The palace of the governor of the Marquesas in the vale of Atuona—Monsieur L’Hermier des Plantes, Ghost Girl, Miss Tail, and Song of the Nightingale—Tapus in the South Seas—Strange conventions that regulate life—A South Seas Pankhurst—How women won their freedom.
IN Mapuhi’s store, on the counter, taken from the cabin of the County of Roxburgh, lay twenty-five pearls. They were of different values, two or three magnificent in size, in shape, and in luster, the fruit of Mapuhi’s tribe’s harvest in Takaroa Lagoon. He displayed them to me and others the night before I was to sail with Lying Bill for the Marquesas Islands. Aaron Mandel was about to buy them, and as the Parisian dealer and Mapuhi discussed their worth, Bill, McHenry, Kopcke, Nimau, and others added their opinions.
“If you paid for these pearls what they cost in suffering, and in proportion to the earnings of a diver in his lifetime, you would offer me ten times what you do,” said Mapuhi. “The white women who wear these poe can never know the dangers or the pain endured by our people. Two have aninia, vertigo, and one has been made permanently deaf this rahui.”
“I agree with you,” replied Mandel, “that nothing of money can balance what you Paumotuans go through to gather shells, but in many parts of the world divers of other races are doing the same. They don’t go as deep as you do, because their waters are shallower, but they fix the price for pearls. I have seen them from Ceylon to Australia, and I have to meet their competition when I take these pearls to Paris where the market is. Also, Mapuhi, the culture pearl is every year hurting our trade more and more, and some day may make pearls so cheap that you will get a third of what you do now. You remember the Taote of Pukapuka!”
“That was the devil’s magic, and it will not be again,” said Mapuhi. “Man who loves and serves the true God will never interfere with his secrets, but will accept what he offers for man’s struggles and torments. The Taote was tempted by Satan, and his sin was terribly punished.”
Mandel smiled.
From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
A young palm in Atuona
From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
Atuona valley and the peak of Temetiu