Chapter 2

And now was the day of the feast. The forests, as morning came, Tossed in the wind, and the peaks quaked in the blaze of the day And the cocoanuts showered on the ground, rebounding and rolling away: A glorious morn for a feast, a famous wind for a fire. To the hall of feasting Hiopa led them, mother and sire And maid and babe in a tale, the whole of the holiday throng. Smiling they came, garlanded green, not dreaming of wrong; And for every three, a pig, tenderly cooked in the ground, Waited, and féi, the staff of life, heaped in a mound For each where he sat;—for each, bananas roasted and raw Piled with a bountiful hand, as for horses hay and straw Are stacked in a stable; and fish, the food of desire, {34} And plentiful vessels of sauce, and breadfruit gilt in the fire;— And kava was common as water. Feasts have there been ere now, And many, but never a feast like that of the folk of Vaiau.

All day long they ate with the resolute greed of brutes, And turned from the pigs to the fish, and again from the fish to the fruits, And emptied the vessels of sauce, and drank of the kava deep; Till the young lay stupid as stones, and the strongest nodded to sleep. Sleep that was mighty as death and blind as a moonless night Tethered them hand and foot; and their souls were drowned, and the light Was cloaked from their eyes. Senseless together, the old and the young, The fighter deadly to smite and the prater cunning of tongue, The woman wedded and fruitful, inured to the pangs of birth, And the maid that knew not of kisses, blindly sprawled on the earth. From the hall Hiopa the king and his chiefs came stealthily forth. Already the sun hung low and enlightened the peaks of the north; But the wind was stubborn to die and blew as it blows at morn, Showering the nuts in the dusk, and e’en as a banner is torn, High on the peaks of the island, shattered the mountain cloud. And now at once, at a signal, a silent, emulous crowd Set hands to the work of death, hurrying to and fro, Like ants, to furnish the fagots, building them broad and low, And piling them high and higher around the walls of the hall. Silence persisted within, for sleep lay heavy on all; But the mother of Támatéa stood at Hiopa’s side, And shook for terror and joy like a girl that is a bride. Night fell on the toilers, and first Hiopa the wise Made the round of the house, visiting all with his eyes; And all was piled to the eaves, and fuel blockaded the door; And within, in the house beleaguered, slumbered the forty score. Then was an aito dispatched and came with fire in his hand, And Hiopa took it.—“Within,” said he, “is the life of a land; And behold! I breathe on the coal, I breathe on the dales of the east, And silence falls on forest and shore; the voice of the feast Is quenched, and the smoke of cooking; the rooftree decays and falls On the empty lodge, and the winds subvert deserted walls.”

Therewithal, to the fuel, he laid the glowing coal; And the redness ran in the mass and burrowed within like a mole, And copious smoke was conceived. But, as when a dam is to burst, The water lips it and crosses in silver trickles at first, And then, of a sudden, whelms and bears it away forthright: So now, in a moment, the flame sprang and towered in the night, And wrestled and roared in the wind, and high over house and tree, Stood, like a streaming torch, enlightening land and sea.

But the mother of Támatéa threw her arms abroad, “Pyre of my son,” she shouted, “debited vengeance of God, Late, late, I behold you, yet I behold you at last, And glory, beholding! For now are the days of my agony past, The lust that famished my soul now eats and drinks its desire, And they that encompassed my son shrivel alive in the fire. Tenfold precious the vengeance that comes after lingering years! Ye quenched the voice of my singer?—hark, in your dying ears, The song of the conflagration! Ye left me a widow alone? —Behold, the whole of your race consumes, sinew and bone And torturing flesh together: man, mother, and maid Heaped in a common shambles; and already, borne by the trade, The smoke of your dissolution darkens the stars of night.”

Thus she spoke, and her stature grew in the people’s sight.

III. RAHÉRO

RAHÉRO was there in the hall asleep: beside him his wife, Comely, a mirthful woman, one that delighted in life; And a girl that was ripe for marriage, shy and sly as a mouse; And a boy, a climber of trees: all the hopes of his house. Unwary, with open hands, he slept in the midst of his folk, And dreamed that he heard a voice crying without, and awoke, Leaping blindly afoot like one from a dream that he fears. A hellish glow and clouds were about him;—it roared in his ears Like the sound of the cataract fall that plunges sudden and steep; And Rahéro swayed as he stood, and his reason was still asleep. Now the flame struck hard on the house, wind-wielded, a fracturing blow, And the end of the roof was burst and fell on the sleepers below; And the lofty hall, and the feast, and the prostrate bodies of folk, Shone red in his eyes a moment, and then were swallowed of smoke. In the mind of Rahéro clearness came; and he opened his throat; And as when a squall comes sudden, the straining sail of a boat Thunders aloud and bursts, so thundered the voice of the man. —“The wind and the rain!” he shouted, the mustering word of the clan, {41} And “up!” and “to arms men of Vaiau!” But silence replied, Or only the voice of the gusts of the fire, and nothing beside.

Rahéro stooped and groped. He handled his womankind, But the fumes of the fire and the kava had quenched the life of their mind, And they lay like pillars prone; and his hand encountered the boy, And there sprang in the gloom of his soul a sudden lightning of joy. “Him can I save!” he thought, “if I were speedy enough.” And he loosened the cloth from his loins, and swaddled the child in the stuff; And about the strength of his neck he knotted the burden well.

There where the roof had fallen, it roared like the mouth of hell. Thither Rahéro went, stumbling on senseless folk, And grappled a post of the house, and began to climb in the smoke: The last alive of Vaiau; and the son borne by the sire. The post glowed in the grain with ulcers of eating fire, And the fire bit to the blood and mangled his hands and thighs; And the fumes sang in his head like wine and stung in his eyes; And still he climbed, and came to the top, the place of proof, And thrust a hand through the flame, and clambered alive on the roof. But even as he did so, the wind, in a garment of flames and pain, Wrapped him from head to heel; and the waistcloth parted in twain; And the living fruit of his loins dropped in the fire below.

About the blazing feast-house clustered the eyes of the foe, Watching, hand upon weapon, lest ever a soul should flee, Shading the brow from the glare, straining the neck to see Only, to leeward, the flames in the wind swept far and wide, And the forest sputtered on fire; and there might no man abide. Thither Rahéro crept, and dropped from the burning eaves, And crouching low to the ground, in a treble covert of leaves And fire and volleying smoke, ran for the life of his soul Unseen; and behind him under a furnace of ardent coal, Cairned with a wonder of flame, and blotting the night with smoke, Blazed and were smelted together the bones of all his folk.

He fled unguided at first; but hearing the breakers roar, Thitherward shaped his way, and came at length to the shore. Sound-limbed he was: dry-eyed; but smarted in every part; And the mighty cage of his ribs heaved on his straining heart With sorrow and rage. And “Fools!” he cried, “fools of Vaiau, Heads of swine—gluttons—Alas! and where are they now? Those that I played with, those that nursed me, those that I nursed? God, and I outliving them! I, the least and the worst— I, that thought myself crafty, snared by this herd of swine, In the tortures of hell and desolate, stripped of all that was mine: All!—my friends and my fathers—the silver heads of yore That trooped to the council, the children that ran to the open door Crying with innocent voices and clasping a father’s knees! And mine, my wife—my daughter—my sturdy climber of trees Ah, never to climb again!”

Thus in the dusk of the night, (For clouds rolled in the sky and the moon was swallowed from sight,) Pacing and gnawing his fists, Rahéro raged by the shore. Vengeance: that must be his. But much was to do before; And first a single life to be snatched from a deadly place, A life, the root of revenge, surviving plant of the race: And next the race to be raised anew, and the lands of the clan Repeopled. So Rahéro designed, a prudent man Even in wrath, and turned for the means of revenge and escape: A boat to be seized by stealth, a wife to be taken by rape.

Still was the dark lagoon; beyond on the coral wall, He saw the breakers shine, he heard them bellow and fall. Alone, on the top of the reef, a man with a flaming brand Walked, gazing and pausing, a fish-spear poised in his hand. The foam boiled to his calf when the mightier breakers came, And the torch shed in the wind scattering tufts of flame. Afar on the dark lagoon a canoe lay idly at wait: A figure dimly guiding it: surely the fisherman’s mate. Rahéro saw and he smiled. He straightened his mighty thews: Naked, with never a weapon, and covered with scorch and bruise, He straightened his arms, he filled the void of his body with breath, And, strong as the wind in his manhood, doomed the fisher to death.

Silent he entered the water, and silently swam, and came There where the fisher walked, holding on high the flame. Loud on the pier of the reef volleyed the breach of the sea; And hard at the back of the man, Rahéro crept to his knee On the coral, and suddenly sprang and seized him, the elder hand Clutching the joint of his throat, the other snatching the brand Ere it had time to fall, and holding it steady and high. Strong was the fisher, brave, and swift of mind and of eye— Strongly he threw in the clutch; but Rahéro resisted the strain, And jerked, and the spine of life snapped with a crack in twain, And the man came slack in his hands and tumbled a lump at his feet.

One moment: and there, on the reef, where the breakers whitened and beat, Rahéro was standing alone, glowing and scorched and bare, A victor unknown of any, raising the torch in the air. But once he drank of his breath, and instantly set him to fish Like a man intent upon supper at home and a savoury dish. For what should the woman have seen? A man with a torch—and then A moment’s blur of the eyes—and a man with a torch again. And the torch had scarcely been shaken. “Ah, surely,” Rahéro said, “She will deem it a trick of the eyes, a fancy born in the head; But time must be given the fool to nourish a fool’s belief.” So for a while, a sedulous fisher, he walked the reef, Pausing at times and gazing, striking at times with the spear: —Lastly, uttered the call; and even as the boat drew near, Like a man that was done with its use, tossed the torch in the sea.

Lightly he leaped on the boat beside the woman; and she Lightly addressed him, and yielded the paddle and place to sit; For now the torch was extinguished the night was black as the pit Rahéro set him to row, never a word he spoke, And the boat sang in the water urged by his vigorous stroke. —“What ails you?” the woman asked, “and why did you drop the brand? We have only to kindle another as soon as we come to land.” Never a word Rahéro replied, but urged the canoe. And a chill fell on the woman.—“Atta! speak! is it you? Speak! Why are you silent? Why do you bend aside? Wherefore steer to the seaward?” thus she panted and cried. Never a word from the oarsman, toiling there in the dark; But right for a gate of the reef he silently headed the bark, And wielding the single paddle with passionate sweep on sweep, Drove her, the little fitted, forth on the open deep. And fear, there where she sat, froze the woman to stone: Not fear of the crazy boat and the weltering deep alone; But a keener fear of the night, the dark, and the ghostly hour, And the thing that drove the canoe with more than a mortal’s power And more than a mortal’s boldness. For much she knew of the dead That haunt and fish upon reefs, toiling, like men, for bread, And traffic with human fishers, or slay them and take their ware, Till the hour when the star of the dead {51a} goes down, and the morning air Blows, and the cocks are singing on shore. And surely she knew The speechless thing at her side belonged to the grave. {51b}

It blew All night from the south; all night, Rahéro contended and kept The prow to the cresting sea; and, silent as though she slept, The woman huddled and quaked. And now was the peep of day. High and long on their left the mountainous island lay; And over the peaks of Taiárapu arrows of sunlight struck. On shore the birds were beginning to sing: the ghostly ruck Of the buried had long ago returned to the covered grave; And here on the sea, the woman, waxing suddenly brave, Turned her swiftly about and looked in the face of the man. And sure he was none that she knew, none of her country or clan: A stranger, mother-naked, and marred with the marks of fire, But comely and great of stature, a man to obey and admire.

And Rahéro regarded her also, fixed, with a frowning face, Judging the woman’s fitness to mother a warlike race. Broad of shoulder, ample of girdle, long in the thigh, Deep of bosom she was, and bravely supported his eye.

“Woman,” said he, “last night the men of your folk— Man, woman, and maid, smothered my race in smoke. It was done like cowards; and I, a mighty man of my hands, Escaped, a single life; and now to the empty lands And smokeless hearths of my people, sail, with yourself, alone. Before your mother was born, the die of to-day was thrown And you selected:—your husband, vainly striving, to fall Broken between these hands:—yourself to be severed from all, The places, the people, you love—home, kindred, and clan— And to dwell in a desert and bear the babes of a kinless man.”

NOTES TO THE SONG OF RAHÉRO

INTRODUCTION.—This tale, of which I have not consciously changed a single feature, I received from tradition. It is highly popular through all the country of the eight Tevas, the clan to which Rahéro belonged; and particularly in Taiárapu, the windward peninsula of Tahiti, where he lived. I have heard from end to end two versions; and as many as five different persons have helped me with details. There seems no reason why the tale should not be true.

{5} Note 1, page 5. “_The aito_,” _quasi_ champion, or brave. One skilled in the use of some weapon, who wandered the country challenging distinguished rivals and taking part in local quarrels. It was in the natural course of his advancement to be at last employed by a chief, or king; and it would then be a part of his duties to purvey the victim for sacrifice. One of the doomed families was indicated; the aito took his weapon and went forth alone; a little behind him bearers followed with the sacrificial basket. Sometimes the victim showed fight, sometimes prevailed; more often, without doubt, he fell. But whatever body was found, the bearers indifferently took up.

{7} Note 2, page 7. “_Pai_,” “_Honoura_,” and “_Ahupu_.” Legendary persons of Tahiti, all natives of Taiárapu. Of the first two, I have collected singular although imperfect legends, which I hope soon to lay before the public in another place. Of Ahupu, except in snatches of song, little memory appears to linger. She dwelt at least about Tepari,—“the sea-cliffs,”—the eastern fastness of the isle; walked by paths known only to herself upon the mountains; was courted by dangerous suitors who came swimming from adjacent islands, and defended and rescued (as I gather) by the loyalty of native fish. My anxiety to learn more of “Ahupu Vehine” became (during my stay in Taiárapu) a cause of some diversion to that mirthful people, the inhabitants.

{10a} Note 3, page 10. “_Covered an oven_.” The cooking fire is made in a hole in the ground, and is then buried.

{10b} Note 4, page 10. “_Flies_.” This is perhaps an anachronism. Even speaking of to-day in Tahiti, the phrase would have to be understood as referring mainly to mosquitoes, and these only in watered valleys with close woods, such as I suppose to form the surroundings of Rahéro’s homestead. Quarter of a mile away, where the air moves freely, you shall look in vain for one.

{13} Note 5, page 13. “_Hook_” of mother-of-pearl. Bright-hook fishing, and that with the spear, appear to be the favourite native methods.

{14} Note 6, page 14. “_Leaves_,” the plates of Tahiti.

{16} Note 7, page 16. “_Yottowas_,” so spelt for convenience of pronunciation, _quasi_ Tacksmen in the Scottish Highlands. The organisation of eight subdistricts and eight yottowas to a division, which was in use (until yesterday) among the Tevas, I have attributed without authority to the next clan: see page 33.

{17} Note 8, page 17. “_Omare_,” pronounce as a dactyl. A loaded quarter-staff, one of the two favourite weapons of the Tahitian brave; the javelin, or casting spear, was the other.

{21} Note 9, page 21. “_The ribbon of light_.” Still to be seen (and heard) spinning from one marae to another on Tahiti; or so I have it upon evidence that would rejoice the Psychical Society.

{23a} Note 10, page 23. “_Námunu-úra_.” The complete name is Namunu-ura te aropa. Why it should be pronounced Námunu, dactyllically, I cannot see, but so I have always heard it. This was the clan immediately beyond the Tevas on the south coast of the island. At the date of the tale the clan organisation must have been very weak. There is no particular mention of Támatéa’s mother going to Papara, to the head chief of her own clan, which would appear her natural recourse. On the other hand, she seems to have visited various lesser chiefs among the Tevas, and these to have excused themselves solely on the danger of the enterprise. The broad distinction here drawn between Nateva and Námunu-úra is therefore not impossibly anachronistic.

{23b} Note 11, page 23. “_Hiopa the king_.” Hiopa was really the name of the king (chief) of Vaiau; but I could never learn that of the king of Paea—pronounce to rhyme with the Indian _ayah_—and I gave the name where it was most needed. This note must appear otiose indeed to readers who have never heard of either of these two gentlemen; and perhaps there is only one person in the world capable at once of reading my verses and spying the inaccuracy. For him, for Mr. Tati Salmon, hereditary high chief of the Tevas, the note is solely written: a small attention from a clansman to his chief.

{25} Note 12, page 25. “_Let the pigs be tapu_.” It is impossible to explain _tapu_ in a note; we have it as an English word, taboo. Suffice it, that a thing which was _tapu_ must not be touched, nor a place that was _tapu_ visited.

{34} Note 13, page 34. “_Fish_, _the food of desire_.” There is a special word in the Tahitian language to signify _hungering after fish_. I may remark that here is one of my chief difficulties about the whole story. How did king, commons, women, and all come to eat together at this feast? But it troubled none of my numerous authorities; so there must certainly be some natural explanation.

{41} Note 14, page 41. “_The mustering word of the clan_.”

_Teva te ua_, _Teva te matai_!

Teva the wind, Teva the rain!

{51a} Note 15, page 51. “_The star of the dead_.” Venus as a morning star. I have collected much curious evidence as to this belief. The dead retain their taste for a fish diet, enter into copartnery with living fishers, and haunt the reef and the lagoon. The conclusion attributed to the nameless lady of the legend would be reached to-day, under the like circumstances, by ninety per cent of Polynesians: and here I probably understate by one-tenth.

{51b} Note 16, page 51. See note 15 above.

THE FEAST OF FAMINE MARQUESAN MANNERS

I. THE PRIEST’S VIGIL

IN all the land of the tribe was neither fish nor fruit, And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to the foot. {61} The clans upon the left and the clans upon the right Now oiled their carven maces and scoured their daggers bright; They gat them to the thicket, to the deepest of the shade, And lay with sleepless eyes in the deadly ambuscade. And oft in the starry even the song of morning rose, What time the oven smoked in the country of their foes; For oft to loving hearts, and waiting ears and sight, The lads that went to forage returned not with the night. Now first the children sickened, and then the women paled, And the great arms of the warrior no more for war availed. Hushed was the deep drum, discarded was the dance; And those that met the priest now glanced at him askance. The priest was a man of years, his eyes were ruby-red, {62a} He neither feared the dark nor the terrors of the dead, He knew the songs of races, the names of ancient date; And the beard upon his bosom would have bought the chief’s estate. He dwelt in a high-built lodge, hard by the roaring shore, Raised on a noble terrace and with tikis {62b} at the door. Within it was full of riches, for he served his nation well, And full of the sound of breakers, like the hollow of a shell. For weeks he let them perish, gave never a helping sign, But sat on his oiled platform to commune with the divine, But sat on his high terrace, with the tikis by his side, And stared on the blue ocean, like a parrot, ruby-eyed. Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the mountain height: Out on the round of the sea the gems of the morning light, Up from the round of the sea the streamers of the sun;— But down in the depths of the valley the day was not begun. In the blue of the woody twilight burned red the cocoa-husk, And the women and men of the clan went forth to bathe in the dusk, A word that began to go round, a word, a whisper, a start: Hope that leaped in the bosom, fear that knocked on the heart: “See, the priest is not risen—look, for his door is fast! He is going to name the victims; he is going to help us at last.”