Tahitian Tales
The evening was very warm and still. The sea rumbled faintly on the
reef, half a mile offshore, and behind us--above the vague heights
of the interior--a full moon was rising. The palms were asleep after
their daily tussle with the trade--fronds drooping and motionless in
silhouette against the sky. We had spread mats on the grass close to
the beach; Tehinatu lay beside me, chin propped in her hands--she had
been bathing, and her dark hair, still damp, hung in a cloud about
her face. Her grandmother, Airima--the woman of Maupiti--sat facing
us, cross-legged in the position of her people. Now and then a fish
leaped in the lagoon; once, far down the beach, a ripe nut thudded to
the earth.
"If you two like," said old Airima, "I will tell you the story of my
ancestor, the Lizard Woman."
The girl smiled and raised her head in the little gesture which
corresponds to our nod. "That is a good tale," she declared, "and
true, for I am named after that Lizard Woman who died so many years
ago."
The woman of Maupiti lit a match to dry a leaf of black tobacco over
the flame; when she had twisted it in a strip of pandanus and inhaled
deeply of the smoke, she spoke once more. Her voice was flexible and
soft with a sweet huskiness--an instrument to render the music of the
old island tongue--its cadences measured or rapid, falling or rising
with the ebb and flow of the tale.
"In the old days," Airima began, "so long ago that his name is now
forgotten, there was a king of Papenoo, a just man, successful in war
and beloved by his people. His wife was a daughter of Bora Bora--the
most beautiful woman of that island; she was the delight of his
heart, and they had many children. When she fell ill and died, a
great sadness came over the king; he could do nothing but brood over
his loneliness. In his dreams he saw the face of his wife; life was
hateful to him; even his children, shouting and playing about the
house, grew hateful in his eyes. A day came at last when he could
endure the sight of them no longer, and a plan to be rid of them took
form in his mind.
"There had been a storm and he knew that the waves would be running
high at a place where there was a break in the reef. 'Come,' he said
to the women of his household, 'bring my children to swim--it will
hearten me to see them sporting in the surf.' But when they came to
that beach and the women saw the great waves thundering in through
the pass, they were afraid, for even a strong swimmer could not
live in such a sea. Then the king, whose hope was that his children
might drown, bade them forget their fears. One after another the
young boys and girls went into the sea and were swept out by the
undertow--fearless and shouting. The waves broke over them and at
times they disappeared; the women began to cover their faces, for
they thought, 'Those pretty children, so dear to us, are as good as
dead.'
"Then the watchers saw a strange thing--a true thing, told me by
my grandfather, who had learned it from the lips of his ancestors.
Beyond the breaking of the surf, the children began to sport in
the water, diving and leaping higher and higher into the air. Their
skins grew black and glistened in the sunlight; their arms turned to
fins and their feet became like the tails of fish; the gods of those
days had taken pity on their innocence and made of them the first
dolphins--the playful children of the sea. And the king was glad, for
he saw that his children would not die, and he knew that they could
no longer come to his house to bring back bitter memories.
"As the years went on, the daughters of many chiefs were brought
to the king, but no woman found favor in his eyes; his heart was
always heavy and no man saw him laugh. Sometimes he walked alone
in the mountains where men do not go even to-day, for he feared
nothing--neither the ravening spirits of the dead, nor the Lizard
People, who in those days lived in the interior of the island. Fifty
generations of men have lived and died since our ancestors came to
this island; they found the Lizard People already in possession of
the land. Ta 'a ta Mōo, they called them--half human, half lizard;
able to climb among the cliffs where no man could follow. The human
warriors were more powerful in battle, and as time went on the Lizard
Folk were driven into the fastnesses of the mountains. Now the last
of them is dead, but if you doubt that they once lived, go into
the hills and you will see the remains of their plantain gardens
high above cliffs no human creature could scale. My own people are
traveling the same path--soon the last of us will also be dead, and
the white man will glance at the scattered stones of our _maraes_ to
make sure that once upon a time we lived.
"But I was telling you of the king. One day, as he wandered alone
in the mountains, a Lizard Woman was lying in the fern beside the
trail--a head woman of her people, skilled in magic and able to read
the future. This king was a tall man, very strong and handsome; as he
passed without looking down, she seized his foot gently. At that he
looked down and his heart swelled with love of her. He dwelt with her
in the mountains, and when at last he came down to the sea his people
had given him up for dead.
"In due time a son was born to that Lizard Woman--a strong and
beautiful boy, the image of the king his father; she reared him alone
in the mountains and grew to love him better than her life. But when
she looked into the future her tears fell. When the child was twelve
years old she led him to the mouth of her valley and talked long
with him, telling him what he was to do, before she turned away and
went back to her own place, weeping. Taking thought of her words, the
boy went alone to the village of the king. His dress was the skin of
lizards.
"When he came to that place he said to those about, 'Take me to the
king, my father.' But when they repeated his words, the king said,
'It is false; I have no wife and no child.' Then the child sent
back word asking the king if he had forgotten walking one day in the
mountains many years before. With that the king remembered his love
for the Lizard Woman and bade his men bring the boy to him. And when
he saw the strong, fearless child and heard his people exclaim at
the beauty of the boy and the wondrous likeness to himself his heart
softened and he said, 'This is indeed my son!'
"The years passed, and the heart of the Lizard Woman--sad and alone
in the mountains--grew ever more hungry for her son, until at length
her life became intolerable without sight of him. She stole down from
the hills by night and went softly about the village, weeping and
lamenting because her son was not to be seen; the people trembled at
sight of her in the moonlight and at the sound of her weeping, and
the king feared her, for he knew that she was powerful in magic, and
thought that she had come to take her son away. In his fear he took
canoe with the young man, and they went down the wind to Tetuaroa,
the Low Island, where he thought to be safe from her. But the Lizard
Woman, by her magic, knew where they had gone; she looked into the
future and saw only sadness and death for herself. What must be
cannot be avoided. She leaped into the sea and swam first to Raiatea,
where she had lands and where the bones of her ancestors lay in the
_marae_. When she came to that shore she knew that her death was near
and that she would die by the hand of her own son. Close by the beach
she stopped to weep, and the place of her weeping is still called
Tai Nuu Iti (the Little Falling of Tears). Farther on her path, she
stopped again to weep still more bitterly, and to this day the name
of that place is Tai Nuu Rahi (the Great Falling of Tears). When she
had been to her _marae_, she plunged again into the ocean and swam to
Tetuaroa--in all the islands there was no swimmer like her; because
of his mother, her son was named Au Moana (Swimmer in the Sea).
"The king and the king's son saw Tehinatu coming far off--for
Tehinatu was the name of that Lizard Woman--and they felt such fear
that they climbed to the top of a tall palm. Then, knowing the manner
of her death, she came out of the water--weeping all the while--and
began to climb the palm tree. The two men trembled with fear of her;
they threw down coconuts, hoping to strike her so that she would
fall to the earth. But though she was bruised and her eyes blinded
with tears, she climbed on until she was just beneath them, clinging
to the trunk where the first fronds begin to branch. She stopped to
rest for a moment, and as she clung to the palm, allowing her body
to relax, her son hurled a heavy nut which struck her on the breast.
She made no outcry, but her hands let go their hold and she fell far
down to the earth. But the men still trembled and were afraid to come
down out of the tree, for she struck in a swampy place and was long
in dying; all afternoon she lay there, weeping and lamenting, until
at sunset the spirit left her body. When she was dead, they took her
to Raiatea and buried her in her _marae_. After that the two men
returned to Papenoo, and when the king died the son of the Lizard
Woman reigned long in his stead. These are true words, for the blood
of Swimmer in the Sea, born of the Lizard Woman, flows in my veins."
Old Airima ceased to speak. From the coconut shell at her side she
took a lump of black native tobacco and began to tear off a leaf for
a fresh cigarette. Her granddaughter turned on one side--head resting
on a folded forearm--and looked at me.
"Aye, those are true words," she said; "for is my name not the
same as that of the Lizard Woman? During a thousand years, perhaps
more--_mai tahito mai_: since the beginning--the women of our family
have been called Tehinatu. You yourself, though we call you Tehari,
have a real name among us--Au Moana, after her son. These names
belong to us; no other family does well to use them."
The flare of a match illuminated for an instant the wrinkled and
aquiline face of Airima. As she tossed the glowing stick aside, the
moonlight smoothed away the lines; I was aware only of her black
eyes, wonderfully alive and young.
"Tell him of Poia," she suggested, "and the dead ones in robes of
flame."
"_Aué_," said the girl; "that is a strange tale, and it came about
because of a name." She sat up, shaking the hair back over her
shoulders.
"The woman who saw these things," she went on, "was another of our
ancestors. She was called Poia, a name her grandfather had given.
She lived at Tai Nuu Iti in Baiatea, where Tehinatu first stopped to
weep.
"One day, in midafternoon, Poia was sitting in the house beside her
mother, busy with the weaving of a mat. All at once a darkness closed
in before her eyes and she felt the spirit struggling to leap from
her body. It was like the pangs of death, but at last her spirit was
free and with its eyes she saw her body lying as if in sleep, and
perceived that there were strangers in the house--two women and a
man. The women were very lovely, with flowers in their hair and robes
of scarlet which seemed to flicker like fire. They were Vahinetua
and Vivitautua, ancestors dead many years before, who loved Poia
dearly. The man was likewise dressed in flaming scarlet, and he wore
a tall headdress of red feathers. He was Tanetua, another of Poia's
ancestors. The three had come from the _marae_ to seek Poia, and they
spoke to her kindly, saying, 'Come with us, daughter.' And though
she felt shame when she looked down at her dull dress and disordered
hair, she followed where they led.
"They took her to the _marae_ of Tai Nuu Rahi, and there Poia saw
a huge woman waiting for them. The right side of that woman was
white, and the left side black; when she saw them coming she fell
on her knees and began to weep for joy. 'Is it you, Poia?' she
cried. 'Then welcome!' As Poia stood there, marveling, the stone of
the _marae_ opened before her like the door of a great house, and
Vahinetua and Vivitautua said to her, 'Go in.' The door gave on a
chamber of stone--the floor was of stone, and the ceiling and the
walls. They passed through another door into a second empty room of
stone, and thence into a third, and there Poia chanced to look down
at herself. She had become lovely as the others; her hair was dressed
with flowers and her robe was scarlet, seeming to flicker like fire.
While she was looking at herself, no longer ashamed, the two women
said to her: 'You must stay here, for you belong to us. We are angry
with your grandfather because he called you Poia. That is not all of
your name--your true name is Tetuanui Poia Terai Mateatea. That name
belongs to us, and you must have it, for you are our descendant and
we love you.'
"She did not know that this was her name; she thought it was only
Poia. In spite of their kindness she was frightened and told them
that she wished to go home. They took her to the door of her house
and left her there; and she found herself lying with the half-woven
mat in her fingers. Her mother, who was sitting beside her, only
said, 'You have slept well.' But Poia, in fear and wonder at what she
had seen, said nothing to her mother, not even when the two went to
bathe.
"The next day, in midafternoon, Poia again felt the darkness close
in before her eyes, the pangs of death as her spirit struggled
and at last escaped from the body. But this time she found herself
gloriously clothed and beautiful at once. All went as before until
they came to the third chamber of the _marae_; there were leaves
spread on the floor of that place as if for a feast, but the only
food was purple flowers. The others sat down and began to eat, and
Poia attempted to do likewise, but the taste of the flowers was
bitter in her mouth. Again the two women said, 'You belong to us; you
must not be called Poia, but Tetuanui Poia Terai Mateatea.' And they
coaxed her to stay with them, but she wept and said that she could
not bear to be separated from her husband, whom she loved. As before,
they were kind to her and took her to her house, where she awoke as
if from sleep, and said nothing.
"It was the same the next day, but this time, when they had come
to the third chamber of the _marae_, Vahinetua and Vivitautua said:
'Now you must no longer think of returning. You are ours and we wish
you to stay here with us.' Poia wept at their words, for she began
to think of the man she loved. 'I must go,' she said; 'if I had no
husband I would gladly remain with you here.' At last, when her tears
had fallen for a long time, the three dwellers in the _marae_ took
her home; they bade her farewell reluctantly, saying that next day
she must come to them for good.
"This time Poia awoke in great fear, and she told the story to her
mother when they went to bathe together. Her mother went straight
to the grandfather, to tell him what she had seen and ask him if
her true name was Poia, as he had said years before. Then the old
man said that he had done wrong, for the name was not only Poia, but
Tetuanui Poia Terai Mateatea, a name which belonged to Vahinetua and
Tanetua and Vivitautua. And these three came no more to get Poia;
they were content, for they loved her and wanted her to have their
name."
As she finished her story, Tehinatu lay down once more, resting
her head on her grandmother's knee. My thoughts were wandering far
away--across a great ocean and a continent--to the quiet streets
of New Bedford, set with old houses in which the descendants of
the whalers live out their ordered lives. In all probability the
girl beside me, Polynesian to the core and glorying in a long
line of ancestors whose outlandish names fell musically from her
lips--had cousins who lived on those quiet streets; for she was
the granddaughter of a New Bedford whaling captain, the husband of
Airima--a Puritan who ate once too often of the _fei_, and lingered
in the islands to turn trader and rear a family of half-caste
children, and finally to die. The story is an old one, repeated
over and over again in every group: the white cross; the half-white
children at the parting of the ways; their turning aside from the
stony path of the father's race to the pleasant ways of the mother.
And so in the end the strain of white, further diluted with each
succeeding generation, shows itself in nothing more than a name ...
seldom used and oftentimes forgotten. It is Nature at work, and she
is not always cruel.
"Is it the same with names in your land?" Airima was asking. "Are
certain names kept in a family throughout the years?"
"It is somewhat the same," I told her, "though we do not prize names
so highly. My father and grandfather and his father were all named
Charles, which you call Tehari."
"Among my people," she said, "the possession of a name means much.
As far back as our stories go, there has been a man named Maruae in
each generation of my father's family. Some of these Maruaes were
strange men. There was Maruae Taura Varua Ino, who fished with a bait
of coconut for the spirits of men drowned in the sea; and another
was Maruae Mata Tofa, who stole a famous shark--the adopted child of
a man of Fariipiti. That was a good shark; it lived in the lagoon,
harming no one, and every day the man and his wife called it to
them with certain secret words. But Maruae coveted the shark, and
he prepared an underwater cave in the coral before his house. Then,
when the cave was ready, he hid in the bushes on the shore of the
lagoon while the man was calling his shark, and in this way Maruae
learned the secret words of summons. When the man and his wife had
gone, Maruae called out the words; the shark appeared close inshore
and followed him to the cave, where it stayed, well content. And that
night he taught it new words. Next day the man and his wife called
to their shark; and when it did not come they suspected that Maruae
had enticed it away. After that they went to the house of Maruae and
accused him of the theft; but he said: 'Give the call, if you think
I have stolen your shark. I have a shark, but it is not yours.' They
called, but the shark did not come, for he had taught it new words.
Then Maruae called and the shark came at once, so he said, 'See, it
must be my shark, for it obeys me and not you.' As he turned away to
return to Fariipiti, the other man said, 'I think it is my shark, but
if it will obey you and no other, you may have it.'
"Some days later, a party of fishermen came to Maruae's cave, where
the shark lived. They baited a great hook and threw it into the
water, and as it sank into the cave they chanted a magic chant. Then
the shark seized the bait, and as they hauled him out they laughed
with joy and chanted, '_E matau maitai puru maumau e anave maitai
maea i te rai._' This chant is something about a good hook and a
good line, but the other words are dead--what they mean no man knows
to-day. That night there was feasting in the houses of the fishermen,
but next morning, when Maruae went down to the sea and called his
shark, nothing came, though he stayed by the lagoon, calling, from
morning till the sun had set. After that he learned that his shark
had been killed and eaten, and from that day none of Maruae's
undertakings prospered; finally he pined away and died."
Tehinatu stirred and sat up, eyes shining in the moonlight. The
subject of sharks has for these people a fascination we do not
understand, a significance tinged with the supernatural.
"They did evil to kill that shark," she said, "for all sharks are
not bad. I remember the tale my mother told me of Viritoa, the
long-haired Paumotuan woman--wife of Maruae Ouma Ati. Her god was
a shark. It was many years ago, when the vessels of the white men
were few in these islands; Maruae shipped on a schooner going to New
Zealand, taking his wife with him, as was permitted in those days.
That woman was not like us; she understood ships and had no fear of
the sea; as for swimming, there were few like her. When she came here
the women marveled at her hair; it reached to her ankles, and she
wore it coiled about her head in two great braids, thick as a man's
arm.
"The captain of that schooner was always drinking; most of the time
he lay stupefied in his bed. As they sailed to the south the sea
grew worse and worse, but the captain was too drunk to take notice.
The men of the crew were in great fear; they had no confidence in
the mate, and the seas were like mountain ridges all about them. The
morning came when Viritoa said to Maruae: 'Before nightfall this
schooner will be at the bottom of the sea; let us make ready. Rub
yourself well with coconut oil, and I will braid my hair and fasten
it tightly about my head.' Toward midday they were standing together
by the shrouds when Viritoa said, 'Quick, leap into the rigging!'
That woman knew the ways of the sea; next moment a great wave broke
over the schooner. The decks gave way, and most of the people--who
were below--died the death of rats at once, but Viritoa and her
husband leaped into the sea before the vessel went down.
"A day and a night they were swimming; there were times when Maruae
would have lost courage if Viritoa had not cheered him. 'Put your
hands on my shoulders,' she said, 'and rest; remember that I am a
woman of the Low Islands--we are as much at home in the sea as on
land.' All the while she was praying to the shark who was her god.
The storm had abated soon after the schooner went down; next day the
sea was blue and very calm. Presently, when the sun was high, Viritoa
said to her husband, 'I think my god will soon come to us; put your
head beneath the water and tell me what you see.' With a hand on her
shoulder, he did as she had told him, gazing long into the depths
below. Finally he raised his head, dripping, and when he had taken
breath he spoke. 'I see nothing,' he said; 'naught but the _miti
hauriuri_--the blue salt water.' She prayed a little to her god and
told him to look again, and the third time he raised his head, with
fear and wonder on his face. 'Something is rising in the sea beneath
us,' he said as his breath came fast--'a great shark large as a ship
and bright red like the mountain plantain. My stomach is sick with
fear.' 'Now I am content,' said the Paumotuan woman, 'for that great
red shark is my god. Have no fear--either he will eat us and so end
our misery, or he will carry us safely to shore. Next moment the
shark rose beside them, like the hull of a ship floating bottom up;
the fin on his back stood tall as a man. Then Viritoa and her husband
swam to where he awaited them, and with the last of their strength
they clambered up his rough side and seated themselves one on each
side of the fin, to which they clung.
"For three days and three nights they sat on the back of the shark
while he swam steadily to the northeast. They might have died of
thirst, but when there were squalls of rain Viritoa unbound her hair
and sucked the water from one long braid, while Maruae drank from the
other. At last, in the first gray of dawn, they saw land--Mangaia,
I think you call it. The shark took them close to the reef; they
sprang into the sea and the little waves carried them ashore without
a scratch. As they lay resting on the reef the shark swam to and fro,
close in, as though awaiting some word from them. When she saw this,
Viritoa stood up and cried out in a loud voice: 'We are content--we
owe our lives to thee. Now go, and we shall stay here!' At those
words the shark-god turned away and sank into the sea; to the day of
her death Viritoa never saw him again. After that she and her husband
walked to the village, where the people of Manitia made them welcome;
and after a few years they got passage on a schooner back to Maruae's
own land."
The soft voice of the girl died away--I heard only the murmur of
the reef. Masses of cloud were gathering about the peaks; above
our heads, the moon was sailing a clear sky, radiant and serene.
The world was all silver and gray and black--the quiet lagoon,
the shadowy land, the palms like inky lace against the moonlight.
Tehinatu stifled a little yawn and stretched out on the mat with the
abrupt and careless manner of a child. Her grandmother tossed away a
burnt-down cigarette.
"It is late," said the woman of Maupiti, "and we must rise at
daybreak. Now let us sleep."
Becalmed at Pinaki
[Illustration]