Atolls of the Sun by Frederick OBrien PDF
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Title: Atolls of the Sun Author: Frederick O'Brien Release Date: July 19, 2020 [EBook #62697] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATOLLS OF THE SUN *** Produced by Chris Whitehead, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. ATOLLS OF THE SUN Photo from L. Gauthier Nature’s mirror showed him why he could not leave ATOLLS OF THE SUN BY FREDERICK O’BRIEN Author of “Mystic Isles of the South Seas,” “White Shadows in the South Seas,” etc. WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS TORONTO McCLELLAND & STEWART 1922 I Copyright, 1922, by The Century Co. PRINTED IN U. S. A. To G—— FOREWORD “Atolls of the Sun” is a book of experiences, impressions, and dreams in the strange and lonely islands of the South Seas. It does not aim to be literal, or sequential, though everything in it is the result of my wanderings in the far and mysterious recesses of the Pacific Ocean. I am not a scientist or scholar, and can relate only what I saw and heard, felt and imagined, in my dwelling with savage and singular races among the wonderful lagoons of the coral atolls, and poignant valleys of disregarded islands. If I can make my reader see and feel the sad and beautiful guises of life in them, and the secrets of a few unusual souls, I shall be satisfied. The thrills of adventure upon the sea and in the shadowy glens, the odors of rare and sweet flowers, the memories of lovable humans, are here written to keep them alive in my heart, and to share them with my friends. Life is not real. It is an illusion, a screen upon which each one writes the reactions upon himself of his sensory knowledge. The individual is the moving camera, and what he calls life is his projection of the panorama about him—not more actual than the figures and storms upon the cinema screen. In this book I have put the film that passed through my mind in wild places, and among natural people. It is useless to look to find in the South Seas what I have found. It is there, glowing and true, and yet, as each beholder conjures a different vision of the human spectacle about him, each can see the islands of romance only by the lens life has fitted upon his soul. To seek a replica of experience or scenes is to spoil a possession. If this book has interest, one may read and laugh, be entertained or repelled with thanks that one can sit at ease, and watch this picture made on another’s mind in long journeys and in many days and nights of hazard and delight. II III CONTENTS CHAPTER I Leaving Tahiti—The sunset over Moorea—Bound for the Paumotu Atolls— The Schooner Marara, Flying Fish—Captain Jean Moet and others aboard—Sighting and Landing on Niau 3 CHAPTER II Meeting with Tommy Eustace, the trader—Strange soil of the atoll—A bath in the lagoon—Momuni, the thirsty bread baker—Off for Anaa 23 CHAPTER III Perilous navigation—Curious green sky—Arrival at Anaa—Religion and the movies—Character of Paumotuans 40 CHAPTER IV The copra market—Dangerous passage to shore at Kaukura—Our boat overturns in the pass—I narrowly escape death—Josephite Missionaries— The deadly nohu—The himene at night 58 CHAPTER V Captain Moet tells of Mapuhi, the great Paumotuan—Kopcke tells about women—Virginie’s jealousy—An affrighting waterspout—The wrecked ship—Landing at Takaroa 80 CHAPTER VI Diffidence of Takaroans—Hiram Mervin’s description of the cyclone— Teamo’s wonderful swim—Mormon missionaries from America—I take a bath 96 CHAPTER VII Breakfast with elders—The great Mapuhi enters—He tells of San Francisco —Of prizefighters and Police gazettes—I reside with Nohea—Robber- crabs—The cats that warred and caught fish 114 CHAPTER VIII I meet a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, and a descendant of a mutineer of the Bounty—They tell me the story of Pitcairn island—An epic of isolation 135 CHAPTER IX The fish in the lagoon and sea—Giant clams and fish that poison—Hunting the devilfish—Catching bonito—Snarling turtles—Trepang and sea cucumbers —The mammoth manta 157 CHAPTER X Traders and divers assembling for the diving—A story told by Llewellyn at night—The mystery of Easter Island—Strangest spot in the world— Curious statues and houses—Borrowed wives—Arrival of English girl— Tragedy of the Meke Meke festival 175 CHAPTER XI Pearl hunting in the lagoon—Previous methods wasteful—Mapuhi shows me the wonders of the lagoon—Marvelous stories of sharks—Woman who lost her arm—Shark of Samoa—Deacon who rode a shark a half-hour— Eels are terrible menace 211 CHAPTER XII History of the pearl hunger—Noted jewels of past—I go with Nohea to the diving—Beautiful floor of the Lagoon—Nohea dives many times—Escapes shark narrowly—Descends 148 feet—No pearls reward us—Mandel tells of culture pearls 230 CHAPTER XIII IV V VI Story of the wondrous pearls planted in the lagoon of Pukapuka—Tepeva a Tepeva, the crippled diver, tells it—How a European scientist improved on nature—Tragedy of Patasy and Mauraii—The robbed coral bank—Death under the sea 249 CHAPTER XIV The palace of the governor of the Marquesas in the vale of Atuona— Monsieur L’Hermier des Plantes, Ghost Girl, Miss Tail, and Song of the Nightingale—Tapus in the South Seas—Strange conventions that regulate life—A South Seas Pankhurst—How women won their freedom 271 CHAPTER XV The dismal abode of the Peyrals—Stark-white daughter of Peyral—Only white maiden in the Marquesas—I hunt wild bulls—Peyral’s friendliness—I visit his house—He strikes me and threatens to kill me—I go armed— Explanation of the bizarre tragic comedy 294 CHAPTER XVI In the valley of Vaitahu—With Vanquished Often and Seventh Man He Is So Angry He Wallows in the Mire—Worship of beauty in the South Seas— Like the ancient Greeks—Care of the body—Preparations for a belle’s début—Massage as a cure for ills 319 CHAPTER XVII Skilled tattooers of Marquesas Islands a generation ago—Entire bodies covered with intricate tattooed designs—The foreigner who had himself tattooed to win the favor of a Marquesan beauty—The magic that removed the markings when he was recalled to his former life in England 336 CHAPTER XVIII A fantastic but dying language—The Polynesian or Maori Tongue—Making of the first lexicons—Words taken from other languages—Decay of vocabularies with decrease of population—Humors and whimsicalities of the dictionary as arranged by foreigners 364 CHAPTER XIX Tragic Mademoiselle Narbonne—Whom shall she marry?—Dinner at the home of Wilhelm Lutz—The Taua, the sorcerer—Lemoal says Narbonne is a leper—I visit the Taua—The prophecy 384 CHAPTER XX Holy Week—How the rum was saved during the storm—An Easter Sunday “Celebration”—The Governor, Commissaire Bauda and I have a discussion—Paul Vernier, the Protestant Pastor, and his church—How the girls of the Valley imperilled the immortal souls of the first missionaries— Jimmy Kekela, his family—A watch from Abraham Lincoln 414 CHAPTER XXI Paul Gauguin, the famous French-Peruvian Artist—A Rebel against the society that rejected him while he lived, and now cherishes his paintings 439 CHAPTER XXII Monsieur l’Inspecteur des Etablissements Français de l’Océanie—How the school house was inspected—I receive my congé—The runaway pigs— Mademoiselle Narbonne goes with Lutz to Papeete to be married—Père Siméon, about whom Robert Louis Stevenson wrote 460 CHAPTER XXIII McHenry gets a caning—The fear of the dead—A visit to the grave of Mapuhi—En voyage 482 VII VIII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Nature’s mirror showed him why he could not leave Frontispiece PAGE Map 7 The atoll of Niau 16 The anchorage at Tahauku. Atuona lies just around the first headland to the right 17 A Paumotu atoll after a blow 32 A squall approaching Anaa 33 Picking up the atoll of Anaa from the deck of the schooner Flying Fish 48 Canoes and cutters at atoll of Anaa, Paumotu Islands 49 The road from the beach 64 An American Josephite missionary and his wife, and their church 65 Typical and primitive native hut, Paumotu Archipelago 80 Copra drying 81 Atoll of Hikuera after the cyclone 96 The wrecked County of Roxburgh 97 Mormon elders baptizing in the lagoon 112 Over the reef in a canoe 113 Robber-crab ascending tree at night. One of the few photographs taken of the marauder in action 128 Where the Bounty was beached and burned 129 The church on Pitcairn Island 144 The shores of Pitcairn Island 145 Spearing fish 160 A canoe on the lagoon 161 Ready for the fishing 161 Spearing fish in the lagoon 176 The Captain and two sailors of the El Dorado 177 Beach dancers at Tahiti 192 After the bath in the pool 193 Old cocoanut-trees 208 The dark valley of Taaoa 209 Launch towing canoes to diving grounds in lagoon 224 Divers voyaging in Paumotu atolls 225 Ghost Girl 256 A double canoe 257 A young palm in Atuona 272 Atuona valley and the peak of Temetiu 273 Malicious Gossip, Le Brunnec, and his wife, At Peace 304 Exploding Eggs and his chums packing copra 304 Frederick O’Brien and Dr. Malcolm Douglas at home in Tahiti 305 Some friends in my valley 320 Wash-day in the stream by my cabin 321 Te Ipu, an old Marquesan chief, showing tattooing 336 The famous tattooed leg of Queen Vaikehu 337 Tattooing at the present day 352 Easter Islander in head-dress and with dancing-wand 353 My tattooed Marquesan friend 353 The author with his friends at council 368 House of governor of Paumotu Islands. Atoll of Fakarava 369 Nakohu, Exploding Eggs 384 Haabuani, the sole sculptor of Hiva-Oa 385 The coral road and the traders’ stores 416 Scene on beach a few miles west of Papeete 417 Tahiatini, Many Daughters, the little leper lass 432 François Grelet, the Swiss, of Oomoa 433 Brunneck, the boxer and diver 464 A village maid in Tahiti 465 A Samoan maiden of high caste 465 Throwing spears at a cocoanut on a stake 480 The raised-up atoll of Makatea 481 Paumotuans on a heap of brain coral 496 Did these two eat Chocolat? 496 The stonehenge men in the South Seas 497
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