A Pagan Poet—Influence of Byron and
Keats—Star-myths—Enchanted Crab.
The imaged stars the oceans knew a million years ago
Are dancing in the eyes of all the cities that I know!
The man who sails to heathenland to preach the newest creed
Sees in the happy pagan’s eyes his own soul’s greatest need.
But these are aimless rhymes and will be understood by few,
Because I am the poet of those old things men call new.
IN the shadowland regions of a barbarian poet’s brain flows the river
Lethe that murmurs the most subtle music of sentient Nature. Of such a
poet I shall tell in the following pages, one whom I instinctively
understood. For I also have stood in the primeval forest and “heard the
silent thunders of the leaves” and seen the lightnings of a wild bird’s
eyes, and God’s hand carving a thousand pillars for the temples of
Nature, painting magical halls with the storied history of the blue days
and daubs of all the dead sunsets. Wonderful eerie temples they were
too. I have even been a pagan and half fancied I have seen the dead
children creep out of the shadows and gaze around as they heard the sad
songs and whisperings of those old forest trees. Nor was I deaf to the
cry of anguish from the bleeding forest flowers as my foot crushed their
uplifted faces of brief enough beauty. O Le Langi saw the world with
such eyes. He was the first poet of his race. He was crammed full of
mythical light, his imagination touching with splendour all that his
eyes gazed upon. He hated most white men and their wretched boast of
advancement. He deeply read the books of Nature, but threw the white
man’s _lotu books_ into the sea! He too might well have cried out to his
chastened people who had accepted the white man’s dogmas and gifts of
clothing from the European morgues:
“Lo! thirty centuries of literature
Have curved your spines and overborne your brains.”
O Le Langi’s ever earnest cry was:
Lo! centuries of grand belief in gods
Have chasteneth us; my mind a forest is
Of budding-light and thought’s bright spirit-flowers
And faery-wings of Beauty’s moving hours.
I am the darker-age grown old and thin—
Personified, tattooed from toes to chin,
And for you and your God care not one pin!
Such was O Le Langi’s cry to the white men—O Le Langi, who stands out
like some wonderful, tattooed bas-relief in the background of my memory.
O Le Langi means _Chief of the Heavens_, and, so far as his handsome
physique and fine, expressive face were concerned, he deserved that
name. He was a fine sample of his race. Though he lived in Samoa, he was
a full-blooded Marquesan, having emigrated from Nuka Hiva to Samoa in
his youth. His father had been high chief of Queen Vaekehu’s royal
bodyguard when that South Sea Semiramis had reigned supreme over her
dominions and a thousand death-drums had called the hour of the
sacrificial festival. O Le Langi’s mother had escaped from the rods of
the French officials by beating a hasty retreat from Nuka Hiva to
Papeete some fifty years before I met him. From Papeete she had stowed
away in a trading schooner with her three little children, O Le Langi
and her two daughters.
Both the girls had succumbed to the privations and terrors of some long
voyage in an open boat which had finally drifted O Le Langi and his
mother to the Samoan Isles. The incidents of that terrible voyage O Le
Langi only hinted about. Nor was I one who would attempt to learn more,
it being quite obvious to me that the sad old chief had some strange
idea that the whole truth of those days were best kept a secret in his
own heart.
Though secretive over the tragic history that had caused his father’s
execution and his mother’s flight from her native land, O Le Langi never
tired of telling me the wonders of his tribe, and commemorating in words
the mighty deeds of his forefathers.
His knowledge of heathen mythology was marvellous, as were the tattooed
armorial bearings, the insignia of blue blood, which were visible on his
massive chest. I entertained no doubt whatever as to Le Langi’s royal
pedigree. Seeing that massive human parchment inscribed with wondrous
savage hieroglyhpics, the truth of all he said was perfectly evident. I
knew that the Marquesans of royal blood had the tribal mottoes and
family crest tattooed on their sons before puberty.
Langi looked liked some Greek god as he stood on his village stump, his
royal robe of the best tappa-cloth swung about his rosewood-hued,
majestic frame. Never were the graceful, god-like shoulders wholly
covered. Even the maids, as they listened to his impassioned oratory,
sighed as the lightnings of poetic imagination leapt from those fine
dark eyes of his. Yes, old as he was. By profession he was a travelling
scribe, a genuine South Sea poet. This talent he had inherited. For I
discovered that his father had once stood in the barbarian forums of
Tai-o-hae and spouted the charms of his queen, Vaekehu, commemorating in
verse the warrior-like deeds of the many brief kings who had ascended
her throne—and their deaths when she had tired of them.
His temperament was Byronic, but at times he would become strangely
imbued with the savage instincts of his race, becoming extremely bitter
and cynical when his fortunes were at a low ebb. For I must confess he
had a large share of the commercial spirit. This much I noticed when he
looked into the coco-nut-shell that he always passed around amongst his
audience. Often one could see a poetic grin of extreme satisfaction end
the handsome wrinkles in a bunch up to the northern territory of his
high, bald, intellectual physiognomy as he counted the collection.
I never tired of listening to his way of telling the poetic legends of
his island world to the white men, though I must admit that, beyond
myself, few men of my colour were interested in all he had to say. Grins
and jokes and indecent remarks were their highest contribution in the
way of interest or gifts when he finished his poems.
I do not exaggerate in saying that, though Langi could not speak our
language better than an English child of ten years, he was conversant
with the works of many of our poets. He had an old volume of Byron. He
asked me if I knew Keats!
“He great Tusitala chief!” he said, when I told him Keats was dead. Then
he started off in raptures over Saturn and the fallen deities and
goddesses of _Hyperion_! He had also read Longfellow’s _Hiawatha_.
It seemed a wonderful thing that one should leave one’s country and
travel thousands of miles across desolate seas and pioneer lands, to
find, at last, on a savage isle of the remote wild South Seas, a savage
who loved poetry!
It is true enough that the old chief got little appreciation out of his
talent, but many kicks.
Poor O Le Langi! None of the natural chances of the literary world came
his way either by birth or luck. He was born in a spot remote from all
the dubious possibilities that the civilized world offers to budding
aspirants. He had none to puff him. With all his astuteness he could
seize on no scheme that would elevate him on a pedestal in the eyes of
men. Alas! no starving, unrecognized poet of another tribe expired on
his doorstep, so that the O Le Langi family for successive generations
might write the dead poet’s memoirs, and the memoirs of their father’s
memoirs concerning the poet’s last sigh and the benevolence of the O Le
Langi family to the dying poet’s last ten minutes! Ah me! No publisher
chanced upon sad O Le Langi till I, a penniless traveller, appeared on
the scene, recognizing his wonderful genius. And now that his body is
dust beneath his beloved coco-palms, I would write these humble memoirs
and commemorate the dust of the greatest poet I ever met on earth.
It is nothing against the posthumous poetic fame of O Le Langi to say
that he had loved passionately, more than twice. Indeed, it is well
known that men who are not poets have this mortal failing.
The amorous weakness of O Le Langi was impressively forced upon me, for
did I not walk beneath the coco-palms and breadfruits to that silent,
hallowed spot where slumbered his sleeping passions?—the little native
cemetery where slept the dead women and children that he had loved.
It was through this sad visit that I heard so much; for as O Le Langi
knelt over each little mound of crumbling dust he kissed the earth and
wept like a child. I saw at a glance that the solid earth did not hide
from the eyes of imagination the stretched figures, the eyes, the lips,
and the little fingers that he had once loved.
Rising to his feet he surveyed me with solemn eyes, then said:
“Ah, Papalagi, me now grow old and weak; me now belonger to fool time.”
“No, you don’t, great O Le Langi, high chief of handsome bearing, and
mightiest poet of the South Seas,” said I.
My heart was truly sorry for the old savage man, and well I knew that
such flattery was worth its weight in gold at such a melancholy hour.
Then I continued, as with an effort he drew his tattooed shoulders up to
their full proportion and looked at the sky:
“O Le Langi, they still live, those whom you love. We all live again.”
“But I no _cliston_ or _popy mans_” (christian or prayer-man), he
responded in a mournful voice.
“Phew! O great O Le Langi! It matters not a tinker’s curse _what_ you
are so long as you _remain_ as you are.”
For a moment the old chief looked about him, as though half in fright,
then, seeing that we were unobserved, he leaned forward and said:
“You nicer man. You no think much of ole white-beard-Man-big-nose?”
“Who’s he?” said I.
“_Ole Misson-loom mans_ (mission-room man) who mournful voice, and who
look at me and tell me that I one big liar!”
“Why?” said I, as the old poet’s face seemed to flush beneath its tawny
hue at the thought of such an affront to his veracity.
“I tells ’im I wanter no go white man’s ’eaven. I go ’eathen ’eaven.
Then ’e says, ‘There am no ’eathen ’eaven; yous sinfuls mans!’”
Saying this, the old poet squatted down on his mat, which he ever
carried under his arm, and inspired by grief dropped into the following
poetic effusion. (The sun had long since set, and the shadows lay deep
in the hollows by Mutoua. I sat down beside him, and as he commenced in
sombre tones, the _o le manoa_ sang its passionate strain up in the
flamboyants over and over again.)
I recall the very note of that strange night-bird’s song as O Le Langi
meandered on in this wise:
_O white mans from across big waters,
I die not though my body die, be dust:
The waving pauroas, the ripening coco-nuts,
The _maona_ in the forest singing, singing,
The stars softly dropping from great darkness
To whisper as they meet in deep, still lagoons,
The deep caves by Savaii, and Momo,
The eyes of children romping by the red seashore
When even falls—I say, O white mans,
All these things shall be my dead-heart dreaming!
I great chief of gods, so never die dead._
“And will you see your loved ones again when you die, O Le Langi?”
_My love ones live, they are not dead.
They shine, their eyes in sky of darkness—
When sings the maona my dead love makes stars four!
Her children shine as eight stars far away.
She watch down sky, ever look far north-west,
As the big night passeth over_ moani ali_[5]
Sometimes my love blink her eyes, and then
The little stars all laugh and clap hands!
And lo! stars shoot ’cross sky out of Poluto’s halls._
Footnote 5:
The sea.
“’Tis good O Le Langi, to know that your loved one watches with her
starry eyes over your dead children,” I responded, as the scented sea
wind stirred the feathery palms and dying forest flowers. The very trees
seemed to sigh some mystery into my ears as the old poet spoke, or
rather chanted on, saying that which I have so weakly told. For a moment
O Le Langi did not answer. Then, with his massive chest swelling with
emotion, he slowly raised his handsome, old wrinkled face. He looked
like some marvellous bronze statue as he lifted his head and chin
skyward. I dared not speak as I saw him lift his arm and, with hand
archwise over his eyes, stare at that tremendous manuscript of
heathen-night. Then he pointed with one long, tawny finger to the
heavens. For a little moment that dark, thin finger wavered with
indecision, then it steadily pointed straight toward the far
north-west—and lo! I saw his beloved dead (her who had died thirty years
before) looking out of the sparkling constellation. Yes, two bright
stars—her eyes! It appeared that she was watching over the little group
of pale stars that wistfully stared from the east to the north-west—they
were the spirits of O Le Langi’s four dead children. It was some time
ere he lowered his chin, for he had watched long and strangely those
stars that he claimed.
As the shadows deepened and wild odours of citrons and decaying
pineapples drifted on the cool sea wind, I relit my pipe. Once more the
old poet looked at me with ambitious pride gleaming from his eyes over
my rapt attention and praise. Then he continued in sombre tones that
which was apparently of magnificent import to him:
_One night I stand by sea-coast, dreaming
Of old chief who had longer been dead in forest grave.
I felt much sad as shadows of night falling
Went like big lava-lava round the waist of Night
As her big black feet rest on side of moonrise!
Long before stars in sky go indoors of morning,
As god open door and let sun walker out ’gain into sky.
Then I looker at sea and saw old crab out walking:
Creepy up shore it looker me sideway artful.
“I know! I know!” I say to myselfs, “you am no crab that belonger sea,
You am ole chief from Poluto, disguised in crab-case.
That’s whater you ares!”_
“What did the old crab, the chief, I mean, say then?” said I, as the old
poet leaned his chin right down to the hieroglyphic tattoo of his chest,
lapsing into deep thought. In respectful attitude I awaited his next
inspiration, which came in this wise:
_He wise ole crab-chief and know much, O Pagalagi.
So he look up at me and say in voice like deep music of waters:
“O Le Langi, greatest high chief of these parts,
O Chief who ’ave listen to the Miserilinaries[6] and hung head,
But still thoughter mucher of great gods all while,
I say: the gods of Poluto and the great Tangaloa
Still tramp, tramp across the great sky-floors of shadowland.
They do say with voice of thunders in mountains:
‘That great O Le Langi seems most faithful to us;
Therefore, though all the forest children desert us,
We still put forth our hands and scatter stars—
Stars across the skies of shadowland.
We still break old moons across our mighty knees
To brighten the Atua halls of long ago!
We still catch winds that creep across worlds of mortals
And take from their shifting, clutching fingers
The thoughts of dead mothers for children.
We still gently pull out the thoughts of dead maids and hopeful loves
As we pull up the old sunsets from the oceans.
Our vassal, the great Matagi wind, it still catch the prayers of our
faithful children—
And yet who am more faithful than the great O Le Langi?’”_
Footnote 6:
Missionaries.
“O Le Langi,” said I, “I feel sure that the gods have no more faithful
servant.”
Lifting his hand aloft as he stared seawards to hide the embarrassment
he felt over my praise, he continued:
_’Tis I, O Le Langi, who maker children faithful:
I preach on sly to all little ones and old chiefs and chiefesses.
I tell them wonders of shadowland as the evening falls.
The fantoes creeper from huts doors and kneel at my feets and listen
and listen!
Some nights I go down, down in great caves of Underworld!
A longer way I go, till I at lasse come to big ’nother world.
It shine ’neath ’nother big sky of blue and red stars.
I sit on small star and great god Tangalora sit on his throne by the
big moon, and he say:
“Halloa! great O Le Langi, what you wanter?”
Then I says: “Show me ole chiefs who die, and all dead peoples.”
Great Tangalora say: “O Le Langi—look!”
He have lift big veil of Night, quick!—I stare and see
Beautiful country of mighty trees and fruits,
Big moonlit seas dashing by shore of bright Atua;
I see my dead tribe dancing, waving arms, singing, singing to heathen
land stars!
Then big shadow hand of god Tangalora move and drop big veil of Night—
And I no longer in Underworld._
“But what became of that old crab?” said I, as the old chief looked
about him and seemed to have forgotten the commencement of his story.
_Ah me, Papalagi, the old crab look up and say:
“Halloa! O Le Langi, you been in Underworld?”
And then I say “Yes.”
And then crab say: “Did you ’appen to see beautiful
Linger Loa, whom I once love mucher, she who once my wife?”
Then I look at crab and say:
“Why, yes! I did see Linger Loa! and she say to me:
‘Have you see old crab on shores by Savaii Isle?’
And I say: ‘Yes!’
And then she say, as she beat bosom liker this (here the chief punched
his breast vigorously),_
_‘O great O Le Langi, when you nex see the old crab, you tell him I
still lover him much;
And tell him that, when ten thousand moons have passed away,
He once more be turn to chief by gods, and so
Will come back to arms of poor Linger Loa who longer see ’im.’”_
“And what did the old crab say to all that, O Le Langi?” said I.
_Ah me! The great chief-crab looker up at me with sad eyes.
Then he sigh and walk sideways down to sea,
And, shedding tears, plunged into the deep water._
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