. The abandoned mother gave birth to a girl and a boy on her own. Depressed, she waited for the strong southeast wind, the maraamu, to blow and placed the twins in a large calabash, which she set adrift in the lagoon, trusting the elements to carry them back to their father's island. The babies came ashore at Otueheru Point, where they were taken in and raised. The girl was named Hei'uraitera'i and the boy Taarii. The children grew up together but in great discord, so much so that one day Hei'uraitera'i decided to flee: she ran to the edge of the lagoon, where the spirit of her grandmother the ogress rested, and begged her to find a new home. "My daughter, take off your clothes and dive into the sea," replied her elder. The girl complied, and as the water closed in on her, her body became that of a large and beautiful moray eel. The rocky point where she settled was named Apoopuhi, and the entrance to her refuge can still be easily seen today. Some even say that it communicates with a long underground river that Hei'uraitera'i would go up to cultivate tutu faraoa, those beautiful brown seeds, so sought after to adorn dance costumes.