HUNTING IN THE MARQUESAS
The French have never actually prohibited the carrying of arms in the
Marquesas, as have the British in the Solomons; but the possession and
use of guns has been so hedged about with restrictions as practically
to accomplish the same purpose. This is about the way it goes: Coming
to the islands with a gun, a permit must first be secured before it may
be landed. This allows you to take it to your domicile but not to take
it out again. If you would carry it with you on the street, a "Port des
Armes" is required, which allows you, however, to fire it only in your
own backyard, and when that sanctum is enclosed with a metre-high
stone wall. If you desire to fire it anywhere else, a "Permit de Chasse"
must be obtained. Finally, if you come to the conclusion that the
possession of a gun in the Marquesas imposes too many burdens, and
decide to dispose of it, a permit to sell is required; and if, later,
you regret your action and want to get it back again, a permit to
purchase will have to be taken out before the deal can be consummated.
Each of these permits costs a good, stiff fee, and it is largely this
which is responsible for the fact that the Marquesan native hunts today
much after the fashion of ancient times--with his wits and his hands. A
hunt of this kind comes nearer being real sport--that is, of giving the
quarry as good a chance to take the hunter's life as the latter has to
take that of the quarry--than any form of the chase since the days of
the troglodytes, and lucky indeed may the white man esteem himself who
is allowed to join one of them. I eliminated a good deal of the sporting
element on both the occasions on which I went out by carrying, and
using, a rifle or revolver, but as neither of these weapons--through no
fault of mine, however--figured seriously in the final dénouements, I
shall always tell myself that for once in my life at least, I have seen
real hunting--hunting in which the hunter has a legitimate right to be
proud of the game he brings to earth. But first something of a form of
Marquesan hunting which--largely because the white man with his
modern weapons enters into it--is as shameless as the old native
"cave-man" method is admirable.
One may hunt wild cattle, wild boar and wild goats in the Marquesas,
but the pursuit of the latter, however one goes at it, is not worthy
of the name of sport. Unlike the mountain goat of the Cascades and the
Canadian Rockies, the Marquesan animal of that name is neither hard
to find nor hard to kill; so that if one goes out after him with an
intelligent guide it is usually a matter of doing a lot of shooting at
easy range and letting the natives gather up and bring in the meat.
It is about comparable on the score of excitement to shooting seals
in their rookeries or starving cariboo in the Arctic. Goat-hunting
with beaters, as it is done in Nukahiva, cannot be complained of on
the score of lacking excitement, but, on account of the unspeakable
barbarity of its inevitable sequel, is not to be contemplated without a
shudder, even when the drive is undertaken--as it often is--to
exterminate animals that have been ravaging the village gardens.
I had heard in Hawaii that a goat-drive, next to a cannibal feast,
was the greatest attraction the Marquesas had to offer, and one of
the first inquiries I made after my "battery" had run the gauntlet of
French officialdom was regarding the chances for arranging one. The
Residente promised at once to lend aid in the form of all the prisoners
in the island jail to act as beaters, saying that the goats had become
very numerous and troublesome since the last drive and that he would
be glad indeed of a chance to get rid of a few of them; but when I
broached the subject to the trader, McGrath, who had already become our
court of first and last instance in the filling up of the program for
our Marquesan stay, he frowned and shook his head dubiously.
"If you're half the sportsman I take you for you would be sorry for
it," he said. "You wouldn't engage in one of your California rabbit
drives for sport, would you? No. Well, a Marquesan goat drive is just
about like one of those--and then some. I'll have to tell you about the
first one I took part in, I think, and then if you still feel that you
want to go ahead we will see what can be done."
We drew out a couple of canvas deck chairs to a breeze-swept corner of
the front veranda of Cramer's trading store, where McGrath, sipping now
and then at the long glass of absinthe and water which is the approved
drink in that corner of the Pacific, told his story.
"Up at the top of that cliff--it's a thousand feet in the sheer"--he
began, pointing to a towering basaltic buttress that reared its black
bulk abruptly from the northern loop of the bay, "there is a narrow
but fairly level and open table-land. The opposite side drops down
to Typee Inlet in the same way, and you will remember how it tapers
off to a knife-edge at the outer point. The objective of every goat-drive
is the open space upon that point, for from it there is no escape save
across the narrow landward neck which is held by the beaters and
hunters. There is another escape, if you want to call it that. Imagine
an almost solid stream of white furry patches, five hundred feet wide,
rushing out over the edge of that table-land there and falling down
the face of the cliff like a cataract in flood; and then imagine--but I
anticipate.
"The goats were particularly active when I first came to Nukahiva--I
was a missionary then, and lived here in Taio-haie--and one night they
brought their depredations to a climax by tramping down the thorn fence
of the Residency garden and making a clean sweep of all the vegetables.
How much of a luxury truck garden stuff is upon a tropical island
unserved by steamers and totally lacking in cold storage facilities,
only one who has lived under such conditions can appreciate. Probably
you're beginning to come to some appreciation of it already. The
Residente was, naturally, furious over his loss, and plans were set
afoot that afternoon for a big drive to rid the immediate vicinity of
as many as possible of the obnoxious animals. I didn't know what a
Marquesan goat-drive was then, and readily consented to take part.
"On the morrow at daybreak, mustering between officials, soldiers,
trading store employés and officers from schooners in the harbour,
ten or a dozen mounted men, and between the "trusties" from the
prison and other natives drawn in by the opportunity of obtaining
fresh meat, fifty or sixty beaters, we set out in a long line that
reached from sea to sea across the landward end of the peninsula.
"All morning we scared up the frightened animals and drove them on
before us until, at noon, we had a herd that must have numbered some
thousands cornered upon the open table-land at the extremity of the
point. On three sides of the heaving mass of white the cliffs fell
sheer to the sea for a thousand feet, while to landward escape was cut
off by the hunt, its armed riders drawn up in front, and the beaters,
now shoulder to shoulder, bringing up the rear in a solid double line.
"Twice the terrified band, led by a squad of patriarchal old 'billies,'
charged down upon us in a wild break for freedom, only to fall back
each time before the rain of bullets and the deafening roar from the
hard-pumped repeaters and automatics. Even once more they massed and,
blindly, desperately, madly, made their last rush to break our lines.
Falling by scores, they still braved the rifle fire until the last
gun was empty, broke through between the horsemen and, but for the
close-packed ranks of the beaters, would have gained their freedom in
thousands instead of a few scattered twos and threes.
"But the heavily-swung war clubs and the ear-splitting yells of
the natives checked the force of the rush, and suddenly, as though
simultaneously possessed of a common impulse, every one of the
survivors turned, rushed to the edge of that great black cliff yonder,
and went lunging off into space. For a few moments, rising above
the dull roar of the surf against the base of the cliff, we heard the
thud and splash of the bodies striking rocks and water, and then,
save for the bleating of the wounded at our feet, all was quiet. Not
a goat had faltered; not an unhurt animal remained on the plateau.
"For several long moments no one moved or spoke, but each, with his
horse reined sharply in, glanced guiltily at the man on his left and on
his right, and then let his eyes fall shamedly to the ground. Even the
natives were awed and silent. Finally the Residente, shaking his heavy
shoulders like one who would rid himself of the effects of a bad dream,
dismounted, gave his horse to a native, and picked his way out to the
edge of the cliff, the rest of us following suit. And then it was that
we were given to see the full enormity of the thing which we had done,
for the horror that had already befallen was only the preliminary of a
still grimmer tragedy, for the final act of which the curtain was just
being rung up.
"Lucky indeed--as luck went that day--were the goats that had been
killed on the plateau or had mercifully plunged to instant death on the
rocks. Many of the animals, due to their falls having been broken by
striking the yielding mass formed by the bodies of their mates, were
still alive, and for the hundreds of these that were floundering in
the water a worse fate was reserved. The reek of blood which welled up
from below, and the piteous bleats that assailed our ears, smote also
on keener senses than our own, and at even our first glance there were
revealed to us the black dorsals of countless lurking tiger sharks,
cutting the water from every direction and converging in a deadly focus
on the spot where the helpless little wisps of white were floating
at their mercy. They came and came, and still kept coming, until it
seemed that the whole Pacific was giving up the sharks of the ages
gone by to join in the bloody carnival. The sea along the foreshore
for hundreds of yards was literally alive with great brown-black forms
that slashed and fought and piled upon one another in frantic fury,
while the water, five minutes before us limpid as a woodland pool,
was dyed to a deep crimson, and its foam-lines in the eddies frothed
up a ghastly pink. I have surveyed the remains of several cannibal
feasts since that sickening noontide at the brink of that great cliff,
but never again have I known anything to approach the overpowering
feeling of mingled horror, awe, disgust and regret that I then
experienced."
McGrath straightened up with a long breath and gulped the last of his
glass of absinthe and water.
"Thus my first goat-drive," he concluded; "and thus are the goat-drives
of today. It's just as well you should know what they are beforehand,
for, if you're anything like me, you would never forgive yourself for
getting drawn into one. However, goat-driving doesn't exhaust the
possibilities of Nukahiva by any means. I shall be able to arrange a
pig hunt for tomorrow or next day without any trouble, I think, and, if
there is any way of getting the natives keyed up to it, I will get them
to take you out after a wild bull before you go. You'll see something
you never saw before in either case."
* * * * *
It may be largely coincidence, but it is a fact at any rate, that in
nearly every place in the world where the wild pig is found it is not
considered quite the sporting thing to hunt it with guns. There is no
hard and fast rule against it, of course, but in these places shooting
a wild boar, except as a _dernier ressort_, is considered about on a
par with potting ducks or pheasant. Thus, in Germany, Austria and
the Balkans it is customary for the keenest sportsman still to take
his chance with a boar on foot, and armed only with a spear; in
India the British army officers ride that animal down in the jungle
and dispatch it with a short lance, and in Africa the sporting thing
to do is for the hunter to endeavour to give the _coup de grace_
with a native _assegai_. In North America, for some reason, this
custom is honoured only in the breach, and the Texas peccary and
the Mexican _javelin_--neither of which is much more than an
oversized razor-back hog--are dispatched on sight with rifle and
shotgun.
Boar-hunting with a spear or _assegai_,--or even according to the
Indian practice of killing from the saddle, which requires the
greatest steadiness of seat, hand and nerve,--are certainly not open
to criticism on the ground of being un-sporting; but the Marquesan
native, in attacking the boar of his islands with a two-foot cutlass
or _macheté_, which has been made for slashing underbrush and opening
coconuts--for cutting, not thrusting--unquestionably goes all of them
one better on the score of taking chances, for he works literally at
arm's length and with his body unprotected even by the lightest of
clothes.
A Marquesan boar hunt, with no other weapons than knives or cutlasses,
is as exciting and hazardous an undertaking as the most adventurous can
desire. The pigs are scared up in the bush by dogs and men, headed off in
their flight along the narrow run-ways in the guava scrub, and dispatched
by a knife-thrust between the base of the neck and the shoulder. Killing a
large boar in this manner is an extremely nice piece of work, as a
difference of an inch to the right or the left in plunging the knife means
that the thrust will be almost harmless and leaves the hunter open to the
deadly sweep of one of the scimitar-like tusks of the powerful animal.
The commonest scar one sees on the body of a Marquesan is a long
diagonal welt of white where the flesh of calf or thigh has been laid open
to the bone by the tusk of a charging boar. If, as occasionally happens
when the boar is a large one, the slash is across the abdomen, the hunter
rarely survives to bear the scar.
McGrath was as good as his word in the matter of arranging the pig hunt
he had promised, but unfortunately, through being called to Hatiheu to
look after the loading of one of his schooners, was unable to go along
himself.
"Be content to remain a spectator," was his parting injunction; "and
don't think because it looks easy for a native to drop a charging boar
with a cutlass and a twist of the wrist that you can do it yourself.
That was the way I got this limp of mine--it comes from a tendon that
was cut by a side-swipe from a tusk of the first--and the last--boar I
ever tried to stick. Best take your six-shooter along, but don't use
it unless you have to. It might serve to turn a boar that was charging
you; but it also might make one that was running away swing around
and come back. There are only two or three small spots on a wild pig
in which a pistol bullet--or a half dozen of them, for that matter--will
prove fatal, and these you would hardly be able to locate with the
animal at a run."
McGrath laid special stress on my adhering to the spectator rôle,
and I set out with that injunction firmly impressed on my mind. But
the sticking trick looked so ridiculously easy after I had seen it
performed once or twice that it was not long before I began to tell
myself that it was a case of "once bitten, twice shy" with my trader
friend, and that he had probably lost his nerve on account of his
unpropitious initial experience. And so it chanced--but I had best tell
something of the way of a Marquesan with a pig before obtruding my
own troubles.
We set out from Taio-haie on foot in the first flush of a heliotrope
and daffodil sunrise--a dozen or more natives, about twice that
number of dogs, and myself--followed the Typee trail for a mile up
the mountain through the endless ruins of the old Marquesan villages,
finally to branch off by a barely discernible foot path into the
veritable carpet of low scrub which belts the island at the 500-foot
level. Guava and lantana it was for the most part, the former heavy
with lucious yellow-red fruit and the latter bright with tiny golden
flowers. As we fared farther from the main travelled trail, dim runways
through the bush began to appear, and these, gradually converging as
they led down toward the neck of a rolling little valley which opened
up beyond a sharp ridge we had crossed, formed a narrow but well
marked path.
Four of the natives and I headed for a point where two jutting walls
of rock formed a natural gateway, which was scarcely a dozen feet
wide between the cliffs and choked with several giant trees and a maze
of lianas and brush. Through this opening ran the runway we were
following, the only path by which pigs going back and forth between
the upper and lower valley could pass. The others, with the dogs still
held in leash by strands of light liana, circled to the upper hills
preliminary to swinging around and beating back down the valley. I
was led, gently but firmly, up to a natural "grandstand" in the angle
of the buttressed roots of a big _maupé_ tree, one of the natives--a
servant of McGrath's who was evidently acting under orders--stopping
alongside in case I showed a disposition to "stray." My three other
companions--strapping bronze giants with the muscles of
gladiators--took their stands in the centre of the runway. One behind
the other, at ten or twelve-foot intervals, they lined up--there was no
chance in the narrow, bush-walled passage for anything in the nature
of a three-abreast, Horatius-at-the-Bridge formation--each with his
cutlass hand resting lightly on his hip, like a fencer standing at ease.
Cool, alert, ready, they waited, three living, breathing incarnations
of deadly efficiency. So had I seen a puma waiting, patiently tense,
upon the limb of a tree above a path where deer were wont to come
on their way to water; so have I since seen sharks lurking in
quivering readiness among the coral spines where ventured the
divers for pearls.
Ten minutes passed, in which occasional stifled yelps, now from
this side, now from that, told that the dogs, still in leash, were
being spread out as quietly as possible across the upper valley. Only
occasional sharp crashes in the scrub gave evidence of an increasing
current of uneasiness among the pigs. Tebu, who stood at "Number 1,"
broke into a low crooning chant, with a throaty kluck and a queer
chesty roll to it, which my "guard" translated as an invitation to the
pigs to come down and join our party. Presently the other two
natives took up the air, the three of them swaying gently to the
rhythm of the barbaric chant.
The dogs appeared to have been released upon a preconcerted signal, for
their choruses of baying broke out all the way across the valley at the
same time, accompanied by the ringing shouts of the men and the shrill
ululations of a bevy of women and girls who had trailed along after us
and had now joined the hunt.
Tebu hushed his singing and froze to attention as the underbrush
began to crackle, and I knew by the flash of blood-lust in his eyes
the instant he sighted the first pig. This animal, which was startled
but not aroused, lunged back into the scrub before he reached the
"gateway," and two or three other half-hearted mavericks did likewise
before one arrived on the scene who really had his mind made up about
going through to the lower valley. Singleness of purpose showed in
every line of the flying black mass that came dashing down the runway
and headed straight for the "gate." Possibly the fear of the dogs
was in his heart, but he looked more mad than frightened as, without
a pause or a side-glance of indecision, he hurled himself upon the
motionless bronze figure that blocked the way. On he came, like a bull
at a gate, and even as I gasped to myself that a regiment of soldiers
couldn't block his flight, he dashed against the lone human barrier
and the miracle was enacted. The impassive giant hardly seemed to
move. There was sharp tensing of the powerful frame, a flash of
sunlight glinting across the golden muscles, a quick movement of the
wrist that might almost have been a caress--and the flying mass of
bone and sinew was quivering at the gladiator's feet. There was not a
squeal or a kick. It was almost as though the bronze Titan had waved
his hand and muttered "Alive! Dead! Presto! Change!" and that thus it
had come to pass. The swift transition from life to death reminded me
of the wilting of a steer under the touch of the "killer" in an
Uruguayan _matadero_, where they slay by severing the spinal cord at
the base of the horns with a knife thrust. But there the twinkle of
the wrist snuffed the life spark in the body of a passive animal,
while here the same easy, effortless movement had smothered it while
it flared at full power in a quarter of a ton of flying flesh and bone
that was itself a Bolt of Death.
Another and yet another charging monster was crumpled to earth while I
was still lost in speculation respecting the manner of the passing of
the first, and it was not until the fourth or fifth fugitive appeared
that I gathered my wits together for a dispassionate study of the way
the wonder was wrought. Then I quickly came to the conclusion that it
was the almost absolute "evenness" of the charge that made the thing
possible at all. The surface of the runway was smooth and sloped but
slightly, while its narrowness and straightness at the "gate" held
the pig to an undeviating course whether he wished it or not. Though
he came at a great speed, the huge body advanced almost as evenly
as though running on a track, making it possible for a man with a
steady hand and nerve to locate to a nicety that little three-inch-wide
spot between the neck and shoulder where the point of knife must
enter to be effective. That vulnerable point would be covered by the
upward toss of the head that the boar has timed to make at the
moment of impact, and the whole success of the thrust depends
upon a quick forward step and a lunge that anticipates that toss
by the hundredth part of a second.
While he is waiting the native receiving the charge scrapes a shallow
depression in the path--something similar to a sprinter's starting
holes--into which the toes of his left foot are set for a firm grip on
the earth. At the psychologic moment the right foot is advanced half a
pace, the left leg straightened into a brace, the right arm, with its
extended cutlass, stiffened to a bar of steel--and the thing is done.
The keen two-foot blade, slipping between the shoulder blade and the
first rib, shores its way through heart and lungs, and its point may
even penetrate to the abdominal cavity. If the stroke is true the blade
and handle of the knife are buried to the wrist of the arm that drives
it and the charging animal crumples up into an inert mass without
uttering a sound. If the vital spot is missed, what happens depends
largely upon the extent of the error. If the point of the knife meets
a bone squarely--as rarely happens, however--the man behind it may be
thrown backward or to one side by the impact, and escape unscathed.
The usual miss, however, comes through having the point of the knife
deflected by the toss of the boar's head, and the result is a glancing
thrust which will probably leave the hunter still in the path of the
charge and exposed to the deadly side-swipe of the great back-curving
tusks.
It is not often that there is more than one wound--a charging boar
rarely returns to the attack once his impetus has carried him clear of
his enemies--and the consequences of this depend largely upon its
location. If a thigh is cut deeply enough the wounded man will bleed
to death; and if the slash is across the abdomen, though he may
linger, it is rarely indeed that blood-poisoning fails ultimately to
claim him for a victim. Because the wild pig is so foul a feeder,
there is also grave danger of blood-poisoning from the superficial
wounds on the arms and legs, but most of these, it is said, are
recovered from.
Tebu dropped another pig or two with the same easy nonchalance that
had marked his manner from the outset, and then, reluctantly, gave
place to the man next in line. This one was called Maro, and he was
reputed the champion pig-sticker of the leeward side of the island. As
first "backer-up," he had been chafing under the enforced inactivity
for some minutes and complaining that Tebu was taking the cream of
the sport for himself. The new "Number 1" was less massive of build
than his predecessor, but was muscled with the fluent undulations of
swift-running water--a man compact of watchsprings, a human tiger-cat.
Deftly and easily he dropped his first pig--a rangy boar--slapped a
flying half-grown shote contemptuously with the flat of his cutlass as
beneath his notice, and had just got well "set" on his toes again, when
that bane of the Marquesan pigsticker, a "double"--two boars running
close together--came charging down.
By all the rules of the game this twin terror should have been allowed
to go by unmolested, for successfully to stick a "double" is a feat
as rare as a triple play in baseball or the "hat trick" in cricket--a
thing to be talked about for years after it has happened. But it chanced
to come at the moment when the shifty Maro was just "on edge"--nicely
warmed up and steadied by his first pig and yet not wearied by
successive efforts--and then there was the Beretani--the white man--who
had to be shown what a Marquesan could really do in a pinch. Probably
the latter was the more powerful incentive. At any rate, without a
gesture or a glance of hesitation, he settled the toes of his left foot
firmly into their hole, poised for an instant in quivering readiness,
and then, with the swiftness of a striking cobra, lurched forward in
two lightning passes.
The first thrust, which was delivered at the full extension of his
reach, appeared barely to brush the neck of the foremost boar, but the
next--driven home with a short-arm jab like a pugilist's close-in hook
at an opponent's solar plexus--buried the full length of the knife in
the shoulder of the second boar, and brought it down in a heap, Maro
himself being tripped and half-buried under the inert body. That the
first boar had been more than scratched seemed impossible; yet there
he lay, almost at my feet, giving what appeared to be his dying kicks.
Tebu and his mate were extricating Maro from under the body of the
second boar, and it struck me that the humane thing to do would be to
put the wounded beast out of his agony. Accordingly, without taking
especial care to aim accurately, I directed a couple of bullets from my
".38" automatic at a spot behind one of the ears which appeared to be
vulnerable.
Just where the bullets struck I never found out, for the well-meant
shots awakened something besides the echoes of the rock-girt gorge. At
the touch of the lead the apparently dying boar scrambled to his feet
and made a dive for the lower end of the "gate." Tebu struck viciously
as the animal passed him, but only landed a harmless slash, and the
cutlass of the other native, flung on the chance of severing a rear
tendon, went wide of its mark. The fugitive, running blind but strong,
disappeared among the mazes of trails that led into the lower valley,
followed by the wails of Maro, who saw the feat of a lifetime marred by
the interference of a meddlesome outsider who had been too cowardly to
take a hand in the dangerous part of the game himself. Shouting
something in voluble Marquesan in my direction, he leapt back into
the runway as a renewed crashing broke out above, and stood savagely
on guard.
"What did he say?" I asked McGrath's boy, Tavu, who had stuck closely
to my side through all the excitement.
"He say he kill pig dead. You shoot gun, wake him up. Maro damn mad.
He say now he kill three pigs, all one time. Maybe he mean 'long-pig.'
Maro bad fella b'long Anaho," and he touched his eye with a finger as
a sign that it would be well to be on guard.
The good fellow probably did Maro an injustice in charging him with
harbouring the intention of converting my anatomy into that most
recherché of Marquesan delicacies, "long-pig"; but if there was any
doubt of his willingness, in his anger and disappointment, to tackle
three pigs at once it was effectually dispelled by the events of the
next few moments. The shouts of the beaters and the barking of the
dogs had been growing louder all the time, and the crashings in the
underbrush told that the pigs were now coming in increasing numbers.
Three or four of them shortly came tearing into view, and then--all of
a sudden--the path was packed with bristling black figures, the first
few running hard and free and the rest crowding and stumbling.
The rush of pigs as the beaters closed in was always to be expected in
this particular _cul de sac_, and McGrath had warned me regarding it.
"Get out of the way and sit tight," he had said; "and don't worry about
the boys. They'll take care of themselves."
I appeared to be sufficiently out of the way already, and Tebu and
the third native, as soon as they had caught sight of the impending
avalanche, came over and joined me on the roots of the big tree. I
watched them clamber up to safety and then turned to see the river of
pigs sweep by--and there was that sullen, scowling tiger-cat of a Maro
standing his ground in the middle of the runway. Of course, the proper
thing to have done would have been for some self-sacrificing soul to
leap down and snatch the would-be suicide from "under the wheels," a
task for which the powerful Tebu was admirably fitted by nature. I'm
not sure that the duty of indulging in this form of self-sacrifice
is included in the Marquesan ethical code, but even if it had been,
there was no time to put it into practice. Maro dropped his first pig
and made a pass at the second even as I looked. The two animals were
running almost neck-and-neck, so that the second thrust was hardly more
than a slight slash upon the flying brute's shoulder. It served to turn
Maro in his tracks, however, and not all of his super-feline quickness
could bring him around again in time to meet the rush. The shoulder of
the next pig sent him tottering sidewise as the animal passed, and in
another moment he had fallen fairly across the upraising head of a huge
boar in the van of the ruck. For an instant the shining bronze body
ceased to flash against the heaving black background, and then, as a rat
is tossed by a terrier, it was flung cleanly into the air, to come
slamming down against the gnarled roots of our _maupê_ tree and collapse
into a lifeless heap. The body seemed to have struck the tree hard enough
to break half of its bones; yet the worst injury, I told myself, must
have come from the terrific toss that had sent it catapulting through
the air.
After the rush was over we lost no time in clambering down to "view the
remains." Tebu was smiling sardonically, apparently not greatly shocked
by the tragedy and perhaps secretly pleased at having the only man in
the island who was held his equal in pig-sticking prowess put out of
the running. The other two natives seemed a little more upset, and Tavu
was muttering to himself the ancient Marquesan proverb which translates
literally as "Wild pig--'long-pig.'" This has lost its meaning since
cannibalism became practically extinct, but in the old days it
signified that when the men went out to get the meat of the wild pig,
there was likely also to be man meat to eat at the feast that was held
when the hunt was over.
The body lay on its back, inert as the carcasses of the pigs that
littered the sides of the runway. Tebu and I picked it up and turned it
over to reveal the wound which we knew must have been inflicted when it
was tossed into the air--and lo, beyond some bluing bruises, there was
no wound! We could only guess how so seemingly impossible a thing as
a man's being tossed ten feet by a wild boar without being slashed to
ribbons could have happened; but the most probable explanation seemed
to be that Maro had fallen sidewise across the head of the animal,
behind the tusks, so that the upward thrust of the powerful neck had
only resulted in a mighty push. No bones appeared to be broken. A welt
on the back of the head where it had struck the tree accounted for the
senseless condition of the scrappy pig-sticker, and this, as far as we
could discover, was the extent of the injuries. A dash of water from the
nearby stream brought Maro back to life again, but too dazed, for the
time being at least, to recall the resentment he had harboured against
me on the score of the pig I had "waked up" with my pistol shots.
The natives now cleared a space of brush with their cutlasses and we
prepared to rest and lunch in the shadow of the big tree. A fire was
started to heat stones for roasting a young pig that had been captured,
breadfruit and plantain were put to cooking, coconuts were opened and
guavas, mangoes and a lucious array of other tropical fruits were laid
out on the broad leaves of the _taro_ plant. And then came the women
to our Eden, and with them the Serpent.
McGrath had given the strictest orders that nothing in the form of
toddy should be brought along on the hunt, and this injunction had
apparently been heeded as far as the hunters themselves were concerned.
But the dozen or more girls who had come on later to help as beaters
and share in the division of the meat, claimed to have heard nothing
of the prohibition. Possibly it was a "frame-up" on the part of the men,
or perhaps it just happened. At any rate, when the beating brigade began
to straggle in, it became apparent at once that tippling had been going
on, and shortly I saw the bruised and battered Maro taking a long draught
from a calabash that was being held to his lips by a star-eyed minx with
a red hibiscus blossom behind her ear and a rakish chaplet of fern frond
tilted across her comely brow.
"Coco toddy," muttered Tavu, half in alarm, half in anticipative
ecstasy. "Plenty coco toddy b'long _vahine_."
It would be churlish, I told myself, to attempt to forbid the ambrosia
to any of the tired gladiators when the common herd of the beaters
had already been cheering themselves with it. Then--fatal mistake--I
nodded my head in acquiescence when an _epu_ was held up for Tavu, my
guardian, to quaff, and--but I had already taken a gulp of the liquid
fire from a calabash that a bronze, flower-crowned Hebe, with arms that
were symphonies of rippling loveliness and eyes that were twin wells
of limpid light, had brought and hung about my neck. Another brought a
wreath for my brow and a flower for my ear, and thus crowned the king
of the Bacchic revel it became all the more difficult to inaugurate a
temperance program among my festive subjects. There wasn't enough of
the toddy to put them in a cannibalistic mood, I argued; and, anyhow,
they were bound to have all they wanted, and at my expense, as soon as
they got back to Taio-haie.
At any rate, the "women did offer us of the wine to drink, and we did
drink," and it was all a very merry little "hunting breakfast." It is
not my purpose to write here of the imp who lurks in the depths of the
coco toddy calabash to spring out upon the unwary one who uncovers
him, as I shall have more to say of him later on in Tahiti. On this
occasion such mischief as was wrought was only indirectly traceable
to him, and it is by no means impossible that it might not have
occurred anyway.
This was how it came about: From time to time some of the dogs that
had strayed would come straggling in, and in nearly every case driving
a pig or two ahead of them. As the animals appeared, now one and now
another of the natives would jump up, intercept the fugitive in the
runway and bring him to earth with that easy, effortless neck-thrust
that, to the beholder, was more like a caress than a stab. But because
they had drunken of the insidious toddy and there were many spectators,
the stickers were more than ordinarily nonchalant in their motions,
and--possibly because I, also, had partaken of the toddy--the trick
kept looking easier and easier every time it was done. And probably
it was because Maro had been stimulating his dazed faculties with the
toddy that the recollection of the "double" I had spoiled for him
reawakened, and he began to tell the party how it happened. I didn't
need to know Marquesan to understand the fluent gestures which pictured
me resting comfortably in the tree while the killing was going on, and
showed how I didn't even dare to shoot off my pistol at anything but
a dead pig; and as for having the courage to stand before one with a
knife--the scorn of his "let-me-forget-it" expression was positively
effacive.
In my own action I have always told myself that toddy played no part;
but that delectable beverage certainly _was_ responsible for the fact
that Tavu, who was under the strictest orders from McGrath to keep
me out of mischief, only nodded approbatively when I picked up Tebu's
big cutlass from the grass and strode out into the runway to "make my
honour white." Tebu, with a roar of delight, seized another cutlass and
came out to "back up" for me, but I waved him indignantly aside,
resolved to do the trick alone. The good fellow stepped aside
obediently, but, unluckily for himself, "stood by" against an emergency.
Flower-crowned and sword in hand! I have called up that incongruous
picture in memory many times since, and always to caption it with some
classic title. Of these, "Bacchus in the Rôle of Ajax Defying the
Lightning" has seemed to me rather the most appropriate.
The crowd fell silent as a crashing and the barking of dogs in the bush
above told that another fugitive was approaching, for they scented
trouble with the Residente in case anything happened to the Beretani
who had been put into their charge. (I learned later that the natives
hunting with a French official who had been killed trying to shoot a
wild bull the year before had been seriously punished.) Thanks again to
the toddy, however, no one made a move to interfere.
It was an uncommonly unkind trick of Fate to have held up the only
really large boar that appeared in the course of that hunt until I, the
greenest of green novices, had set myself so defiantly in the middle of
his path that there was no graceful way of getting out of it. Also, it
was harshly ordered that, whereas the other animals had come charging
down as evenly as though strung on trolleys, this monster, with two
dogs nipping his heels, should be plunging and reeling like a ship in a
gale.
I had clearly in mind everything that needed to be done, even to
kicking the toe-hole for my left foot, and I kept repeating to myself
the words of my old 'varsity baseball coach to his batters--"Step out
and meet it." These words had been recalled to me repeatedly during
the morning as Tebu or Maro delivered his deadly thrust with a quick
forward step, and that, with keeping the eye on the vulnerable spot
between the neck and shoulder, seemed to me to be the crucial points
upon which the turning of the trick depended. I have since been told
that this is quite correct. But this procedure was calculated to be
followed in the case of the regulation direct-charging boar; what to
do in the case of a brute that was tossing his head in spirals, as now
this flank, and now that, was nipped by a pursuing dog, I didn't--and I
still don't--know just what to do.
Because I felt that I knew just what to do, and just how to do it, I
had myself perfectly in hand until, sudden as a lightning flash, came
the realization that the spot that I must strike between the neck and
the shoulder was not keeping on an even plane. I had experienced some
fairly exciting close-in work with grizzly and silver tip on a couple
of occasions previous to that morning, and since then I have stopped
the charge of a South American jaguar with a revolver and known what
it is to see a Bengal tiger clawing the howdah of an elephant I was
riding; but never have I known anything to approach the "all gone"
feeling which accompanied the realization that I was not going to be
able to locate the spot which _had_ to be located if I was to avoid a
collision that would make that of Maro's a friendly jostle in
comparison.
The instant the message "You can't do it!" was flashed to my brain,
the charging pig ceased to be a pig, so far as I was concerned, and
became a Car of Juggernaut, a Bolt of Wrath, the incarnation of
everything that was Swift, Terrible and Inevitable. Before I knew it
I had dropped the useless cutlass, snatched out my automatic pistol
and was discharging it wildly at the approaching monster. The rattle
of shots was answered by a burst of savage snarls mingled with quick
yelps of pain, and then, as the hammer snapped down on unresponding
steel after the last cartridge was fired, I sprang blindly to one side
and plunged headlong into the brush. That I dove into the unsympathetic
depths of some kind of a fishhook thorn bush, which took ample toll for
the intrusion when I was dragged out by the heels a minute later, was
only an incident in the light of the fact that--thanks to an instinct
for preservation that not even coco toddy had drugged to sleep--I had
avoided so much as a brush from the charging boar.
A roar of agony and shouts of consternation told me, even before I
was released from the tentacles of the thorn bush, that some one else
had got in the way of the charge that I had declined to meet; then
the noise of the pursuit passed on and died out beyond the "gate."
My pigskin puttees were about the only things I had on that did not
remain, wholly or in part, in the embrace of the thorns, but my own
scratches were quickly forgotten at the sight of the other victim of
the charge. There were two other victims, in fact--one a dog that had
been raked by a soft-nosed bullet from my pistol, and the other the
stout-hearted old gladiator, Tebu, who, leaping to take up the
challenge I had side-stepped, had fallen afoul of the boar itself. His
bulldog courage--or the toddy--had impelled him to undertake on
short notice the job the Beretani had shirked, and, with no chance
to locate the vital spot for his thrust, had lunged wildly and taken
the consequences.
The dog was dead, and it looked for a while as though Tebu, with a
foot-long gash across his thigh and bleeding like one of the pigs
that lay beside him, would follow suit. It transpired presently,
however, that no arteries were severed; so after staunching the flow as
effectually as possible with a torniquet and bandages that left several
members of the party nearly in a state of nature after giving up their
_pareos_ for the wherewithal, they rigged up a rough litter of boughs
and lianas and set off, not untenderly, to bear the wounded warrior
back to Taio-haie. There, thanks to the skilful and kind care of the
sisters at the Mission, he was soon on his way to recovery.
A month later, in Tahiti, I received a letter from Cramer, the German
trader of Taio-haie. After going on to tell how our friend McGrath had
been blown away in his cutter during a hurricane and was given up for
lost, he wrote:
"I saw Tebu today. He is still very lame, and probably always will
be, but he has been going out every day since he left the mission
hospital to hunt the big boar that cut him up so the time he was
out with you. He says he is going to keep on hunting it until he
kills the boar or the boar kills him."
To this letter was added a postscript, written several days later,
which read:
"Tebu brought in the big boar last night. He says he knows it by
the cut he gave it on the shoulder. As we found no bullet marks on
the body we have thought he is probably mistaken."
To this I replied:
"Probably Tebu is right. I cannot swear that I was looking down
the sights of my pistol when I fired those shots."
* * * * *
Thus pig-sticking in the Marquesas. It is bloody and cruel, as is
the killing of all animals; but, because the quarry is nearly always
dropped in its tracks, it is far less open to criticism on that score
than most other forms of hunting. But the finest thing--I may well
say, the grandest thing--about it is the fact that it is a strictly
man-to-beast, give-and-take affair, with the hunter meeting his quarry
more nearly on equal terms than in any other form of hunting practised
since the days of the Cave Men.
Of the wild cattle hunt which McGrath, after infinite trouble, arranged
for one of the final days of our stay in Nukahiva, I have written
elsewhere.