SOCIETY IN THE SOCIETIES
The Society Islands took their name from the Royal Geographical
Society, which sent an expedition there in 1868 to observe the transit
of Venus, not, as might be supposed, from any predilection of the early
or latter-day inhabitants to afternoon teas, dinners, dances, masques,
routs and the like. There were, to be sure, functions which might
freely be classed under some of these heads, but as the foreign visitor
who was bidden usually finished up much after the fashion of the lady
who went out to ride on the tiger, except in the literal interpretation
of a social gathering as a "polite intermixing of people," they could
hardly be called social from his standpoint. Yet today, socially,
Papeete--at least so far as red tape and ceremony go--is the most
finished capital of the South Pacific. These things are, in fact,
rather overdone for so remote a tropical outpost, and the intricate
system of precedence set up by French officialdom, and the constant
danger incident to the inadvertent bringing together of those within
and without the pale, made one long at times for the bluff informality
of Apia and the whole-hearted hospitality of Suva or Honolulu.
There is no lack of kindness on Tahiti's part to the stranger within
her gates; if any complaint is to be made on that score, in fact, it
is that there is too much of it. The trouble lies in the fact that
there are, as elsewhere in the South Pacific, two broadly defined
cliques--the missionary and trader--between which there is war
to the knife. French officialdom constitutes a third clique which,
while keeping itself pretty well aloof from the other two, still
complicates their relations considerably. This alignment does not
seem so impossible on the face of it, for there are cliques in all
climes, and a world of unsegregated human elements would be
unthinkable. You will choose your friends from the best in both
camps, you may tell yourself, but how soon do you find that in the
Guelph-and-Ghibelline warfare of the missionary and trader no
sort of "run-with-the-hare-and-hunt-with-the-hounds" position is
possible. If you are going to stay in the island you may just as well
enlist under the banner of one force or the other at the outset, for
there is no such thing as a recognized noncombatant and you are
just as likely to go down between the contending forces in trying
to keep out of the combat as in fighting in their ranks.
But under which banner will you enlist? There, indeed, comes the rub.
You think it will be easy to decide, do you? Perhaps so; but suppose
you take a few days to hear what the contenders have to say for
themselves. You will find some very plausible chaps on both sides.
"Upon what meat has this our missionary fed?" paraphrases one of your
trader acquaintances, who claims to have been a university man before
his "pater" paid his debts and cut him off without a farthing. He always
comes out with Shakespeare after about the fourth glass of rum, you
learn shortly, and as inevitably lapses into the vernacular of the
"beach" with something of the nature of "Why, blyme me, them
swaller-tailed blokes would have been butchered an' eaten a hundred
years ago if it wasn't fer us traders an' our shootin' irons to hold
down the blacks."
After an evening of this you feel that the traders are a much
misunderstood lot until, in the missionary's Sunday sermon, you hear
them sorrowfully referred to as "our sinful brethren whose very
existence here would have been impossible had not our teachings
shown the savage the error of his blood-thirsty ways." Then you
realize that it is the trader who, after all, is in the wrong, until, on
the following day, you drop in at a copra shack on the Broom Road for
a drink of coco water, and learn that it was missionary denunciation
that was responsible for the massacre of Boyle and Wells at Rangaroa
in 1891, and that the captain of the missionary schooner, _Croix de
Sud_, was severely censured by the governor for abandoning the
trader, Wilkes, to his fate during an uprising in the Tongas in 1903.
At heart, of course, you are in sympathy with the missionaries, so
that it is with a secret satisfaction that you hear the ascetic,
frock-coated gentleman, whom you fall in with a couple of miles
farther along, nail these last stories as "unmitigated and
devil-inspired lies," and go on to cite "unimpeachable authorities" to
prove that traders instigated the "cutting out" of the missionary
schooner, _Morning Star_, in the Hervey Group in 1899, and that
traders were guilty of having incited the natives who killed Chalmers
in New Guinea a year or two later. In spite of your sympathies,
however, your confidence in the missionaries is badly shaken when,
in the pauses of the _hula_ which has been arranged for your especial
benefit, you get "the real straight of it" from "Kangaroo Pete" the same
evening, but how ashamed you are of your doubts when you meet the
"Board of Conversion of the Affiliated Missionary Societies of the
South Pacific at the Consulate" the following afternoon and hear the
members "lay bare the mainspring of every action" of its
representatives since the days of the "blessed John Williams."
Vacillating between the Scylla and Charybdis of "Missionarydom"
and "Traderdom," and torn by the conflicting currents of doubt and
belief, you end by soundly rating yourself as an invertebrate weakling
incapable of forming a fixed opinion on any subject, and decide to
take the advice of a sagacious Australian traveller who said that he
had found the best course to pursue in the South Pacific was to "trade
with the traders and 'mish' with the missionaries." But, as I have
already pointed out, that you are quite as likely to come to grief as
a non-combatant as in carrying a pike, the experience of our party in
endeavouring to discharge its social indebtedness in Tahiti goes to
prove.
The best characterization I have heard of social Papeete was that of a
visiting Englishman who applied to it what some other Englishman
once said about Hammersmith--"A lot of variegated grievances, each
unit of which believes himself a little tin Providence on wheels."
The truth of this astute observation will hardly be brought home to
the run of visitors to Tahiti who, stopping over but the few days
between boats, have more opportunity to receive than to dispense
entertainment. By us of the _Lurline_ it was never suspected until,
in a devil-inspired moment, we decided to wipe out our accumulated
obligations in a single day by giving a tea and a sail in the afternoon
and a buffet deck supper, with fireworks, in the evening. What an
excellent idea, that of the two functions, we told ourselves--one for
the "earth-earthy" set and the other for the "church-churchy" set. How
lucky it was that the line of cleavage between them was so clearly
demarked!
We called in the suave, diplomatic young consul, with his intricate
knowledge of the most recondite of the cogs of the wheels within the
wheels of the machine of Tahitian society, and started on the list for
the afternoon affair, to which the "missionary set" was to be invited.
"Father Le P----," we began.
"Yes," acquiesced the Consul.
"The Reverend D---- and family."
"Ye-es."
"The Reverend B---- and wife."
"Um-well, hardly. He's Anglican, you know, and there's been some
trouble with Father Le P---- over converts. Better not put them down."
"The R----'s, who had us to tea when we drove around the island.
They're of the missionary set, aren't they?"
"Yes, but they're Presbyterians. They have a suit on now for some of
the Catholic land which adjoins them; so they wouldn't do with Father
Le P----. But they're friends of the B----'s, though. You might put the
B----'s down and scratch Father Le P---- off."
The next two families mentioned were at odds with both of the
sub-factions, the lines of which we were plotting, and so were not put
down at all for the moment. Then came three that were friendly to
Father Le P----, which resulted in his name being added again, while
those of the B----'s and the R----'s were scratched off. And so it went
on for a couple of hours. The missionary set ultimately resolved itself
into five irreconcilable factions, and to these we discharged our
obligations separately with the two teas and a dinner on board and a
tea and a dinner at the hotel.
The list of the trader and official set was more complicated still.
His Excellency, the Governor, we started with, of course. Monsieur le
Secretaire was also passed, but Captaine G---- could not be included
because he had recently come to blows with the Secretary over cards
at the Cercle Militaire. The dashing Major L---- was passed, but not
Lieutenant P----, of the gunboat, who was in the black books of
Government House because he had once violated official etiquette by
bringing a jag to dinner instead of acquiring it during the evening.
Le Compte de R---- it was also necessary to leave off from our
Number One list because he and the truculent Secretary had recently
quarrelled over the question of precedence at an official reception.
Without a "trial balance" we quickly came to the conclusion that the
Anglo-Saxons and the Germans--except the Consuls--would not do
with the French; so an evening of green drinks was planned for the
latter by themselves. The Anglo-Saxon list was the hardest task of
the lot, and before it was completed we learned that A---- had another
wife living in Auckland and that the children of the two families
visited back and forth; that the present Mrs. B---- was the first Mrs.
C----, and before that was a barmaid in D----'s saloon; that the E----'s,
F----'s, G----'s and H----'s were involved in a four-cornered lawsuit and
were not on speaking terms; that the Misses I---- travelled to Sydney
and back unchaperoned and carried on something scandalous; that
J----'s son eloped with K----'s daughter and deserted her in San
Francisco for a vaudeville actress; that--but these samples will,
perhaps, prove sufficient to give an idea of the nature of the tasks
which confronted us.
Even under the coaching of the sympathetic and almost omniscient
Consul, feuds which had smouldered unsuspected or differences which
had cropped up over night supervened to cast palls of frigidity over
even the gayest of our gatherings, and the most fervently thankful
moment we knew in the course of the whole cruise was the one in which
the last boatload of the guests from the last of our half score or
more of "duty" parties cleared the gangway and we told ourselves that
all was over without a single shooting affray, fist fight or even a
hair-pulling.
How much simpler entertaining had been in the Marquesas, where
the common run of social feuds were along the line of that of
"Chewer-of-Thumbs," who was reluctant about coming aboard with
"Masticator-of-Boys'-Ears" on the ground that the latter's grandfather
had eaten his--the "Chewer's"--grandmother, and afterwards was said to
have complained of indigestion. "Fancy--indigestion from one of the
'Chewer-of-Thumbs' lineage!" And all we had to say was that the idea
was so preposterous that it must have been meant as a joke; upon which
they both swarmed gleefully aboard the yacht, where the reconciliation
was completed and made permanent by "Masticator's" magnanimous
action in smuggling one of our cases of canned salmon into "Chewer's"
canoe and helping him get away with it.
Tahitian--I mean "missionary" Tahitian--ideas of modesty were
amusingly illustrated by a warning we received from a well educated
and intentioned young half-caste, zealous in the enthusiasm of recent
conversion, to the effect that our bathing costumes--regulation
American bathing suits--were the occasion of no small amount of
unfavourable comment among the "better class of Papeetans."
"But what's the matter of our bathing suits?" asked the Commodore in
the amazement of perfect innocence. "Oh--perhaps the sailors have been
a little informal in the costumes they have worn for their morning
plunges."
"No, it isn't the sailors," was the reply. "The people are saying that
the gentlemen's suits have no sleeves and legs and that--that the
skirts of the ladies come only to their knees, and--"
"Of course," cut in the Commodore impatiently; "what's wrong with that?
Women wear trains on ball gowns, not on bathing suits. Besides, the
yacht is a good cable's length off shore, and it takes keen eyes to
tell a bathing suit from pajamas at that distance."
"I know, sir," was the naïve reply; "but you would be surprised, sir,
to learn how many of the better class of people living along the beach
have telescopes."
"Oh!" we chorused--and again "Oh!"
Before showing our solicitous young friend to his canoe, we were at
pains to enquire what was the orthodox bathing costume worn by the
ladies of the "better class"--brown and white--calling his attention
first to some girls from the public wash-house who, not far up the
beach, were disporting themselves in the shallows in nothing but their
_pareos_, short pieces of gaudy print which fell from the waist to the
knees. He replied that the "real ladies," white and brown, never
entered the water in public unless modestly draped from neck to heel.
[Illustration: NATIVE WOMAN WASHING ON
THE BEACH, TAHITI]
[Illustration: A MISSION BATHING SUIT.]
[Illustration: BEFORE THE BATH--AND AFTER]
This turned out to be the truth. A couple of days later, in the course
of a ride, I came upon some mission girls about to take a dip in one
of the big pools of the Faa-tua. For ten centimes one of them allowed
me to take her photograph in the "orthodox" costume before entering
the water. When the bath was over it cost me two francs to get her
to come out into the sunshine and stand for another snap. I paid it
willingly, however, rightly judging that the second photograph would
be worth double the price asked in bolstering up the faltering
confidence of the Mater and Claribel in the comparative propriety of
their American bathing suits. I submit the two photographs without
comment.