THE ocean beach of Apemama was our daily resort. The coast is broken by
shallow bays. The reef is detached, elevated, and includes a lagoon about
knee-deep, the unrestful spending-basin of the surf. The beach is now of fine
sand, now of broken coral. The trend of the coast being convex, scarce a quarter
of a mile of it is to be seen at once; the land being so low, the horizon
appears within a stone-cast; and the narrow prospect enhances the sense of
privacy. Man avoids the place - even his footprints are uncommon; but a great
number of birds hover and pipe there fishing, and leave crooked tracks upon the
sand. Apart from these, the only sound (and I was going to say the only
society), is that of the breakers on the reef.
On each projection of the coast, the bank of coral clinkers immediately above
the beach has been levelled, and a pillar built, perhaps breast-high. These are
not sepulchral; all the dead being buried on the inhabited side of the island,
close to men's houses, and (what is worse) to their wells. I was told they were
to protect the isle against inroads from the sea - divine or diabolical
martellos, probably sacred to Taburik, God of Thunder.
The bay immediately opposite Equator Town, which we called Fu Bay, in honour
of our cook, was thus fortified on either horn. It was well sheltered by the
reef, the enclosed water clear and tranquil, the enclosing beach curved like a
horseshoe, and both steep and broad. The path debouched about the midst of the
re-entrant angle, the woods stopping some distance inland. In front, between the
fringe of the wood and the crown of the beach, there had been designed a regular
figure, like the court for some new variety of tennis, with borders of round
stones imbedded, and pointed at the angles with low posts, likewise of stone.
This was the king's Pray Place. When he prayed, what he prayed for, and to whom
he addressed his supplications I could never learn. The ground was tapu.
In the angle, by the mouth of the path, stood a deserted maniap'. Near by
there had been a house before our coming, which was now transported and figured
for the moment in Equator Town. It had been, and it would be again when we
departed, the residence of the guardian and wizard of the spot - Tamaiti. Here,
in this lone place, within sound of the sea, he had his dwelling and uncanny
duties. I cannot call to mind another case of a man living on the ocean side of
any open atoll; and Tamaiti must have had strong nerves, the greater confidence
in his own spells, or, what I believe to be the truth, an enviable scepticism.
Whether Tamaiti had any guardianship of the Pray Place I never heard. But his
own particular chapel stood farther back in the fringe of the wood. It was a
tree of respectable growth. Around it there was drawn a circle of stones like
those that enclosed the Pray Place; in front, facing towards the sea, a stone of
a much greater size, and somewhat hollowed, like a piscina, stood close against
the trunk; in front of that again a conical pile of gravel. In the hollow of
what I have called the piscina (though it proved to be a magic seat) lay an
offering of green cocoa-nuts; and when you looked up you found the boughs of the
tree to be laden with strange fruit: palm-branches elaborately plaited, and
beautiful models of canoes, finished and rigged to the least detail. The whole
had the appearance of a mid-summer and sylvan Christmas-tree AL FRESCO. Yet we
were already well enough acquainted in the Gilberts to recognise it, at the
first sight, for a piece of wizardry, or, as they say in the group, of
Devil-work.
The plaited palms were what we recognised. We had seen them before on
Apaiang, the most christianised of all these islands; where excellent Mr.
Bingham lived and laboured and has left golden memories; whence all the
education in the northern Gilberts traces its descent; and where we were boarded
by little native Sunday- school misses in clean frocks, with demure faces, and
singing hymns as to the manner born.
Our experience of Devil-work at Apaiang had been as follows:- It chanced we
were benighted at the house of Captain Tierney. My wife and I lodged with a
Chinaman some half a mile away; and thither Captain Reid and a native boy
escorted us by torch-light. On the way the torch went out, and we took shelter
in a small and lonely Christian chapel to rekindle it. Stuck in the rafters of
the chapel was a branch of knotted palm. 'What is that?' I asked. 'O, that's
Devil-work,' said the Captain. 'And what is Devil-work?' I inquired. 'If you
like, I'll show you some when we get to Johnnie's,' he replied. 'Johnnie's' was
a quaint little house upon the crest of the beach, raised some three feet on
posts, approached by stairs; part walled, part trellised. Trophies of
advertisement- photographs were hung up within for decoration. There was a table
and a recess-bed, in which Mrs. Stevenson slept; while I camped on the matted
floor with Johnnie, Mrs. Johnnie, her sister, and the devil's own regiment of
cockroaches. Hither was summoned an old witch, who looked the part to horror.
The lamp was set on the floor; the crone squatted on the threshold, a green
palm-branch in her hand, the light striking full on her aged features and
picking out behind her, from the black night, timorous faces of spectators. Our
sorceress began with a chanted incantation; it was in the old tongue, for which
I had no interpreter; but ever and again there ran among the crowd outside that
laugh which every traveller in the islands learns so soon to recognise, - the
laugh of terror. Doubtless these half-Christian folk were shocked, these half-
heathen folk alarmed. Chench or Taburik thus invoked, we put our questions; the
witch knotted the leaves, here a leaf and there a leaf, plainly on some
arithmetical system; studied the result with great apparent contention of mind;
and gave the answers. Sidney Colvin was in robust health and gone a journey; and
we should have a fair wind upon the morrow: that was the result of our
consultation, for which we paid a dollar. The next day dawned cloudless and
breathless; but I think Captain Reid placed a secret reliance on the sibyl, for
the schooner was got ready for sea. By eight the lagoon was flawed with long
cat's-paws, and the palms tossed and rustled; before ten we were clear of the
passage and skimming under all plain sail, with bubbling scuppers. So we had the
breeze, which was well worth a dollar in itself; but the bulletin about my
friend in England proved, some six months later, when I got my mail, to have
been groundless. Perhaps London lies beyond the horizon of the island gods.
Tembinok', in his first dealings, showed himself sternly averse from
superstition: and had not the EQUATOR delayed, we might have left the island and
still supposed him an agnostic. It chanced one day, however, that he came to our
maniap', and found Mrs. Stevenson in the midst of a game of patience. She
explained the game as well as she was able, and wound up jocularly by telling
him this was her devil-work, and if she won, the EQUATOR would arrive next day.
Tembinok' must have drawn a long breath; we were not so high-and- dry after all;
he need no longer dissemble, and he plunged at once into confessions. He made
devil-work every day, he told us, to know if ships were coming in; and
thereafter brought us regular reports of the results. It was surprising how
regularly he was wrong; but he always had an explanation ready. There had been
some schooner in the offing out of view; but either she was not bound for
Apemama, or had changed her course, or lay becalmed. I used to regard the king
with veneration as he thus publicly deceived himself. I saw behind him all the
fathers of the Church, all the philosophers and men of science of the past;
before him, all those that are to come; himself in the midst; the whole
visionary series bowed over the same task of welding incongruities. To the end
Tembinok' spoke reluctantly of the island gods and their worship, and I learned
but little. Taburik is the god of thunder, and deals in wind and weather. A
while since there were wizards who could call him down in the form of lightning.
'My patha he tell me he see: you think he lie?' Tienti - pronounced something
like 'Chench,' and identified by his majesty with the devil - sends and removes
bodily sickness. He is whistled for in the Paumotuan manner, and is said to
appear; but the king has never seen him. The doctors treat disease by the aid of
Chench: eclectic Tembinok' at the same time administering 'pain-killer' from his
medicine- chest, so as to give the sufferer both chances. 'I think mo' betta,'
observed his majesty, with more than his usual self- approval. Apparently the
gods are not jealous, and placidly enjoy both shrine and priest in common. On
Tamaiti's medicine-tree, for instance, the model canoes are hung up EX VOTO for
a prosperous voyage, and must therefore be dedicated to Taburik, god of the
weather; but the stone in front is the place of sick folk come to pacify Chench.
It chanced, by great good luck, that even as we spoke of these affairs, I
found myself threatened with a cold. I do not suppose I was ever glad of a cold
before, or shall ever be again; but the opportunity to see the sorcerers at work
was priceless, and I called in the faculty of Apemama. They came in a body, all
in their Sunday's best and hung with wreaths and shells, the insignia of the
devil-worker. Tamaiti I knew already: Terutak' I saw for the first time - a
tall, lank, raw-boned, serious North-Sea fisherman turned brown; and there was a
third in their company whose name I never heard, and who played to Tamaiti the
part of FAMULUS. Tamaiti took me in hand first, and led me, conversing
agreeably, to the shores of Fu Bay. The FAMULUS climbed a tree for some green
cocoa-nuts. Tamaiti himself disappeared a while in the bush and returned with
coco tinder, dry leaves, and a spray of waxberry. I was placed on the stone,
with my back to the tree and my face to windward; between me and the gravel-heap
one of the green nuts was set; and then Tamaiti (having previously bared his
feet, for he had come in canvas shoes, which tortured him) joined me within the
magic circle, hollowed out the top of the gravel- heap, built his fire in the
bottom, and applied a match: it was one of Bryant and May's. The flame was slow
to catch, and the irreverent sorcerer filled in the time with talk of foreign
places - of London, and 'companies,' and how much money they had; of San
Francisco, and the nefarious fogs, 'all the same smoke,' which had been so
nearly the occasion of his death. I tried vainly to lead him to the matter in
hand. 'Everybody make medicine,' he said lightly. And when I asked him if he
were himself a good practitioner - 'No savvy,' he replied, more lightly still.
At length the leaves burst in a flame, which he continued to feed; a thick,
light smoke blew in my face, and the flames streamed against and scorched my
clothes. He in the meanwhile addressed, or affected to address, the evil spirit,
his lips moving fast, but without sound; at the same time he waved in the air
and twice struck me on the breast with his green spray. So soon as the leaves
were consumed the ashes were buried, the green spray was imbedded in the gravel,
and the ceremony was at an end.
A reader of the ARABIAN NIGHTS felt quite at home. Here was the
suffumigation; here was the muttering wizard; here was the desert place to which
Aladdin was decoyed by the false uncle. But they manage these things better in
fiction. The effect was marred by the levity of the magician, entertaining his
patient with small talk like an affable dentist, and by the incongruous presence
of Mr. Osbourne with a camera. As for my cold, it was neither better nor worse.
I was now handed over to Terutak', the leading practitioner or medical
baronet of Apemama. His place is on the lagoon side of the island, hard by the
palace. A rail of light wood, some two feet high, encloses an oblong piece of
gravel like the king's Pray Place; in the midst is a green tree; below, a stone
table bears a pair of boxes covered with a fine mat; and in front of these an
offering of food, a cocoa-nut, a piece of taro or a fish, is placed daily. On
two sides the enclosure is lined with maniap's; and one of our party, who had
been there to sketch, had remarked a daily concourse of people and an
extraordinary number of sick children; for this is in fact the infirmary of
Apemama. The doctor and myself entered the sacred place alone; the boxes and the
mat were displaced; and I was enthroned in their stead upon the stone, facing
once more to the east. For a while the sorcerer remained unseen behind me,
making passes in the air with a branch of palm. Then he struck lightly on the
brim of my straw hat; and this blow he continued to repeat at intervals,
sometimes brushing instead my arm and shoulder. I have had people try to
mesmerise me a dozen times, and never with the least result. But at the first
tap - on a quarter no more vital than my hat-brim, and from nothing more
virtuous than a switch of palm wielded by a man I could not even see - sleep
rushed upon me like an armed man. My sinews fainted, my eyes closed, my brain
hummed, with drowsiness. I resisted, at first instinctively, then with a certain
flurry of despair, in the end successfully; if that were indeed success which
enabled me to scramble to my feet, to stumble home somnambulous, to cast myself
at once upon my bed, and sink at once into a dreamless stupor. When I awoke my
cold was gone. So I leave a matter that I do not understand.
Meanwhile my appetite for curiosities (not usually very keen) had been
strangely whetted by the sacred boxes. They were of pandanus wood, oblong in
shape, with an effect of pillaring along the sides like straw work, lightly
fringed with hair or fibre and standing on four legs. The outside was neat as a
toy; the inside a mystery I was resolved to penetrate. But there was a lion in
the path. I might not approach Terutak', since I had promised to buy nothing in
the island; I dared not have recourse to the king, for I had already received
from him more gifts than I knew how to repay. In this dilemma (the schooner
being at last returned) we hit on a device. Captain Reid came forward in my
stead, professed an unbridled passion for the boxes, and asked and obtained
leave to bargain for them with the wizard. That same afternoon the captain and I
made haste to the infirmary, entered the enclosure, raised the mat, and had
begun to examine the boxes at our leisure, when Terutak's wife bounced out of
one of the nigh houses, fell upon us, swept up the treasures, and was gone.
There was never a more absolute surprise. She came, she took, she vanished, we
had not a guess whither; and we remained, with foolish looks and laughter on the
empty field. Such was the fit prologue of our memorable bargaining.
Presently Terutak' came, bringing Tamaiti along with him, both smiling; and
we four squatted without the rail. In the three maniap's of the infirmary a
certain audience was gathered: the family of a sick child under treatment, the
king's sister playing cards, a pretty girl, who swore I was the image of her
father; in all perhaps a score. Terutak's wife had returned (even as she had
vanished) unseen, and now sat, breathless and watchful, by her husband's side.
Perhaps some rumour of our quest had gone abroad, or perhaps we had given the
alert by our unseemly freedom: certain, at least, that in the faces of all
present, expectation and alarm were mingled.
Captain Reid announced, without preface or disguise, that I was come to
purchase; Terutak', with sudden gravity, refused to sell. He was pressed; he
persisted. It was explained we only wanted one: no matter, two were necessary
for the healing of the sick. He was rallied, he was reasoned with: in vain. He
sat there, serious and still, and refused. All this was only a preliminary
skirmish; hitherto no sum of money had been mentioned; but now the captain
brought his great guns to bear. He named a pound, then two, then three. Out of
the maniap's one person after another came to join the group, some with mere
excitement, others with consternation in their faces. The pretty girl crept to
my side; it was then that - surely with the most artless flattery - she informed
me of my likeness to her father. Tamaiti the infidel sat with hanging head and
every mark of dejection. Terutak' streamed with sweat, his eye was glazed, his
face wore a painful rictus, his chest heaved like that of one spent with
running. The man must have been by nature covetous; and I doubt if ever I saw
moral agony more tragically displayed. His wife by his side passionately
encouraged his resistance.
And now came the charge of the old guard. The captain, making a skip, named
the surprising figure of five pounds. At the word the maniap's were emptied. The
king's sister flung down her cards and came to the front to listen, a cloud on
her brow. The pretty girl beat her breast and cried with wearisome iteration
that if the box were hers I should have it. Terutak's wife was beside herself
with pious fear, her face discomposed, her voice (which scarce ceased from
warning and encouragement) shrill as a whistle. Even Terutak' lost that
image-like immobility which he had hitherto maintained. He rocked on his mat,
threw up his closed knees alternately, and struck himself on the breast after
the manner of dancers. But he came gold out of the furnace; and with what voice
was left him continued to reject the bribe.
And now came a timely interjection. 'Money will not heal the sick,' observed
the king's sister sententiously; and as soon as I heard the remark translated my
eyes were unsealed, and I began to blush for my employment. Here was a sick
child, and I sought, in the view of its parents, to remove the medicine-box.
Here was the priest of a religion, and I (a heathen millionaire) was corrupting
him to sacrilege. Here was a greedy man, torn in twain betwixt greed and
conscience; and I sat by and relished, and lustfully renewed his torments. AVE,
CAESAR! Smothered in a corner, dormant but not dead, we have all the one touch
of nature: an infant passion for the sand and blood of the arena. So I brought
to an end my first and last experience of the joys of the millionaire, and
departed amid silent awe. Nowhere else can I expect to stir the depths of human
nature by an offer of five pounds; nowhere else, even at the expense of
millions, could I hope to see the evil of riches stand so legibly exposed. Of
all the bystanders, none but the king's sister retained any memory of the
gravity and danger of the thing in hand. Their eyes glowed, the girl beat her
breast, in senseless animal excitement. Nothing was offered them; they stood
neither to gain nor to lose; at the mere name and wind of these great sums Satan
possessed them.
From this singular interview I went straight to the palace; found the king;
confessed what I had been doing; begged him, in my name, to compliment Terutak'
on his virtue, and to have a similar box made for me against the return of the
schooner. Tembinok', Rubam, and one of the Daily Papers - him we used to call
'the Facetiae Column' - laboured for a while of some idea, which was at last
intelligibly delivered. They feared I thought the box would cure me; whereas,
without the wizard, it was useless; and when I was threatened with another cold
I should do better to rely on pain- killer. I explained I merely wished to keep
it in my 'outch' as a thing made in Apemama and these honest men were much
relieved.
Late the same evening, my wife, crossing the isle to windward, was aware of
singing in the bush. Nothing is more common in that hour and place than the
jubilant carol of the toddy-cutter, swinging high overhead, beholding below him
the narrow ribbon of the isle, the surrounding field of ocean, and the fires of
the sunset. But this was of a graver character, and seemed to proceed from the
ground-level. Advancing a little in the thicket, Mrs. Stevenson saw a clear
space, a fine mat spread in the midst, and on the mat a wreath of white flowers
and one of the devil-work boxes. A woman - whom we guess to have been Mrs.
Terutak' - sat in front, now drooping over the box like a mother over a cradle,
now lifting her face and directing her song to heaven. A passing toddy-cutter
told my wife that she was praying. Probably she did not so much pray as
deprecate; and perhaps even the ceremony was one of disenchantment. For the box
was already doomed; it was to pass from its green medicine-tree, reverend
precinct, and devout attendants; to be handled by the profane; to cross three
seas; to come to land under the foolscap of St. Paul's; to be domesticated
within the hail of Lillie Bridge; there to be dusted by the British housemaid,
and to take perhaps the roar of London for the voice of the outer sea along the
reef. Before even we had finished dinner Chench had begun his journey, and one
of the newspapers had already placed the box upon my table as the gift of
Tembinok'.
I made haste to the palace, thanked the king, but offered to restore the box,
for I could not bear that the sick of the island should be made to suffer. I was
amazed by his reply. Terutak', it appeared, had still three or four in reserve
against an accident; and his reluctance, and the dread painted at first on every
face, was not in the least occasioned by the prospect of medical destitution,
but by the immediate divinity of Chench. How much more did I respect the king's
command, which had been able to extort in a moment and for nothing a
sacrilegious favour that I had in vain solicited with millions! But now I had a
difficult task in front of me; it was not in my view that Terutak' should suffer
by his virtue; and I must persuade the king to share my opinion, to let me
enrich one of his subjects, and (what was yet more delicate) to pay for my
present. Nothing shows the king in a more becoming light than the fact that I
succeeded. He demurred at the principle; he exclaimed, when he heard it, at the
sum. 'Plenty money!' cried he, with contemptuous displeasure. But his resistance
was never serious; and when he had blown off his ill- humour - 'A' right,' said
he. 'You give him. Mo' betta.'
Armed with this permission, I made straight for the infirmary. The night was
now come, cool, dark, and starry. On a mat hard by a clear fire of wood and coco
shell, Terutak' lay beside his wife. Both were smiling; the agony was over, the
king's command had reconciled (I must suppose) their agitating scruples; and I
was bidden to sit by them and share the circulating pipe. I was a little moved
myself when I placed five gold sovereigns in the wizard's hand; but there was no
sign of emotion in Terutak' as he returned them, pointed to the palace, and
named Tembinok'. It was a changed scene when I had managed to explain. Terutak',
long, dour Scots fisherman as he was, expressed his satisfaction within bounds;
but the wife beamed; and there was an old gentleman present - her father, I
suppose - who seemed nigh translated. His eyes stood out of his head; 'KAUPOI,
KAUPOI - rich, rich!' ran on his lips like a refrain; and he could not meet my
eye but what he gurgled into foolish laughter.
I might now go home, leaving that fire-lit family party gloating over their
new millions, and consider my strange day. I had tried and rewarded the virtue
of Terutak'. I had played the millionaire, had behaved abominably, and then in
some degree repaired my thoughtlessness. And now I had my box, and could open it
and look within. It contained a miniature sleeping-mat and a white shell.
Tamaiti, interrogated next day as to the shell, explained it was not exactly
Chench, but a cell, or body, which he would at times inhabit. Asked why there
was a sleeping-mat, he retorted indignantly, 'Why have you mats?' And this was
the sceptical Tamaiti! But island scepticism is never deeper than the lips.
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