Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

“He came one day on a ship from far, this white man I tell about, and of whom even now I often meditate. He was not of the sea, but on the ship as one who pays to move about over the waters, looking for something of interest. That thing he found here. He brought ashore his guns and powder, his other possessions of wonder, and let the ship go away without him. He had seen Titihuti, and his koekoe, his spirit, was set aflame.”

I needed no description by the tuhuka to bring before me Titihuti, to see that maddening, matchless child-woman, nor to know the desperate plight of a white who fell in love with her. She must have been the Helen of these Pacific Greeks, for men came from other islands to woo her, fought over her, and embroiled tribes in bloody warfare at her whim. Her affairs had been the history of her valley for a brief period, and were immortalized in chants and in legends though she still lived. Many had related to me stories of her beauty, her spell over men, and her wicked pleasure in deceiving them.

She was the daughter of a chief, of a long line of hakaiki, of noble mothers and of warriors, and an adept in the marvelous cult of beauty, of sex expression, which to the Marquesan woman was the field of her dearest ambition, the professional stage and the salon of society.

“The day he came to this beach,” said the sorcerer, “was the day she first danced in the Grove of the Mei, at the annual gathering of the tribe. All the people of the ship were invited, and not least he who had no duties but his desires, and who brought from the vessel a barrel of rum as his gift to the people. It was as rich as the full moon, as strong as the surf in storm, and in every drop a dream of fortune. It made that foreigner of note at once, and he was given a seat at the Hurahura, the Dance of Passion, in which Titihuti for the first time took her place as a woman and an equal of others. She was then thirteen years old, a moi kanahau, her form as the bud of the pahue flower, her hair red-gold, like the fish of the lagoon, and her skin as the fresh-opened breadfruit. The Grove of the Mei you have been in, but you cannot imagine that scene. A hundred torches of candlenuts, strung on the spine of the palm-leaf, lit the dancing mead. The grass had been cut to a smoothness, and all the valley was there. As is usual in these annual débuts of our girls, at the height of the breadfruit season, a dozen were allowed to show their beauty and skill. These danced to the music of drums and of hand-clapping and chanting before the entire tribe seated on the grass.”

The old man lit the pipe, which had gone out, and puffed out the blue clouds of smoke as if they were recollections of the past.

“Finally, as the custom is, the plaudits of the crowd narrowed the contest to three. Each as she danced appealed for approval, and each had followers. By the judgment of the throng all had retired but three after a first effort. These began the formal titii e te epo. This is the dance of love, the dance we Marquesans have ever made the test of the female’s fascination.

“Before the first of the three danced, the rum was passed. It was drunk from cups of leaves, and each in turn drew from the cask. It ran through our veins like fire through the pandanus. The great drum then sounded the call.

“Tahiatini came from the shadow of the trees. She wore a dress of tapa, made from the pith of the mulberry-tree, and as the dance became faster she tossed it off until she moved about quite nude. For this, of course, is part of the test. A hundred men, mostly young, stood and watched her, and watching them were the judges, the elders of the race, men and women. For, Menike, in the expression, the heat, or the coolness of those standing men was counted the success or failure of the dancer. And they were taught by pride and by the rules of the event to conceal every feeling, as did the warrior who faced the launched spear. They were to be as the stones of the paepae.

“Tahiatini passed back into the trees, and Moeo succeeded her. She seemed to feel that Tahiatini had not scored heavily. She danced marvelously for one who had never before been in the Grove of Mei, and the shrewd judges reckoned more than one of the silent hundred who could not restrain from some mark of approval. There was, when she fell back, a shout of praise from the crowd, and the judges conferred while the rum was handed about for the second time.

“Then Titihuti was thrust out from the darkness, and from her first step we realized that a new enchantress had come to torment the warriors. I have lived long, and many of those dances in the Grove of Mei I have seen. Never before or since that night have I known a girl to do what she did. Her kahu of tapa was as red as the sun when the sea swallows it, and hung over one shoulder, so that her bosom, as white as the ripe cocoanut, gleamed in the light of the burning ama.