South-Sea Idyls

by Charles Warren Stoddard

Hawaiian feast-days are not set down in the calendar. Somebody's child has a birthday, or there is a new house that needs christening; or perhaps a church is in want, and the feast can net a hundred or two dollars for it,—since all the eatables in such cases are donated, and the eaters enter to the feast with the payment of one dollar per head. Our feast was not sanctified; a chief of the best blood was in the humor to entertain his friends, countrymen, and lovers. We belonged to the first order; or, rather, the Commodore was his friend, and we speedily became as friendly as possible. As we entered the premises, it appeared to us that half the island was under cover; for limitless Lanais seemed to run on to the end of time in bewitching vistas. Numberless lanterns swung softly in the evening gale. A multitude of white-robed native girls passed to and fro, with that inimitable grace which I have always supposed Eve copied from the serpent and imparted to her daughters, who still affect the modern Edens of the earth. Young Hawaiian bloods, clad in snow-white trousers and ballet-shirts, with wreaths of mailné around their necks and ginger-flowers in their hair, grouped themselves along the evergreen corridors, and looked unutterable things without any noticeable effort on their part.

Through the central corridor, under a long line of lanterns, was spread the corporeal feast, and on either side of it, in two ravenous lines, sat, tailor-fashion, the hungry and the thirsty. It is useless to attempt an idealization of the Hawaiian eater. He simply devours whatever suits his palate, as though he were a packing-case that needed filling, and the sooner filled the more creditable the performance. But the amount of filling that he is equal to is the marvel; and the patient perseverance of the man, so long as there is a crumb left, is something that I despair of reconciling with any known system of physiology. The mastication began early in the afternoon. It was eight P. M. when we looked in upon the orgie, and the bones were not all picked, though they seemed likely to be before midnight.

"Will you eat?" said the host. It was not etiquette to decline, and we sat at the end of the Lanai, with nameless dishes strewn about us in hopeless confusion. We dipped a finger into pink poi, and took a pinch of baked dog. We had limpets with rock-salt; kukui-nuts roasted and pulverized; and the pale, quivering bits of fish-flesh, not an hour dead, and still cool with the native coolness of the sea. It was a fishful feast, any way; and not even the fruits or the flowers could entirely alleviate the inward agony consequent upon a morsel of raw fish, swallowed to please our host.

There was music at the farther end of the palm-leaf pavilion, and thither we wended our way. The inner court was festooned with flags, and covered with a large mat. Upon the mat sat, or reclined, several chiefesses. I am never able to account for the audacious grace of these women, who throw themselves upon the floor and stretch their supple limbs like tigresses, with a kind of imperial scorn for your one-horse proprieties. Their voluminous light garments scarcely concealed the ample curves of their bodies, and the marvellous creatures seemed to be breathing to slow music, while their slumberous eyes regarded us with a gentle indifference that was more tantalizing than any other species of coquetry that I have knowledge of.

At one side of the enclosure sat a group of musicians, twanging upon native harps, and beating the national calabash. Song after song was sung, pipe after pipe was smoked, and bits of easy and playful conversation filled the intervals. The evening waned. The eaters and drinkers were still unsatisfied, because the eatables and drinkables were not exhausted; but the moon was high and full, and the reef moaned most musically, and seemed to invite us to the shore.

The great charm of a native feast is the entire absence of all formality. Every man is privileged to seek whom his heart may most desire, and every woman may receive him or reject him as her spirit prompts. We noticed that the Commodore was uneasy. He was as plump as a seal, and the crowd oppressed him. We resolved to get the old gentleman out of his misery, and proposed an immediate adjournment to the beach. The inner court was soon deserted, and our little party—which now embraced, figuratively, several magnificent chiefesses, as well as the primitive Hawaiian orchestra—moved in silence toward the sea. The long, curving beach glistened and sparkled in the moonlight. The sea, within the reef, was like a tideless river, from whose pellucid depths, where the coral spread its wilderness of branches, an unearthly radiance was reflected. A fleet of slender canoes floated to and fro upon the water, and beyond them the creaming reef flashed like a girdle of silver, belting us in from all the world.

The crowning luxury of savage life is the multitudinous bondsman who anticipates your every wish, and makes you blush at your own poverty of invention by his suggestions of unimagined joys. Mats—broad, sweet, and clean—lay under foot, and served our purpose better than Persian carpets. The sea itself fawned at our feet, and all the air was shining and soft as though the moon had dissolved in an ecstasy, and nothing but a snap of cold weather could congeal her again. Wherever we lay, pillows were mysteriously slipped under our heads, and the willingest hands in the world began an involuntary performance of the lomi-lomi. Let me not think upon the lomi-lomi, for there is none of it within reach; but I may say of it, that, before the skilful and magnetic hands of the manipulator are folded, every nerve in the body is seized with an intense little spasm of recognition, and dies happy. A dreamless sleep succeeds, and this is followed by an awakening into new life, full of proud possibilities.

We were lomi-lomied to the murmurs of the reef, and during the intervals of consciousness saw an impromptu rehearsal of the "Naiad Queen," in operatic form. The dancing-girls, being somewhat heated, had plunged into the sea, and were complaining to the moon in a chorus of fine harmonies. History does not record how long their sea-song rang across the waters. I know that we dozed, and woke to watch a silver sail wafted along the vague and shadowy distance like a phantom. We slept again, and woke to a sense of silence broken only by the unceasing monody of the reef; slept and woke yet again in the waning light, for the moon had sunk to the ragged rim of an old crater, and seemed to have a large piece bitten out of her glorious disk. Then we broke camp by the shore,—for the air was a trifle chilly,—and withdrew into the seclusion of the Commodore's Lanai, where we threw ourselves into hammocks and swung until daybreak.

In those days we fed on lotus-flowers. Jack-ashore lives for the hour only, and the very air of such a latitude breathes enchantment. I believe we bathed before sunrise, and then went regularly to bed and slept till noon. Such were the Commodore's orders, and this is our apology. There was a breakfast about one P. M., at which we were permitted to appear in undress. The Commodore set the example by inviting us to the table in an extraordinary suit of cream-colored silk, that was suggestive of panjamas, but might have been some Oriental regalia especially designed for morning wear. He looked like a ship under full sail, rocking good-naturedly in a dead calm. The Commodore was excessively formal at first sight,—that is, just before breakfast,—but his heart warmed toward mankind in general, and his guests in particular, as the meal progressed. Some people never are themselves until they have broken their fast; they are so cranky, and seem to lack ballast.

The snaky steward sloughed his clothes twice a day. He was a slim, noiseless, gliding fellow at breakfast, but he was positively gorgeous at dinner. Of course, the Commodore had ordered this nice distinction in the temporal affairs of his servant, for he kept everything about the place in ship-shape, even to the flying of his private signal from sunrise to sunset at the top of a tall staff, that rivalled the royal ensign floating from a similar altitude not a quarter of a mile distant. His Majesty has a summer palace in Wai-ki-ki, and it has been whispered that the Commodore refused to recognize him, and never dipped his colors as the King cantered by in a light buggy drawn by a span of spanking bays.