Of Makavia?
Come and fight with Makima.”
The champion wrestler from Matavia Bay very slowly walked into the arena, trying to appear utterly oblivious of his antagonist. He looked into the sky, glanced along the sand, then shouted:
“Where are you, Makima,
The boastful little man,
The weak in limb and arm?
Where are you, Makima,
Who dares to fight with Opale?”
It was the custom of the Polynesians to throw out a taunt in a half-shouting, defiant tone. Each combatant approached the other, trying to make the audience think that he considered his antagonist so far beneath his notice that he only needed to move his arm and the match would be over. Thus in lordly dignity they ignored each other until, standing side by side, each made a sudden movement [[56]]as if expecting to find the other off his guard. In a moment there was a confused mass of squirming limbs and arms and writhing bodies. A cloud of sand obscured the struggle. For a time there was no motion, and people saw the champions bending around each other with strained muscles, neither having any advantage, but each apparently exerting all his strength to make the other give way in response to brute strength. Each endeavoured to learn the trick by which his antagonist would change the order of battle. The least loosening of muscles on the part of one was interpreted in a moment by the other, and neither one hastened to carry out a move which might place him at the other’s mercy. It was a splendid exhibition of statuesque athletics. Doing his very best to prevent betrayal by any loosened grasp in any direction, Opale suddenly swept one foot with terrific force against his antagonist’s leg, at the same time pulling him to one side; but the half second’s unconscious loosening of the muscles preparatory to Opale’s action gave Makima notice, and even as Opale’s foot struck him, he raised the unbalanced chief and whirled him over his head, at the same time by a whirlwind motion preserving his own equilibrium. Opale lay for a moment unconscious, while Makima received the applause of the multitude.
Then followed match after match, sometimes interspersed with boxing. In the boxing contests [[57]]severe blows were given until one of the boxers was stricken senseless to the earth or an arm was broken. Sometimes both wrestling and boxing contests resulted in the death of a chief. At such times the chief’s retainers quietly carried away the body, while the shouts which greeted the victor filled the air. Such deaths were taken as incidental, and no wailing showed the grief of stricken friends.