Mystic Isles of the South Seas Part 41

"No, I've got enough women. I'm not a big chief. I'll tell you: you be my gift to the orero."

"Very well; and let me have another word. When you have a lot of ti at Sawau, we will go to cook it, and will appear safe and sound."

Next morning Tui N'Kualita built a big oven. Tui Namoliwai appeared and signed to him to follow.

"Maybe you are fooling me, and will kill me," said Tui N'Kualita.

"What? Am I going to give you death in exchange for my life? Come!"

Tui N'Kualita obeyed, and walked on the lovu. The stones were cool under his feet. He told Tui Namoliwai then that he was free to go, and the latter promised him that he and his descendants should always march upon the lovu with impunity.

When I returned to my bird cage at Tautira, I sat down and considered at length all these facts and fancies. I believed in an all inclusive nature; that the Will or Rule of G.o.d which made a star hundreds of millions of times larger than the planet I had my body on, that took care of billions of suns, worlds, planets, comets, and the beings upon them, was not concerned in tricks of spiritism or materializations at the whim of mediums or tahuas. But I had in my travels in many countries seen inscrutable facts, and to me this was one. n.o.body knew what was the cause of the inaction of the fire in the lovu or umu. It was not a secret held by anybody, or a deception.

One might believe that the stones arrive at a condition of heat which the experienced sorcerers know to be harmless. One might conceive that the emotion of the walkers produces a perspiration sufficient to prevent injury during the brief time of exposure; or that the sweat and oily secretions of the skin aided by dust picked up during the journey on the oven was a s.h.i.+eld; or that the walkers were hypnotized by the tahua, or exalted by their daring experiment, so that they did not feel the heat. Even this theory might not account for the failure to find the faintest burn or scorch upon those who fulfilled the injunction of the sorcerers.

The people of Tautira, from Ori-a-Ori to Matatini, had the fullest confidence that Tufetufetu had shown them a miracle, and that it was not evil; but to the American and European missionaries the Umuti was deviltry, the magic of Simon Magus and his successors, This was shown clearly in the statement of Deacon Taumihau of Raiatea, which I give in Tahitian and English:

E parau teie te umu a Tupua.

Teie te huru a taua ohipa ra.

Tapuhia te vahie e toru etaeta i te aano. E fatahia taua umu ra i te mahana matamua e faautahia i te ofai inia iho i taua umu ra, eiaha ra te ofai no pia iho i te marae, no te mea te marae ra te faaea raa no te varua ino oia te arii no te po.

E i te po matamua no taua umu ra e haere te mau tahua ora no te ao nei oia Tupua e te mau pipi i Pihaiho i taua umu r ae hio te mau varua taata no te po e haere ratou inia iho taavari ai; ia ore i puai te auahi.

E ei taua po ra, e haere ai hoe taata e hio i te rau Ti, ia i te oia i te rau Ti i te hauti raa mai te hauti ie te matai rahi ra, te o reira te raoere Ti e ofati mai, e tau mau rauti ra te afai hia i te mahana e haere ai te taata na roto i taua umu ra e i te hora maha i te popoi na e tutui hia'i taua umu ra.

Ia ama taua umu ra, e ia puai roa te ama raa ei reira te tahua parau.

Atu ai i te taata pihei te umu, ia oti taua umu ra i te pihei, haere aturaa tupua i te hiti o te umu a parau tana a haere ai i reira.

Teie tana parau: E na taata e tia i te hiti ote umu nei, pirae uri e pirae tea. E tu'u atu i te nu'u Atua ia haere i te umu.

Ei reira Tupua parau ai: E te pape e a haere! E te miti e a haere!

Tairi hia'tura te rauti i te hiti o te umu raparau faahou, atura te tahua. Te Vahine tahura'i e po'ia te tu'u raa ia o te avae iroto i te umu, ei reira toa te mau taata i hinaaro i te haere na roto i te umu ra e haere. Ai na muri iho eiaha ra te hoe taata e fariu imuri; te taata hopea ra te tuo i te tahua e fariu; na fariu ia, mai te mea e tuo te taata i ropu e fariu, tau roa te taata i ropu e fariu, pau roa te taata i te auahi; na reira toa ia haere no te aano o te umu.

Te i te huru o taua ohipa ra, e ohipa tiaporo te tumu ia i taua ohipa a Tupua ra.

E vahine varua ino teie tona ioa o te Vahine tahura'i. O pirae uri, o pirae tea, i ore ratou ia parau hia.

Aita e faufaa i taua ohipa ra. Eiaha Roa'tu orua a rave i taua ohipa ra i te fenua Papa'a na e ama te taata i te anahi, no te mea e ere i te ohipa mau, e ohipa varua ino no te po te reira te huru o taua ohipa a Tupua ra.

Tereira te mau havi rii i roa'a mai ia'u no tau a ohipa ra. Tirara.

Taumihau tane.

This is the word of the oven of Tupua.

This is the way he did that thing. He cut three fathoms of wood. The oven was three fathoms long and three wide. Heap up the wood the first day, and carry by sea the stones for the oven.

Do not take the stones of the marae, for the marae receives the evil spirits, the spirit of the G.o.d of the night.

The first night of the ceremony, the sorcerers of Raiatea, Tupua and his kind, march around the oven. They seek the spirits of the men of the night, and they go about the oven, but they do not light the fire.

That same night one goes to find the sacred leaves of the ti. He takes the leaves that float in the wind; those called raoere ti, and which are used as medicine. He gathers the leaves and carries them to the oven.

The fire is lighted at four of the morning. When the fire is burning brightly, and the oven is very hot, the sorcerer gives his a.s.sistants charge of the fire, and instructs them as to their duties.

When the flames are down, Tupua approached the oven, and before walking upon it, he p.r.o.nounced the following prayer.

"O men about the oven! Piraeuri and Piraetea! Let us join the army of the G.o.ds in the furnace!"

Then, said Tupua:

"O water, go in the fire! O sea water, go in the fire!"

Waving the ti leaves on the border of the oven, Tupua said:

"O Woman who puts the fire in the heaven and in the clouds, permit us to go on foot over the oven!"

Then those who wish to, pa.s.s onto the oven, one after another. If but one falls all will be burned. The last must watch the sorcerer, to return when he makes the sign.

That is the way this deed, the deed of the devil, is done by Tupua.

The woman called Vahine tahura'i is an evil spirit.

Concerning Piraeuri and Piritea, Tupua would better not have spoken, as it was a useless prayer.

Do not introduce the sorcery in the land of the whites!

Do not carry there this custom of lighting the oven!

It is the work of an evil spirit of the night; this act of Tupua.

For that reason I have said little of him in my story. I have spoken.

--Taumihau, The Man.

Chapter XXVI

Farewell to Tautira--My good-bye feast--Back at the Tiare--A talk with Lovaina--The Cercle Bougainville--Death of David--My visit to the cemetery--Off for the Marquesas.

The smell of the burning wood of the Umuti was hardly out of my nostrils before my day of leaving Tautira came. I had long wanted to visit the Marquesas Islands, and the first communication I had from Papeete in nearly three months was from the owners of the schooner Fetia Taiao, notifying me that that vessel, commanded by Captain William Pincher, would sail for the archipelago in a few days, "crew and weather willing." I was eager for the adventure, to voyage to the valley of Typee, where Herman Melville had lived with Fayaway and Kori-Kori, where Captain Porter had erected the American flag a century before, and where cannibalism and tattooing had reached their most artistic development. But to sever the tie with Tautira was saddening. Mataiea and the tribe of Tetuanui had won my affections, but at Tautira I had become a Tahitian. I had lived in every way as if bred in the island, and had fallen so in love with the people and the mode of life, the peace and simplicity of the place, that only the already formed resolution to visit all the seas about stirred me to depart.

The village united to say good-by to me at a feast which was spread in the greenwood of the Greek G.o.d along the sh.o.r.e of the lagoon. T'yonni and Choti, the student and the painter, were foremost in the preparations of the amuraa ma, and many houses supplied the extensive, soft mats which were put on the sward for the table, while the ladies laid the cloth of banana leaves down their center, and adorned it with flowers.