We sat on the cool porch, on Bihaura's best mats while dinner was preparing, and at the same time met the villagers.In twos and threes and groups they strayed along, shaking hands and uttering the Tahitian word of greeting--Ioarana, pronounced yo-rah-nah.The men, big strapping fellows, were in loin-cloths, with here and there no shirt, while the women wore the universal ahu, a sort of adult pinafore that flows in graceful lines from the shoulders to the ground.Sad to see was the elephantiasis that afflicted some of them.Here would be a comely woman of magnificent proportions, with the port of a queen, yet marred by one arm four times--or a dozen times--the size of the other.Beside her might stand a six-foot man, erect, mighty-muscled, bronzed, with the body of a god, yet with feet and calves so swollen that they ran together, forming legs, shapeless, monstrous, that were for all the world like elephant legs.
No one seems really to know the cause of the South Sea elephantiasis.One theory is that it is caused by the drinking of polluted water.Another theory attributes it to inoculation through mosquito bites.A third theory charges it to predisposition plus the process of acclimatization.On the other hand, no one that stands in finicky dread of it and similar diseases can afford to travel in the South Seas.There will be occasions when such a one must drink water.There may be also occasions when the mosquitoes let up biting.But every precaution of the finicky one will be useless.If he runs barefoot across the beach to have a swim, he will tread where an elephantiasis case trod a few minutes before.
If he closets himself in his own house, yet every bit of fresh food on his table will have been subjected to the contamination, be it flesh, fish, fowl, or vegetable.In the public market at Papeete two known lepers run stalls, and heaven alone knows through what channels arrive at that market the daily supplies of fish, fruit, meat, and vegetables.The only happy way to go through the South Seas is with a careless poise, without apprehension, and with a Christian Science-like faith in the resplendent fortune of your own particular star.When you see a woman, afflicted with elephantiasis wringing out cream from cocoanut meat with her naked hands, drink and reflect how good is the cream, forgetting the hands that pressed it out.Also, remember that diseases such as elephantiasis and leprosy do not seem to be caught by contact.
We watched a Raratongan woman, with swollen, distorted limbs, prepare our cocoanut cream, and then went out to the cook-shed where Tehei and Bihaura were cooking dinner.And then it was served to us on a dry-goods box in the house.Our hosts waited until we were done and then spread their table on the floor.But our table! We were certainly in the high seat of abundance.First, there was glorious raw fish, caught several hours before from the sea and steeped the intervening time in lime-juice diluted with water.Then came roast chicken.Two cocoanuts, sharply sweet, served for drink.
There were bananas that tasted like strawberries and that melted in the mouth, and there was banana-poi that made one regret that his Yankee forebears ever attempted puddings.Then there was boiled yam, boiled taro, and roasted feis, which last are nothing more or less than large mealy, juicy, red-coloured cooking bananas.We marvelled at the abundance, and, even as we marvelled, a pig was brought on, a whole pig, a sucking pig, swathed in green leaves and roasted upon the hot stones of a native oven, the most honourable and triumphant dish in the Polynesian cuisine.And after that came coffee, black coffee, delicious coffee, native coffee grown on the hillsides of Tahaa.
Tehei's fishing-tackle fascinated me, and after we arranged to go fishing, Charmian and I decided to remain all night.Again Tehei broached Samoa, and again my petit bateau brought the disappointment and the smile of acquiescence to his face.Bora Bora was my next port.It was not so far away but that cutters made the passage back and forth between it and Raiatea.So I invited Tehei to go that far with us on the Snark.Then I learned that his wife had been born on Bora Bora and still owned a house there.She likewise was invited, and immediately came the counter invitation to stay with them in their house in Born Bora.It was Monday.Tuesday we would go fishing and return to Raiatea.Wednesday we would sail by Tahaa and off a certain point, a mile away, pick up Tehei and Bihaura and go on to Bora Bora.All this we arranged in detail, and talked over scores of other things as well, and yet Tehei knew three phrases in English, Charmian and I knew possibly a dozen Tahitian words, and among the four of us there were a dozen or so French words that all understood.Of course, such polyglot conversation was slow, but, eked out with a pad, a lead pencil, the face of a clock Charmian drew on the back of a pad, and with ten thousand and one gestures, we managed to get on very nicely.
