The letter was in Marquesan, which I translate into English, seeking to keep the flavor of the original, though poorly succeeding:
“I write to you, me, Pahorai Calizte, and put on this paper greetings to you, my mother, Mauitetai, who are in Atuona.
“Kaoha nui tuu kui, Mauitetai, mother of me. Great love to you.
“I have found in Philadelphia work for me; good work.
“I have found a woman for me. She is Jeanette, an artist, a maker of tattooings on cloth. I am very happy. I have found a house to live in. I am happy I have this woman. She is rich. I am poor. It is for that I write to you, to make it known to you that she is rich, and I am poor. By this paper you will know that I have pledged my word to this woman. I found her and I won her by my work and by my strength and my endeavor.
“She is moi kanahau; as beautiful as the flowers of the hutu in my own beloved valley of Atuona. She is not of America. She is of Chile. She has paid many piasters for the coming here. She has paid forty piasters. She has been at home in Las Palmas, in the islands of small golden birds.
“I will write you more in this paper. I seek your permission to marry Jeanette. She asks it, as I do. Send me your word by the government that carries words on paper.
“It is three years since I have known of you. That is long.
“Give me that word I ask for this woman. I cannot go to marry in Atuona. That is what my heart wants, but it is far and the money is great. The woman would pay and would come with me. I say no. I am proud. I have shame. I am a Marquesan.
“I live with that woman now. I am not married. It is forbidden. The American mutoi (policeman) may take hold of me. Five months I am with this woman of mine. The mutoi has a war-club that is hard as stone.
“Give me quickly the paper to marry her. I await your word.
“My word is done. I am at Philadelphia, New York Hotel. A.P.A. Dieu. Coot pae, mama.”
Mauitetai had read the letter many times. It was wonderful to hear from her son after three years and pleasant to know he had found a woman. She must be a haoe, a white woman. Were the women of that island, Chile, white?
I said that they ran the color scale, from blond to brown, from European to Indian, but that this Jeanette who was a tattooer, a maker of pictures on canvas, no doubt an artist of merit, must be pale as a moonbeam. Those red peppers that were hot on the tongue came from Chile, I said, and there were heaps of gold there in the mountains.
My Darling Hope would know what kind of a valley was Philadelphia.
It was the Valley of Brotherly Love. It was a very big valley, with two streams, and a bay. No, it was not near Tahiti. It was a breadfruit season away from Atuona, at the very least.
What could a hotel be? The New York hotel in which her poor son lived?
I did not know that hotel, I told her, but a hotel was a house in which many persons paid to live, and some hotels had more rooms than there were houses in all the Marquesas.
What! In one house, under one roof? By my tribe, it was true.
Did I know this woman? I was from that island and I had been in that valley. I must have seen her.