Cloudbursts had swollen the streams, and made the trails troughs of mud, so that when Exploding Eggs and Mouth of God and I arrived at Atuona beach with our empties we were glad to place the receptacles in the canoe of a fisherman for transport to Lutz’s. A gesture of my cupped hand to my mouth made him eager to oblige me. We walked up the hill and past the Scallamera leper-house. My friends’ bare feet and skill made it hard for me to keep up with them. Shoes are clumsy shifts for naked soles. After a glass of Munich beer and a pretzel with Lutz, Exploding Eggs finding his own little canoe at the stone steps, we loaded the demi-johns in it and the fisherman’s. I went with the latter, and Mouth of God with my valet. The canoes were narrow and they sank to the gunwales with the weight. The tide of the swollen river tore through the bay, and soon Mouth of God cried out that we must take Exploding Eggs in our craft. The boy transferred himself deftly, and Mouth of God’s canoe shot ahead. It became necessary for us to bail, for the water poured in over the unprotected sides, and the boy and I used our hats actively. Suddenly the fisherman in agonizing voice announced that we could not stay afloat. He gave no thought to our bodily plight, the racing current, and the rapacious sharks, but laid stress on our freight.
“Aue! The rum will be lost!” he shouted, as the canoe weltered deeper, and then, without ado, both he and Exploding Eggs leaped into the brine. The canoe staggered and rose, and, after freeing it from water, I paddled it to shore, while the pair swam alongside, watching the precious burden.
All night the torrent roared near my home. The big boulders rolled down the rocky bed, groaning in travail. The solid shot of cocoanut and breadfruit, sped by the gale, fell on my iron roof while the furious rain was like cannister. The trees made noises as a sailing ship in a storm, singing wildly, whistling as does the cordage, and the crash of their fall sounding as the freed canvas banging on the yards. Sleep was not for me, but I smoked and wrote, and listened to the chorus of angered nature until daybreak.
In the first light I saw Father David, in soutane and surplice, attended by two barelegged acolytes, fording the breast-high river. He held aloft the golden box containing the sacred bread, and one of the acolytes carried a bell of warning. Paro had the black leprosy, and in his hut far up the valley, on his mat of suffering, waited for the comfort of communion. All day three priests moved up and down urging the people to confess and “make their Easter.”
Titihuti, the magnificently tattooed matron, went with me to the ceremony of Honi Peka, the Kissing of the Crucifix. Honi really meant to rub noses or smell each other’s faces, for the Marquesans had no labial kiss. The Catholic church was well filled, and each native in turn approached the railing of the channel, and rubbed his nose over the desolate figure of the Savior. It was a wonderful magic to them. The next day, Good Friday or Venini Tapu, I asked Great Fern what event that day commemorated.
“Ietu Kirito was killed by his enemies, the tribe of Iuda,” he replied, as he might relate a tribal feud in these islands.
Photo from Underwood and Underwood
The Coral road and the traders’ stores
Holy Saturday was a joyous holiday, and on Easter Sunday the climax of the feasting and merriment came. The communion-rail was crowded, many complying with the church compulsion of taking the sacrament once a year under pain of mortal sin. There was compensation for celibacy and exile in Father David’s expression of delight as he put into each communicant’s mouth the host. He was the leading actor in a divine drama, the conversion by his few words of consecration of a flour wafer into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The histrionic was mixed with and a moving part of his exaltation.
