The standing-up tsuru is performed chiefly by the younger men, who filed out from the failu and took up a position in a long line, shoulder to shoulder, in front of it.
Truly they were a fine looking lot, clean of limb, and smooth and glistening of skin from their recent exertions in the sitting tsuru; the brisk sea breeze fluttered the plumes of grass and feathers in their hair, and the shifting glints of the declining sun seemed to keep them in a continual barbaric shower of golden spangles.
They arranged their positions with much care to avoid interference with one another, and then began a sort of marking-time movement with their feet, and at the same time clapping their hands at about the rate of ninety to a hundred beats a minute. This they kept up in an exceedingly uninteresting, dispirited manner, as it seemed to me, for a long while, in reality, I suppose, for about three minutes; then one of them, I think it was Gamiau, the strong-voiced maker of phonograph records, started the song in a high-pitched head-toned voice, and the others all joined in and the dance became fast and furious; they waved their arms from side to side; they stepped forward and stepped back; they twisted and turned to right and to left; they dropped on one knee, and swayed the body like a Spanish dancer. Then up on their feet again, and then down on hands and knees, and up on their feet again, almost in less time than it takes to tell it. All the while the song continued uninterruptedly; and the motions of arms, body, and legs seemed to italicise emphatic words and keep time with the metre. I failed completely to unravel what it was all about; either they could not, or perchance, would not, translate it into modern Uap. It is barely possible that its impropriety is a tradition purely, which has survived after the full meaning of the ancient phrases is lost. This strenuous dance lasted but five or six minutes and then wound up with a loud and prolonged howl, a vigorous stamping of feet, and a salvo of elbow-claps.
It was evidently humourous, for at several points the native audience laughed loudly, but the performers never smiled, on the contrary, they maintained an earnest, sometimes even a ferocious and hostile expression.
During the dance, tobacco was free to the spectators, and after it, a liberal supply to all hands and mouths was distributed; this, and also a goodly pile of tins of provisions of all descriptions made the evening pass busily and gaily. Although my especial interest in the dance faded with the sunlight, theirs did not; they had practised the several dances long and faithfully and were not minded to subside into humdrum life and doff all gorgeousness so rapidly. Throughout the livelong night I heard at intervals the minor drone of their voices, the clapping of hands as the dances were renewed, and the resounding punctuation of the elbow-claps.
CHAPTER VII
MONEY AND CURRENCY
In a land where food and drink and readymade clothes grow on trees and may be had for the gathering, it is not easy to see how a man can run very deeply in debt for his living expenses,—for which, indeed, there need be no barter, and if no barter, there is no need for any medium of exchange. In fine, as far as mere existence is concerned in Uap, there is no use for money. But nature’s readymade clothes, though useful, are not ornamental, and the soul of man, especially of woman, from the Equator to the Poles, demands personal adornment. And like all adornments, polished shells, tortoise-shell, variegated beads, etc., demand labour in the making. Here then the simple-hearted natives of Uap, who never heard of Adam Smith nor of Ricardo, or even if they should hear of them would care no more for them than for an English song from the phonograph, have solved the ultimate problem of Political Economy, and found that labour is the true medium of exchange and the true standard of value. But this medium must be tangible and enduring, and as their island yields no metal, they have had recourse to stone; stone, on which labour in fetching and fashioning has been expended, and as truly a representation of labour as the mined and minted coins of civilisation.
THE LARGEST “FEI” ON THE ISLAND
This medium of exchange they call fei, and it consists of large, solid, thick, stone wheels, ranging in diameter from a foot to twelve feet, having in the centre a hole varying in size with the diameter of the stone, wherein a pole may be inserted sufficiently large and strong to bear the weight and facilitate transportation. These stone “coins,” if I may so call them, are not made on the Island of Uap, but were originally quarried and shaped in Babelthuap, one of The Pelao Islands, four hundred miles to the southward, and brought to Uap by some venturesome native navigators, in canoes and on rafts, over the ocean by no means as pacific as its name implies; and, with the stones safely landed, these navigators turned speculators, and, with arguments as persuasive as those of the most glib book-agent, induced their countrymen to believe that these “novelties” were the most desirable things to have about the house. Of course, the larger the stone the greater its worth, but it is not size alone that is prized; the limestone, of which the fei is composed, to be of the highest value, must be fine and white and of close grain. It is by no means any large stone, however skilfully fashioned, from The Pelaos that will be accepted as a fei; it is essential that a fei be made of this particular variety and quality of limestone.