The atmosphere rang as with the chimes of a cathedral, the echoes—there were none in reality—returning from roof and tree, and I had the feeling of the air being made up of voices, and of whirling in this magic ether. The woman I observed would seem about to stop, her voice falling away almost to no sound, and the prolonged drone of the chorus dying out, when, as if she had come to life again, she sang out at the top of her lungs, and the ranks again took up their tones. I could almost trace the imposition of the religious strain upon the savage, the Christian upon the heathen, like the negro spirituals of Georgia, and I sat back in my chair, and forgot the scene in the thoughts induced by the himene.
The souls of the Tahitians were not much changed by all their outward transformation. Superficial, indeed, are the accomplishments of missionaries, merchants, and masters among these Maoris. The old guard dies, but never surrenders; the boast of Napoleon’s soldiers might be paraphrased by the voice of the Maori spirit. Our philosophy, our catechisms, and our rules have not uprooted the convictions and thought methods of centuries. Bewildered by our ambitions, fashions, and inventions, they emulate us feebly, but in their heart of hearts think us mad. Old chiefs and chiefesses I have had confess to me that they were stunned by the novelties, commands, and demands of the papaa (foreigner), but that their confusion was not liking or belief. In his youth, in the midst of these bustling whites, the Tahitian imitates them and feels sometimes humiliated that he is not one of them. But in sober middle age all these new desires begin to leave him, and he becomes a Maori again. The older he grows, the less attractive seem the white man’s ways and ambitions, though pride, habit, and perhaps an acquired fear of the hell painted by priests and preachers from the distant lands keep him church-going. Gods may differ, but devils never.
Choti and T’yonni and I spent an hour at my house before they walked home to bed, and Choti read as a soporific, with a few bottles of Munich beer, the “Sermon to the Fishes” of St. Antonius. As he read, we heard the joyous stridence of an accordion in a hula harmony. The upaupahura was beginning in the grove where Uritaata lived. The austere St. Antonius had lectured long to the eels on the folly of wiggling, to the pikes on the immorality of stealing, and to the crabs and turtles on the danger of sloth. But:
“The sermon now ended,
Each turned and descended;
The pikes went on stealing,
The eels went on eeling;
Much edified were they,
But preferred the old way.
“The crabs are back-sliders,
The stock-fish thick-siders,
The carps are sharp-set,
All the sermon forget;
Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.”
Chapter XXV
I meet a sorcerer—Power over fire—The mystery of the fiery furnace—The scene in the forest—Walking over the white hot stones—Origin of the rite.
Walking to the neighboring district of Pueu with Raiere to see the beauties of the shore, we met a cart coming toward Tautira, and one of the two natives in it attracted my interest. He was very tall and broad and proud of carriage, old, but still unbroken in form or feature, and with a look of unconformity that marked him for a rebel. Against what? I wondered. Walt Whitman had that look, and so had Lincoln; and Thomas Paine, who more than any Englishman aided the American Revolution. Mysticism was in this man’s eyes, which did not gaze at the things about him, but were blinds to a secret soul.
Raiere exchanged a few words with the driver of the cart, and as they continued on toward Tautira, he said to me in a very serious voice:
“He is a tahua, a sorcerer, who will enact the Umuti, the walking over the fiery oven. He is from Raiatea and very noted. Ten years ago, Papa Ita of Raiatea was here, but there has been no Umuti since.”