THE SPRING OF ARVA WAI--REMARKABLE MONUMENTAL REMAINS--SOME IDEAS WITH
REGARD TO THE HISTORY OF THE PI-PIS FOUND IN THE VALLEY
Almost every country has its medicinal springs famed for their healing
virtues. The Cheltenham of Typee is embosomed in the deepest solitude,
and but seldom receives a visitor. It is situated remote from any
dwelling, a little way up the mountain, near the head of the valley; and
you approach it by a pathway shaded by the most beautiful foliage, and
adorned with a thousand fragrant plants.
The mineral waters of Arva Wai* ooze forth from the crevices of a rock,
and gliding down its mossy side, fall at last, in many clustering
drops, into a natural basin of stone fringed round with grass and
dewy-looking little violet-coloured flowers, as fresh and beautiful as
the perpetual moisture they enjoy can make them.
*I presume this might be translated into ‘Strong Waters’. Arva is the
name bestowed upon a root the properties of which are both inebriating
and medicinal. ‘Wai’ is the Marquesan word for water.
The water is held in high estimation by the islanders, some of whom
consider it an agreeable as well as a medicinal beverage; they bring it
from the mountain in their calabashes, and store it away beneath heaps
of leaves in some shady nook near the house. Old Marheyo had a great
love for the waters of the spring. Every now and then he lugged off to
the mountain a great round demijohn of a calabash, and, panting with his
exertions, brought it back filled with his darling fluid.
The water tasted like a solution of a dozen disagreeable things, and was
sufficiently nauseous to have made the fortune of the proprietor, had
the spa been situated in the midst of any civilized community.
As I am no chemist, I cannot give a scientific analysis of the water.
All I know about the matter is, that one day Marheyo in my presence
poured out the last drop from his huge calabash, and I observed at the
bottom of the vessel a small quantity of gravelly sediment very much
resembling our common sand. Whether this is always found in the water,
and gives it its peculiar flavour and virtues, or whether its presence
was merely incidental, I was not able to ascertain.
One day in returning from this spring by a circuitous path, I came upon
a scene which reminded me of Stonehenge and the architectural labours of
the Druids.
At the base of one of the mountains, and surrounded on all sides by
dense groves, a series of vast terraces of stone rises, step by step,
for a considerable distance up the hill side. These terraces cannot
be less than one hundred yards in length and twenty in width. Their
magnitude, however, is less striking than the immense size of the blocks
composing them. Some of the stones, of an oblong shape, are from ten
to fifteen feet in length, and five or six feet thick. Their sides are
quite smooth, but though square, and of pretty regular formation, they
bear no mark of the chisel. They are laid together without cement, and
here and there show gaps between. The topmost terrace and the lower
one are somewhat peculiar in their construction. They have both a
quadrangular depression in the centre, leaving the rest of the terrace
elevated several feet above it. In the intervals of the stones immense
trees have taken root, and their broad boughs stretching far over, and
interlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun.
Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another,
is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stones
lie half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirely
covers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two of
these terraces; and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation,
that a stranger to the place might pass along it without being aware of
their existence.
These structures bear every indication of a very high antiquity and
Kory-Kory, who was my authority in all matters of scientific research,
gave me to understand that they were coeval with the creation of the
world; that the great gods themselves were the builders; and that they
would endure until time shall be no more.
Kory-Kory’s prompt explanation and his attributing the work to a
divine origin, at once convinced me that neither he nor the rest of his
country-men knew anything about them.
As I gazed upon this monument, doubtless the work of an extinct and
forgotten race, thus buried in the green nook of an island at the ends
of the earth, the existence of which was yesterday unknown, a stronger
feeling of awe came over me than if I had stood musing at the mighty
base of the Pyramid of Cheops. There are no inscriptions, no sculpture,
no clue, by which to conjecture its history; nothing but the dumb
stones. How many generations of the majestic trees which overshadow them
have grown and flourished and decayed since first they were erected!
These remains naturally suggest many interesting reflections. They
establish the great age of the island, an opinion which the builders
of theories concerning, the creation of the various groups in the South
Seas are not always inclined to admit. For my own part, I think it
just as probable that human beings were living in the valleys of the
Marquesas three thousand years ago as that they were inhabiting the land
of Egypt. The origin of the island of Nukuheva cannot be imputed to the
coral insect; for indefatigable as that wonderful creature is, it would
be hardly muscular enough to pile rocks one upon the other more than
three thousand feet above the level of the sea. That the land may have
been thrown up by a submarine volcano is as possible as anything else.
No one can make an affidavit to the contrary, and therefore I still say
nothing against the supposition: indeed, were geologists to assert that
the whole continent of America had in like manner been formed by the
simultaneous explosion of a train of Etnas laid under the water all the
way from the North Pole to the parallel of Cape Horn, I am the last man
in the world to contradict them.
I have already mentioned that the dwellings of the islanders were almost
invariably built upon massive stone foundations, which they call pi-pis.
The dimensions of these, however, as well as of the stones composing
them, are comparatively small: but there are other and larger erections
of a similar description comprising the ‘morais’, or burying grounds,
and festival-places, in nearly all the valleys of the island. Some of
these piles are so extensive, and so great a degree of labour and skill
must have been requisite in constructing them, that I can scarcely
believe they were built by the ancestors of the present inhabitants. If
indeed they were, the race has sadly deteriorated in their knowledge of
the mechanic arts. To say nothing of their habitual indolence, by what
contrivance within the reach of so simple a people could such enormous
masses have been moved or fixed in their places? and how could they with
their rude implements have chiselled and hammered them into shape?
All of these larger pi-pis--like that of the Hoolah Hoolah ground in the
Typee valley--bore incontestible marks of great age; and I am disposed
to believe that their erection may be ascribed to the same race of men
who were the builders of the still more ancient remains I have just
described.
According to Kory-Kory’s account, the pi-pi upon which stands the Hoolah
Hoolah ground was built a great many moons ago, under the direction of
Monoo, a great chief and warrior, and, as it would appear, master-mason
among the Typees. It was erected for the express purpose to which it is
at present devoted, in the incredibly short period of one sun; and was
dedicated to the immortal wooden idols by a grand festival, which lasted
ten days and nights.
Among the smaller pi-pis, upon which stand the dwelling-houses of the
natives, I never observed any which intimated a recent erection. There
are in every part of the valley a great many of these massive stone
foundations which have no houses upon them. This is vastly convenient,
for whenever an enterprising islander chooses to emigrate a few hundred
yards from the place where he was born, all he has to do in order to
establish himself in some new locality, is to select one of the many
unappropriated pi-pis, and without further ceremony pitch his bamboo
tent upon it.