A journey to Taaoa; Kahuiti, the cannibal chief, and his story of an
old war caused by an unfaithful woman.
It was a chance remark from Mouth of God that led me to take a
journey over the hills to the valley of Taaoa, south of Atuona.
Malicious Gossip and her husband, squatting one evening on my mats in
the light of the stars, spoke of the Marquesan custom in naming
children.
"When a babe is born," said Mouth of God, "all the intimates of his
parents, their relatives and friends, bestow a name upon the infant.
All these names refer to experiences of the child's ancestors, or of
the namers, or of their ancestors. My wife's names--a few of
them--are Tavahi Teikimoetetua Tehaupiimouna. These words are
separate, having no relation one to another, and they mean Malicious
Gossip, She Sleeps with God, The Golden Dews of the Mountain.
"My first three names are Vahatetua Heeafia Timeteo. Vahatetua is
Mouth of God; Heeafia, One Who Looks About, and Timeteo is Marquesan
for Timothee, the Bible writer.
"My uncle, the Catechist, is Tioakoekoe, Man Whose Entrails Were
Roasted on a Stick, and his brother is called Pootuhatuha, meaning
Sliced and Distributed. That is because their father, Tufetu, was
killed at the Stinking Springs in Taaoa, and was cooked and sent all
over that valley. You should see that man who killed him, Kahuiti!
He is a great man, and strong still, though old. He likes the 'long
pig' still, also. It is not long since he dug up the corpse of one
buried, and ate it in the forest."
When I said that I should indeed like to see that man, Mouth of God
said that he would send a word of introduction that should insure
for me the friendliness of the chief who had devoured his grandfather.
Mouth of God bore the diner no ill-will. The eating was a thing
accomplished in the past; the teachings of that stern Calvinist, his
mother, forbade that he should eat Kahuiti in retaliation, therefore
their relations were amicable.
The following morning, attended by the faithful Exploding Eggs, I
set out toward Taaoa Valley. The way was all up and down, five miles,
wading through marshy places and streams, parting the jungle, caught
by the thorns and dripping with sweat. Miles of it was through
cocoanut forests owned by the mission.
The road followed the sea and climbed over a lofty little cape,
Otupoto, from which the coast of Hiva-oa, as it curves eastward, was
unrolled, the valleys mysterious caverns in the torn, convulsed
panorama, gloomy gullies suggestive of the old bloody days. Above
them the mountains caught the light and shone green or black under
the cloudless blue sky. Seven valleys we counted, the distant ones
mere faint shadows in the expanse of varied green, divided by the
rocky headlands. To the right, as we faced the sea, was the point of
Teaehoa jutting out into the great blue plain of the ocean, and
landward we looked down on the Valley of Taaoa.
This was the middle place, the scene of Tufetu's violent end. A
great splotch of red gleamed as a blot of blood on the green floor
of the hollow.
"_Vai piau!_" said Exploding Eggs. He made a sign of lifting water
in his hands, of tasting and spitting it out. The Stinking Springs
where Tufetu was slain!
They were in a fantastic gorge, through which ran a road blasted
from solid rock, stained brown and blue by the minerals in the water
that bubbled there and had carved the stone in eccentric patterns.
Bicarbonate of soda and sulphur thickened the heavy air and encrusted
the edges of the spring with yellow scum. A fitting scene for a
deadly battle, amid smells of sulphur and brimstone! But it was no
place in which to linger on a tropic day.
Taaoa Valley was narrow and deep, buried in perpetual gloom by the
shadows of the mountains. Perhaps thirty houses lined the banks of a
swift and rocky torrent. As we approached them we were met by a
sturdy Taaoan, bare save for the _pareu_ and handsomely tattooed.
His name, he said, was Strong in Battle, and I, a stranger, must see
first of all a tree of wonder that lay in the forest nearby.
Through brush and swamp we searched for it, past scores of ruined
_paepaes_, homes of the long-dead thousands. We found it at length,
a mighty tree felled to the earth and lying half-buried in vine and
shrub.
"This tree is older than our people," said Strong in Battle,
mournfully regarding its prostrate length. "No man ever remembered
its beginning. It was like a house upon a hill, so high and big. Our
forefathers worshipped their gods under it. The white men cut it to
make planks. That was fifty years ago, but the wood never dies.
There is no wood like it in the Marquesas. The wise men say that it
will endure till the last of our race is gone."
I felt the end of the great trunk, where the marks of the axe and
saw still showed, and struck it with my fist. The wood did indeed
seem hard as iron, though it seemed not to be petrified. So far as I
could ascertain from the fallen trunk, it was of a species I had
never seen.
"Twenty years ago I brought a man of Peretane (England) here to see
this tree, and he cut off a piece to take away. No white man has
looked on it since that time," said Strong in Battle. He brought an
axe from a man who was dubbing out a canoe from a breadfruit log,
and hacked away a chip for me.
We returned to the village and entered an enclosure in which a group
of women were squatting around a _popoi_ bowl.
"What does the _Menike_ seek?" they asked.
"He wants to see the footprint of Hoouiti," said my guide.
On one of the stones of the _paepae_ was a footprint, perfect from
heel to toe, and evidently not artificially made.
"Hoouiti stood here when he hurled his spear across the island,"
said Strong in Battle. "He was not a big man, as you see by his
foot's mark."
"Fifteen kilometers! A long hurling of a spear," said I.
"_Aue!_ he was very strong. He lived on this _paepae_. These whom
you see are his children's children. Would you like to meet my
wife's father-in-law, Kahuiti? He has eaten many people. He talks
well."
_Eo!_ Would I! I vowed that I would be honored by the acquaintance
of any of the relatives of my host, and specially I desired to
converse with old, wise men of good taste.
"That man, Kahauiti, has seen life," said Strong in Battle.
"I am married to the sister of Great Night Moth, who was a very
brave and active man, but now foolish. But Kahauiti! O! O! O! Ai! Ai!
Ai! There he is."
I never solved the puzzle of my informant's relation to the man who
was his wife's father-in-law, for suddenly I saw the man himself,
and knew that I was meeting a personage. Kahauiti was on the veranda
of a small hut, sitting Turk fashion, and chatting with another old
man. Both of them were striking-looking, but, all in all, I thought
Kahauiti the most distinguished man in appearance that I had seen,
be it in New York or Cairo, London or Pekin.
He had that indefinable, yet certain, air of superiority, of assured
position and knowledge, that stamps a few men in the world--a Yuan
Shih Kai, Rabindranath Tagore, Sitting Bull, and Porfirio Diaz. He
wore only a _pareu_, and was tattooed from toenails to hair-roots. A
solid mass of coloring extended from his neck to the hip on the left
side, as though he wore half of a blue shirt. The _tahuna_ who had
done the work seemed to have drawn outlines and then blocked in the
half of his torso. But remembering that every pin-point of color had
meant the thrust of a bone needle propelled by the blow of a mallet,
I realized that Kahauiti had endured much for his decorations. No
iron or Victoria Cross could cost more suffering.
The bare half of his bosom, cooperish-red, contrasted with this
cobalt, and his face was striped alternately with this natural color
and with blue. Two inches of the _ama_ ink ran across the eyes from
ear to ear, covering every inch of lid and eyebrow, and from this
seeming bandage his eyes gleamed with quick and alert intelligence.
Other stripes crossed the face from temple to chin, the lowest
joining the field of blue that stretched to his waist.
His beard, long, heavy, and snow-white, swept downward over the
indigo flesh and was gathered into a knot on his massive chest. It
was the beard of a prophet or a seer, and when Kahauiti rose to his
full height, six feet and a half, he was as majestic as a man in
diadem and royal robes. He had a giant form, like one of
Buonarroti's ancients, muscular and supple, graceful and erect.
When I was presented as a _Menike_ who loved the Marquesans and who,
having heard of Kahauiti, would drink of his fountain of
recollections, the old man looked at me intently. His eyes twinkled
and he opened his mouth in a broad smile, showing all his teeth,
sound and white. His smile was kindly, disarming, of a real
sweetness that conquered me immediately, so that, foolishly perhaps,
I would have trusted him if he had suggested a stroll in the jungle.
He took my extended hand, but did not shake it. So new is
handshaking and so foreign to their ideas of greeting, that they
merely touch fingers, with the pressure a rich man gives a poor
relation, or a king, a commoner. His affability was that of a
monarch to a courtier, but when he began to talk he soon became
simple and merry.
Motioning me to a seat on the mat before him, he squatted again in a
dignified manner, and resumed his task of plaiting a rope of _faufee_
bark, a rope an inch thick and perfectly made.
"Mouth of God, of the family of Sliced and Distributed and Man Whose
Entrails Were Roasted On A Stick, has told me of the slaying of
Tufetu, their ancestor," I ventured, to steer our bark of
conversation into the channel I sought.
At the names of the first three, Kahauiti smiled, but when Tufetu
was mentioned, he broke into a roar. I had evidently recalled proud
memories. On his haunches, he slid nearer to me.
"_Afu! Afu! Afu!_" he said, the sound that in his tongue means the
groan of the dying. "You came by the _Fatueki?_".
"I tasted the water and smelled the smell," I answered.
"It was there that Tufetu died," he observed. "I struck the blow,
and I ate his arm, his right arm, for he was brave and strong. That
was a war!"
"What caused that war?" I asked the merry cannibal.
"A woman, _haa teketeka_, an unfaithful woman, as always," replied
Kahauiti. "Do you have trouble over women in your island? Yes. It is
the same the world over. There was peace between Atuona and Taaoa
before this trouble. When I was a boy we were good friends. We
visited across the hills. Many children were adopted, and Taaoa men
took women from Atuona, and Atuona men from here. Some of these
women had two or three or five men. One husband was the father of
her children in title and pride, though he might be no father at all.
The others shared the mat with her at her will, but had no
possession or happiness in the offspring.
[Illustration: Tepu, a Marquesan girl of the hills, and her sister
Her ancestry is tattooed on her arms]
[Illustration: A tattooed Marquesan with carved canoe paddle]
"Now Pepehi (Beaten to Death) was of Taaoa, but lived in Atuona with
a woman. He had followed her over the hills and lived in her house.
He was father to her children. There was a man of Atuona, Kaheutahi,
who was husband to her, but of lower rank. He was not father to her
children. Therefore one night he swung his war-club upon the head of
Beaten to Death, and later invited a number of friends to the feast."
Kahuiti smiled gently upon me. Take off his tattooing, make him white,
and clothe him! With his masterful carriage, his soft, cultivated
voice, and his attitude of absolutism, he might have been Leopold,
King of the Belgians, a great ambassador, a man of power in finance.
Nevertheless, I thought of the death by the Stinking Springs. How
could one explain his benign, open-souled deportment and his cheery
laugh, with such damnable appetites and actions? Yet generals send
ten thousand men to certain and agonized death to gain a point
toward a goal; that is the custom of generals, by which they gain
honor among their people.
"Killed by the war-club of Kaheutahi and eaten by his friends,
Beaten to Death was but a ghost, and Kaheutahi took his place and
became father of the children of the house. He said they were his in
fact, but men were ever boastful."
The other old man, who said nothing, but was all attention, lit a
pipe and passed it to Kahuiti, who puffed it a moment and passed it
to Strong in Battle. The tale lapsed for a smoking spell.
"Beaten to Death perished by the club? He was well named," said I.
"His father was a prophet."
Kahuiti began to chant in a weird monotone.
"_Va! Va! A tahi a ta! Va! A tahi va! A ua va! A tou va!_" was his
chant. "Thus said the war-club as it crashed on the skull of Beaten
to Death. That is the speech of the war-club when it strikes. The
bones of Beaten to Death were fishhooks before we knew of his death.
All Taaoa was angry. The family of Beaten to Death demanded vengeance.
The priest went into the High Place, and when he came out he ran all
day up and down the valley, until he fell foaming. War was the cry
of the gods, war against Atuona.
"But there was too much peace between us, too many men with Atuona
women, too many Atuona children adopted by Taaoa women. The peace
was happy, and there was no great warrior to urge."
"You had brave men and strong men then," I said, with a sigh for the
things I had missed by coming late.
"_Tuitui!_ You put weeds in my mouth!" exclaimed Kahuiti. "I cannot
talk with your words. _Ue te etau!_ By the great god of the dead! I
am born before the French beached a canoe in the Marquesas. Our gods
were gods then, but they turned to wood and stone when the tree-guns
of the _Farani_ roared and threw iron balls and fire into our valleys.
The Christian god was greater than our gods, and a bigger killer of
men."
"But Beaten to Death--?" I urged.
"Beaten to Death was in the stomachs of the men of Atuona, and they
laughed at us. Our High Priest said that the _Euututuki_, the most
private god of the priests, commanded us to avenge the eating of
Beaten to Death. But the season of preserving the _mei_ in pits was
upon us. Also the women of Atuona among us said that there should be
peace, and the women of Taaoa who had taken as their own many
children from Atuona. Therefore we begged the most high gods to
excuse us."
"Women had much power then," I said.
Kahuiti chuckled.
"The French god and the priests of the _Farani_ have taken it from
them," he commented. "I have known the day when women ruled. She had
her husbands,--two, four, five. She commanded. She would send two to
the fishing, one to gathering cocoanuts or wood, one she would keep
to amuse her. They came and went as she said. That was _mea pe_!
Sickening! _Pee!_ There are not enough men to make a woman happy.
Many brave men have died to please their woman, but--" He blew out
his breath in contempt.
Strong in Battle said aside, in French:
"He was never second in the house. Kahauiti despised such men. He
was first always."
"So the slaying of Beaten to Death was unavenged?" I asked.
"_Epo!_ Do not drink the cocoanut till you have descended the tree!
I have said the warriors were withheld by the women, and there was
no great man to lead. Yet the drums beat at night, and the fighting
men came. You know how the drums speak?"
His face clouded, and his eyes flashed against their foil of
tattooing.
"'_Ohe te pepe! Ohe te pepe! Ohe te pepe!_' said the drum called
Peepee. '_Titiutiuti! Titiutiuti!_' said the drum called Umi.
_Aue!_ Then the warriors came! They stood in the High Place at the
head of the valley. Mehitete, the chief, spoke to them. He said that
they should go to Atuona, and bring back bodies for feasting. Many
nights the drums beat, and the chief talked much, but there was no
war.
"The High Priest went to the _Pekia_ again, and when he came away he
ran without stopping for two days and a night, till he fell without
breath, as one dead, and foam was on his mouth. The gods were angry.
Still there was no war.
"Then came Tomefitu from Vait-hua. He was chief of that valley,
having been adopted by a woman of Vait-hua, but his father and his
mother were of Taaoa. He had heard of the slaying of Beaten to Death,
his kinsman, and he was hot in the bowels. _Aue!_ The thunder of the
heavens was as the voice of Tomefitu when angered. The earth groaned
where he walked. He knew the _Farani_ and their tricks. He had guns
from the whalers, and he was afraid of nothing save the Ghost Woman
of the Night. Again the warriors came to the High Place, and now
there were many drums."
Kahuiti sprang to his feet. He struck the corner post of the hut
with his fist. His eyes burned.
"'Kaputuhe! Kaputuhe! Kaputuhe!
Teputuhe! Teputuhe! Teputuhe!
Tuti! Tuti! Tutuituiti!"
"That was what the war drums said. The sound of them rolled from the
Pekia, and every man who could throw a spear or hold a war-club came
to their call."
Kahuiti's soul was rapt in the story. His voice had the deep tone of
the violoncello, powerful, vibrant, and colorful. He had lived in
that strange past, and the things he recalled were precious memories.
The sound of the drums, as he echoed them in the curious tone-words
of Marquesan, thrilled me through. I heard the booming of the
ten-foot war-drums, their profound and far-reaching call like the
roaring of lions in the jungle. I saw the warriors with their spears
of cocoanut-wood and their deadly clubs of ironwood carved and
shining with oil, their baskets of polished stones slung about their
waists, and their slings of fiber, dancing in the sacred grove of
the Pekia, its shadows lighted by the blaze of the flickering
candlenuts and the scented sandalwood.
"'I am The Wind That Lays Low The Mighty Tree. I am The Wave That
Fills The Canoe and Delivers The People To The Sharks!' said Tomefitu.
'The flesh of my kinsman fills the bellies of the men of Atuona, and
the gods say war!
"'There is war!' said Tomefitu. 'We must bring offerings to the gods.
Five men will go with me to Otoputo and bring back the gifts. I will
bring back to you the bodies of six of the Atuona pigs. Prepare!
When we have eaten, the chiefs of Atuona will come to Taaoa, and
then you will fight!
"'Make ready with dancing. Polish spears and gather stones for the
slings. Koe, who is my man, will be obeyed while I am gone. I have
spoken,' said Tomefitu. That night Tomefitu and I, with four others,
went silently to Otoputo, the dividing rock that looks down on the
right into the valley of Taaoa and on the left into Atuona. There we
lay among rocks and bushes and spied upon the feet of the enemy.
That man who separated himself from others and came our way to seek
food, or to visit at the house of a friend, him we secretly fell upon,
and slew.
"Thus we did to the six named by Tomefitu, and as we killed them, we
sent them back by others to the High Place. There the warriors
feasted upon them and gained strength for battle.
"Then, missing so many of their clan, the head men of Atuona came to
Otoputo, and shouted to us to give word of the absent. We shouted
back, saying that those men had been roasted upon the fire and eaten,
and that thus we would do to all men of Atuona. And we laughed at
them."
Kahuiti emitted a hearty guffaw at thought of the trick played upon
those devoured enemies.
"But Tufetu, the grandfather of my friend Mouth of God?" I persisted.
"_Epo!_ There was war. The men of Atuona gathered at Otupoto, and
rushed down upon us. We met them at the Stinking Springs, and there
I killed Tufetu, uncle of Sliced and Distributed and Man Whose
Entrails Were Roasted On A Stick. I pierced him through with my
spear at a cocoanut-tree's length away. I was the best spear-thrower
of Taaoa. We drove the Atuonans through the gorge of the Stinking
Springs and over the divide, and I ate the right arm of Tufetu that
had wielded the war-club. That gives a man the strength of his enemy."
He turned again to plaiting the rope of _faufee_.
"_O ia aneihe_, I have finished," he said. "Will you drink _kava_?"
"No, I will not drink _kava_," I said sternly. "Kahuiti, is it not
good that the eating of men is stopped?"
The majestic chief looked at me, his deep brown eyes looking
child-like in their band of blue ink. For ten seconds he stared at
me fixedly, and then smiled uncertainly, as may have Peter the
fisherman when he was chided for cutting off the ear of one of
Judas' soldiers. He was of the old order, and the new had left him
unchanged. He did not reply to my question, but sipped his bowl of
_kava_.