Faery Lands of the South Seas

by James Norman Hall; Charles Nordhoff

The experiment convinced me that fish spearing in the open sea is not an easily acquired art, but one handed down in its perfection through at least twenty generations of Low Island ancestors. It is falling into disuse in some of the atolls where wealth is accumulating and tinned food plentiful; but the inhabitants of Rutiaro still follow it with old-time zest. They handle their spears affectionately, as anglers handle and sort their lies. These are true sportsman's weapons, provided with a single unbarbed dart, bound with sinnet to a tapering shaft from eight to ten feet long. Their water goggles, like their spears, they make for themselves. They are somewhat like an aviator's goggles, disks of clear glass fitted in brass rims, with an inner cushion of rubber which cups closely around the eyes, preventing the entrance of water. When adjusted they give the wearer an owlish appearance, like the horn-rimmed spectacles which used to be affected by American undergraduates. Thus equipped, with their pareus girded into loin cloths, a half dozen of the younger men jumped into the rapid current which flows past Soul-Eaters' Island and swam out to sea.

Tohetika, Tehina, Pinga (the boat steerer), and I followed in a canoe. Dawn was at hand and, looking back, I saw the island, my house, and the crowd on the beach in the suffused, unreal light of sun and fading moon. In front of us the swimmers were already approaching the tumbled waters at the entrance to the pass. Upon reaching it they disappeared together, and I next saw them far on the other side, swimming in a direction parallel to the reef, and some fifty yards beyond the breaking point of the surf. When we joined them the sun was above the horizon and they were already at the sport. They lay face down on the surface of the water, turning their heads now and then for a breath of air. They swam with an easy breast stroke and a barely perceptible movement of the legs, holding their spears with their toes, near the end of the long shaft. Riding the long, smooth swell, it was hard to keep them in view, and they were diving repeatedly, coming to the surface again at unexpected places.

Through the clear water I could see every crevice and cranny in the shelving slope of coral; the mouths of gloomy caverns which undermined the reef, and swarms of fish, as strangely colored as the coral itself, passing through them, flashing across sunlit spaces, or hovering in the shadows of overhanging ledges. It was a strange world to look down upon and stranger still to see men moving about in it as though it were their natural home. Sometimes they grasped their spears as a poniard would be held for a downward blow; sometimes with the thumb forward, thrusting with an underhand movement. They were marvelously quick and accurate at striking. I had a nicer appreciation of their skill after my one attempt, which had proven to me how difficult it is to judge precisely the distance, the location of the prey, and the second, for the thrust. A novice was helpless. He suffered under the heavy pressure of the water, and the long holding of his breath cost him agonized effort. Even though he were comfortable physically he might chase, with as good result, the dancing reflections of a mirror, turned this way and that in the sunlight.

As they searched the depths to the seaward side the bodies of the fishers grew shadowy, vanished altogether, reappeared as they passed over a lighter background of blue or green which marked an invisible shoal. At last they would come clearly into view, the spear held erect, rising like embodied spirits through an element of matchless purity which seemed neither air nor water. The whistling noises which they made as they regained the surface gave the last touch of unreality to the scene. I have never understood the reason for this practice which is universal among the divers and fishers of the Low Islands, unless it is that their lungs, being famished for air, they breathe it out grudgingly through half-closed teeth. Heard against the thunder of the surf, the sounds, hoarse or shrill, according to the wont of the diver, seemed anything but human.

We returned in an hour's time with the canoe half filled with fish—square-nosed tinga-tingas, silvery tamures, brown spotted kitos, gnareas; we had more than made good the loss of the chickens. The preparations for the feast had been completed. The table was set or, better, the cloth of green fronds was laid on the ground near the beach. At each place there was a tin of my corned beef or salmon; the half of a coconut shell filled with raw fish, cut into small pieces in a sauce of miti haari—salted coconut milk—and a green coconut for drinking. Along the center of the table were great piles of fish, baked and raw; roast pork and chicken; mounds of bread stacked up like cannon balls. The bread was not of Moy Ling's baking, but made in native fashion—lumps of boiled dough of the size and weight of large grape fruit. One would think that the most optimistic stomach would ache at the prospect of receiving it, but the Paumotuan stomach is of ostrichlike hardihood and, as I have said, after long fasting it demands quantity rather than quality in food.

It was then about half past six, a seasonable hour for the feast, for the air was still cool and fresh. The food was steaming on the table, but we were not yet ready to sit down to it. Fête days, like Sundays, required costumes appropriate to the occasion, and everyone retired into the bush to change clothing. I thought then that I was to be the only disreputable banqueter of the lot, and regretted that I had been so eager to see my new house. Not expecting visitors, I had come away from the village with only my supply of food. Fortunately, Puarei had been thoughtful for me. I found not only my white clothing, but my other possessions—bolts of ribbon, perfume, the cheap jewelry, etc., which I had bought, on credit, of Moy Ling. And the house itself had been furnished and decorated during the hour when I was out with the fish spearers. There was a table and a chair, made of bits of old packing cases, in one corner; and on the sleeping mat a crazy quilt and a pillow with my name worked in red silk within a border of flowers. Hanging from the ceiling was a faded papier-mache bell, the kind one sees in grocers' windows at home at Christmas time. This was originally the gift of some trader; and the pictures, too, which decorated the walls. They had been cut from the advertising pages of some American magazine. One of them represented a man, dressed in a much-advertised brand of underwear, who was smiling with cool solicitude at two others who were perspiring heavily and wishing—if the legend printed beneath was true—that their underwear bore the same stamp as that of their fortunate comrade. There was another, in color, of a woman smiling across a table at her husband, who smiled back while they ate a particular brand of beans. The four walls of my house were hung with pictures of this sort, strung on cords of coconut fiber—Huirai's work, I was sure, done out of the kindness of his heart. He was merely an unconscious agent of the gods, administering this further reproof for my temerity in seeking consciously an adventure in solitude. As I changed my clothing I pondered the problem as to how I could get rid of the gallery without giving Huirai offense, and from this I fell to thinking of the people smiling down at me. Is our race made up, in large part, of such out-and-out materialists, whose chief joy in life lies in discovering some hitherto untried brand of soup or talcum powder? Do they live, these people? They looked real enough in the picture. I seemed to know many of them, and I remembered their innumerable prototypes I had met in the world I had left only the year before. "Well, if they are real," I thought, "what has become of the old doomsday men and women who used to stand at street corners with bundles of tracts in their hands, saying to passers-by, 'My friend, is your soul saved?'?" No answer came from the smiling materialists on all sides of me. They smiled still, as though in mockery of my attempt to elude them in whatsoever unfrequented corner of the world; as though life were merely the endless enjoyment of creature comforts, the endless, effortless use of labor-saving devices. One man, in his late fifties, who really ought to have been thinking about his soul, had in his eyes only the light of sensual gratification. He was in pajamas and half shaven, announcing to me, to the world at large: "At last! A razor!"

The sight of him offering me his useful little instrument put an end to my meditation. I rubbed ruefully a three days' growth of beard, thinking of the torture in store for me when I should next go to Pinga for a shave. He was the village barber, as well as its most skillful boat steerer. His other customers were used to his razor and his methods, and their faces were inured to pain; for had not their ancestors, through countless generations, had their beards plucked out hair by hair? I, on the other hand, was the creature of my own land of creature comforts. The anticipation of a shave was agony, and the realization—Pinga sitting on my chest, holding my head firm with one immense hand while he scraped and rasped with his dull razor—that was to die weekly and to live to die again. I got what amusement I could from the thought of the different set of values at Rutiaro. I had only to ask for a house, and Puarei had given me one, with an island of my own to set it on. He thought no more of the request than if I had asked him for a drinking coconut. But not all the wealth of the Low Island pearl fisheries, had it been mine to offer, could have procured for me a safety razor with a dozen good blades.

I heard Puarei shouting, "Haere mai ta maa!" and went out to join the others, my unshaved beard in woeful contrast to my immaculate white clothing. But my guests, or hosts, had the native courtesy of many primitive people, and I was not made conscious of my unreaped chin. Furthermore, everyone was hungry, and so, after Puarei had said grace for the Church of Latter Day Saints, and Huirai a second one for the Reformed Church of Latter Day Saints, and Nui-Tano a third as the Catholic representative, we fell to without further loss of time.

The enjoyment of food is assuredly one of the great blessings of life, although it is not a cause for perpetual smiling, as the writers of advertisements would have one believe. According to the Low Island way of thinking, it is not a subject to be talked about at any length. I liked their custom of eating in silence, with everyone giving undivided attention to the business in hand. It gave one the privilege of doing likewise, a relief to a man weary of the unnatural dining habits of more advanced people. It may be a trifle gross to think of your food while you are eating it, but it is natural and, if the doctors are to be believed, an excellent aid to digestion. Now and then Puarei would say, "E mea maitai, tera" ("A thing good, that"), tapping a haunch of roast pork with his forefinger. And I would reply, "É, é mea maitai roa, tera" ("Yes, a thing very good, that"). Then we would fall to eating again. On my right, Hunga went from fish to pork and from pork to tinned beef, whipping the miti haari to his lips with his fingers without the loss of a drop. Only once he paused for a moment and let his eyes wander the length of the table. Shaking his head with a sigh of satisfaction, he said, "Katinga ahuru katinga" ("Food and yet more food"). There is no phrase sweeter to Paumotuan ears than that one.

Huirai, the constable, was the only one who made any social demands upon me. As already related, he had once made a journey from Papeete to San Francisco as a stoker on one of the mail boats and was immensely proud of the few English phrases which he had picked up during the voyage. He didn't know the meaning of them, but that made no difference. He could put on side before the others, make them believe that he was carrying on an intelligent conversation. "What's the matter?" "Oh yes!" "Never mind" were among his favorite expressions—unusually mild ones, it seemed to me, for one who had been associated with a gang of cockney stokers; and he brought them out apropos of nothing. He was an exasperating old hypocrite, but a genial one, and I couldn't help replying to some of his feints at conversation. Once, out of curiosity, wondering what his reply would be, I said, "Huirai, you're the worst old four-flusher in the seventy-two islands, aren't you?" He smiled and nodded, and came back with the most telling of all his phrases, "You go to hell, me." On that occasion it was delivered with what seemed something more than mere parrotlike aptness of reply.