By Emma Shaw Colcleugh
New York Daily Tribune, Sunday March 18, 1906
Transcribed from the original by Amanda Selvidio
The hurricane which swept over Tahiti and the Taumotu Islands last month, inflicting property damage estimated at $1,000,000 and sacrificing many lives besides, called the world's attention anew to the picturesque, merry and childlike people who inhabit the Society Islands. The Tahitians are generally tall, with fine figures and graceful carriage. Their complexion is a little darker than that of the Spaniards; eyes black, but full of expression, and hair soft and wavy black. The oldtime ceremonial garments made from the fibre of breadfruit bark have been discarded, except on festal days, but men and women alike still retain the inordinate fondness for garlands and floral decorations that lend "local color" to every Tahitian festival. Unlike all the other South Sea Islanders, the Tahitians wear hats, some of which show most wonderful handiwork, and while most of the men wear the short, loose, petticoatlike "pareu" of the brightest colors possible, many of the womens wear long, loose wrappers, something like the Hawaiian "hooliku," only more graceful. They delight, too, in chaplets cunningly fashioned of small shells, but the ornament dearest to the heart of the Tahitian belle is the "rewa rewa," or bunch of tissuelike ribbons made from the film that covers the embryonic cocoanut leaves. As removing this, the heart of the tree, kills it, the ornament is expensive and is valued accordingly.
The very evening of my arrival in Papeete, the capital, the French band sounded its signal about 8 o'clock, and shortly after the streets were filled with a kaleidoscope throng of laughing Tahitians, gendarmes in all the glory of much becorded uniforms, English officials, and French sailors in natty suits of blue and white, and French officers with Vandyke beards as nearly alike as if a part of the prescribed uniform; even pig-tailed Celestials joined the crowd, hurrying to the square in front of Government House.
I suddenly became aware that the musicians had given some signal not recognized by the uninitiated, for by common consent, the crowd was forming a circle around the bandstand. The music struck up a series of quick jigs, an, presto! the ring was filled with a whirling, laughing crowd of merrymakers that I am sure could be duplicated nowhere but in Tahiti. Native boys masquerading as girls whirled about in the gayest of gay costumes. A gendarme with eyeglasses flying off at the tangent, held only by the chain, was omnipresent, now catching one partner, tiring her (or being deserted as some deft Tahitian claimed a share of her attention), only to seize another and in the same mad fashion rush her about the ring. Occasionally they swept by in fours, hand in hand, until, with a wicked look in his eye, the leader executed some unexpected movement that sent the end man tumbling about after the fashion of youngsters playing "snap the whip."
Over high official and commoner alike the spell was cast, and for an hour the flame lit arena was filled with almost frenzied dancers, and circle upon circle of swart faces and pale faces looked on and applauded or sent recruits to take the place of the tired out dancers who fell by the way. As suddenly as it began the music ceased, the musicians disappeared, the crowd was dispersed, the booths removed and the great square left to gloom and solitude.
In the month I spent in Tahiti I wandered far up the mountain valleys, through leagues of verdure, listening meanwhile to the recital of quaint oldtime native customs. One of these is connected with the great care given the skulls of the high chiefs, whose heads at their death were, by tribal law, removed and conveyed away secretly. This was done to prevent their falling into the hands of enemies, for the head was to them the sacred part, so sacred that is a slave chanced by accident even to touch the head of a high chief he was put to death. An old man was living near Papeete whose family had from time to immemorial been deputed to care for these valued relics. Decrepit as he was, he still made his way once a year (after dark, so that no one knew of his intention) to a place far up the mountain, where, after spending the night in incantations, he, as soon as daylight came, slowly and carefully rubbed each revered skull with cocoanut oil; then, the grewsome task finished, he made his way back to the village before people were fairly astir. In answer to an inquiry the old man said that no one else knows the whereabouts of the cave containing the relics, and the custom will die with him, for as his son is "not worthy,' he declares he will neither teach him the incantations nor show him where the cave is.
Not the least interesting of my experiences were the visits made at the native houses that, with sides constructed of vertical bamboo and roofs of thatch, reminded me of overgrown birdcages. These visits convinced me that Tahitians deserve the reputation they have gained as "the most cleanly people in the world." The women have an easy time of it, for except the hatmaking they do little. The food is in almost every instance prepared by the men, and very good food I found it.
In the town precincts I watched the "broom road gang," where might be seen frequently fifteen or twenty women, from silver haired matrons to laughing girls, all of whom, for indulging too freely in orange rum, had been condemned to sweep a portion of the thoroughfare every morning for a certain number of weeks, but were permitted to return to their homes during the day. The opportunities thus afforded for flirting with the passerby, to which few are averse, apparently mitigated their grief at this sentence.
Another sight never to be omitted by a visitor is the market, and Sunday is the day of all others to see it at its best. From all quarters the natives troop townward long before daylight. Mingled with the chatter of new arrivals are groans and yawns from those whose night has been spent beneath awnings or upon a friendly doorstep close by. While yet it is starlight the market is declared open. To see the natives assemble loaded with miscellaneous viands and carrying a mat under one arm and a flaming torch in hand is worth the loss of one's morning nap. One brings hay, or grass rather, in two huge bundles like immense paint brushes, suspended from either end of a bamboo pole; another carries oranges strung together in clusters like giant bunches of grapes, or dangling in long, straight ropes thrown over bare brown shoulders. The "mete" (sauce prepared from grated cocoanut) fills receptacles made by removing the joints from large bamboo so that a cylinder about 18 inches long and 3 in diameter is produced. A tuft of leaves takes the place of a cork in stopping this unique condiment bottle. A little idea may be gained of the indiscriminate massing of provisions by one native whom I saw with a spring pole, upon one end of which were suspended a huge bunch of bananas and a green basket of oranges. At the other hung not only a good sized yam, but an exceedingly lively pig.
The crows is as diversified as the wares, and officers and civilians, soldiers and sailors jostle each other, while Tahitian gallants chaff sweethearts who, meanwhile, are probably giving side glances at others. More laughing, smoking and flirting goes on at the Sunday market that in all the week. When at 7:30 the great gong sounds the gates of the market proper, where meat and fish are exposed, are closed. Whatever then remains unsold is condemned. The vegetable booths remain open all day, but neither meat nor fish can be procured after that hour, so that "no dinner" is the price one pays for tardiness.
No less fascinating was my stay at Morea, where I was entertained for two weeks in a Tahitian household and lived literally the island life, going with the women to the river side, where the washing is always done, picnicking with them in the wilderness or visiting little inland villages where, while their elders entertained the visitors, childish studies in the nude flashed back and forth beneath the hibiscus trees ablaze with scarlet bloom or posed in the altogether outside the door, peering with childish curiosity at the strange white face within.
One island picnic unexpectedly prolonged made necessary my spending the night upon my palm leaf mat, with only the starlit sky overhead. To find that my sleeping mat had been placed upon an ant hill, whose inmates, resenting intrusion, made themselves decidedly felt, lent variety to a memorable night. TO add to a discomfort amounting to a torture, a repeated rustling among the dry leaves at my head suggested the presence of larger game, the suspicion of which amounted to certainty as a sharp nip revealed the intruder, one of the land crabs whose holes fairly honeycomb the ground in many places. Such little incidents, however, are only a part of the price one must pay who elects to follow the example set by Stevenson and Charles Warren Stoddard of "chumming with savages."
