South Sea Yarns

by Basil Thomson

Far up the great river there once dwelt three clans in brotherly love, planting on the same lands, and giving their women to one another in marriage. Brothers in arms they were, and staunch allies whenever the hordes of Tholo made a descent upon them; nor could the elders remember any interruption in their friendship except once, when the pigs of Valekau destroyed the yam-gardens of Rara, and their owners would make no reparation. But this was long ago, and the tradition had become misty.

Rara stood upon a high bluff on a bend of the river, precipitous on three sides, and protected on the fourth by two ditches and an earthwork. Valekau, sprung from the same ancestors and worshipping the same gods, was built upon a lower hill a mile away, and set back from the river-bank. It needed no protection but a war-fence on the crest of the hill, and the gate was an arch formed by the roots of a great banian-tree, so narrow that one warrior only could pass it at a time. Tovutovu lay in the plain on the other side of the river. Five ditches encircled it, having war-fences between each, and the gates were cunningly devised, so that he who would enter must encompass the town three times between the palisades before he could pass all the gates, for none was opposite to the other. Tovutovu had not the same gods as Rara, having descended later from the mountains to the plain. But in peace-time they planted together, and the women fished kais in the common fishing-ground; and when the lali beat for war, the young men painted their faces and lay in ambush together, and the women and children hid together in the forest behind Rara.

Now strange things began to be brought up the river. First there were rumours of foreigners who came up from the ocean in canoes like islands for bigness. This, they thought, was but another lie of their enemies, the coast-people. Next Seru of Rara brought a thing more solid than rumour—an adze made of a hard substance that cut deep into the toughest wood which the stone adze only chipped. The man who gave it in Kasava told him that it was the least of the strange things the foreigners had brought, and that the foreigners had white skins like lepers, and covered them up with bark-cloth, being ashamed to show aught but their faces because of the colour. Also their noses were as long as bananas, and they spoke with women’s voices.

Thenceforward the young men made many journeys down the river as far as they dared, and brought back with them other strange things—cloth not made from bark, but of a substance that could be washed without injury, and iron of many shapes that could be beaten out between two stones into adze-blades; and one of them brought back a tale of a devil the foreigners had which thundered, and every time it thundered a man fell dead, pierced through the body with an unseen spear. There was much striving between the clans to possess these strange things, and they were begged of the young men, and begged again of him to whom they were given, so that they passed from one to another until each of the elders had called them his. But they all yearned to possess the devil of the foreigners that thundered, and the young men made many journeys hoping to possess one, and returned with many things, but always without this devil that they wanted. And one day when the youths of Rara returned from down the river, the young man Bativundi came running to the elders of Valekau as they sat at sunset in the great bure.

“The youths of Rara have returned from below, and it is said that they have brought with them a wonderful thing with which the foreigners take fish. It is a stick that grows long at will, as a bamboo shoots up from the ground; and from the top there comes a string, having at the end a fly with a hook hidden in its belly. This is the way of it. A man holds the stick in his hand and waves it, and the stick, being pliable, makes the fly dance upon the water; and whether it be magic, or whether the fish be befooled, I know not, yet they bite the fly and are pierced with the hook, and so drawn to land. No such thing has been seen in our land, for one man between sunrise and mid-day can take more fish than all Valekau can eat.”

“Kombo!” cried the elders. “Let us send an embassy to Rara to beg this stick that we may eat fish and live.”

So on the morrow Nkio took a root of yangona in his hand and went to Rara, saying, “I am come to beg the stick with which fish are taken. It is the word of the chiefs of Valekau, your relations, that I beg this stick.”

Now the men of Rara had touched the yangona-root, and clapped their hands, and they sat silent as if not knowing what answer to make. But at last one of them said, “Be not angry, Nkio, but return to Valekau, saying, ‘We are a poor land, and it is difficult to grant your request.’” So Nkio returned and spoke as he had been bidden.

Valekau sat in council, and their hearts were grieved. Did Rara weigh their friendship so lightly that they wantonly refused a gift begged with the proper ceremonies? It was a gross insult. Rara esteemed them as slaves, things of no account, to be flouted at will; but they should know that a long peace does not blunt the spears nor paralyse the arms of Valekau. The bodies of their youths were not gross with slothful ease, nor the limbs of their elders stiff with wallowing on the mats. This insult must be paid for! But how? Then spoke Bonawai, the Odysseus of the tribe, versed in all the wiles and craft that bring a people to greatness—Bonawai na dau vere, Bonawai the schemer.