The island of stone money

by William Henry Furness

By this time the cherubim had dispelled both their fears and the illusion, by crawling up stealthily and sitting down on the floor near us. Of course, little Pooguroo was there close beside me, and gave a smile meaning “we’re old friends, aren’t we?” In a few minutes they were all at cat’s-cradle, competing with each other in making the figures rapidly and grunting at me for applause. Before this first lesson was over, Lian, the chief, became so lost in watching us that he stopped talking copra, and, taking the string from his daughter, tried to show off his own skill in some wonderful pattern, but he was so shaky with a palsy of his hands, that his efforts were vain and his disrespectful daughter jeered at his failure, and in high glee shouted “dakafel! dakafel!” until he gave it up and, with a provoked smile, flung the string at her merry little face and resumed his talk about trade.

Kakofel was the tomboy of Dulukan; there was no mischief afoot that she was not in it, and where the boys were making the most noise and playing the roughest games, there was Kakofel, always in the midst, and her rippling laughter, ending in a prolonged high note, was always distinguishable above the others. But I grieve to say our friendship did not last long; it was my inadvertent rudeness that caused the breach. One resplendent moonlight night, the shouting of boys and the shrill screams of little girls playing in the coconut grove seemed to be more boisterous than usual, and Kakofel’s voice frequently rose high above the rest. Friedlander and I strolled forth to see what was going on, and were astonished to see firebrands flying in all directions, scattering trails of sparks, like comets. “Hang the little imps,” shouted Friedlander, “they’re at their fiendish fire-game again!” They had built a fire of dried coconut husks which smoulder slowly, and, armed with these glowing embers, were hiding behind coconut trees, awaiting a chance to launch the fiery missile at some unwary playmate. Friedlander was not concerned for the blisters on tough little hides, but he was justly fearful lest a misdirected brand might lodge on the thatch of his storehouses. Off he dashed into the darkness, hurling broadcast some awful Uap words; the pyrotechnic display fell at once to earth, and the shouts and laughter died away in the patter of little bare feet and the rustle of grass skirts. Like wild animals they knew how to run to cover, and in a trice the grove was still and dark and silent, as at midnight, and deserted; merely the persistent embers, that kept on glowing where they had been dropped, were left to tell of the escapade.

COCONUT GROVE

But Friedlander was rendered so anxious over the risk to his “go-downs,” stored full with several months’ accumulation of copra, that when he became convinced that it was impossible to run to earth the will-o’-the-wisps, he strode over to the failu, where several men and boys were still sitting around a fire, and there vented his wrath upon them, assuring them that if they didn’t restrict those little devils, and especially that little “Kakofel Kan” (that is: “that little demon of a Kakofel”), whom he suspected by her tell-tale laughter to be the ring-leader, he would hold them all responsible for any damage by fire, and would confiscate their largest and whitest fei till the loss was made good.

Their eyes and mouths opened wide in astonishment and, when his harangue was concluded, several of them jumped up and started out in the darkness to catch and chastise the culprits; as well might they have attempted to catch the frigate bird that soared over the house the day before.

By the next morning Friedlander’s rage and anxiety had subsided and the night’s adventure had apparently faded from his memory, as all other annoyances of his life always vanished whenever his lighter with a full load of coconuts pulled up to the jetty. While I was tinkering at my cinematograph or my camera, I glanced up and happened to see Kakofel sauntering toward me, swinging in one hand her inseparable betel basket, and in the other holding the white spongy heart of a sprouted coconut, known as “būl, which is about the size of an apple and of the consistency of pith, but with a very pleasant, sweet taste, and a favourite delicacy with children. The process of munching this būl, from time to time, eclipsed and disarranged the sweet and innocent smile with which she saluted me as she approached. There was, of course, her usual accompaniment of small boy and girl-satellites and when she stood at my side, I shook my finger at her and said in the merest joke, “Hullo, Kakofel Kan!” Her expression changed in a flash! She stopped short, the smile vanished, her eyes opened wide, as she stared at me, with an expression of almost horror on her face; the half eaten būl dropped from her hand, she turned quickly, and with one backward glance at me over her shoulder, ran swiftly out of the enclosure and up the path toward her home, her little brown legs swinging out sideways from the knees, as, in native, girlish fashion she turned her toes in to get a better grip upon the loose sand. That was almost the last I ever saw of Kakofel; nothing would induce her to come near me again; when the phonograph was played to large audiences, she was present, but always in the furthest row of listeners, and often sitting solemnly alone outside the light bamboo fence; when I caught her eye and smiled, she responded with a stony stare, and turned away; if I called to her, she paid not the slightest attention, except to quicken her pace to a run. Indeed, she was a mournful loss in my circle of small friends; she was always a merry little thing; a wonderful adept at cat’s-cradle, and a patient, although derisive, teacher.

However deeply I may have wounded Kakofel’s feelings, her mother by no means shared the affront; for she was always the first to arrive and the last to leave whenever a phonograph “recital” was on hand; moreover, she invariably managed to secure a seat as near as possible to the instrument, whence she could command the best singers to come forward to sing or speak into the brass horn; I usually dropped three or four imported cigarettes in her lap by way of thanks. She was not what even an ecstatic imagination could describe as beautiful, but she had a gentle, plaintive expression, and this rueful look was emphasised by a droop at the left corner of her mouth caused by the loss of all her teeth on that side. She was extremely thin, every bone of her chest stood out almost in alto-relievo, but she seemed, withal, to be very cheerful and, whenever the phonograph showed off well its power of mimicry to some surprised new-comer, she emitted “the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.” The dim blue tattoo marks on the back of her hands and on her legs bore witness that in her youth she had been the fêted belle of some failu, before Lian took her to himself as wife. I once paid her a visit when she happened to be busy boiling some dal (yams), and lak (taro), for the midday meal, and she showed me all over her kitchen by allowing me to thrust my head within the doorway. It was merely a little outhouse of palm leaf close beside their large house and only about six feet long, by three or four wide; the floor was really neatly swept up, although the thatching of the sides and rafters was well coated with soot. The fireplace was a large iron bowl,—purchased of course, from Friedlander,—banked up in a mound of sand; in this the fire was built, without any draught, and over it an iron tripod, whereon was hung another iron bowl in which the food was cooking. She had to sit by and watch the fire constantly because, as she explained, it was exceedingly ill-omened for a spark to fly out and lie burning on the floor, so while the fire burned brightly, she must be close at hand to push back embers that might fall, and to catch flying sparks.

The little house wherein the women cook their own food is called pinfi, meaning “woman’s fire,” and is always for their exclusive use; no man can eat food cooked in utensils that have been used in preparing food for a woman, and I doubt if a man would use even the same fire; I know that they will not light a cigarette from the same ember or match that a woman uses; this is true even of husband and wife. Once, at Friedlander’s instigation, to make a test, I picked some areca nuts out of a woman’s betel basket as if to examine them, and then in an absent-minded manner, dropped them into the basket of a man who had seen me take them from the woman; instantly he snatched them out of his basket and flung them from him as if they had been live coals. I questioned Lian about this custom; he admitted that nothing would induce him to eat food prepared in a woman’s bowl or chew a betel nut that had been in a woman’s basket. He assured me solemnly that it would inevitably bring ill luck or sickness. When I visited Lian’s wife, all utensils used in the preparation of her husband’s food were in a small vestibule or antechamber near the door of the house, and there also was the fireplace used exclusively for him. This taboo, as I suppose it may be termed, does not, however, prevent a husband from eating voraciously of the food which his poor wife, slaving over the fire (in the tropics too!), has cooked for her high and mighty lord;—here is just where the charming flexibility of the taboo is in evidence. The ill omen attached to the flying sparks is devised to frighten poor women into taking care lest they set the house on fire; and, by the way, it is, indeed, almost miraculous that they do escape daily, nay hourly conflagrations, even with this dread omen hanging over them. In the first place, their skirts are composed of four or five layers of dried leaves and strips of bast, and are so voluminous and distended that they stand out all round the body, outrivalling the old-fashioned hoopskirts; even when sitting down, the women are surrounded by a mound of veritable tinder. In the second place, they are for ever striking matches to light their cigarettes, nay, worse even, they carry about with them for the sake of economy the glowing husk of a coconut, and neither to matches nor husk do they give the slightest heed, striking the one recklessly over their own skirts or absent-mindedly resting the other against the skirts of their neighbour. Yet in spite of this utter recklessness never did I see a skirt catch fire, although I confidently awaited it every time they assembled to hear the phonograph. When the female audiences had dispersed after these exhibitions, Friedlander’s neatly swept little compound was wont to look like a threshing-floor, so covered was it with fragments of pandanus leaves, the relics of female attire. One month at longest is the life of a woman’s dress; then the old skirt is burned and a brand-new one plaited, with no tedious fittings at the dressmaker’s, nor depressing bills to pay.

When dressed in their best for visits or feast days, the women don skirts prettily decorated with wide strips of pandanus leaves bleached for the purpose and stained a bright yellow with reng, and about the waist-band are inserted brightly variegated leaves of croton. The effect is, indeed, extremely pretty on the background of their smooth, brown skin. The women do not, as a rule, adorn themselves with necklaces or other ornaments; some, who do not work very hard in the taro patches, wear bracelets of coconut shell or tortoise-shell, and sometimes finger rings of the same material. The long strips of hibiscus bast, stained black, which they all wear knotted about their necks after they have come to maturity, seems to take the place of all other finery. This cord, known as marafá, must be always worn by a woman, young or old, when she is away from her home; to be seen in the open air without it would be as immodest and disgraceful as to appear without any clothes at all. Within the dwelling house, however, it may be discarded with perfect propriety.