Rarotongans

Those two fearlessly paddled towards the shore, which was now one brown stretch of Rarotongans crowded together to see this strange ship with wings that had sailed from over the sea's edge.

The Book of Missionary Heroes Basil Mathews

The Rarotongans seemed friendly; so Papeiha and Vahineino, who knew the ways of the water from babyhood and could swim before they could walk, waited for a great Pacific breaker, and then swept in on her foaming crest.

The Book of Missionary Heroes Basil Mathews

To-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely lighted, through perils by water and club and cannibal feast, have shone right across the ocean, and some of the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who were cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed away, as we shall see later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel of the love of God to the far-off cannibal Papuans on the steaming shores of New Guinea.

The Book of Missionary Heroes Basil Mathews

Their clothes were torn to tatters by the ferocious Rarotongans.

The Book of Missionary Heroes Basil Mathews

By the mid 1850s most Rarotongans were able to read, though the pace on the outer islands was slower.

Book & Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in New Zealand Penny Griffith 1885