He comes to Mahana’s defense when she’s being ridiculed. He tenderly rocks an upset baby in the middle of the night. Positive elements: Despite being treated poorly and cast aside by his fellow islanders (or perhaps because of it), Tama exhibits a wealth of good qualities. And there’s something else Tama must do, too … fulfill the promise he made to Mahana eight years earlier. Now he must decide between his birthright and the only father he’s ever known, Johnny Lingo. Then, on a voyage with Lingo, Tama discovers he’s much more than an orphaned baby lost on the high seas. The “god of blessings” seems to be with Tama when he washes ashore on the island of “The Great Johnny Lingo-wealthiest trader in all the islands.” There, he learns what it is to be a man under the loving, patient tutelage of Lingo, who instills in his young charge rich life lessons while training him in the fine art of trading. He reluctantly leaves Mahana behind, fervently vowing to return for her.
But the now-adolescent Tama can’t stand such a miserable life sentence, and builds a boat to escape. Fellow outcasts, Tama and Mahana quickly bond and together brave the cruel taunts of the other island children. Blown from one family’s hut to the next by the ill winds of gossip and slander, Tama is finally reduced to accepting scant food and shelter from the island drunk and his unkempt daughter, Mahana. Caving in to his wife’s hysteria, the chief eventually denounces Tama (now a young boy) and turns him out. Her words spark a wildfire of rumors, and soon Tama is being blamed for everything from missing trinkets to crop failures. “Only the god of mischief would send such a child straight from the undercurrents,” she shrieks, pointing at Tama’s flaming red birthmark. Incensed this strange child has been chosen over her own, the chief’s wife stirs dissention among the tribe’s female ranks. Malio Island’s chief quickly proclaims the boy a gift of the gods, christens him Tama, and names him his heir. The vast expanse of azure, Polynesian beauty quickly blackens into a raging sea that sweeps a mysterious, baby-bearing canoe onto a remote South Pacific island at the turn of the last century.