Reflection after Marnoo’s departure—Battle of the pop-guns—Strange
conceit of Marheyo—Process of making tappa.
The knowledge I had now obtained as to the intention of the savages
deeply affected me.
Marnoo, I perceived, was a man who, by reason of his superior
acquirements, and the knowledge he possessed of the events which were
taking place in the different bays of the island, was held in no little
estimation by the inhabitants of the valley. He had been received with
the most cordial welcome and respect. The natives had hung upon the
accents of his voice, and had manifested the highest gratification at
being individually noticed by him. And yet, despite all this, a few
words urged in my behalf, with the intent of obtaining my release from
captivity, had sufficed not only to banish all harmony and good-will,
but, if I could believe what he told me, had gone nigh to endanger his
own personal safety.
How strongly rooted, then, must be the determination of the Typees with
regard to me, and how suddenly could they display the strangest
passions! The mere suggestion of my departure had estranged from me,
for the time at least, Mehevi, who was the most influential of all the
chiefs, and who had previously exhibited so many instances of his
friendly sentiments. The rest of the natives had likewise evinced their
strong repugnance to my wishes, and even Kory-Kory himself seemed to
share in the general disapprobation bestowed upon me.
In vain I racked my invention to find out some motive for the strange
desire these people manifested to retain me among them; but I could
discover none.
But however this might be, the scene which had just occurred admonished
me of the danger of trifling with the wayward and passionate spirits
against whom it was vain to struggle, and might even be fatal to do so.
My only hope was to induce the natives to believe that I was reconciled
to my detention in the valley, and by assuming a tranquil and cheerful
demeanour, to allay the suspicions which I had so unfortunately
aroused. Their confidence revived, they might in a short time remit in
some degree their watchfulness over my movements, and I should then be
the better enabled to avail myself of any opportunity which presented
itself for escape. I determined, therefore, to make the best of a bad
bargain, and to bear up manfully against whatever might betide. In this
endeavour I succeeded beyond my own expectations. At the period of
Marnoo’s visit, I had been in the valley, as nearly as I could
conjecture, some two months. Although not completely recovered from my
strange illness, which still lingered about me, I was free from pain
and able to take exercise. In short, I had every reason to anticipate a
perfect recovery. Freed from apprehensions on this point, and resolved
to regard the future without flinching, I flung myself anew into all
the social pleasures of the valley, and sought to bury all regrets, and
all remembrances of my previous existence, in the wild enjoyments it
afforded.
In my various wanderings through the vale, and as I became better
acquainted with the character of its inhabitants, I was more and more
struck with the light-hearted joyousness that everywhere prevailed. The
minds of these simple savages, unoccupied by matters of graver moment,
were capable of deriving the utmost delight from circumstances which
would have passed unnoticed in more intelligent communities. All their
enjoyment, indeed, seemed to be made up of the little trifling
incidents of the passing hour; but these diminutive items swelled
altogether to an amount of happiness seldom experienced by more
enlightened individuals, whose pleasures are drawn from more elevated
but rarer sources.
What community, for instance, of refined and intellectual mortals would
derive the least satisfaction from shooting pop-guns? The mere
supposition of such a thing being possible would excite their
indignation, and yet the whole population of Typee did little else for
ten days but occupy themselves with that childish amusement, fairly
screaming, too, with the delight it afforded them.
One day I was frolicking with a little spirited urchin, some six years
old, who chased me with a piece of bamboo about three feet long, with
which he occasionally belaboured me. Seizing the stick from him, the
idea happened to suggest itself, that I might make for the youngster,
out of the slender tube, one of those nursery muskets with which I had
sometimes seen children playing. Accordingly, with my knife, I made two
parallel slits in the cane several inches in length, and cutting loose
at one end the elastic strip between them, bent it back and slipped the
point into a little notch made for the purpose. Any small substance
placed against this would be projected with considerable force through
the tube by merely springing the bent strip out of the notch.
Had I possessed the remotest idea of the sensation this piece of
ordnance was destined to produce, I should certainly have taken out a
patent for the invention. The boy scampered away with it, half
delirious with ecstasy, and twenty minutes afterwards I might have been
seen surrounded by a noisy crowd—venerable old greybeards—responsible
fathers of families—valiant warriors—matrons—young men—girls and
children, all holding in their hands bits of bamboo, and each
clamouring to be served first.
For three or four hours I was engaged in manufacturing pop-guns, but at
last made over my good-will and interests in the concern to a lad of
remarkably quick parts, whom I soon initiated into the art and mystery.
Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop, now resounded all over the valley. Duels,
skirmishes, pitched battles, and general engagements were to be seen on
every side. Here, as you walked along a path which led through a
thicket, you fell into a cunningly-laid ambush, and became a target for
a body of musketeers, whose tattooed limbs you could just see peeping
into view through the foliage. There, you were assailed by the intrepid
garrison of a house, who levelled their bamboo rifles at you from
between the upright canes which composed its sides. Farther on, you
were fired upon by a detachment of sharpshooters, mounted upon the top
of a pi-pi.
Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop! green guavas, seeds, and berries were flying about
in every direction, and during this dangerous state of affairs, I was
half afraid that, like the man and his brazen bull, I should fall a
victim to my own ingenuity. Like everything else, however, the
excitement gradually wore away, though ever after occasionally pop-guns
might be heard at all hours of the day.
It was towards the close of the pop-gun war, that I was infinitely
diverted with a strange freak of Marheyo’s.
I had worn, when I quitted the ship, a pair of thick pumps, which, from
the rough usage they had received in scaling precipices and sliding
down gorges, were so dilapidated as to be altogether unfit for use—so,
at least, would have thought the generality of people, and so they most
certainly were, when considered in the light of shoes. But things
unserviceable in one way, may with advantage be applied in another—that
is, if one has genius enough for the purpose. This genius Marheyo
possessed in a superlative degree, as he abundantly evinced by the use
to which he put these sorely bruised and battered old shoes.
Every article, however trivial, which belonged to me, the natives
appeared to regard as sacred; and I observed that for several days
after becoming an inmate of the house, my pumps were suffered to
remain, untouched, where I had first happened to throw them. I
remembered, however, that after awhile I had missed them from their
accustomed place; but the matter gave me no concern, supposing that
Tinor—like any other tidy housewife, having come across them in some of
her domestic occupations—had pitched the useless things out of the
house. But I was soon undeceived.
One day I observed old Marheyo bustling about me with unusual activity,
and to such a degree as almost to supersede Kory-Kory in the functions
of his office. One moment he volunteered to trot off with me on his
back to the stream; and when I refused, noways daunted by the repulse,
he continued to frisk about me like a superannuated house-dog. I could
not for the life of me conjecture what possessed the old gentleman,
until all at once, availing himself of the temporary absence of the
household, he went through a variety of uncouth gestures, pointing
eagerly down to my feet, and then up to a little bundle which swung
from the ridge-pole overhead. At last I caught a faint idea of his
meaning, and motioned him to lower the package. He executed the order
in the twinkling of an eye, and unrolling a piece of tappa, displayed
to my astonished gaze the identical pumps which I thought had been
destroyed long before.
I immediately comprehended his desire, and very generously gave him the
shoes, which had become quite mouldy, wondering for what earthly
purpose he could want them.
The same afternoon I descried the venerable warrior approaching the
house, with a slow, stately gait, earrings in ears, and spear in hand,
with this highly ornamental pair of shoes suspended from his neck by a
strip of bark, and swinging backwards and forwards on his capacious
chest. In the gala costume of the tasteful Marheyo, these calf-skin
pendants ever after formed the most striking feature.
But to turn to something a little more important. Although the whole
existence of the inhabitants of the valley seemed to pass away exempt
from toil, yet there were some light employments which, although
amusing rather than labourious as occupations, contributed to their
comfort and luxury. Among these, the most important was the manufacture
of the native cloth—“tappa”—so well known, under various modifications,
throughout the whole Polynesian Archipelago. As is generally
understood, this useful and sometimes elegant article is fabricated
from the bark of different trees. But, as I believe that no description
of its manufacture has ever been given, I shall state what I know
regarding it.
In the manufacture of the beautiful white tappa generally worn on the
Marquesan Islands, the preliminary operation consists in gathering a
certain quantity of the young branches of the cloth-tree. The exterior
green bark being pulled off as worthless, there remains a slender
fibrous substance, which is carefully stripped from the stick, to which
it closely adheres. When a sufficient quantity of it has been
collected, the various strips are enveloped in a covering of large
leaves, which the natives use precisely as we do wrapping-paper, and
which are secured by a few turns of a line passed round them. The
package is then laid in the bed of some running stream, with a heavy
stone placed over it, to prevent its being swept away. After it has
remained for two or three days in this state, it is drawn out, and
exposed for a short time to the action of the air, every distinct piece
being attentively inspected, with a view of ascertaining whether it has
yet been sufficiently affected by the operation. This is repeated again
and again, until the desired result is obtained.
When the substance is in a proper state for the next process, it
betrays evidences of incipient decomposition; the fibres are relaxed
and softened, and rendered perfectly malleable. The different strips
are now extended, one by one, in successive layers, upon some smooth
surface—generally the prostrate trunk of a cocoa-nut tree—and the heap
thus formed is subjected, at every new increase, to a moderate beating,
with a sort of wooden mallet, leisurely applied. The mallet is made of
a hard heavy wood resembling ebony, is about twelve inches in length,
and perhaps two in breadth, with a rounded handle at one end, and in
shape is the exact counterpart of one of our four-sided razor-strops.
The flat surfaces of the implement are marked with shallow parallel
indentations, varying in depth on the different sides, so as to be
adapted to the several stages of the operation. These marks produce the
corduroy sort of stripes descernible in the tappa in its finished
state. After being beaten in the manner I have described, the material
soon becomes blended in one mass, which, moistened occasionally with
water, is at intervals hammered out, by a kind of gold-beating process,
to any degree of thinness required. In this way the cloth is easily
made to vary in strength and thickness, so as to suit the numerous
purposes to which it is applied.
When the operation last described has been concluded, the new-made
tappa is spread out on the grass to bleach and dry, and soon becomes of
a dazzling whiteness. Sometimes, in the first stages of the
manufacture, the substance is impregnated with a vegetable juice, which
gives it a permanent colour. A rich brown and a bright yellow are
occasionally seen, but the simple taste of the Typee people inclines
them to prefer the natural tint.
The notable wife of Kammahammaha, the renowned conqueror and king of
the Sandwich Islands, used to pride herself in the skill she displayed
in dyeing her tappa with contrasting colours disposed in regular
figures; and, in the midst of the innovations of the times, was
regarded, towards the decline of her life, as a lady of the old school,
clinging as she did to the national cloth, in preference to the
frippery of the European calicoes. But the art of printing the tappa is
unknown upon the Marquesan Islands.
In passing along the valley, I was often attracted by the noise of the
mallet, which, when employed in the manufacture of the cloth, produces
at every stroke of its hard, heavy wood, a clear, ringing, and musical
sound, capable of being heard at a great distance. When several of
these implements happen to be in operation at the same time, and near
one another, the effect upon the ear of a person, at a little distance,
is really charming.