White Shadows in the South Seas Part 22

"Hoouiti stood here when he hurled his spear across the island,"

said Strong in Battle. "He was not a big man, as you see by his foot's mark."

"Fifteen kilometers! A long hurling of a spear," said I.

"_Aue!_ he was very strong. He lived on this _paepae_. These whom you see are his children's children. Would you like to meet my wife's father-in-law, Kahuiti? He has eaten many people. He talks well."

_Eo!_ Would I! I vowed that I would be honored by the acquaintance of any of the relatives of my host, and specially I desired to converse with old, wise men of good taste.

"That man, Kahauiti, has seen life," said Strong in Battle.

"I am married to the sister of Great Night Moth, who was a very brave and active man, but now foolish. But Kahauiti! O! O! O! Ai! Ai!

Ai! There he is."

I never solved the puzzle of my informant's relation to the man who was his wife's father-in-law, for suddenly I saw the man himself, and knew that I was meeting a personage. Kahauiti was on the veranda of a small hut, sitting Turk fas.h.i.+on, and chatting with another old man. Both of them were striking-looking, but, all in all, I thought Kahauiti the most distinguished man in appearance that I had seen, be it in New York or Cairo, London or Pekin.

He had that indefinable, yet certain, air of superiority, of a.s.sured position and knowledge, that stamps a few men in the world--a Yuan s.h.i.+h Kai, Rabindranath Tagore, Sitting Bull, and Porfirio Diaz. He wore only a _pareu_, and was tattooed from toenails to hair-roots. A solid ma.s.s of coloring extended from his neck to the hip on the left side, as though he wore half of a blue s.h.i.+rt. The _tahuna_ who had done the work seemed to have drawn outlines and then blocked in the half of his torso. But remembering that every pin-point of color had meant the thrust of a bone needle propelled by the blow of a mallet, I realized that Kahauiti had endured much for his decorations. No iron or Victoria Cross could cost more suffering.

The bare half of his bosom, cooperish-red, contrasted with this cobalt, and his face was striped alternately with this natural color and with blue. Two inches of the _ama_ ink ran across the eyes from ear to ear, covering every inch of lid and eyebrow, and from this seeming bandage his eyes gleamed with quick and alert intelligence.

Other stripes crossed the face from temple to chin, the lowest joining the field of blue that stretched to his waist.

His beard, long, heavy, and snow-white, swept downward over the indigo flesh and was gathered into a knot on his ma.s.sive chest. It was the beard of a prophet or a seer, and when Kahauiti rose to his full height, six feet and a half, he was as majestic as a man in diadem and royal robes. He had a giant form, like one of Buonarroti's ancients, muscular and supple, graceful and erect.

When I was presented as a _Menike_ who loved the Marquesans and who, having heard of Kahauiti, would drink of his fountain of recollections, the old man looked at me intently. His eyes twinkled and he opened his mouth in a broad smile, showing all his teeth, sound and white. His smile was kindly, disarming, of a real sweetness that conquered me immediately, so that, foolishly perhaps, I would have trusted him if he had suggested a stroll in the jungle.

He took my extended hand, but did not shake it. So new is handshaking and so foreign to their ideas of greeting, that they merely touch fingers, with the pressure a rich man gives a poor relation, or a king, a commoner. His affability was that of a monarch to a courtier, but when he began to talk he soon became simple and merry.

Motioning me to a seat on the mat before him, he squatted again in a dignified manner, and resumed his task of plaiting a rope of _faufee_ bark, a rope an inch thick and perfectly made.

"Mouth of G.o.d, of the family of Sliced and Distributed and Man Whose Entrails Were Roasted On A Stick, has told me of the slaying of Tufetu, their ancestor," I ventured, to steer our bark of conversation into the channel I sought.

At the names of the first three, Kahauiti smiled, but when Tufetu was mentioned, he broke into a roar. I had evidently recalled proud memories. On his haunches, he slid nearer to me.

"_Afu! Afu! Afu!_" he said, the sound that in his tongue means the groan of the dying. "You came by the _Fatueki?_".

"I tasted the water and smelled the smell," I answered.

"It was there that Tufetu died," he observed. "I struck the blow, and I ate his arm, his right arm, for he was brave and strong. That was a war!"

"What caused that war?" I asked the merry cannibal.

"A woman, _haa teketeka_, an unfaithful woman, as always," replied Kahauiti. "Do you have trouble over women in your island? Yes. It is the same the world over. There was peace between Atuona and Taaoa before this trouble. When I was a boy we were good friends. We visited across the hills. Many children were adopted, and Taaoa men took women from Atuona, and Atuona men from here. Some of these women had two or three or five men. One husband was the father of her children in t.i.tle and pride, though he might be no father at all.

The others shared the mat with her at her will, but had no possession or happiness in the offspring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tepu, a Marquesan girl of the hills, and her sister Her ancestry is tattooed on her arms]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A tattooed Marquesan with carved canoe paddle]

"Now Pepehi (Beaten to Death) was of Taaoa, but lived in Atuona with a woman. He had followed her over the hills and lived in her house.

He was father to her children. There was a man of Atuona, Kaheutahi, who was husband to her, but of lower rank. He was not father to her children. Therefore one night he swung his war-club upon the head of Beaten to Death, and later invited a number of friends to the feast."

Kahuiti smiled gently upon me. Take off his tattooing, make him white, and clothe him! With his masterful carriage, his soft, cultivated voice, and his att.i.tude of absolutism, he might have been Leopold, King of the Belgians, a great amba.s.sador, a man of power in finance.

Nevertheless, I thought of the death by the Stinking Springs. How could one explain his benign, open-souled deportment and his cheery laugh, with such d.a.m.nable appet.i.tes and actions? Yet generals send ten thousand men to certain and agonized death to gain a point toward a goal; that is the custom of generals, by which they gain honor among their people.

"Killed by the war-club of Kaheutahi and eaten by his friends, Beaten to Death was but a ghost, and Kaheutahi took his place and became father of the children of the house. He said they were his in fact, but men were ever boastful."

The other old man, who said nothing, but was all attention, lit a pipe and pa.s.sed it to Kahuiti, who puffed it a moment and pa.s.sed it to Strong in Battle. The tale lapsed for a smoking spell.

"Beaten to Death perished by the club? He was well named," said I.

"His father was a prophet."

Kahuiti began to chant in a weird monotone.

"_Va! Va! A tahi a ta! Va! A tahi va! A ua va! A tou va!_" was his chant. "Thus said the war-club as it crashed on the skull of Beaten to Death. That is the speech of the war-club when it strikes. The bones of Beaten to Death were fishhooks before we knew of his death.

All Taaoa was angry. The family of Beaten to Death demanded vengeance.

The priest went into the High Place, and when he came out he ran all day up and down the valley, until he fell foaming. War was the cry of the G.o.ds, war against Atuona.

"But there was too much peace between us, too many men with Atuona women, too many Atuona children adopted by Taaoa women. The peace was happy, and there was no great warrior to urge."

"You had brave men and strong men then," I said, with a sigh for the things I had missed by coming late.

"_Tuitui!_ You put weeds in my mouth!" exclaimed Kahuiti. "I cannot talk with your words. _Ue te etau!_ By the great G.o.d of the dead! I am born before the French beached a canoe in the Marquesas. Our G.o.ds were G.o.ds then, but they turned to wood and stone when the tree-guns of the _Farani_ roared and threw iron b.a.l.l.s and fire into our valleys.

The Christian G.o.d was greater than our G.o.ds, and a bigger killer of men."

"But Beaten to Death--?" I urged.

"Beaten to Death was in the stomachs of the men of Atuona, and they laughed at us. Our High Priest said that the _Euututuki_, the most private G.o.d of the priests, commanded us to avenge the eating of Beaten to Death. But the season of preserving the _mei_ in pits was upon us. Also the women of Atuona among us said that there should be peace, and the women of Taaoa who had taken as their own many children from Atuona. Therefore we begged the most high G.o.ds to excuse us."

"Women had much power then," I said.

Kahuiti chuckled.

"The French G.o.d and the priests of the _Farani_ have taken it from them," he commented. "I have known the day when women ruled. She had her husbands,--two, four, five. She commanded. She would send two to the fis.h.i.+ng, one to gathering cocoanuts or wood, one she would keep to amuse her. They came and went as she said. That was _mea pe_!

Sickening! _Pee!_ There are not enough men to make a woman happy.

Many brave men have died to please their woman, but--" He blew out his breath in contempt.

Strong in Battle said aside, in French:

"He was never second in the house. Kahauiti despised such men. He was first always."

"So the slaying of Beaten to Death was unavenged?" I asked.

"_Epo!_ Do not drink the cocoanut till you have descended the tree!

I have said the warriors were withheld by the women, and there was no great man to lead. Yet the drums beat at night, and the fighting men came. You know how the drums speak?"

His face clouded, and his eyes flashed against their foil of tattooing.

"'_Ohe te pepe! Ohe te pepe! Ohe te pepe!_' said the drum called Peepee. '_t.i.tiutiuti! t.i.tiutiuti!_' said the drum called Umi.

_Aue!_ Then the warriors came! They stood in the High Place at the head of the valley. Mehitete, the chief, spoke to them. He said that they should go to Atuona, and bring back bodies for feasting. Many nights the drums beat, and the chief talked much, but there was no war.