Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

Mapuhi and the elders left the room, and returned in a few minutes in black broadcloth coats and high white collars, in which they sweated woefully. We all walked to the temple. It was close beside the beach, built of coral blocks, smeared with cement, white as the ocean foam. Its iron roof, painted crimson, was the only spot of color on the motu, except the nodding palms.

“It is like the blood of the martyrs,” exclaimed Overton, piously. “The temple was begun over twenty years ago. Nine years it took to build it, because the converts were few and poor, and labor scarce. Twice cyclones leveled it. Ten years ago the Takaroans began it again, and for two years it has been completed. I know of no more sublime monument to the true religion than this little temple. Every block of coral is a redeemed soul. If only the gentiles in America knew the work we were doing!”

We entered the temple reverently, the congregation, already seated, nearly filling it. On its rude coral floor were rough benches accommodating five or six persons each. A pulpit of gingerbread scrollwork, the only other furniture, was apologized for by De Kalb.

“It was the plainest we could get. It was made for the Catholics. They like ’em fancy, like their religion.”

Elder Overton preached the sermon. De Kalb read from the Bible and the “Book of Mormon.” The people who filled the edifice paid all attention. Serious always in their demeanor, except when affected by alcohol, they were positively melancholy in religion. All who could afford it wore black, and the oldsters had long frock coats of funereal hue, and collars like the Americans.

After the services, I broached to the elders my necessity of a habitation. With the diving season opening in a few weeks, divers and traders would be at Takaroa from all about, and the 140 people of the atoll would be multiplied three or four times. Most of these divers would crowd in the houses of the natives, and the majority of the traders would live on their schooners. Mapuhi regretted that all his accommodations were bespoken.

The elders took me to the house of Nohea, a small, neat cottage, at the end of the avenue leading from the mole, an avenue all shining white with coral sand. It reminded me of the shell roads of my native State, Maryland, in my childhood. It was lined with the shanties and huts of the inhabitants.

Nohea greeted me quietly. He was a dark man, six feet four inches in height, big all over, his muscles well insulated by deep fat, and with the placid giantism of a Yeddo wrestler. He was taciturn, reserved, and melancholy. Most of these natives became spiritually strained when, as commonly, late in life, they gave up the wicked pleasures of the flesh—alcohol, tobacco, and philandering. They lost toleration for unrighteousness, and the joy that in their unregenerate state had oozed from their wicked pores turned to acid.

A friend and sometime partner of Mapuhi, and as devout a Mormon, Nohea was, next to Mapuhi, the foremost figure in the archipelago. He was not a trader, except that he sold his pearls, shell, and copra for money and merchandise; but he had dignity, strength, and personality—not quite as had Mapuhi, but more than any other Takaroan. Among Paumotuans few men showed distinctive character. Nohea possessed that, and also physical strength and skill for the diving, for the handling of boats, and for the making of copra. When there was no white missionary at Takaroa, he was the hierophant of the Mormon church. He conducted the services and advised the faithful, collected the tithes, and admonished the sinners. He did not fail in zeal for that task. Nohea painted a hell darker than a shark’s jaws, a pit of horror, lit by black flames which burned the non-Mormons, and a heaven on earth where baked pig was a free dish at all hours. The Mormon heaven is nearer the Mussulman’s than the Christian’s. Food and rills of fresh water, many beautiful and passionate wives, song and feasting, were promised the Paumotuan. Golden harps and streets of pearl would hardly have brought their tithes to the church treasury.

The very day I joined him I began to see things through his eyes. I was bathing at dusk in the clear waters of the lagoon near our home. The severe heat of the equatorial day had passed, and the still salt lake was as refreshing to my sun-stricken and coral-scratched body as the spring of the oasis to the parched traveler. The night was riding fast after the sunken sun, and driving the last gleam of color from the sky.