Noa Noa Read online

  The water ripples and the cries are thrown back in a thousand echoes which repeat, “toë, toë!”

  “Will you come with me?” I asked Tehura, pointing to the end of the grotto.

  “Are you mad? Down there, so far. And the eels? One never goes there.”

  Undulant and graceful, she was disporting herself on the shore, like one very proud of her skill in swimming. But I also am a skilled swimmer. Though I did not like to venture so far entirely alone, I set out for the other end.

  By what strange phenomenon of mirage was it that it seemed to recede farther from me the more I struggled to attain it? I was continually advancing, and from each side the huge serpents viewed me ironically. One moment I seemed to see a large turtle swimming, the head emerging from the water, and I distinguished two brilliant eyes fixed suspiciously on me. Absurd, I thought, sea-turtles do not live in sweet water. Nevertheless (have I become a Maori in truth?) doubts assail me, and it lacked little to make me tremble. What are those large silent undulations, there, ahead of me? Eels! Come, come! We must shake off this paralyzing impression of fear.

  I let myself down perpendicularly in order to touch the bottom. But I have to rise again without having accomplished it. On the shore Tehura calls to me,

  “Come back!”

  I turn, and I see her very far away and very small. . . . Why does distance here also seem to become infinite? Tehura is nothing but a black point in a circle of light.

  Angrily and stubbornly I persist. I swim for another full half hour. The end seems as far away as ever.

  A resting-place on a little plateau, and then again a yawning orifice. Whither does it lead? A mystery whose fathoming I renounce!

  I confess that finally I was afraid.

  It needed a full hour for me to accomplish my purpose.

  Tehura was waiting for me alone. Her companions having become indifferent had left.

  Tehura uttered a prayer, and we left the grotto.

  I was still trembling a little from the cold, but in the open air I soon recovered, especially when Tehura asked with a smile which was not wholly free from malice,

  “Were you afraid?”

  Boldly, I replied,

  “Frenchmen know no fear!”

  Tehura displayed neither pity nor admiration. But I noticed that she was watching me out of the corner of her eye as I was walking a few steps in advance of her to pick a fragrant tiaré for her bushy hair.

  The road was beautiful, and the sea superb. Before us rose Morea’s haughty and grandiose mountains.

  How good it is to live! And with what an appetite we devour, after a two hours’ bath, the daintily prepared little pig which is awaiting us in the house!

  A great wedding took place at Mataïea—a real wedding, religious and legal, of the kind which the missionaries imposed upon the converted Tahitians.

  I had been invited to it, and Tehura accompanied me.

  The meal at Tahiti, as I believe elsewhere, was the most important part of the ceremony. On Tahiti, at any rate, the greatest culinary luxury is displayed in these feasts. There are little pigs roasted on hot stones, an unbelievable abundance of fish, bananas and guavas, taros, etc.

  The table at which a considerable number of guests were seated had been placed beneath an improvised roof, charmingly decorated with leaves and flowers.

  All the relatives and friends of the bride and groom were present.

  The young girl, the schoolmistress of the place, was half-white. She took for husband a genuine Maori, the son of the chief of Punaauïa. She had been educated in one of the “religious schools” of Papeete, and the Protestant bishop, who had taken an interest in her, had personally interceded to bring about this wedding which many regarded as a little hurried. Out here, the will of the missionary is the will of God . . . .

  For a full hour they eat, and drink much.

  After this the speeches begin. There are many of these. They are delivered according to a regular order and method, and there is a curious competition in eloquence.

  Then comes the important question. Which of the two families is to give the new name to the newly married? This national custom, going back to very ancient times, is regarded as a precious, much desired, and much disputed prerogative. Not infrequently the discussion on this point degenerated into an actual battle.

  On the way to the feast.

  They eat some.

  On this occasion, however, there was nothing like this. Everything passed happily and peacefully. To tell the truth, all the table was pretty well intoxicated. Even my poor vahina (I could not keep my eye on her all the time), carried away by example, herself, alas, had become dead-drunk. It was not without difficulty that I finally brought her home . . . .

  At the center of the table the wife of the chief of Punaauïa throned in admirable dignity. Her pretentious and bizarre dress of orange velvet gave her vaguely the appearance of a heroine of a country fair. But the indestructible grace of her race lent some sort of a grandeur to her tinsel. The presence of this majestic woman of very pure race at this Tahitian ceremony gave, it seemed to me, an additional pungency to the flavors of the food and the perfumes of the flowers of the island, stronger than all the others and by which all the others themselves became magnified.

  Beside her sat a hundred-year-old woman, ghastly in her decrepitude, which was accentuated by a double row of well preserved cannibalistic teeth. She took little interest in what was going on about her. She sat immobile and rigid, almost like a mummy. On her cheek was a tatoo-marking of dark and indecisive form, but suggesting the style of a Latin letter. In my eyes it spoke for her, and told me her history. This tatooing in no way resembled that of the savages. It was surely put there by a European hand.

  I made inquiries.

  Formerly, they told me, the missionaries, zealous against the sin of the flesh, marked “certain women” with a seal of infamy, “signet of hell.” It covered them with shame, not because of the sin committed, but because of the ridicule and opprobrium associated with such a “mark of distinction.”

  I understood on that day, better than I had ever done, the distrust of the Maori toward Europeans. This distrust persists even to-day, no matter how much tempered it may be by the generous and hospitable instincts of the Oceanian soul.

  What a reach of years there was between this ancient woman marked by the priest, and this young woman married by the priest! The mark remained indelible, a testimony to the defeat of the race which had submitted and to the cowardliness of the race which had inflicted it.

  Five months later the young married woman brought into the world a well developed child. Outraged relatives demanded a separation. The young man declined.

  “Since we love each other what does it matter? Is it not one of our customs to adopt the children of others? I adopt this one. ”

  But why had the bishop been so anxious to hurry the marriage ceremony? There was much talk. Evil tongues insinuated that . . . There are evil tongues even on Tahiti.

  In the evening we have long and often very grave conversations in bed.

  Now that I can understand Tehura, in whom her ancestors sleep and sometimes dream, I strive to see and think through this child, and to find again in her the traces of the far-away past which socially is dead indeed, but still persists in vague memories.

  I question, and not all of my questions remain unanswered.

  Perhaps the men, more directly affected by our conquest or beguiled by our civilization, have forgotten the old gods, but in the memory of the women they have kept a place of refuge for themselves. It is a touching spectacle which Tehura presents, when under my influence the old national divinities gradually reawaken in her memory and cast off the artificial veils in which the Protestant missionaries thought it necessary to shroud them. As a whole the work of the catechists is very superficial. Their labors, particularly among the women, have fallen far short of their expectations. Their teaching is like a feeble coat of varnish which scales off, and q
uickly disappears at the slightest skillful touch.

  Tehura goes regularly to the temple, and offers lip-service to the official religion. But she knows by heart, and that is no small task, the names of all the gods of the Maori Olympus. She knows their history, she teaches me how they have created the world, how they rule it, how they wish to be honored. She is a stranger to the rigors of Christian morals, or else she does not care. For example, she does not think of repenting of the fact that she is the concubine, as they call it, of a tané.

  I do not exactly know how she associates Taaroa and Jesus in her beliefs. I think that she venerates both.

  As chance has come she has given me a complete course in Tahitian theology. In return I have tried to explain to her some of the phenomena of nature in accordance with European knowledge.

  The stars interest her much. She asks me for the French name of the morning-star, the evening-star, and the other stars. It is difficult for her to understand that the earth turns around the sun . . . .

  She tells me the names of the stars in her language, and, as she is speaking, I distinguish by the very light of the stars who are themselves divinities the sacred forms of the Maori masters of the air and the fire, of the islands and of the waters.

  The inhabitants of Tahiti, as far as it is possible to go back in their history, have always possessed a rather extended knowledge of astronomy. The periodical feasts of the Areois, members of a secret religious and military society which ruled over the islands and of which I shall have more to say, were based on the revolutions of the stars. Even the nature of moonlight, it seems, was not unknown to the Maori. They assume that the moon is a globe very much like the earth, inhabited like it and rich in products like our own.

  They estimate the distance from the earth to the moon in their manner thus: The seed of the tree Ora was borne from the moon to the earth by a white dove. It took her two moons to reach the satellite, and when after two more moons she fell upon the earth again, she was without feathers. Of all the birds known to the Maoris, this one is regarded as having the swiftest flight.

  But here is the Tahitian nomenclature of the stars. I complete Tehura’s lesson with the aid of a very ancient manuscript found in Polynesia.

  Is it too presumptuous to see in this the beginnings of a rational system of astronomy, rather than a simple play of the imagination?

  Roüa-great is his beginning—slept with his wife, the Gloomy Earth.

  She gave birth to her king, the sun, then to the dusk, and then to the night.

  Then Roüa cast off this woman.

  Roüa—great is his beginning—slept with the woman called “Grande Réunion.”

  She gave birth to the queens of the heaven, the stars, and then to the star Tahiti, the evening-star.

  The king of the golden skies, the only king, slept with his wife Fanoüi.

  Of her is born the star Taüroüa (Venus), the morning-star, the king Taüroüa, who gives laws to the night and the day, to the other stars, to the moon, to the sun, and serves as a guide to mariners.

  Taüroüa sailed at the left toward the North, where he slept with his wife, and begat the Red Star, the star which shines in the evening under two faces.

  The Red Star, flying in the East, made ready his pirogue, the pirogue of the full day, and steered toward the skies. At the rise of the sun he sailed away.

  Rehoüa now arises in the wideness of space. He sleeps with his wife, Oüra Taneïpa.

  Of them are born the Twin-kings, the Pleiades.

  These Twin-kings are surely identical with our Castor and Pollux.

  This first version of the Polynesian genesis is complicated with variations which are perhaps only developments.

  Taaroa slept with the woman who calls herself Goddess of the Without (or of the sea).

  Of them are born the white clouds, the black clouds, and the rain.

  Taaroa slept with woman who calls herself Goddess of the Within (or of the earth).

  Of them is born the first germ.

  Is born in turn all that grows upon the surface of the earth.

  Racing.

  The wings are heavy. The whole thing is primitive.

  Is born in turn the mist of the mountains.

  Is born in turn he who calls himself the Strong.

  Is born in turn she who calls herself the Beautiful, or the one Adorned-in-order-to-Please.

  Mahoüi2 launches his pirogue.

  He sits down in the bottom. At his right hangs the hook, fastened to the line by strands of hair.

  And this line, which he holds in his hand, and this hook, he lets fall down into the depths of the universe in order to fish for the great fish (the earth).

  The hook has caught.

  Already the axes show, already the God feels the enormous weight of the world.

  Tefatou (the God of the earth and the earth itself) caught by the hook, emerges out of the night, still suspended in the immensity of space.

  Mahoüi has caught the great fish which swims in space, and he can now direct it according to his will.

  He holds it in his hand.

  Mahoüi rules also the course of the sun, in such a way that day and night are of equal duration.

  I asked Tehura to name the Gods for me.

  Taaroa slept with the woman Ohina, the Goddess of the air.

  Of them is born the rainbow, the moonlight, then, the red clouds and the red rain.

  Taaroa slept with the woman Ohina, Goddess of the bosom of the earth.

  Of them is born Tefatou, the spirit who animates the earth, and who manifests himself in subterranean noises.

  Taaroa slept with the woman called Beyond-the-Earth.

  Of them are born the Gods Teirü and Roüanoüa.

  Then in turn Roo who sprang from the flank of his mother’s body.

  And of the same woman were also born Wrath and the Tempest, the Furious Winds, and also the Peace which follows these.

  And the source of these spirits is in the place whence the Messengers are sent.

  But Tehura admits that these relations are contested.

  The most orthodox classification is this.

  The Gods are divided into Atuas and Oromatuas.

  The superior Atuas are all sons and grandsons of Taaroa.

  They dwell in the heavens. There are seven heavens. Taaroa and his wife Feii Feii Maïteraï had as sons: Oro (the first of the gods after his father, and who himself had two sons, Tetaï Mati and Oüroü Tetefa), Raa (father of Tetoüa Oüroü Oüroü, Feoito, Teheme, Roa Roa, Tehu Raï Tia Hotoü, Temoüria), Tané (father of Peüroürai, Piata Hoüa, Piatia Roroa, Parara Iti Matai, Patia Taüra, Tané Haeriraï), Roo, Tieri, Tefatou, Roüa Noüa, Toma Hora, Roüa Otia, Moë, Toüpa, Panoüa, Tefatou Tire, Tefatou Toutaü, Peurai, Mahoüi, Harana, Paümoüri, Hiro, Roüi, Fanoüra, Fatoühoüi, Rii.

  Each of these gods has his particular attributes.

  We already know the works of Mahoüi and Tefatou . . . .

  Tané has the seventh heaven for his mouth, and this signifies that the mouth of this god, who has given his name to man, is the farthest end of the heavens whence the light begins to illume the earth.

  Rii separated the heavens and the earth.

  Roüi stirred up the waters of the ocean; he broke the solid mass of the terrestrial continent, and divided it into innumerable parts which are the present islands.

  Fanoüra, whose head touches the clouds and whose feet touch the bottom of the sea, and Fatoühoüi, another giant, descended together upon Eïva—an unknown land—in order to combat and destroy the monstrous hog which devoured human beings.

  Hiro, the god of thieves, dug holes in the rocks with his fingers. He liberated a virgin whom the giants held captive in an enchanted place. With one hand he snatched up the trees which during the day concealed the prison of the virgin, and the charm was broken . . . .

  The inferior Atuas are particularly occupied with the life and work of men, but they do not abide in their dwelling-places.

 
; They are: the Atuas Maho (god-sharks), guardian spirits of mariners; the Peho, gods and goddesses of the valleys, guardian spirits of husbandry; the No Te Oüpas Oüpas, guardian spirits of singers, of comedians, and of dancers; the Raaoü Pava Maïs, guardian spirits of physicians; the No Apas, gods to whom offerings are made after they have protected one from witchcraft and enchantment; the O Tanoü, guardian spirits of laborers; the Tane Ite Haas, guardian spirits of carpenters and builders; the Minias and the Papeas, guardian spirits of the roofers; the Matatinis, guardian spirits of makers of nets.

  The Oromatuas are household gods, the Lares.

  There are Oromatuas properly so called, and Genii.

  The Oromatuas punish the fomenters of strife, and preserve peace in the families. They are: the Varna Taatas, the souls of the men and women of each family who have died; the Eriorios, the souls of the children who have died at an early age of a natural death; the Poüaras, the souls of the children who have been killed at birth, and who have returned into the body of grasshoppers.

  The Genii are conjectural divinities, or rather consciously created by man. Without apparent motive, except that of his own choice, he attributes divine qualities to some animal or to some object, as, for example, a tree, and then he consults it in all important circumstances. There is in this, perhaps, a trace of Indian metempsychosis with which the Maoris very probably were acquainted. Their historical songs and legends abound in fables in which the great gods assume the form of animals and plants.

  In the last rank of the celestial hierarchy, after the Atuas and the Oromatuas, come the Tiis.

  These sons of Taaroa and Hina are very numerous.

  In the Maori cosmogony, they are spirits, inferior to the gods and strangers to men. They are intermediate between organic beings and inorganic beings and defend the rights and prerogatives of the latter against the usurpations of the former.