THE SPIRITS OF THE HEIGHT
IN time the natives grew friendly again. Then Tamate thought of other
places. He had not come to New Guinea to teach and help the people of
one little island on its shore only.
He wished to go here and there and everywhere, that far and wide he
might let men know that he and those who followed him meant peace and
friendship. So he would open the way. Later he would go back to leave
teachers with the chiefs whose friendship he had won. In many villages
his students would have been killed at once if they had gone alone. It
needed a man of strong courage, quick wit, and great heart to go first.
All these he had.
When he went away to make peace with new tribes he would have liked to
take his wife with him, and she wished very much to go. But she was as
eager as Tamate was to think of others first. She was a strong woman.
She did not say much, but whenever she saw what was the right thing to
do she did it. She knew that the teachers would be lonely if they both
went, and that the natives might not be so willing to please them as
they now were to please her husband and herself. So when Tamate went
away she stayed at Suau.
It was very hard to say good-bye, because each of them knew that they
might never meet again, and that either of them might need the other
more than they had ever needed any one.
One time it was more hard than it had been before. Tamate wished to
visit the village of Tepauri. The tribe who lived there were at war
with Suau. In the last battle the people of Suau had killed a great
many of the others. Tamate wished to make peace between the two tribes.
One afternoon he said: “I am going to Tepauri to-morrow; will you go
with me?” Even Kirikeu refused to go with him.
That evening, as he and Mrs. Chalmers sat at their door, a troop
of natives came to them. The dark men carried strange white things
in their arms. When they came near they set them down in front of
the house. They were skulls! Kirikeu spoke for the others. He said:
“Friend, are you going over there to-morrow?”
“Yes, I mean to go.”
“Do you see these skulls? They belonged to people we killed from
over there. They have not been paid for. They will take your head in
payment, for you are our great friend!”
He looked hard at Tamate and added: “Will you go now?”
“Yes, I will go to-morrow morning, and God will take care of us.”
Beni, a Rarotongan teacher, was a widower. Tamate said to him: “You
heard all the natives said yesterday. I am going to Tepauri. Will you
come?”
He agreed, and the two went off together. When they reached Tepauri
they found themselves in the midst of a wild dancing mob. The natives
shouted and waved their spears and their clubs, and made believe to
throw them.
Every now and again they cried: “Goira, Goira.”
This sounded like a Rarotongan word which meant “spear them.” The
natives caught Tamate’s hand and rushed along the shore with him. The
teacher was forced to follow close behind, and still the men of Tepauri
danced and shouted and aimed their spears at unseen foes.
They came to the bed of a stream. Tamate stuck his heel against a
stone to try to stop himself, but he was lifted over it and on and on,
stumbling and running and clambering up the stony bed. He turned to
Beni and said, “Try to get back. They may let you go.”
“I am trying all the time.”
“What do you think of it?”
“Oh, they are taking us to the sacred place to kill us!”
“It looks like it.”
The thick undergrowth was so close and tangled that there was no hope
of escape into it.
“No use,” said Tamate. “God is with us, so let us go quietly.”
From the dry stones of the stream bed and the thick bush, they came
to a beautiful cool pool of water, hung round with ferns and moss.
Then one of the men who had dragged them along made a speech. They did
not know all the words then, but they could gather the meaning of the
whole. This is part of it.
“Tamate, look, here is good water. It is yours and all this land is
yours. Our young men will begin at once to build you a house. Go and
bring your wife and leave these bad murdering people you are with, and
come and live with us.”
“Goira” was their word for water.
When Tamate and Beni returned to Suau the natives there could not
believe that the people of Tepauri had not hurt them. They looked at
them anxiously and said:
“They did not kill you, but did you eat anything there?”
“Oh yes, plenty.”
“You should not have done that. They will have poisoned you.”
When the natives of Suau saw that Tamate Vaine stayed alone with them
when her husband went away, they were delighted. They said to each
other:
“They trust us, we must treat them kindly. They cannot mean us harm, or
Tamate would not have left his wife behind.”
They used to beg her to eat a great deal, so that her husband would
know that they had treated her well.
But the fever that seizes so many people there had weakened Mrs.
Chalmers. Her spirit was so brave and strong that neither she nor any
one else knew how ill she was.
Once Tamate went for a long walk on the mainland across the water from
Suau. He wished to find out if it would be wise to send teachers far
inland amongst the mountains. On this walk an old chief was leader of
the party. They needed him to show them the way across the mountains,
but the chief was eager to help in other ways that seemed to him more
useful.
It was a bright sunny morning when they set out, and merry laughter and
shouts rose from the travellers. Soon they came to a spot where a woman
had died. The laughter died away. With solemn faces the chief and his
men tore down branches from the trees and ran on brushing their feet
with the branches, to keep the spirit of the dead woman from tripping
them up. When they passed that bit of road, the run quieted down to a
walk. Then rain began to fall. Again the chief took the care of the
journey on his head. He scolded the rain and bade it be gone.
They spent the night in a little village. Tamate tried to sleep, but
ever through his sleep he heard his guide’s voice telling of the
strange doings of the white man and of the great “war-canoe” that had
called at Suau.
Next morning the chief gathered all the party together on an island
in the midst of a stream. The way for the day lay uphill, but ere the
climb began, the spirits that lived in the heights had to be made
friendly. A great leaf was laid on the ground. An old cocoanut was
scraped into it. Other leaves were cut into little pieces and mixed
with the cocoanut, while the chief and five others sat on the ground
and sang a low chant. Then they sprang up suddenly with a shout, and
the natives squeezed some of the juices of the leaves and cocoanut
over their heads. But this was not all. They waded into the stream and
stood in deep water with their eyes gazing at the mountain-tops and
their hands on their mouths. A low murmur reached the ears of those
who watched them from the island. Suddenly another shout rose, and the
sound of splashing water as the men plunged into the stream. The chief
was the last to return to the island. Tamate asked him:
“Is it all right?”
“Yes, very good. The mountain spirits have gone, and the chief on the
other side will be ready for us. We shall eat pigs. We shall put on
armlets. And more food will be given to us than we shall know what to
do with.”
All the way up the chief was very solemn. He would pluck a leaf, talk
to it, throw it away and pluck another. A bird on a twig before him was
enough to bar the way. He bade it be gone, and stood motionless till he
saw it fly.
The walk was a happy one, but Tamate felt that there were many other
parts of New Guinea that were more in need of teachers, so he did not
place any there then.
When he returned to Suau he found his wife very ill, and in a few
months he had to let her sail away to Sydney. She could not get well at
Suau, but they both hoped that rest and change in Australia would make
her strong again.
[Illustration: Another shout rose]
He worked on at Suau, but the letters from Sydney brought him sad news.
His wife was growing weaker instead of stronger. A few months after
she had left him a friend came to help him, and he gladly left this
friend in charge at Suau and sailed for Sydney, but ere he reached his
wife, he read in a newspaper that she was dead. She died amongst loving
friends. She was bright and strong to the end, and her thoughts were
full of others’ needs. One of her last messages to her husband was:
“Do not leave the teachers.”
Mr. Chalmers sailed back to New Guinea to find a new home and new work
at Port Moresby.