THE PASSION PLAY AT UAHUKA
The decennial Passion Play at Oberammergau is, perhaps, the most
written and talked about theatrical performance that has ever been
staged, and even the annual pageants put on during Holy Week in certain
of the Italian, Spanish and South American theatres have attained to
considerable publicity in other parts of the world; the Passion Play
of the French mission at Uahuka, an island of the Marquesan group, has
been witnessed by less than half a dozen non-resident white men, and as
a consequence the fame of it, except such hazy versions as have found
their way to France through the channels of the missionary society
records, scarcely reaches beyond the coral reefs that fringe the rocky
Uahukan shores.
Vague rumours of a strange Marquesan Passion Play had come to us before
we sailed from Hawaii, and on the arrival of the yacht in Taio-haie,
the capital of that group, we were assured that such a performance
was "staged" annually. The interest of this announcement was tempered
by the news that the last performance had taken place a fortnight
previously and that another would not be put on until Holy Week of
the following year. We did not make our projected visit to Uahuka,
therefore, and I was consequently unable to secure firsthand data
regarding this unique event. The somewhat fragmentary and frivolous
account I am writing smacks strongly, I fear, of the sources from which
my information was gathered, this or that trader and skipper of the
"beaches" of Taio-haie and Tahiti, and especially a fascinating renegade
by the name of Bruce Manners, who came off to the yacht one night in
Papeete and smoked a half dozen of the Commodore's Perfectos while
spinning us yarns of his lurid career in the Marquesas and Paumotos.
* * * * *
All through the South Pacific missionary work follows closely the
lines of nationality, with the London Missionary Society dominant in
the British possessions, and French organizations, both Protestant and
Catholic, monopolizing the field in the islands over which the jaunty
tri-colour of France whips itself to tatters in the whistling Southeast
Trades. As the United States holds only a naval station at Pago Pago,
Samoa, and Germany is now out of the Pacific altogether, missionaries
of American and Teutonic extraction are a negligible quantity. This
alignment gives the aggressive British society most of the reclamation
work west of the 180th meridian, and the French the territory to
the east. The headquarters of the French missionary system is that
country's capital in the South Seas, Papeete, Tahiti, in the Society
group; but the active zone, the "firing line," so to speak, is in the
barbaric and cannibalistic Marquesas, and centres in the big island of
the north group, Uahuka.
The Passion Play at Uahuka has been presented, it is said, every
Easter for the last fifty years. It was inaugurated by the Catholic
mission, and in its initial presentation all the rôles were taken by
French missionaries, these being gathered from various parts of the
Paumotos, Societies and Marquesas and brought to the scene of the
performance in a specially chartered fleet of trading schooners. The
following year numerous minor parts were given to natives as rewards
for becoming converts to Catholicism--the competition between
Romanist and Protestant was very keen at this time--and before many
seasons had gone by even the leading rôles came to be filled by the
savages, the missionaries contenting themselves with such positions
as stage manager, musical director, mistress of the wardrobe and the
like.
This Passion Play serves admirably the purpose for which it was
originally designed, that of bringing home by tableaux to the simple
natives a more graphic realization of the dramatic events surrounding
the life and death of Christ than would be possible by mere words
and pictures, and while its tone would scarcely be characterized
as "dignified" by a dispassioned white man from the outside world,
its moral effect upon the natives,--temporarily, at least--is most
favourable.
The Passion Play is still presented in the same place that the
first performance by the missionaries was put on, a sort of natural
ampitheatre in the very heart of the Catholic reserve on the outskirts
of the village of Uahuka. The mission buildings, low rambling
structures of coral and galvanized iron, flank two sides of the
pentagonal enclosure. Two other sides are shut in by close-set rows of
banyans of such size that their roots and down-reaching branches mingle
to form almost solid lines of irregular wooden terraces upon which
hundreds of spectators may find seats without crowding. The stage is a
hard-packed piece of ground sloping gently down to a crystal clear
stream of water which meanders past, sparkling in the sunbeams like
a row of footlights, the position of which it approximately occupies.
Behind the stage is a creeper-covered wall of rock, with a face so
unbroken and sheer that the direction "exit rear" must necessarily
be eliminated from all performances. To the left is spoken of as
"down Ta-roo-la,"--the name of the little stream--and to the right is
"up Ta-roo-la." Actors waiting in either wings are screened from
the sight of the audience by the last of the rows of banyans which
run down close to the stream on either side.
The music is furnished by a slightly wheezy organ, a clarionet and
a lot of hollow-tree tom-toms, and to the stirring strains of the
Marseillaise played by this orchestra the opening curtain is rung
up upon the tableau of "Christ and the Children." Of course there
is no curtain and no ringing up; Christ simply strolls in from "up
Ta-roo-la," and the children troop in from "down Ta-roo-la," and they
meet in the middle of the stage. Then Christ pats them all on the head,
and they all file off behind Him as He exits "down Ta-roo-la." There is
no stage setting, and little is attempted in the way of make-ups.
The children are simply children and the part of Christ is taken by a
native called Lurau. Lurau is the greatest pearl diver and shark fisher
in all the Marquesas. With his hair and beard neatly oiled and combed,
and dressed in a trailing robe of snowy muslin, Lurau makes a far more
acceptable-looking Christus than one sees in many of the South
American presentations of the Passion Play. There is little in his
disposition off the stage to fit him for his exalted rôle, and before he
became a fixture in the leading part of the Passion Play he was a
veritable rubber ball in the way in which he bounced back and forth
between the Protestants and Catholics. He owes the distinguished
honour that has come to him to his beard rather than to his histrionic
abilities; he is the only native in the Marquesas--and, as far as is
known, in all the South Pacific as well--with a growth of hair on his
face.
[Illustration: "THE PART OF CHRIST IS TAKEN BY A NATIVE
CALLED LURAU"]
[Illustration: MARQUESAN MOTHER AND CHILD]
The simple white robe worn by Lurau is in good keeping with his part,
but this can hardly be said of a very tangible halo that has apparently
been cut from a square of shiny biscuit tin, a piece of literalness,
however, in which the simple islanders seem to see no trace of
incongruity. In fact, this item of make-up was added, it is said, at
the suggestion of a native who, after one of the early performances
of the Play, led the stage-manager to a coloured print in the mission
chapel and pointed out that the stage Christ had no such "fire-face"
as distinguished the one in the lithograph. He suggested obtaining
the halo effect by having the actor wear a lot of little _kukui_ nut
torches in his hair, but the cautious fathers, while acknowledging the
realistic possibilities of this expedient, decided on the jagged rim of
bright biscuit tin as safer.
During the week of the Play, both on and off the stage, Lurau is
quiet, dignified and a general paragon of virtue in every particular;
afterwards--he is just like all the rest of his brothers and sisters
of the Marquesas, prone to excesses. Lurau's post-Passion Play
spree is listed with the hurricane season as one of the regular
annual disturbances in those latitudes.
The second scene of the Play is that of the "Redemption of the
Magdalen." The latter, dressed in a bright red _holakau_ or
wrapper--the symbol of her sinfulness--comes strolling in from the
upstream side and discovers Christ resting on a niche of the rock
which forms the back wall. Her repentance and forgiveness follow,
after which Christ presents her with a pure white _holakau_ which he
chances to have tucked under his arm. She receives a blessing, trips
off down stream, changes _holakaus_ in the wink of an eye behind the
friendly trunk of a bread-fruit tree, and the "curtain" follows her
disappearance upstream in the trailing robe of white.
The Magdalen has been played by a different person almost every year.
The one who took that part in the last presentation was, so Bruce
Manners assured us, far better in the "red _holakau_" than in the
"white _holakau_" part of her rôle, her work as a repentant sinner
having been decidedly marred through a persistent tendency to ogle a
group of young trading schooner officers who occupied a proscenium
banyan.
For the "Supper" scene, no endeavour is made to reproduce a tableau
patterned on the famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci. Historic
truthfulness is not attempted even to the extent of a table. A
bountiful repast of bread-fruit, plantains, yams and coconuts is spread
out upon a cover of banana leaves, and everybody sits down cross-legged
and eats for fully ten minutes before a word is spoken. Supper over,
the remnants are gathered up and thrown into the convenient
Ta-roo-la, the waters of which carry them away in a jiffy. Then follows
the washing of the feet of the disciples. Lurau wades over into the
stream, seats himself on a convenient boulder, and as each of the
disciples comes out in turn, gives both of the latter's feet a vigorous
scrubbing with a brush of coco husk and a piece of soap. After
receiving a blessing, the disciple heads for the bank, and as each lifts
the skirt of his robe to clear the stream a well-defined "high-water
mark," running in graceful undulations around his lower calf, is
usually disclosed to the eyes of the audience.
The scene of "Christ Healing the Lepers" as presented at Uahuka is,
perhaps, the most realistic tableau, in one particular at least, that
is staged in any of the Passion Plays. Real lepers appear on the stage.
In the early days of the Play these parts were taken by entirely
whole and healthy people, but the missionaries were never able to
persuade the natives that, with so many real lepers ready to hand, any
make-believe in this particular need be indulged in. Finally several
of the lepers themselves--Christian converts--came to the Fathers and
asked what was the use of curing a lot of well people in the Play when
there were so many sick ones about that really needed curing. This
was hard to answer--to the satisfaction of the questioners--and the
upshot of the matter was that a half dozen of the cases least liable
to spread the dread disease were allowed upon the stage at the next
performance. Following the week of the Play it is said that a very
marked improvement was evident for several months in the condition
of every one of the unfortunates that appeared during its continuance.
Since that occasion the good missionaries have not had the heart to
refuse the prayers of any of those who have come to them at
Eastertide, until now it is necessary to divide them off into squads of
a score or so each, and allow a different squad to appear each night.
The government doctor at Uahuka claims that there has been a marked
decrease in the leper mortality of the island since this strange practice
has been inaugurated, and that no serious consequences have followed
the extraordinary mixing of the sick and the well at this season. No
unnecessary chances are taken, however, and the good Lurau who, in
his rôle of Christ, is more exposed than any of the others, receives
special attention after each performance in the shape of a
formaldehyde fumigation at the hands of the doctor.
One of the most interesting characters in the Play is Judas. From the
first it has been the aim of the Fathers to impress the natives as
strongly as possible with the real goodness or badness of the various
characters, and to this end, in the case of Judas, the natives who have
played the rôle have been repeatedly taken, on a temporary reprieve,
from the convict settlement. Judas has always been a bad man, actually
as well as artistically, and it is recorded that no less than half a
dozen of him have endeavoured to steal the thirty pieces of silver--in
this case Mexican or Chilean dollars, which pass current in the
island--with which he has been bribed. Of late years the thoughtful
Fathers have removed this temptation by binding the bargain with a
tinkling bagful of broken crockery.
The Judas of five or six years ago--one John Bascard, the half-caste
son of an Australian trader and a native wife, who was serving a term
for robbing a pearler--turned out almost as badly as his notorious
original, for he looted the mission on the second night of the Play,
rowed off with the Magdalen to a trading cutter anchored in the bay,
surprised the solitary watchman, threw him overboard, and sailed
the little boat off single-handed for the Paumotos, leaving the Play
to limp on to a finish with half-trained understudies in two of the
leading parts.
The part of Pontius Pilate has been played for nearly twenty years by
an old chief--a quondam cannibal--named Rauga. His costume is a
frogged military coat and a silk hat, the idea of the Fathers being to
effect a combination that will make the deepest impression on the
natives as symbolical of constituted power. The missionary and the
French soldier are the two most august personages which their simple
minds can conceive of, and the two most striking features of the costume
of each, united upon one person, make an impression incomparably
more profound than would a Roman toga topped off with an
eagle-crowned helmet, or any of the other combinations that are worn
by Pilate in the more pretentious Passion Plays. Rauga is inordinately
proud of his part, and the honour of appearing in it has held him
steadfastly Catholic in the face of active efforts by the Protestants
to swing him, temporarily at least, over to their side.
The costume of John the Baptist is, as might be expected, that of a
native novitiate--a black robe and a shovel hat. If Manners is to
be believed, the unfortunate individual who was cast for that part
a half dozen years back made a transient appearance in a somewhat
modified garb. This was a "Brand-from-the-Burning" called Ma-woo, who
had been converted a few months previously when the Fathers secured
his parole from prison, where he had been serving a five-year sentence
for illicit pearling. His most salient characteristic was an inordinate
fondness for coco toddy, a circumstance which was taken advantage
of by a couple of local traders to play a practical joke upon the
missionaries, with whom their kind, in the Marquesas as elsewhere,
have always been at open warfare. The present of a calabash of toddy
to Ma-woo, with the promise of another later, putting him in a
cheerfully obliging mood, he was rigged out in a ribbon-wide
breech-clout, an old dress coat and a battered silk hat, and with a
bulky volume of Sailing Directions under his arm was quietly
conducted to the "stage entrance" of the banyan theatre just in time
to respond to his "cue" in the John the Baptist tableau.
Manners gave me a photograph of unlucky Ma-woo, taken by one of the
traders before they "sent him on his mission," and if it is really
true, as is claimed, that John the Baptist appeared thus accoutred in
his tableau in the Passion Play, one can easily believe our friend's
assertion that two of the sisters fainted and that the Fathers caused
the culprit to be thrown back into prison to serve the remainder of his
sentence.
Ruth Ingalls, who has played the part of Mary, the Mother, for the
last three years, is a half-white girl of unknown parentage. She is
said to have a Junoesque figure, a face of rare beauty and a manner
of real charm. She is about twenty-five years of age--fifteen years
younger than Lurau, whose mother she is supposed to be in the
Play--and has been directly under the care of the missionaries since
the time when, a child of five, she was cast up on the beach of one of
the Paumotos with the wreckage of a Tahitian trading schooner. She
is supposed to be the illegitimate daughter of a French count--a
fugitive from justice in Tahiti a quarter of a century ago--and the
queen of the neighbouring island of Bora-Bora, a lady whose marital
responsibilities appear to have rested as lightly upon her as blown
foam upon the bosom of the Southeast Trade. But whatever her origin,
Ruth Ingalls is, according to all accounts, a young person of unlimited
balance and poise, has a good education, both as to languages and
music, and is possessed of a quiet and modest disposition. She is,
moreover, a good Christian in the highest sense of the name, and her
work in the mission school has been of incalculable value to the
Fathers. Her interpretation of the character of the Madonna is
doubtless somewhat naïve, but is said, withal, to be surprisingly
effective; her work in this part, indeed, being generally rated as the
only thing in the Play worthy of the name of acting.
Mlle. Ingalls, it is claimed, is heart whole and fancy free, though
they tell you in Papeete and Taio-haie that she has received offers of
marriage from every bachelor missionary, sailor, official and trader
that has ever come to Uahuka.
[Illustration: "PONTIUS PILATE HAS BEEN PLAYED
FOR TWENTY YEARS BY AN OLD CHIEF--A
QUONDAM CANNIBAL"]
[Illustration: "JUST IN TIME TO RESPOND TO HIS
'CUE' IN THE JOHN THE BAPTIST TABLEAU"]