Part 14

Returning to the village from the scene of the perfume orgy, I found the church still occupied, although the service was long over. The benches had been stacked in one corner; the mats shaken out and spread again on the floor, where fifteen or twenty people were reclining at ease or sitting native fashion--some of them talking, some sleeping, some engaged in light tasks such as hat weaving and the fashioning of pearl-shell fish hooks; others in the yet more congenial task of doing nothing at all. It was the practice, on Sunday, for the village to gather at the Reformed church, which they felt at liberty to use for secular as well as for sacred purposes, for it was a native-built structure, with walls and roof of thatch, like those of their own houses. The two other churches were never so used. They were frame buildings, in the European or American style of church architecture, with formal furnishings and windows of colored glass. To have done any sort of work in either of them would have been regarded as a serious offense, certain to be followed by unmistakable evidence of divine displeasure. As Tuina once told me, sores, illness, even death might result as a punishment for such desecration.

I was thinking of this and other primitive reactions to ecclesiastical furniture, and my hand was faltering toward my notebook pocket when Huirai's little daughter, Manava, entered the church, carrying a white cloth which she spread on the pulpit table. She returned a moment later with a tin of sardines, some boiled rice on a _kahaia_ leaf, and a bowl of tea. I was Huirai's guest for the day, and had been anxiously awaiting some evidence that food was on the way; but I had not expected that it would be served in the church. I had not eaten a church dinner since boyhood, and, strangely enough, the memory of some of those early feasts came back to me while Manava was setting the table. As one scene is superimposed upon another on a moving-picture screen, I saw an American village of twenty years ago--a village of board sidewalks and quiet, shaded streets bright with dandelions, taking ghostly form and transparency among the palms of Rutiaro. Two small boys walked briskly along, ringing hand bells, and shouting, "Dinner at the Pres-by-terian church ri-i-i-ight awa-a-a-ay." The G.A.R. band--a fife, two tenor drums, and one bass--played outside the church where the crowd was gathering, and horses, attached to buggies and spring wagons, were pawing the earth around the hitching posts. Then Mrs. MacGregor appeared in the doorway, her kindly face beaming the warmest of welcomes. "Come on in and set down, folks. Everything's all ready." Members of the Ladies' Relief Corps--mothers of large families, used to catering for large appetites--hurried back and forth with platters of roast turkey and chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes of marvelous smoothness and flakiness--with everything in the way of food which that hospitable Middle-Western country provides. I heard the pleasant talk of homely things, smelled the appetizing odors, saw plates replenished again and again. Throughout the length of the tables old-fashioned gravy boats sailed from cover to cover--but I spared myself further contemplation of the scene, further shadowy participation in a feast which cost the affluent but a quarter, and a bell ringer nothing at all. The vision faded, but before it was quite gone I heard a voice saying: "Land sakes! You boys ain't eating a thing! Have some more of these dumplings? What's the matter with your appetities? Ain't you feelin' well?" It seemed a thousand years away, that voice; and no doubt it was, and is, even farther than that.

Church dinners at Rutiaro were not such sumptuous affairs. They were not, in fact, an integral part of the community life. In so far as I know, this was the only one ever held there and was the result of Huirai's peculiar notions of the hospitality due a white man. I told him that I was not accustomed to dining in churches at home, even on Sunday, and, furthermore, that I liked companionship at table. But he was not convinced, and he refused to join me. He and his family had already eaten, he said; so I sat on a box at the pulpit table, partaking of a solitary meal, and got through with it as quickly as possible.

I smiled inwardly at the thought of the inheritance of prestige, granted me without question, at Rutiaro, merely because I was the sole representative there of a so-called superior race. No white wasters had preceded me at the atoll. This was fortunate in a way, for it gave me something to live up to--the ideal Rutiaroan conception of the _popaa_--white man. Huirai was partly responsible for the fact that it was ideal. His tales of San Francisco--which, to the Paumotuan, means America--had been steadily growing in splendor. He seemed to have forgotten whatever he may have seen there of misery or incompetence or ugliness. All Americans were divinities of a sort. Their energy was superhuman; their accomplishment, as exemplified in ships, trains, buildings, automobiles, moving-picture theaters--beyond all belief unless one had actually seen those things. And the meanest of them lived on a scale of grandeur far surpassing that of the governor of the Paumotus at Fakavava. Yes, I had something to live up to at Rutiaro. The necessity was flattering, to be sure, but it cost some effort and inconvenience to meet it. I didn't dare look as slack as I often felt, both mentally and physically. I could not even sit on the floor, or stretch out at my ease, when in a native house; and I was compelled, when eating, to resume the use of my two-pronged fork and the small tin spoon, although it was much simpler and easier to eat with my fingers as the rest of them did.

Having finished my meal, I took what comfort prestige permitted by placing my box by the wall and leaning back against a post. Takiero, a woman of barbaric beauty, was sitting near by playing, "Conquer the North" on my ocharina. I taught her the air in an unguarded moment and had been regretting it ever since. Hunga, her husband, lay at her side, his strong, fine limbs relaxed in sleep. I would have given all my gratuitous prestige as a _popaa_ to have exchanged legs or shoulders or girth of chest with him. It was at about this time, as I remember it, that my thoughts turned to the subject of feeding-parents. Nui-Vahine was present, still--or again--nursing the three months' old baby. It belonged, as I knew, to Takiero, who appeared to be quite capable of nourishing it herself. Why had she given it to Nui-Vahine? And why had Hunga, the father of the child, consented to this seemingly unnatural gift? The transfer of parenthood had been made a month earlier, since which time Takiero and her husband had shown only a slight, proprietary interest in their offspring. Takiero sometimes dandled it on her knee, as any woman might the child of some one else; but no one would have guessed that she was the mother of it. Nui-Vahine fed, clothed, and bathed it, and her husband, Nui-Tane, was as fond of it as she herself. They kept the child at their house, and between them made as much fuss over it as though it were their own flesh and blood. What could have been the origin of this strange practice of parenthood by proxy? It was a common one throughout eastern Polynesia. I had seen a good many instances of it in the Cook islands, the Marquesas, and the Society group. Here was a subject worthy of an important chapter in the Life and Character monograph, and I decided that I might as well begin my researches at once.

Takiero reluctantly left off her playing and placed herself in a receptive mood. Why, I asked, had she given her child to Nui-Vahine? Her reply was, because Nui-Vahine had asked for it. "But, see here, Takiero," I said, "I should think that you and Hunga would want to keep your own baby. It is none of my business, of course. I ask you only because I would like to get some information on this feeding-parent custom. Can't you feed it yourself? Is that the reason you gave it away?"

I blundered atrociously in asking that question. Without meaning to, I touched her pride as a woman, as a mother. Takiero looked at me for a moment without speaking. Then she tore open her dress and gave me absolute proof--not that I wanted it--of her ability to nurse her own or any other child. Following this, she went over to where Nui-Vahine was sitting, snatched the baby from her arms, and almost smothered it against her body. She fondled it, kissed it, covered it with her magnificent hair. I had never before seen such a display of savage and tender maternal passion.

By that time Nui-Vahine had recovered from her astonishment and came to the defense of her own. Her month of motherhood gave her claims to the child, apparently, and she tried to enforce them physically. Takiero stood her ground, her black eyes flaming and, holding the baby in one arm, pushed Nui-Vahine away with the other. I expected to see hair flying, but, luckily, both women found their tongues at the same moment. They were like--they were, in fact--two superb cats, spitting at each other. The torrent of words did not flow smoothly. It came in hot, short bursts, like salvos of machine-gun fire, and, curiously enough, it was almost pure Paumotuan, not the hybrid Paumotuan-Tahitian commonly used in their temperate speech. It bristled with snarling ng's, with flintlike k's from which fire could be struck in passionate argument. Other women took sides in the quarrel. Had I poked an inquisitive pencil into a wasps' nest the effect could hardly have been more disconcerting. Hunga was awakened by the angry voices and looked on with sleepy perplexity. Nui-Tane grinned reassuringly, as much as to say: "Don't be upset. You know what women are." Finally, Puarei, the chief, who had been an impassive spectator, bellowed out a command for silence. The tumult subsided at once, and the fury of the women with it. Five minutes later everything was as it had been before. Hunga was sleeping and Nui-Tane polishing a pearl-shell fish hook; Nui-Vahine had the baby and Takiero the ocharina. Neither of them showed the least resentment, either toward me or toward each other. In intensity and briefness the gust of passion which swept through the little church was precisely like the squalls of wind and rain which darken the seas of the Low Archipelago in the midst of the hurricane season, which burst almost from a clear sky and then as suddenly melt into pure sunlight again.

When I left the village to return to Soul-Eaters' island Takiero was still playing the old border ballad on my ocharina. It had once been my favorite air for that instrument. I first heard it in northern France on a blustering winter evening when a brigade of English regiments was marching, under heavy shell fire, into one of the greatest battles of the war, to the music of pipes and drums. Humming the air now, although I still feel a tightening of the nerves, a quickening of the pulses, it is not because of the old set of associations. They have been buried forever beneath a newer set. The village at Rutiaro comes into view, and I see Takiero, clutching a baby against her naked breast, standing in the midst of a crowd of turbulent women.

Should there be some other Polynesian scholar who wishes to pursue farther an inquiry into a curious practice of child adoption I would advise extreme caution at an atoll far on the southeasterly fringe of the Low Archipelago.

The place may easily be identified; for he will find there a young woman of barbaric beauty who will be playing "Conquer the North" on an ocharina.

*CHAPTER X*

*Costly Hospitality*

For an authentic test of one's capacity for solitude--or better, perhaps, for convincing proof of the lack of it--two conditions are essential: complete isolation--that goes without saying, of course; and the assurance that such isolation will not be broken into. At Soul-Eaters' Island I expected to find both of these conditions fulfilled. My house was four miles from the settlement, but in reality I had no more seclusion there than a hermit whose retreat is within easy walking distance of a summer hotel. Visitors came in canoes, in cutters; and as the pass and the reef on either side of it were a favorite fishing ground many of them came prepared to spend the day, or the night, or both.

It is as well, perhaps, that the event fell out as it did. If life is to keep its fine zest many wished-for experiences must be perpetually unrealized, and we perpetually following our alluring phantoms until we tumble headlong out of existence. Not having been put to the proof, I may still persuade myself that I am a lover of solitude, gifted for the enjoyment of it beyond other men. Meanwhile, at Soul-Eaters' Island, I had a further experience with Moy Ling, the Chinese storekeeper, which convinced me of very definite limitations in another direction.

Some time after I had taken up residence there the village came in a body to the adjacent island on the other side of the pass. During the year they moved in this way from one piece of land to another, collecting the ripe coconuts and making their copra on the spot. The land was not owned in common, but they worked it in common; and as house building was a simple matter, instead of going back and forth from the village, they erected temporary shelters and remained at each island in turn until the work there was finished. They were not unremitting toilers. After an hour or two of copra making in the cool of the early morning they were content to call it a day, and spent the rest of the time at more congenial occupations--swimming, fishing, visiting back and forth, talking forever of the arrival of the last trading schooner and the probable date of arrival of the next one.

During all of this time I kept open house, and since I was indebted to nearly all of my friendly visitors for past hospitalities I felt that it was necessary to make returns. Unfortunately, I had nothing to make returns with, except such supplies of provisions and trade goods as I was able to purchase on credit of Moy Ling. Fish were abundant in the lagoon, and a few minutes of fine sport each day more than supplied my wants; but I knew that fish was not acceptable to palates long accustomed to little else. Furthermore, having accepted, at the time of my arrival at Rutiaro, the role of the generous, affluent _popaa_, I had to carry it through. As previously related, although I had been left at Rutiaro unexpectedly, the inhabitants took it for granted that I had plenty of money. The possession of wealth in the form of banknotes is regarded there as one of the attributes of a white man, as necessary to his comfort and convenience and as much a part of him as arms and legs. Pride prevented my disillusioning them at first when I was in desperate need of a new wardrobe; but it got me into a devil of a hole with Moy, and I dug myself in more deeply every day.

Having traded upon the native tradition of the mysterious affluence of all white men by opening up a credit account with the Chinaman I had to sustain his confidence in my ability to cancel it at once if I choose; and, feeling inwardly abject, it was all the more necessary to maintain a reassuring front in the face of his growing anxiety. It was growing. I could see that. He never actually dunned me, but I escaped the humiliating experience only by making additional purchases on so vast a scale, according to island standards, that even Moy seemed to be awed, for brief periods, into a stupefied acceptance of the mysteriously affluent myth. I, myself, was awed when I thought of the size of my bill. Trade goods carried across thousands of miles of ocean are more than usually expensive. A one-pound tin of bully beef cost nine francs, and other things were proportionally dear. The worst of it was that Moy's stock of supplies was much larger than I had at first supposed. He had a warehouse adjoining his store which was full of them, and so, with guests making constant demands upon my hospitality, I was forced to buy with the greater abandon as his confidence waned. But I returned from these encounters with a washed-out feeling, regretting that I had ever accepted guile as an ally and longing for relief from a state of affairs which I knew could not continue indefinitely.

Relief came in histrionic, eleventh-hour fashion. Providence saved me when I thought Pride was riding me to a starry fall. One evening I paddled across to the other island for further supplies. Huirai and his family had been staying with me for several days. Fishing was better on my side of the lagoon pass, he said, but I think his real purpose in coming had been to eat my, or, rather, Moy Ling's tinned beef. At any rate, when they returned I had nothing left. It was still fairly early, but no one was abroad in the village street. There was a light in Moy's shop, however, and looking through the open window I saw him sitting at a table with his adding machine before him. He was counting aloud in Chinese, his long, slim fingers playing skilfully over the wooden beads which slid back and forth on the framework with a soft, clicking sound, and as he bent over columns of figures the lamp light filled the hollows of his cheeks and temples with pits of shadow. In repose his face was as expressionless as that of a corpse. I felt my courage going as I looked at it. What chance had I of carrying through successfully this game of beggarman's bluff? How long could I hope to maintain the fiction of affluence before a man wise with the inherited experience of centuries of shopkeeping ancestors? I had a moment of panic, and before I realized what I was doing I had entered the shop and had asked for my bill.

Moy slip-slopped into his back room and returned with a large packet of old newspapers. He was a frugal soul and kept his accounts, as he ordered his life--with an eye to avoiding unnecessary expense. The journals were painted over with Chinese characters--the items of my various purchases. He arranged the lists in order, sat down to his counting machine again, and presently gave me the grand total. The amount was something over four thousand francs.

Thank Heaven for righteous anger! Thank Heaven for anger which is only moderately righteous. I knew that I had bought lavishly, but I had kept a rough estimate of the amount of my purchases, and I also knew that Moy had added at least 10 per cent to his legitimate profit. He had reasoned, no doubt, that a man who bought on mere whim, without asking the price of anything, would settle his obligation as thoughtlessly as he had incurred it. And I would of course. This was necessary if I were to live up to native tradition in the grand style. But when I saw how costly the game had become, and how thoroughly Moy had entered into the spirit of it, too, I felt indignant; and instead of confessing my predicament as I meant to do, I ordered another case of tinned beef and a bag of rice and left the shop without further talk.

This righteous wrath was all very well, but now that I had asked for my bill, I would have to settle it. How was this to be done? If only I had my sea chest which Tino, supercargo of the _Caleb S. Winship_, had carried away with him when he left me at Rutiaro! My pocketbook was in it, containing all of my money, more than enough to cancel the debt with Moy. I had rather an anxious time during the next few days. I remember entertaining as usual, but in a faint-hearted way; sleeping badly, and between times, walking up and down Soul-Eaters' Island, trying to subdue my pride to the point of confession. Then one afternoon, when I was sitting on the ocean beach, watching the surf piling up on the barrier reef, I became aware of a vessel, hull-down, on the horizon. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was like a far halloo from a world which I had almost forgotten existed. All through the afternoon she beat steadily to windward until at dusk she was about two miles distant, and I saw that she was one of the small schooners, without auxiliary power, which are used by Papeete trading companies for collecting copra at the less profitable atolls.

All the village came over to Soul-Eaters' Island, for the anchorage at this end of the atoll lay just behind it. The schooner was recognized. It was the _Potii Ravarava_ which visited the atoll about once a year. She entered the pass with the turn of the tide, lighting her way by the fire which was burning in a primitive galley, a tin-lined box half filled with sand. I could see her native skipper at the wheel, a couple of sailors preparing to take in sail, and two native women sitting on the poop, with a great pile of luggage behind them. One of these was Tepera, daughter of Puarei, chief of the atoll, who had been sent to the Protestant school at Papeete nearly a year ago. The other was Tuarava, her aunt, with whom she had been living there. The crowd on the beach waited in deep silence while the schooner anchored and the sails were being furled. I remember that I could hear very plainly the far-off rumbling of the surf on the windward side of the atoll and the hissing of frying fish, or whatever it was, a native boy was cooking at the galley fire. Then the small boat was lowered and the women brought ashore with their luggage. Tepera went at once to her father and, putting her head on his shoulder, began to cry softly. Not a word was spoken. Tuarava and Poura, her sister, squatted on their heels close by, their arms around each other, moaning in the same softly audible way. The women then went in turn among all their relatives, having their little cry while the rest of the village looked on in sympathetic silence. When they had finished, a fire was lit on the beach and everyone gathered around to hear the news and to examine the schooner's cargo which was being put on shore. More trade goods for Moy Ling, I thought. Remembering my debt, I couldn't summon any great amount of interest in the scene. I was about to return to my house when Huirai came bustling up, carrying my sea chest. "You like this?" he said. What he meant was, "Is this yours?" but for once he misused his English with splendid relevancy. I sat down weakly on the box, holding a letter which he had thrust into my hand. No doubt of it. It was my box, and the letter was addressed to me in Tino's familiar handwriting. It read, in part, as follows: