White Shadows in the South Seas

by Frederick O'Brien

The printed page vanished, and before my eyes rose a vision of my paepae among the breadfruit- and cocoanut-trees, the ring of squatting dusky figures in flickering sunlit leaf-shade, Kake in her red tunic with the babe at her breast, Exploding Eggs standing by with a half-eaten cocoanut, and the many dark eyes in their circles of ink fixed upon the shriveled face of the reformed cannibal whose head ached with the mysteries of the white man's religion.

None too soon for me, the talk turned about history, the tales of which were confused in my guests' minds with those of the saints. Great Fern insisted that if the English roasted Joan of Arc they ate her, because no man would apply live coals, which pain exceedingly, to any living person, and fire was never placed upon a human body save to cook it for consumption. This theory seemed reasonable to most of the listeners, for since such cruelty as the Marquesans practiced in their native state was thoughtless and never intentional, the idea of torture was incomprehensible to their simple minds.

Malicious Gossip, a comely savage of twenty-five with false-coffee leaves in her hair, declared, however, that the governor had told her the English roasted Joan alive because she was a heretic. The statement was received with startled protests by those present who had themselves incurred that charge when they deserted Catholicism for Protestantism some time earlier.

“Exploding Eggs,” said I hastily, “make tea for all.” Every shade vanished from shining eyes when I produced the bottle of rum and added a spoonful of flavor to each brimming shellful. All perplexing questions were forgotten, and simple social pleasure reigned again on my paepae, while Great Fern explained to all his idea of the Christian devil.

The Marquesan deity of darkness was Po, a vague and elemental spirit. But the kuhane anera maaa of the new religion had definite and fearful attributes explained by the priests. So Great Fern conceived him as a kind of cross between a man and a boar, with a tail like that of a shark, running through the forests with a bunch of lighted candlenuts and setting fire to the houses of the wicked.

And the wicked? Morals as we know them had nothing to do with their sin in his mind. The wicked were the unkind, those who were cruel to children, wives who made bad popoi, and whites with rum privileges who forgot hospitality.

Non-Christians may grin at the efforts of missionaries among heathens. But the missionaries are the only influence for good in the islands, the only white men seeking to mitigate the misery and ruin brought by the white man's system of trade. The extension of civilized commerce has crushed every natural impulse of brotherliness, kindness, and generosity, destroyed every good and clean custom of these children of nature. Traders and sailors, whalers and soldiers, have been their enemies.

Whatever the errors of the men of God, they have given their lives day by day in unremitting, self-sacrificing toil, suffering much to share with these despoiled people the light of their own faith in a better world hereafter. In so far as they have failed, they have failed because they have lacked what proselytizing religion has always lacked—a joy in life that seeks to make this mundane existence more endurable, a grace of humor, and a broad simplicity.

Polynesians have always been respecters of authority. Under their own rule, where priest and king equally rose to rank because of admired deeds, the tapus of the priests had the same force as those of chiefs, and life was conducted by few and simple rules. Now, when sect fights sect; when priests assure the people that France is a Catholic nation and the Governor says the statement is false; where the Protestant pastor teaches that Sunday is a day of solemnity and prayer, and the Frenchmen make it a day of merriment as in France; where salvation depends on many beliefs bewildering and incompatible, the puzzled Marquesan scratches his head and swings from creed to creed, while his secret heart clings to the old gods.

The Marquesan had a joyful religion, full of humor and abandon, dances and chants, and exaltation of nature, of the greatness of their tribe or race, a worship that was, despite its ghastly rites of human sacrifice, a stimulus to life.