McHenry gets a caning—The fear of the dead—A visit to the grave of
Mapuhi—En voyage.
IMAGINE my delight when the captain of the _Saint François_ set our
course for Takaroa, the atoll of Mapuhi, Nohea, and the crippled diver
who had possessed the great pearl of Pukapuka! The Marquesas Islands are
only eight hundred miles from the Society Islands, of which Tahiti is
one, and between the Marquesas and the Society Islands lie the strewn
eighty atolls of the _Iles Dangereuses_ or Paumotu group. With steam we
ran the half-thousand miles or so from Taiohae in two nights and two
days, and at daybreak of the second day were due to see the familiar,
lonely figure of the wrecked _County of Roxburgh_ on an uninhabited
_motu_ of Takaroa. It was this startling sight that informed the Londons
in the _Snark_ that they were out of their course and in danger, and it
was Takaroa the Stevensons in the _Casco_ looked for, only to fetch up
at Tikei, thirty miles to windward. I had no confidence in our Breton
captain, to whom these waters were as unknown as the Indies to Columbus.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the lofty iron masts of the dismantled
vessel loomed on the horizon.
After so many months in the frowning islands of the war fleet, with
their thunderous headlands, gleaming streams, and green and black
valleys, the spectacle of the slender ring of white sand and coral, the
verdant banners of this first of the Low Islands lying flat upon the
jeweled waters, aroused in me again sensations of wonder at the
ineffable variety of creation; the myriad-mindedness of the Creator. The
crash of the surf upon the outer reef, the waving of the breeze-stirred
cocoanuts, the flight of a solitary bird, contrasted with the marvelous
fabrication of man, the metal ship, thrown by a toss of the sea and a
puff of the wind among these evidences of a beautiful yet deadly design.
The _Saint François_ crept along the coast of the atoll and anchored
opposite the pass, a good mile from the breakers. Everybody was on deck,
the black-gowned nuns with Mademoiselle Narbonne—she also in a tunic of
religious hue. Since we had left Nuku-hiva they had not appeared. The
contrary currents and confused trade-winds among these Pernicious
Islands had kept them in their cabin. The six-hundred-ton hull of the
_Saint_ had see-sawed through the two hundred leagues of the tropic of
Capricorn, and only hardened trenchermen like the ship’s officers and
myself could find appetite for food. Lutz, too, had raised a mournful
face to the deck but seldom. A few hundred sacks of copra awaited us at
Takaroa, and we put off a life-boat to bring it aboard. Lutz and I
accompanied the second officer with a command from the captain to stay
no longer than the cargo’s loading. Lying Bill’s schooner, the _Morning
Star_, was in the lagoon, and, seeing it there, I wondered if Mapuhi,
the great sailor of these atolls, had steered it through the narrow
pass. About the landing, despite the uniqueness of the steamship’s
arrival, was an unusual quietude, a hush that moved me to fear, as a
presage of evil. A cholera-stricken village in the Philippines had that
same dismal aura. A few natives were upon the coral mole, and the
_Mutoi_ came forward to examine our papers.
“Let us go to the house of Mapuhi,” I said to Lutz.
“_Ja wohl_,” he replied; “I have not met him in many years.”
We left the mate and walked along the path past the traders’ stores. The
thousand feet that trod the coral road and had gone in and out the dozen
shops of the dealers and pearl-buyers during my stay on Takaroa were
missing, but more than the stir and hum of the _rahui_ was absent. A
depressing torpor possessed the little village. Mapuhi’s store was
closed tightly, and from no house or hut did a head show or a greeting
come.
We saw that the door of one shop was ajar, and, going in, happened on a
pleasant and illuminating scene. Angry words in Tahitian we heard as we
mounted the steps, and smothered exclamations of a profane sort in
English which had a familiar note. Back of the counter was a very large
Tahitian woman who, with a heavy fishing-rod of bamboo, was thrashing a
white man. She was, between blows, telling him that if he got drunk or
spoke rudely to her again, she would “treat him as a Chinaman did his
horse in Tahiti,” which is a synonym for roughness. He was evading the
strokes of the bamboo by wriggling, and guarding with his arms, and was
cursing in return, but was plainly afraid of her. He was McHenry, my
ofttime companion of revels at the _Cercle Bougainville_ in Papeete, who
had come on the _Flying Fish_ with me from Tahiti, and had remained in
Takaroa.
Many times he had boasted of his contempt for native women.
“I’ve had my old lady nineteen years,” he said once, “and she wouldn’t
speak to me if she met me on the streets of this town. She wouldn’t dare
to in public until I recognized her.”
Lutz and I did not utter a sound, but quickly descended the steps.
“I never before saw a native wife beating her husband,” he commented
caustically. “That McHenry deserves it. Lying Bill often said McHenry’s
_vahine_ took a stick to him. Tahitian women will not be whipped
themselves.”
Lutz should know. He had had fourteen years with a Tahitian mistress, a
wife in her own eyes as much as if wedded in a cathedral. Would he not
have to face her in Papeete when he should be married to Mademoiselle
Narbonne? Perhaps she had a stronger weapon than a rod! The _taua’s_
sorcery might stretch over the ocean, and be potent in Tahiti.
Lutz and I were almost at Mapuhi’s residence when we met Nohea, my host
of the fishing and diving. Nohea was in a black cloth coat and a blue
_pareu_, and his countenance was distressed.
“_Ia ora na_, Nohea!” I called to him. “Is Mapuhi a Mapuhi at home?”
“Mapuhi?” he repeated and shuddered. “Mapuhi _máte!_”
Mapuhi dead! It did not seem possible; the giant I had known so
recently!
Nohea began to weep and left us. Outside the inclosure of Mapuhi’s house
were a dozen men, and among them Hiram Mervin, the Paumotu-American who
had described to me the cyclone of Hikueru. We shook hands, and I asked
of what Mapuhi had died. Surely not of disease. The reef must have
beaten him at last. I could not think of that super-man yielding to a
clot or a kidney. He, who had made the wind and currents his sport, who
in the dark of night had sailed through foaming passes the white mariner
shunned in broad daylight, who had given largesse to his people for
decades, and who had made the shells and nuts of his isles pay him
princely toll, despite the cunning of the white, the _papaa_, who came
to take much and give little.
“He was eighty,” said Hiram Mervin. “He took sick on Reitoru, that tiny
island near here. He was brought here. Some one wanted to give him
medicine.
“‘No,’ he said, ‘my time has come. I will not live by things. I die
content. I have been a good Mormon since I accepted the Word. What I did
before was in darkness, when I was a gentile.’
“He passed away peacefully. We lost a bulwark of the church, but he will
reign with Christ.”
Lutz and I did not wish to intrude upon the kin of Mapuhi, nor to remain
longer within the sound of the wailing that now issued from the house at
the news that I, the American, had come back on the steamship. This
extemporized burst of lamentation was a special honor to me and to the
decedent, an expression of a tie between us, and, though it swelled
suddenly at my arrival, was not the crying of hired mourners but the
lacrymation of sincere grief. In wakes among the Irish I had found
exactly the same spirit—an increase or instant renewal of the keening or
shrieking when one who had been dear to the dead person appeared.
We two walked away, and encountered McHenry, who had learned of our
presence. McHenry was shaken by the castigation given him by his wife,
and assumed an air of brazen indecency and bluster to hide his
condition.
“One bottle of booze and I’ll make ’em all quit their catabawlin’ an’
dance a hula,” he said. “Much they care for except the bloomin’ francs
the ol’ boy left ’em!”
McHenry exposed his own vulturous desires, and not the feelings of the
tribe of Mapuhi. To them the passing of Mapuhi was as to the Jews that
of their leader by Nebo’s lonely mountain. The great man had expired the
night before, and preparations were being made to bury him. In this
climate the body hastens to rejoin the elements. The chief was not to
lie in the common charnel in a grove on another _motu_ of Takaroa. As
suitable to his rank and wealth and his generosity to the Mormon church,
he had retained for himself a piece of ground beside the temple. A coral
wall inclosed the small necropolis. Within a hundred feet of the sea, in
the brilliant coral sand, rugged and bare, it was fit anchoring ground
for this ship among canoes. One tombstone leaned against the wall, a
plain slab of marble, inscribed:
_Punau Mapuhi tei pohe ite 30 Me 1899_
Punau was the wife he had clung to under Mormonism, and who had borne
him the son and daughter I knew. Many years he had survived her, and had
not married another. The religion of polygamy had made of the old
barbarian an ascetic, who had been a Grand Turk under Protestantism and
Catholicism, between which he had wavered according to the novelty
offered.
The body of Mapuhi was laid out in the principal room of his house, the
room in which I had met him and the American elders on my first landing.
Nohea and others had worked through the night to build a coffin. They
had used the strong planks the dead man had gathered from the deck or
cabin of the _County of Roxburgh_, and had polished them with
cocoanut-oil, so that they shone. The coffin was lined with the
sleeping-mat of Mapuhi, and in it he reposed, dressed in his churchly
clothes, a black frock coat, white trousers, and a stiff white shirt. No
collar cumbered his neck, nor were shoes upon the ample feet that had
walked on the floor of the sea. Most of the people of Takaroa took a
last look at him, but some did not, for fear. I gazed a few minutes at
his face. More than in life, the likeness to a mutilated Greek statue
struck me; perhaps the head of a Goth seen in the Vatican Gallery.
Strength, repose, and mystery were in the powerful mold of it, the
broad, low forehead, the rounded chin, and wide-open eyes. I had seen
many so-called important men in death, when as a reporter I wrote
obsequies at a penny a line. This Paumotuan chief’s corpse had more
majesty and peace than any of them—a nearer relation to my conception of
an old and wise child of the eternal unity, glad to be freed from the
illusion of life.
In the village, the huts were still closed. No fisherman put off in a
canoe, and none sat making or mending nets. McHenry and I paddled out to
the _Morning Star_. The skipper was on deck with Ducat, the mate. Some
native had hurried to them with the amusing gossip of McHenry’s _vahine_
beating him, and he had to bear a storm of ridicule. Lying Bill
rehearsed his boasts about her inferiority, and Ducat, who had
humiliated him before me long ago, taunted him with his submission to
her.
“I didn’t want to kill her,” was all McHenry could retort. McHenry had a
story of Chocolat which was distracting. Captain Moét of the _Flying
Fish_ had come into Takaroa a month or two before with Chocolat, a
fair-sized dog. The tricks Chocolat did when I was on Moét’s schooner
were incomparable with his later education.
“The bloomin’ pup would stand on his hind legs and dance to a tune Moét
whistled,” said McHenry. “He could count up to five with cards, and
could pick all the aces out of a piquet pack. He would let Moét throw
him overboard in port, and catch a rope’s end with his teeth and hold on
while he was pulled up. He was a reg’lar circus performer. You know Moét
and I ain’t very close. He done me a dirty turn once. I knew if I could
ever get Chocolat to Papeete, an’ on the steamer from San Francisco, I
could sell him to a bloody American tourist for a thousand francs. Moét
watched me like a gull does the cook when he empties his pail overside.
Now, you know me; I ain’t nobody to say to you can’t do this or that. I
laid for that pup, and, when I went aboard the schooner just before she
sailed, I took a little opium I got from the Chink pearl-buyer here; and
I put a pill of it in a piece of fresh pork, and took it aboard in my
pocket. Just before I was goin’ into my boat, after a drink or two with
Jean, I’d been watchin’ Chocolat stretched out nappin’ on the deck. I
put the meat alongside of his mouth, and he ate it like a shark does a
chunk o’ salt horse. Soon I saw he was knocked out, an’ I asked Moét to
go down into the trade-room an’ get me a piece o’ tobacco. He’d no
sooner ducked than I grabbed the bloody pup by the scruff an’ stuffed
him into my trousers’ front. He was like dead. I was in the boat in a
second with no one seein’ him, and reached up to get the tobacco from
Moét’s hand.
“Of course the purp never let out a bloomin’ whimper, an’ I got away and
to shore with no proof that I had snared the bow-wow. Moét had trained
Chocolat to let out a hell of a yell if any one as much as took him
toward the rail, and so he would have to think that the cur had fallen
overboard on his own hook. I took him to my store unbeknown to any one,
and tied him to a chair. He never come to for three hours, an’ was
sluggery for a day or two. I was waitin’ for Moét to sail, but the next
day he comes ashore an’ makes a bee-line for my joint. I saw his boat
puttin’ off, an’ I give Chocolat to my Penrhyn boy who tied him in a
canoe, an’ hiked out in the lagoon with him. Moét looks me up an’ down,
curses his _sacres_ an’ his Spanish _diablos_ an’ _’Sus-Marias_, an’
crawled through my place from top to bottom, shoutin’, ‘Chocolat!
Chocolat! _Pettee sheen!_’ an’ half cryin’. He had to trip his anchor
the next day, and I had the _sheen_ all right.
“I was goin’ to smuggle him on board Lyin’ Bill’s cockroach tub an’ to
Papeete, when one day I come back from Mapuhi’s and found him gone, an’
his string chewed through. He had skinned out, an’, though I asked
everybody on this island about him, everybody knew nothin’. After three
days I give the beast up. I know the Kanaka, an’ I knew that no fat
little dogs are let run loose very long. About two weeks later, I went
to another _motu_ to buy some copra, an’ the first native I run into was
wearin’ Chocolat’s collar on his arm. He was a Mormon churchman, too,
but he swore he found the collar in a canoe.”
Poor little brown Chocolat! He had entertained me often on the _Flying
Fish_ with his antics, and Jean Moét had such dreams of his future! A
kindly fate may have bestowed on him the favor of a quick death by
hotpotting rather than the ignominy of circus one-night stands or the
pampered kennel of a millionaire. He had had his year at sea, and died
in the full flush of doghood.
The news that Lutz was a passenger on the _Saint François_ with
Mademoiselle Narbonne brought a prolonged whistle from Ducat, and an
exclamation from Lying Bill:
“Well, ’e’ll bloody well get ’is! Maná won’t take a club to ’im because
the ’usban’ does the beatin’ when ’e’s a Dutchman, but she’s not lettin’
’im walk over ’er so easy. I ’ad a long palaver with ’er on the voyage
up. She says everybody in Taaoa knows Barbe is a leper, an’ she’s
preparin’ to ’ave the bleedin’ Frog doctors cage ’er up out there by
Papenoo, if she goes to Tahiti.”
“I never heard before that she had leprosy,” said Ducat. “I think that
Maná is spreading that report to scare Lutz.”
“I feel sure that it has not reached him,” I said. “Nobody in Atuona
would mention it to him.”
Abruptly there occurred to me the cryptic assertion of Peyral at my
first sight of Barbe in the mission church.
“I wouldn’t be her with all her money,” he had said. “Me, I value my
skin.”
That was weeks or months before Lemoal had come to me, or I had known of
the _taua_, or of Lutz’s courtship. If there had been a plot against her
happiness, it must have been laid early, or what did Peyral mean?
McHenry broke in on my train of reasoning.
“I’ll see that the German sausage learns about it damn soon,” he said
spitefully. “He’s doin’ too good a business in both copra an’ women.”
The whistle of the _Saint François_ blew the recall of boats and crew.
“Why don’t you stay, an’ go to Papeet’ with me,” asked Captain Pincher.
“We’ll ’ead out in a day or two when the wind is right. You’re in no
‘’urry. You want to see ’em lay ol’ Mapuhi in the grave.”
I agreed, and paddled to shore with McHenry. Natives were taking the
last load of copra out to the steamship, and I rode on the bags with
McHenry. On the deck of the _Saint François_ I passed Barbe and the nuns
on my way below to get my trifling belongings. McHenry stayed above,
and, when I had bidden good-by to the captain and the first officer, I
sought the three women, with my canvas bag in hand. The sisters were my
friends, and I shook their hands. I was about to say _au revoir_ to
Barbe when she walked with me a few yards to the gangway. I explained my
intention not to continue on the steamship.
“What shall I do?” she implored, as she squeezed my hand nervously. “I
am afraid of everything—”
The whistle sounded again.
Lutz, who was talking with McHenry, approached me, and drew from me my
reason for carrying my assets with me. I thought he appeared relieved at
my leaving, and that his hopes to see me in Papeete were shammed. In the
boat I glanced up to see Mademoiselle Narbonne leaning over the rail,
her black cloud of hair framing her pale face with its look of sadness
and perplexity, and her eyes still demanding of me the answer to her
question.
“I bloody well put a roach in Lutz’s ear,” said McHenry, as we rowed
back.
That he had even mentioned Barbe’s name I did not believe. Lutz would
have taken him by the throat, and thrown him overboard. On the strand at
the atoll again, I saw the smoke streaming from the steamship’s funnel
as she set out for Papeete; and I sent an unspoken message of good will
to the groping ill-matched pair whom I could not call lovers, and yet
both of whom were searching for the satisfaction of heart and ambition I
too sought.
Mapuhi was interred that afternoon an hour before sunset. In these
atolls where there is no soil, and where water lies close under the
coral surface, even burial is difficult. Cyclones as in Hikueru have
torn the coral coverings off the graves, and swept the coffins, corpses,
and bones into the lagoon and the maws of the sharks and the voracious
barracuda. For Mapuhi a marble cenotaph would be ordered in Tahiti, and
cover him when made in a few weeks.
Nohea and two elders dug the grave. About four feet deep, it was wide
enough to rest the huge body in the glistening coffin. This was borne on
the shoulders of six young men, nephews of Mapuhi, and in the cortège
were all of the Takaroans of age. Solemnly and silently they marched
down the road. All who owned black garments wore them, and others were
in white trousers, some with and others without shirts, but all treading
ceremoniously with bowed heads and serious faces. Nohea was the leader,
carrying the large Book of Mormon from the temple, and at the grave he
read from it verses about the resurrection, the near approach of the
coming of Christ, and Mapuhi’s being quiet in the grave until the
trumpet rang for the assembling of the just, the unjust on opposite
sides for judgment.
“Mapuhi a Mapuhi will sit very close to Brigham Young in the judgment
and afterward will be among the great on earth when the rejected are
cast into the terrible pit of fire, and the elect live in plenty and
happiness here.”
The heavy ivory sand rattled on the wood, and the remains of Mapuhi,
last link between the healthy savagery and the present semi-civilization
of the Paumotuan race, were one with the mysterious beach he had so long
dwelt upon. He had been born before the white man ruled it, and his life
had spanned the rise of the imperial industrialism which had destroyed
the Polynesian.
After the funeral I took my bag to the hut of Nohea, to live the few
days until the _Morning Star_ left for Papeete. Our frugal meal was soon
eaten, and the old diver and I sat outside his door in the cool of the
sunset glow. We talked of Mapuhi.
“We had the same father but different mothers,” said Nohea. “Mapuhi was
twenty years older than I. For many years he was as my father to me.”
“Where is Mapuhi now?” I asked, to discover his beliefs about the soul.
Nohea trembled, and looked about him.
“Is he not in the hole in the coral?” he said, with alarm.
“Oh, yes, Nohea,” I replied, “the body of Mapuhi is in the coral, but
where is that part that knew how to dive, to steer the schooner, to grow
rich, and to pray? Where is that _varua_ or spirit which loved you?”
Nohea responded quickly: “That is with the gods, with Adam, Christ,
Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young. Mapuhi is with them making souls for
the bodies of Mormon babies on earth. When Israel gathers by and by, I
will see him again, for we will all live in America and be happy.”
“But Nohea,” I protested, “you will not be happy away from Takaroa. Your
canoe and your fishing-nets and spears will be left behind.”
Nohea was confused, but his faith was strong.
“The elders have explained that in America, where all the saved people
shall live after the judgment, we shall have everything we want. The
fish will jump on the hook, the canoe will paddle itself, and the
cocoanuts will be always ready for eating or cool for drinking.”
I tried to draw our conversation around to Mapuhi again, but Nohea, as
the darkness grew thicker, busied himself in making a fire of cocoanut
husks and leaves, and evaded any reference to the dead.
Only after the moon began to come up, he said, “I must now go to keep
watch at the grave of Mapuhi. It is my duty, and I must go.”
He brought from his hut a crazy-quilt, and wrapped it about him, and
with extreme hesitancy walked away through the obscurity to carry out
the obligation of friendship.
Hardly can we guess at the horror he had to overcome to do this. The
remnant of fear of the dead that our slight inheritance of ancestral
delusions causes to linger in some of us is the merest shadow of the
all-pervading terror that weakens the Paumotuan at thought of the ghost
of the defunct which stays near the corpse to threaten and perhaps to
seize and eat the living. Associated, maybe, with the former
cannibalism, when the living consumed the dead, Nohea, though earnest
Mormon, believed that the _tupapau_ hovered over the grave or in the
tree-tops, to accomplish this ghastly purpose. Had Punau, the widow of
Mapuhi, been living, she would have had to spend her nights for several
weeks by his sepulcher. Being a chief, there were many to perform this
devoir, and before I entered the hut to sleep I saw several small fires
burning about the spot where the watchers cowered and whispered through
the night. Of the dangers of this office of friendship or widowhood,
every atoll in the Paumotus had a hundred tales, and Tahiti and the
Marquesas more. In Tahiti, the _tupapau_, the disembodied and malign ego
of the dead, entered the room where the remains were laid out.
[Illustration:
Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Paumotuans on a heap of brain coral
]
[Illustration:
Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Did these two eat Chocolat?
]
[Illustration:
Photo from Brown Bros.
The Stonehenge men in the South Seas
]
A frightening noise was heard in the room or in that part of the house,
followed by sounds and movements of a struggle, and in the morning gouts
of blood were on the walls. In Moorea, near Tahiti, I met an educated
Englishman, there twenty-five years, who said that on analysis the blood
proved to be human. A cynic in most things, he would not deny that he
believed the circumstance supernatural.
The _tupapau_ had many manifestations: knocks at doors and on thatched
roofs, cries of sorrow and of hate. White it was in the night, and often
hovering over the house or the grave. It might be that the Ghost Bird,
the _burong-hantu_, a reality which is white, and whose wings make
little or no noise when flying, was the foundation of this phantom.
In the meanwhile the schooner _Morning Star_ had gone to Tikei for
cargo. Lying Bill was to anchor off the pass of Takaroa in a few days on
his voyage to Tahiti and to send ashore a boat for me. For nine nights
the vigil was kept by the grave of Mapuhi. About four o’clock each
morning the ward by the grave was abandoned, and Nohea threw himself
wearily on his mat near me. Only one time, on the last evening, I
questioned him about the _tupapau_, and then realized my discourtesy; it
was for him to initiate this subject.
“Have you heard or seen anything _rima atua nianatura_? Anything by the
hand of the spirit?”
Nohea wrapped himself more tightly in his quilt, and his answer came
from under it:
“This morning I heard a scratching. This is our last night, thank the
gods. I think it was the _tupapau_ saying farewell. We never look at the
grave.”
About two the next morning Nohea shook me.
“The _Fetia Taiao_ is off the passage,” he said.
He had heard in the still air the faint slap of her canvas as she jibed,
I thought, but that could not have been, as she was too far away. His
awareness was not of the ear or eyes, but something different—the
keenness of the conscious and unconscious, which had preserved the
Paumotuan race in an environment which had meant starvation and death to
any other people.
I had my possessions already on the schooner, and, forbidding Nohea to
wait with me at the mole, I embraced him and left him. A wish to look at
the grave took hold of me, and I walked along the path to it. The sun,
though below the horizon, was lessening the sombrous color of the small
hours, and I could discern vaguely the outline of the walled
burial-ground. The splash of oars in the water and the rattle of
rowlocks warned me of the approach of the boat for me, but I still had
five minutes.
I sat down on the wall at the farthest end away from the grave. Soon I
would be in my own country, among the commonplace scenes of cities and
countryside. I would resume the habits and conventions of my nation, and
enter into the struggle for survival and for repute. Those goals shrunk
in importance on this strip of coral. Never would I be able to express
in myself the joy and heat of life, and the conquest of nature at its
zenith of mystery, as had the man whose tenement of clay was so near.
Love had been his animating emotion. In all the welter of low passions,
of conflicting religions, and commercial standards imported to his
island by the whites, he had remained a son of the atoll, brother and
father of his tribe, disdainful of the inventions and luxuries offered
him for his wealth, but shaping his course adroitly for his race’s
happiness.
Deep in this strain of reflection, I was recalled to actuality by a
grating sound, a queer crunching and creaking. It came from about the
tomb, and was like a hundred rats dragging objects on a stone
floor—slithering discordant, offensive. If I could have fainted it would
have been relief, for I was seized with mortal terror. I could not
reason. The boat from the schooner was nearing fast, and would be at the
mole in a minute or two. I must go, but I could not move. Then suddenly
a bar of light flung up from the sea, the first of the dawn, and by its
feeble glimmer I saw a swarm of creatures about the barrow. They were
the robber-crabs who had come out from the groves, and they were pulling
the pieces of coral off the burial heap, and digging to pierce the
coffin. Scores of the grisly vampires were working with their huge claws
at the pile, and, as they rushed to and fro on their tall, obscene legs,
they were the very like of ghouls in animal form. This was the
“scratching” Nohea had heard when with their back to the grave he and
his fellow-watchers dared not turn to see them.
I should have thrown rocks at the foul monsters, have scattered them
with kicks and curses, but my deliverance from the supernatural was so
comforting I could only burst into nervous laughter and run down the
road to the mole. I leaped into the boat, and gave the order to shove
off. In half an hour I was aboard the _Morning Star_ and our sails
spread for Tahiti and California.
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AFTERWARD
A LETTER FROM EXPLODING EGGS
Atuona, Hiva-Oa, Aperiri, 1922.
O Nakohu.
O au Kaoha tuuhoa Koakoau itave tekao ipatumai to Brunnec; Na
Brunnec paki mai iau, tuu onotia Kaoha oko au iave; Atahi au ame
tao ave oe itiki iau Aua oto maimai omua ahee taua I Menike ua
ite au Ta Panama ohia umetao au ua hokotia au eoe Ite aoe.
Mea meitai ote mahina ehee mai oe I Tahiti ahaka ite mai oe iau
Eavei tau I Tahiti etahi Otaua fiti tia mai mei Tahiti Ta maimai
oe eavei tau I Tahiti Patu mai oe itatahi hamani nau naete inoa
Brunnec.
Eahaa iapati mai oe ukoana iau totaua pae ua pao tuu tekao iave
Kaoha oe iti haa metaino iau tihe ite nei mouehua Upeau oe iau
eiva ehua ua Vei hakaua taua oia tau ete taiene ohua iva ehua.
Kaoha nui I Obriand.
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FROM EXPLODING EGGS
Atuona, Hiva-Oa, April, 1922.
It is I, Nakohu, always, my dear master. I have been very glad
to receive news of you by Le Brunnec, and I have seen that you
have not forgotten me.
It has given me much sorrow that I did not go with you. I should
have seen Panama and many things, but I was afraid that you
would grow tired of me and sell me to other Americans.
If it is true that you will return here, write to me in advance
by Le Brunnec, and I will go to get you in Papeete. For your
stay in Atuona, fear nothing. I have now a nice house of my own
on the edge of the river. There you will live and it will be my
wife who will do the cooking and I will go to get the food for
all of us; that will be much better than before.
I am very happy that you have not forgotten me in so long. It is
true that you had told me that you would come back before nine
years. I shall wait always.
Love to you, Obriand.
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LETTER FROM MALICIOUS GOSSIP
Atuona, Hiva-Oa, Iunio, 1915.
E tuu ona hoa:
U Koana i au taoe hama ni, koakoa oko an i te ite i ta oe tau te
kao. A oe e koe te peau o Mohotu Vehine-hae, i te a te tekao,
mimi, pake, namu, Tahiatini, aoe i koe toia, ate, totahi teoko,
tohutohui toia hee, mehe ihepe Purutia i tihe mai nei io matou.
Titihuti, na mate ite hitoto. Te moi a Kake ua mate ite hitoto,
i tepo na mate, titahi, popoui ua mate, tatahi, popoui ua mate,
titahi, popoui ua mate, te moupuna o Titihuti. U fanau an i te
tama e moi o (Elizabethe Taavaupoo) toia inoa pahoe kanahau
tautau oko, aoe e hoa e koe to mana metao ia oe, ua inu matou i
te kava kona oko Bronec, kona oko Tahiapii, kona oko au, ia tihe
to matou metao ia oe, ua too matou i te pora Kava à la santé te
Freterick. Ena ua tuu atu nei i te ata na oe, upeau au ia ia
Lemoine a tuu mai te ata na Freterick. Mea nui tau roti i tenei
u fafati au e ua, roti ua tuu i una ou, mea Kaoha ia oe, me ta
oe vehine. Kaoha atu nei A poro me Puhei ia oe, Kaoha atu nei
Moetai kamuta ia oe. Kaoha atu nei Nakohu.
Kaoha atu nei Timoia oe, Kaoha nui Kaoha nui Ua pao tete kao.
Apae, umoi e koe tooe metao ia matou.
Nau na tooe hoa.
TAVAHI.
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Atuona, Hiva-Oa, June, 1915.
Ah my dear friend:
I have received your letter. I was very happy to have news of
you.
Ghost Girl has not forgotten and still says, “Dance, tobacco,
rum.”
Many Daughters is not over her sickness; she is worse; when she
walks she rolls like the Prussian ship that came here.
Titihuti died of dysentery. The little daughter of Kaké died of
dysentery. The one died in the evening, Titihuti; in the morning
the little girl of Titihuti died. I have given birth to a little
daughter; her name is Elizabeth Taavaupoo, a pretty little girl,
healthy and plump.
We have not stopped thinking of you, dear friend. We drank kava.
Happy was Le Brunnec, happy was Tahiapii (sister of Tavati, the
little woman in blue). I too was happy. Our thoughts went out to
you.
We took the bowl of kava and drank to the health of Frederick.
Here I send you as a present my picture. I told Le Moine to take
my photograph for you.
I have many roses now; I took two of them which I put on my head
as a souvenir for you and your lady. In this letter you have the
love of Aporo and Puhei, of Moetai, the carpenter, and of Nakohu
and of Timoteo.
Great love to you; great love to you.
I have finished speaking; farewell, and may you not forget us in
your thoughts.
I, your friend,
MALICIOUS GOSSIP.
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LETTER FROM MOUTH OF GOD
E tuu ona hoa:
E patu atu nei au i tenei hamani ia oe me tou Kaoha nui. Mea
meitai matou paotu. E tiai nei an i taoe hamani, me te Kakano
pua, me te mana roti, u haa mei—tai au i titahi keke fenua kei
oko, mea tanu roti. Eia titahi mea aoe au e kokoa koe nui oe i
kokoa koe nui oe i kaoha mai ian Koakoa oko nui matou i taoe
hamani A patu oe i titahi hamani i tooe hoa, o Vai Etienn ena
ioto ote Ami Koakoa, Apatu oe ia Vehine-hae ena i tohe ahi, o te
haraiipe.
E na Tahiatini i Tarani me L’Hermier, Mea meitai a fiti mai oe i
Atuona nei Kanahau oko to matou fenua me he fenua Farani
meitaioko tu uapu O Hinatini ena ioto ote papu meitai Kaoha atu
nei tooe hoa Timo ia oe, u tuhaa ia mei a oe, e aha a, ave oe i
tuhaa meia ia.
E metao anatu ia ia oe. Kaoha atu nei Kivi ia oe, E hee anatu i
te ika hake Ua pao te tekao kaoha nui.
Tavahi T, MM. TIMOTHEO.
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Ah my dear friend:
I write you this letter to send you my good wishes. We are all
well. I have awaited in vain a letter from you with the flower
seeds you promised me. I have inherited a very large piece of
land where I could plant roses.
We have been very sorry that you have not given us more of your
news. We have missed you much.
If you wish to write to your friend Vai Etienne, he is in heaven
far away.
As for Ghost Girl, she must have fallen into hell.
Many Daughters’ soul must have rejoined l’Hermier in France.
You would do well to return to Atuona. Our land is very
beautiful—our roads like those in France.
Vanquished Often is dead, but she must be in paradise.
Your friend, Timoteo, sends you greeting. If you have forgotten
him, he has not forgotten you. Come back and we will again drink
the kava together.
Kivi tells me that he still thinks of you and that he still goes
fishing.
It is finished.
Kaoha nui, MOUTH OF GOD.
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LETTER FROM LE BRUNNEC TO FREDERICK O’BRIEN AT SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA.
(Translation)
Atuona, Hiva-Oa, June, 1922.
Cher ami:
You ask me what has become of Barbe Narbonne, of the valley of
Taaoa. I will tell you briefly, and probably some of what I
shall say you already know. She was married to Wilhelm Lutz, the
Tahauku trader, in Tahiti, and all went well. Her mother was at
the wedding, but not Maná, his long-time companion in Taiohae
and Atuona. The married pair occupied the upper floor of the
German firm’s big store. There was much gaiety among the Germans
and her Tahitian friends. For the first time Barbe rode in an
automobile, saw a moving picture, heard a band of music, and
attended prize-fights. They were married at the first of July,
and on the fourteenth was celebrated the Fall of the Bastille,
with tremendous hulas, much champagne, and speeches by the
governor, and even by the friendly Germans, such as Monsieur
Lutz.
_Hélas!_ The _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, the kaiser’s
cruisers, came here to Atuona, robbed my store, took Jensen, the
Dane, and steamed to Tahiti. When the authorities there saw
them, they must fire a pop-gun at them, and provoke in turn a
rain of six-inch shells. A Chinese was killed, every one ran to
the woods, and many stores were set on fire and burned.
When the cruisers were gone, Monsieur Lutz and all the Germans
were imprisoned on Motu-Uta, the beautiful little islet a
thousand feet from Lovaina’s Annexe Hotel. Madame Lutz was
reproached by the church, the government, and by every one not
in prison, for marrying the “animal” Lutz, and immediately they
began to give her a divorce on that very ground—that the husband
was a German, and therefore not a human being, but an animal. It
did not take long, and again she was Mademoiselle Narbonne.
Now she was free, rich, and in civilization. She danced and sang
and was dressed in your American clothes, for no ships came from
France. But, as in Atuona, rumors began that she was leprous.
That did not matter much to the Tahitians who, if they like one,
care nothing for what one has, but the whites ceased to be in
her company. They did not say aloud what they thought, but only
that she had loved a German.
Maná went every day of good weather in a little canoe about the
islet of Motu-Uta, at a certain distance prescribed by the
guards, and made a gesture to Monsieur Lutz, who sat or stood
within an enclosure and looked out to sea. Poor Lutz! He died of
an aneurism, or, if you will, of a broken Prussian heart.
Mademoiselle Narbonne one day went toward Papenoo. At Faaripoo
she saw the inclosure of the leprosarium, where the three or
four score lepers are confined. She returned to the Marquesas
Islands.
_Pauvre fille! Personne n’a voulu se marier avec elle et elle
vit avec un vieux Canaque de Taaoa. Elle est retournée à la
brousse_—Poor girl! Nobody wants to marry her and she lives with
an old Kanaka of Taaoa. She has returned to the jungle.
I will tell you, my friend, that no matter what Lemoal has said,
or her own fears, Mademoiselle Narbonne is not a leper. But the
sorcery of the _taua_ has ended her. These Marquesans, even if
half white, are yet heathen.
Daughter of the Pigeon is dead of tuberculosis. Ghost Girl died
of influenza in Tahiti, where she had gone to continue her
joyous life. Peyral and his white daughters have fled to France.
Exploding Eggs has taken the daughter of Titihuti; and her
husband, from whom he seized her, is content to live with them.
Governor L’Hermier des Plantes is governor of the Congo. Song of
the Nightingale is in prison for making cocoanut rum. Seventh
Man Who Is So Angry has lost his wife of tuberculosis.
Vanquished Often died of leprosy in childbirth. Le Moine, the
artist, went mad and is dead. Grelet, the Swiss, is dead. _Père_
David, _Père_ Simeon, _Père_ Victorin, are well, as all the
nuns. Jimmy Kekela is well; his sister is shut up in a leper
hospital. McHenry has been expelled from Tahiti for selling
alcoholic liquors to the natives of the Paumotus. Lemoal is
dead. Hemeury François and Scallamera are dead. Vai Etienne, son
of Titihuti, is dead. _Commissaire_ Bauda went to the wars.
I have named my second child after you, Frederick. You remember
her mother, At Peace, the sister of Malicious Gossip. We dwell
in comfort and happiness. Return to live with us.
Votre dévoué
LE BRUNNEC.
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).