This question was put to Elder Overton, who hesitated to interpret. The subject was a scandal throughout the Paumotus. I read that in the preacher’s face, but, comprehending the import of the words, I said that I knew Teferite; that he lived very near me, and that I saw him often in his store. Once or twice I had bought goods of him. He was getting very fat since Tihonitone had whipped him, and most of his time he hunted fish and wild animals. Tihonitone, the neega, as the Paumotuans call Afro-Americans, I had seen more than once, I said.
“That neega knocked down the white Teferite and took the hundreds of thousands of francs given the winner,” said Mapuhi, with spirit. “They are both great men, but the neega is the greatest. Next to the chiefs of the Mormon church, they are the greatest Americans.”
“Have you never heard of Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt?” I demanded.
He did not know the man. An acquaintance in Tahiti sent him now and then the pink paper which contained the pictures of fighting men, of fighting dogs, and of women whose bosoms and legs were bare. America must now be full of these fights, and of beautiful women almost naked, he said.
“Your two most famous men, Teferite and Tihonitone, sell rum. The goods you bought of Teferite was rum, for he keeps a rum store in Los Angelese, and the neega, in Keekago.”
Each sentence tore the elders’ hearts, but Mapuhi salved their wounds.
“These men are gentiles, I know,” he concluded. “The elders have informed me. Mormons sell no rum. But tell me, is Tihonitone master of his white wife? I have her picture. She is beautiful.”
Overton frowned.
“Mapuhi,” he said, gently, “you make too much of those ‘Police Gazette’ pictures. The godly in America never see them. They are for the rum-drinkers, and are found only in the resorts of the wicked. Strength is admirable, but the fighting men of our country are the Philistines whom Jehovah chastised.”
To me, in English, the Utahan said: “That coon’s licking the white man has cost the whole white race dear. A preacher in India told me England could better have afforded to give Johnson five million dollars, for what it has cost in troops. The same in Africa. The evil of prize-fighting, was never better exemplified. Jeffries’ beating has hurt religion seriously.”