Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

“There,” said Hiram, “there is Teamo, who is the greatest swimmer of all these seas, and who went through the great cyclone as does a fish. Haere mai!” he called, “This monsieur, who is an American, like my father, wants to hear about your swimming of the seas in the matai rorofai.”

Teamo put down her pig and the chickens from her head, sat upon her haunches, and drawing a diagram in the coral sand, she told her strange tale in her own language.

“The water is coming over the atoll, and the lagoon and the sea are one,” said Teamo, “when my brother and sisters and I climbed the great cocoanut-tree by our house, because it is death below. You know the cocoanut-trees. You see they have no limbs. You know that it is hard to hold on because the great trees shake in the wind, and there is no place to sit. Only we could put our arms around the leaves and hold as best we might. When it comes on dark we feel the wind roaring louder about us, and we hear the cries of those who are in other trees. Then far out on the reef we hear the pounding of the sea and the waves begin more and more to come over the atoll until they cover it deeper and deeper, and each succeeding wave climbs higher and higher toward where we cling. We know that soon there will come a wave whose teeth will tear us from the tree.

“That wave came all of a sudden. It was like a cloud in the sky. It lifted me out of the cocoanut-leaves as the diver tears the shell from the bank at the bottom of the lagoon. It lifted me and took me over the lagoon, over the tops of all trees, and when it went back to the ocean, it carried me miles with it. I was on the top of its back, almost in the sky, and it was as black as the spittle of the devilfish.”

The chief was listening attentively, for she spoke in Paumotuan. Hiram Mervin interposed:

“Teamo went away from Hikueru on that wave and stayed three days,” said he. “She was numbered with the dead when the count of the living was made by my father.”

Teamo squatted on the sand of the road. I was afraid she would weary in her relation, as do her race. “Parau vinivini!” I said, and smoothed her shoulders.

“I kept upon its back,” she resumed. “All through that night I swam or floated, fighting the waves, and fearing the sharks. I called on Birigi’ama Iunga and on Ietu Kirito, and on God. Hours and hours I kept up until the dawn. Then I saw a coral-reef, and swam for it. I was nearly crushed time and time on the rocks, but at last I crawled up on the sand above the water, and fell asleep.

“When I awoke I was all naked. The waves had torn my dress from me, and the sun was burning my body. I was bruised and wounded, but I prayed my thanks to the God of the Mormons. I stood upon my feet, and I saw all about me the pohe roa, the blackening and broken bodies of people of Hikueru. They, too, had floated on the same wave, but they had perished. They were all about me. I searched for cocoanuts, for I was drying up with thirst and shaking with hunger. At last I found one under the body of my cousin, and, breaking it with a rock, I drank the water in it, and again fell asleep.

“Now when I awoke I was stronger, and a distance away in the water I saw a box floating. I broke it open, and found it had in it tins of salmon. They were from some store in Hikueru, for I soon knew there was no living human on that atoll but me. I could not open the tins of salmon but pierced holes in them with a piece of coral and sucked out the fish. God was even better to me, for I found a camphor-wood chest with a shirt and pareu in it, and I put them on. I then found a canoe thrown up on the beach, and it was half full of rain-water. I made up my mind to return to my home in the canoe. It was broken and there was no paddle. I patched it, I found the outrigger, and tied it on with cocoanut-fiber which I plaited. I made a paddle from the top of the salmon case, and lashed it to the handle of a broom I found. I kept enough fresh water in the canoe, and after two days of eating and resting I pushed out in the canoe, with the remainder of the salmon. I could not see any other atoll, but I trusted to God and prayed as I paddled. I pushed over the reef at daybreak of the third day, and paddled until the next morning, when I saw Hikueru, and reached the remnants of my village.”