Spearing fish in Marquesas Islands
Pearl shell divers at work
There was no white doctor on the island, nor had there been one for many years. There was nothing to do but call the tatihi, or native doctor, an aged and shriveled man whose whole body was an intricate pattern of tattooing and wrinkles. He came at once, and with his claw-like hands cleverly drew together the edges of Red Chicken's wound and gummed them in place with the juice of the ape, a bulbous plant like the edible taro. Red Chicken must have suffered keenly, for the ape juice is exceedingly caustic, but he made no protest, continuing to puff the pipe. Over the wound the tatihi applied a leaf, and bound the whole very carefully with a bandage of tapa cloth folded in surgical fashion.
About the mat on which Red Chicken lay the elders of the village congregated in the morning to discuss the accident and tell tales while the pipe circulated. One had seen his friend pierced through the chest by a sword-fish and instantly killed. Numerous incidents of their canoes being sunk by these savage Spears of the Sea were recited by the wise men who, with no books to bother them or written records to dull their memories, preserved the most minute recollections of important events of the past.
For my part, on the subject of the demoniacal work of the swordfish, I regaled them with accounts of damage wrought to big ships; of how a bony sword had penetrated the hull of the Fortune, of Plymouth, cutting through copper, an inch of under-sheathing, a three-inch plank of hard wood, twelve inches of solid, white-oak timber, two and a half inches of hard oak ceiling, and the head of an oil cask; of the sloop Morning Star, which had to be convoyed to port with a leak through a hole in eight and a half inches of white oak; of the United States Fish Commission sloop, Red Hot, rammed and sunk; of the British dreadnaught, which was pumped to Colombo where the leak made by the fish was found, and 15,000 francs insurance paid.
“Our fathers never went fishing until they had implored the favor of the gods,” said Red Chicken. “I am a Catholic, but it may be the sea is so old, older than Christ, that the devils there obey the old gods we used to worship. If that largest Spear of the Sea that we saw had attacked me or our boat, he would have killed us and sunk the canoe, for he was four fathoms long, and his weapon was as tall as I am.”
The tatihi nodded his head gravely. His soul was still in the keeping of the gods of his fathers, and-he saw in Red Chicken's wound the vengeance of the un-appeased Aavehie.
I was amazed to find that Red Chicken had no fever, and was recovering rapidly. Without modern medicine or knowledge of it, the tatihi had healed the sufferer, and I drew him on to talk of his skill.