“For a few months, perhaps,” the priest argued. “But as the years pass, unless a community has fixed laws, and patterns which bind people into their appointed place, life is no good.”
“But this is a new land,” Teroro reasoned.
“It is in a new land that customs are most necessary,” the priest warned, and the king supported him, and out of their discussions the tabus were established.
“Each man lives between an upper, which gives mana, and a lower, which drains mana from him,” Tupuna explained in words that would never be forgotten. “Therefore a man must plead with the upper to send him mana and must protect himself from the lower, which steals mana from him. That is why no man should permit a slave to touch him, or to pass upon his shadow, or to see his food, for a slave can drain away a man’s entire mana in an instant, for a slave has no mana.
“The way for a man to obtain mana is to obey his king, for it is the king alone who can bring us mana directly from the gods. Therefore no man may touch the king, or the garment of the king, or the shadow of the king, or in any way steal his mana. To break this tabu is death.” Tupuna then enumerated more than five dozen additional tabus which protected the king in his suspension between the upper gods and the lower men: his spittle may not be touched; his excrement must be buried at night in a secret place; his food must be prepared only by chiefs; his reservoir of mana must be protected; he is tabu, he is tabu.
Men with mana required protection from defilement by women, who usually had none. Since men were of the light, and women of darkness; since men were outgoing and strong, and women intaking and weak; since men were clean and women impure; since it was nightly proved that even the strongest man could be slyly drained of his power by a clever woman, dreadful tabus were set about the latter. They must never eat with men, nor see men eating, nor touch food intended for men, on pain of death. Each month they must spend the moon-days locked up in a tiny room, on pain of death. They must eat none of the good foods required to keep men strong: no pig, no sweet fish, no coconuts, on pain of death. “And since the banana has obviously been created by the gods to represent man’s fertility,” Tupuna wailed, “no woman may even touch a banana, on pain of instant strangulation.”
The days of the moon, the turning of the season and the planting of crops were all placed under tabu. So were laughing at improper moments, certain sex habits, the eating of certain fish and the ridicule of either gods or nobles. Tabu was the temple, tabu were the rock-gods, tabu was the hair of Pere, tabu was the growing coconut tree. At some seasons, even the ocean itself was tabu, on pain of death.
In this manner, and with the approval of the people, who wanted to be organized within established levels, the tabus were promulgated and patterns were developed whereby each man would know his level and none would transgress. What had been a free volcanic island, explosive with force, now became a rigidly determined island, and all men liked it better, for the unknown was made known.
It is not quite true to say that all men were content. One was not. Teroro, as the king’s younger brother, was the logical man to become priest when old Tupuna died. He had inherited great sanctity and was growing into an able if not a clever man; there was no greater astronomer than he, and it was tacitly understood that he would in time become guardian of the tabus.
But he was far from the dedication required for this exacting job. Instead of the equanimity that marked the king, Teroro was torn with uncertainties, and they centered upon women. Day after day, when he wandered in the woods, he would come upon Pere, her shining hair disheveled and her eyes deep-sunk. She said nothing, but walked with him as a woman walks with a man she loves. Often, after her appearance, the volcano would erupt, but what lava flows there were, went down the other side of the mountain and did not endanger the growing settlement, where many pigs roamed, and chickens, and sweet, succulent dogs; for Tamatoa and Natabu had done their work well and had produced a son.
Only Teroro did not prosper; often he would turn the corner of a well-known footpath, and there would be silent Pere, hurt, condemnatory and yet speaking her love for her troubled young chief. Always, in the background of his mind, there was Pere.
Yet his real agony concerned not a shadowy goddess, but a substantial woman, and this was Marama, his wife whom he had abandoned in Bora Bora. He thought: “How wise of her to speak as she did on that last day!” For he could hear her voice as clear as it had been a year ago: “I am the canoe!” It seemed to him almost godlike wisdom on Marama’s part to have used that idiom; for she was the canoe. Her placid face and sweet wisdom had been the continuing thread of his life; over all the waves and through the storms she had indeed been the canoe. And for the first time, here on remote Havaiki, Teroro began to understand how desperately a man can remember a strong, placid, wise woman whom he had known before. She was the symbol of earth, the movement of waves, the song at night. Hers was the weight that rested in memory; her words were recalled. He could see the movement of her skirts, and the way she wore her hair; once on Bora Bora when he had been sick she had washed his fever and he could recall her cool hands.
In consternation he remembered that on the canoe young Tehani had done the same; but it was different. He had never known with older Marama one fifth of the sexual excitement he had experienced with Tehani; and yet his mind was tormented by his wife. He would see her at night when he returned from his silent walks with Pere. In his dreams he would hear Marama speak. And whenever he saw Wait-for-the-West-Wind, that perfect canoe, he would see Marama, for she had said, “I am the canoe!” And she was.
It was in this mood that one morning he dashed from his thatched hut where Tehani slept and ran to Mato, at the fishing grounds. Grabbing the surprised chief by the hand he dragged him to the hut, and jerked Tehani to her feet. “She is your woman, Mato,” he shouted with unnecessary force.
“Teroro!” the young girl cried.
“You are no longer my woman!” Teroro shouted. “I watched you on the canoe. Mato never took his eyes from you. All right, Mato, now she is yours.” And he stalked from the scene.
That afternoon, in torment of spirit, he sought out his brother and said simply, “I shall go back to Bora Bora.”
The king was not surprised, for he had been watching his brother and news of his rejection of Tehani had been discussed with old Tupuna, who had said that Teroro was ill in spirit. “Why will you go?” Tamatoa asked.
“I must bring Marama here,” the younger man said. “We need more breadfruit, more dogs, everything. We need more people.”
A council was held and all agreed that a trip south could prove helpful, especially if foodstuffs were brought back. “But who can be spared for such a long voyage?” Tupuna asked, and Teroro replied that he could sail West Wind to Bora Bora with only six men, if Pa and Hiro were two of them.
“I’ll go,” Mato insisted, but Teroro growled, “We have treated Tehani badly. You stay with her.” And he would not take Mato, his greatest friend.
So the return trip was authorized, and the community began assembling its pitiful stores of spare food. This time there was no dried taro, no coconut, no breadfruit, no bamboo lengths to carry water. There were, fortunately, some bananas, but they did not dry and carry well. Dried fish there was in plenty, and on this the men would exist.
When the food was collected, Teroro divulged his plan. Drawing a rough pattern of the trip north, he pointed out that the canoe had sailed far east, then north, then far west. With a bold line in the sand he cut across this pattern and said, “We will sail directly south, and we will find the island.”
“There will be no storm winds to aid you,” Tupuna warned.
“We will ride with the currents,” Teroro replied, “and we will paddle.”
On the last day before departure, Teroro was sitting alone when one of the village women came to him and said plaintively, “On the return, if there is room in the canoe, will you please bring one thing for me?”
“What?” Teror
o asked.
“A child,” the woman said.
“Whose child?” he inquired.
“Any child,” the woman replied, adding softly, “It is woeful to be in a land where there are no children.”
It was impractical to bring a child so far, and Teroro said so, and dismissed the woman, but in a little while another came to him, saying, “Why should you bring pigs and breadfruit, Teroro? What our hearts ache for is children.” And he sent her away.
But the women came again, and while they did not weep, there were tears in their throats as they spoke: “We are growing older, all of us. You and the king and Tupuna and all of us. There are babies, to be sure, but we need children.”
“There are no children playing along the shore,” another said. “Do you remember how they played in our lagoon?” And suddenly Teroro could see the lagoon at Bora Bora with hundreds of brown, naked children in the green waters, and he realized why Havaiki-of-the-North had seemed so barren.
“Please,” the women pleaded, “bring us back some children.”
Then, on the night of departure, for Teroro insisted upon leaving when the stars were visible, he confided to his brother: “I am not going solely for Marama. I am going to bring back the stone of Pere. I think an island should have not only men gods, but women, too.”
On the long voyage south, while his men starved and grew parched in the doldrums, Teroro put together the rough chant that would be remembered in the islands for generations after his death and which served to guide subsequent canoes from Tahiti to the new Havaiki:
Wait for the west wind, wait for the west wind!
Then sail to Nuku Hiva of the dark bays
To find the constant star.
Hold to it, hold to it,
Though the eyes grow dim with heat.
Hold to it, hold to it,
Till wild Ta’aroa sends the winds.
Then speed to the clouds where Pere waits.
Watch for her flames, the flames of Pere,
Till great Tane brings the land,
Brings Havaiki-of-the-North,
Sleeping beneath the Little Eyes.
But when the chant was finished, Teroro realized with some dismay that finding the home islands was not going to be easy, and he missed them altogether at first, reaching all the way down to Tahiti before he discovered where he was. Then, beating his way back north, he found Havaiki-of-Red-Oro, and there at sea, in the gently rolling swells, the seven men held a council of war. Teroro posed the problem simple: “If we sail into Bora Bora without a plan, the High Priest, who must know about our attack on Oro, will command his men to kill us.”
“We’ve got to risk it,” Pa growled.
“We are very weak,” Teroro pointed out.
“We can still fight,” Pa insisted.
“There is a better way,” Teroro argued, and with a newly developing sense of guile he reasoned: “Since we’re not strong enough to fight the High Priest, we must outsmart him.” And he suggested a way, but his men thought of other things when in the dawn they saw once more the pinnacles of Bora Bora and the wild cliffs dropping away to the lagoon.
Pa muttered, “We must have been insane to leave this place for Havaiki-of-the-North.” And each man in the canoe acknowledged the fact that he had surrendered earth’s paradise in exchange for a harsh new land.
As soon as Wait-for-the-West-Wind was spotted standing off the western entrance into the lagoon, the residents of its home port began to line the shores and shout with joy at the return of their people. It was this joy that Teroro counted upon to give him ten minutes’ respite to develop his plan, because he believed that the islanders’ spontaneous acceptance of the canoe would prevent the High Priest from ordering the crew’s immediate death, and in that interval Teroro would have time to accomplish his mission.
As the canoe neared land he warned his men again: “I’ll talk, but you must look pious.”
And promptly the bow of the canoe struck land, he leaped ashore and cried, “We seek the High Priest!” and when that dignitary, older and more solemn, with flecks of white in his beard, approached, Teroro made deep obeisance and cried for all to hear, “We come as servants of Oro, seeking another god for our distant land. Bless us, august one, and send us another god.”
The plea took the High Priest so by surprise, coming as it did even before any narration of the journey, that he was unable to mask his pleasure, and the staff with which he could have directed the sacrifice of the crew remained rooted in the ground, and he listened as Teroro spoke rapidly: “Under Oro we have prospered, august one, and our community grows. But life is difficult and we live scattered. That is why your servant old Tupuna requires additional gods. When we have borrowed them from you, we will depart.”
The High Priest listened, and then stood aside as the new king of Bora Bora appeared, and Teroro saw with intense pleasure that the man was not from Havaiki, as planned, but from Bora Bora. “King,” he cried, “forgive us for our midnight assault on Havaiki before our departure. We did this thing not to dishonor great Oro, but to prevent a Havaiki man from becoming king of Bora Bora. Forgive us.” And Teroro was so weak, and so urgently in need of food and help, that he kneeled in the dust, and prostrated himself before the king, and then before the High Priest, and to his deep satisfaction he heard from the canoe the pious voice of Pa intoning: “Now let us go to the temple of Oro and give thanks for our safe voyage.”
But as the men marched, Teroro caught sight of a woman at the edge of the crowd, a tall, solemn, patient woman with a face like a moon, and he thought no more of gods or kings or priests, for the woman was Marama, and solely by looking at each other, intently and with the love that consumes two thousand miles of ocean, she knew that he had come to take her with him, and while he prayed to a god whom he detested, she went to her grass house and started packing.
When the prayers were over he joined her there, and they sat in silence, profound communion passing between them, and she was both forgiving and consoling in the disappointing moments when they found him too exhausted with famine even to make love with her. She laughed softly and said, from the edge of the house, “See what happened on the last night we made love.” And she took from a maid’s arms a boy nearly a year old, with wide eyes and dark hair like his father’s.
Teroro looked at his son, and at the wife he had left behind because she could bear no children, and in his embarrassment he began to laugh. Marama laughed too, and teased: “You looked so ridiculous out there, praying to Oro. And Pa putting on that long face! ‘Now let us go to the temple of Oro!’ It was a good idea, Teroro, but it wasn’t necessary.”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you noticed how much older the High Priest looks? He has been very badly treated.”
“That’s good news. How?”
“After all his scheming to banish you and Tamatoa, so that he could become the chief priest at Havaiki …”
“You mean, they were just using him? To subdue Bora Bora?”
“Yes. They had no intention of making him chief priest. After you killed your wife’s father …”
“She’s not my wife. I gave her to Mato.”
Marama paused for a moment and looked at the floor. Quietly, she added, “The men of Havaiki tried to give us a new king, but we fought.”
“Then why do you keep the High Priest?”
“We need a priest,” she said simply. “Every island needs a priest.” And they fell silent, listening to the soft waves of the lagoon, and after a long while Teroro said, “You must find a dozen women who will go with us. It’s a hard journey.” Then he added, “And this time we’ll take some children with us.” His voice brightened. “We’ll take the little fellow.”
“No,” Marama said. “He’s too young. We’ll trade him for an older boy,” and in the island tradition she went from house to house, until she found an eight-year-old boy she liked, and to his willing mother she gave her son. When Teroro saw the new boy, h
e liked him too, and after the child was sent away to wait for the canoe’s departure, he took his wife in his arms and whispered, “You are the canoe of my life, Marama. In you I make my voyage.”
At the consecration of the new idol of Oro, the High Priest insisted upon killing a slave, and Teroro hid his face in shame, for he and his men knew that once the reef was breasted, the idol would pitch into the sea, so that when the High Priest delivered the god to the becoming-priest Teroro, the latter took it gravely, not as an idol but as a symbol of the needless death of a man; and whether he or the crew liked the statue or not, it had somehow become a thing of sanctification, and Teroro treated it as such, for it spoke to him of blood. At the same time it reminded him of the difficulty which now faced him: he had to get the red-rock statue of the goddess Pere from the temple without exciting the High Priest’s suspicion that that had been the real reason for the return. In secrecy he held council with Pa and Hiro to canvass the ways by which Pere might be kidnaped.
Pa suggested: “You fooled the priests with your talk of Oro. Fool them again.”
“No,” Teroro replied. “We were able to fool them about Oro because they wanted to believe. To mention a forgotten goddess like Pere would arouse their suspicions.”
“Could we steal it?” Hiro proposed.
“Who knows where it is?” Teroro countered. They discussed other possibilities and agreed upon only one thing: to return to Havaiki-of-the-North without Pere would be insane, for since she had warned them once with such a disastrous wall of fire, the next time she would obliterate them altogether. It was then that Teroro proposed: “I shall talk with Marama. She is a very wise woman.”
And it was Marama who devised the plan. “The island knows that you have come back for me,” she pointed out, “and they recall that my ancestors were priests. When the women for our voyage have been gathered, two of us will go to the High Priest and tell him that we want to take one of the ancient Bora Bora gods with us.”