I was so anxious to stay and see the dance that I forgot all about returning to the ship. I asked Swede, as he was the oldest sailor and therefore had the most authority over the others, if he wanted to stay.
“Hell yes, Skipper, any time any virgins dance that’s where you’ll find me.” As long as he had expressed a willingness to stay also I saw no occasion to hurry back aboard ship, so we followed the Chief to the village. The sun had set, and the moon was just beginning to dip out of the horizon. I sat at the Chief’s feet, and the men stood behind him and watched the festival begin.
Once a year it is the custom in Atafu to have a marrying festival, which is celebrated by the Dance of the Virgins. An Atafu girl is ready to marry when she is ten or eleven years old, and she alone has the choice of her husband. No man can woo her until she has given him the sign that she has chosen him. The marriage festival is the biggest event of the year. The little girls shine their gold brown bodies with coconut oils. Instead of preparing lavish wardrobes they make their skins shine like burnished gold. Over their left ear, snugly tucked in their thick hair to assure its not falling out during the dance, is a white lotus or hibiscus flower. The white hibiscus is a flower sacred to virgins, and when they place one on the left ear it is the sign that they are ready to take a mate.
The moon rising on the set day of the festival is the signal for the dance to begin. All the young men who are going to take a wife, or rather who desire a wife, line up on the left side of the Chief, and stand with folded arms and watch the dance. The folded arms are a sign of “must not touch, but only look” until the dance is over. Slowly and almost inaudibly at first, then gradually becoming louder and more wild and barbaric, it burst into a thrilling savage rhythm. The tom-tom is the tribe’s only musical instrument. They have never heard of the ukulele or guitar. I have found out since that the ukulele was introduced into the Hawaiian Islands by a boy from Harvard!
As the beating of the tom-toms swelled, the virgins, nine in all, started their dance—there in our presence they unfolded the sacred rite of virginity crying for a mate. Every movement of their muscles has a meaning, and it is foreign to the meaning that the civilized world has put upon it. The Chief, on seeing the sailors’ spellbound gaze, said:
“On your far-away island United States men pay women many gifts to make bad our dance.” I hotly denied that accusation. The hula-hula, which is always associated with the South Seas, is a cheap imitation of the real thing, but at that time I had never heard of it.
The writhing of their abdomens was symbolic of calling upon the fires of the earth to burn their wombs clean for the coming of a manchild to make their tribe strong. Their waving arms called on the sea to bring them ships loaded with treasure, and on the winds to bring long life to their body, so that their loved one would enjoy them long. As the music swelled their dance became more uncontrolled; they seemed to be spirits inside of native bodies trying to express a hunger for mating.
Suddenly the music stopped, the girls threw themselves on the ground singing a triumphant song, but the left hand of each was cupped over the lotus flower to keep it from the ground.
Rara-mongai rose from his throne and walked to the middle of the clearing where the girls lay. A hush fell, as he solemnly spoke:
“To you who are looking for a wife, I speak. The strongest men alone can have maidens. Here in moonlight on festival night, each man step forward and show what strength of body he has that the maidens may choose the greatest of you.”