There was then, as there is now, no place known on earth that even began to compete with these islands in their capacity to encourage natural life to develop freely and radically up to its own best potential. More than nine out of ten things that grew here, grew nowhere else on earth.
Why this should have been so remains a mystery. Perhaps a fortunate combination of rainfall, climate, sunlight and soil accounted for this miracle. Perhaps eons of time in which diverse growing things were left alone to work out their own best destinies was the explanation. Perhaps the fact that when a grass reached here it had to stand upon its own capacities and could not be refertilized by grasses of the same kind from the parent stock, perhaps that is the explanation. But whatever the reason, the fact remains: in these islands new breeds developed, and they prospered, and they grew strong, and they multiplied. For these islands were a crucible of exploration and development.
And so, with these capacities, the islands waited. Jesus died on a cross, and they waited. England was settled by mixed and powerful races, and the islands waited for their own settlers. Mighty kings ruled in India, and in China and in Japan, while the islands waited.
Inhospitable in fact, a paradise in potential, with almost no food available, but with enormous riches waiting to be developed, the islands waited. Volcanoes, still building the ramparts with fresh flows of lava, hung lanterns in the sky so that if a man and his canoe were lost on the great dark bosom of the sea, wandering fitfully this way and that, he might spot the incandescent glow of the under side of a distant cloud, and thus find a fiery star to steer by.
Large gannets and smaller terns skimmed across the waters leading to land, while frigate birds drew sharp and sure navigation lines from the turbulent ocean wastes right to the heart of the islands, where they nested. If a man in a canoe could spot a frigate bird, its cleft tail cutting the wind, he could be sure that land lay in the direction toward which the bird had flown at dusk.
These beautiful islands, waiting in the sun and storm, how much they seemed like beautiful women waiting for their men to come home at dusk, waiting with open arms and warm bodies and consolation. All that would be accomplished in these islands, as in these women, would be generated solely by the will and puissance of some man. I think the islands always knew this.
Therefore, men of Polynesia and Boston and China and Mount Fuji and the barrios of the Philippines, do not come to these islands empty-handed, or craven in spirit, or afraid to starve. There is no food here. In these islands there is no certainty. Bring your own food, your own gods, your own flowers and fruits and concepts. For if you come without resources to these islands you will perish.
But if you come with growing things, and good foods and better ideas, if you come with gods that will sustain you, and if you are willing to work until the swimming head and the aching arms can stand no more, then you can gain entrance to this miraculous crucible where the units of nature are free to develop according to their own capacities and desires.
On these harsh terms the islands waited.
II
From the Sun-Swept Lagoon
I HAVE SAID that the islands along the rupture in the ocean floor were not a paradise, but twenty-four hundred miles almost due south there did exist an island which merited that description. It lay northwest of Tahiti, already populated with a powerful, sophisticated people, and only a few miles from the island of Havaiki, the political and religious capital of the area.
It was Bora Bora, and it rose from the sea in sharp cliffs and mighty pinnacles of rock. It contained deep-set bays and tree-rimmed shores of glistening sand. It was so beautiful that it seemed impossible that it had arisen by chance; gods must have formed it and placed the bays just so, an illusion which was enhanced by the fact that around the entire island was hung a protecting necklace of coral on which wild ocean waves broke in high fury, trying vainly to leap inside the placid green lagoon, where fish flourished in abundant numbers. It was an island of rare beauty—wild, impetuous, lovely Bora Bora.
Early one morning, while in Paris the sons of Charlemagne quarreled among themselves as to how their late father’s empire should be ruled, a swift single-hulled outrigger canoe, sped along by sturdy paddlers and a triangular sail, swept across the open ocean leading from Havaiki and sought the solitary entrance to the lagoon of Bora Bora, on whose shores a lookout followed the progress of the urgent canoe with dread.
He saw the steersman signal his sailors to drop sail, and as they complied he watched the canoe pivot deftly in high swells that sought to crash it upon the reef. But with enviable skill the steersman rode with the swells and headed his canoe toward the perilous opening in the coral wall.
“Now!” he shouted, and his paddlers worked feverishly, standing the canoe off from the rocks and speeding it into the channel. There was a rush of water, a rising of huge waves, and a swift passionate surge of canoe and flashing paddles through the gap.
“Rest!” the steersman called quietly, in audible relief. Gratified with his minor triumph, he looked for approval to the canoe’s solitary passenger, a tall gaunt man with deep-set eyes, a black beard, and long thin hands in which he clutched a staff carved with the figures of gods. But the passenger offered no commendation, for he was lost in the contemplation of certain mighty processes which he had helped set in motion. He stared through the steersman, past the paddlers and onto the towering central rock that marked the heights of Bora Bora.
It was from a point part way up the slopes of this rugged mountain that the lookout now rushed down steep paths leading to the king’s residence, shouting as he went, “The High Priest is returning!” The instinctive dread which the lookout felt was transmitted in his cry, and women who heard the message drew closer to their men and looked at them with new affection across dark, palm-thatched huts.
Although the agitated lookout delivered his frightening message to the general community, he was actually speeding to alert one man, and now as he darted along in the shade of breadfruit trees and palms, he kept whispering to himself, “Gods of Bora Bora, speed my feet! Don’t let me be late!”
Dashing up to a grass house larger than its neighbors, the lookout fell to the ground, shouting, “The High Priest is in the lagoon!” From the grassy interior a tall, brown-skinned young man, courtier to the king, poked a sleepy head and asked in some alarm, “Already?”
“He has passed the reef,” the lookout warned.
“Why didn’t you …” In great agitation the young man grabbed a ceremonial tapa robe made from pounded bark, and without waiting to adjust it properly went running toward the palace crying, “The High Priest approaches!” He hurried past other courtiers like himself and right into the royal presence, where he prostrated himself on the soft pandanus matting that covered the earthen floor, announcing with urgency, “The august one is about to land.”
The man to whom these agitated words were addressed was a handsome, large-headed man of thirty-three whose close-cropped hair showed gray at the temples, and whose unusually wide-spaced eyes were grave with wisdom. If he experienced the same dread at the High Priest’s return as did his underlings, he masked it; but the tall young courtier nevertheless observed that his master moved with unaccustomed alacrity to the treasure room, where he donned an ankle-length robe of light brown tapa bark, throwing about his left shoulder and around his waist a precious cordon made of yellow feathers, his badge of authority. He then adjusted his feather-and-shell helmet, while around his neck he placed a chain of shark’s teeth. At this appropriate moment the tall courtier issued a signal, and drums along the shore began to throb in royal rhythms.
“We go to honor the High Priest,” the king announced gravely, waiting while an impressive train of tanned warriors, naked to the waist and wrapped in brown tapa, formed behind him. Almost against his will, the king found himself urging his men, “Hurry, hurry! We must not be tardy,” for although everyone acknowledged that he was supreme on Bora Bora, he had found it prudent never to be wan
ting in courtesies to the spiritual ruler of the island, especially since the attributes and requirements of the new god, Oro, were not yet clearly known. The king’s father had underestimated the power of the new deity, and during a solemn convocation in the temple of Oro, his high priest had suddenly pointed at him as one failing in reverence, and the king’s brains had been clubbed in, his body dragged away as the next human sacrifice to red Oro, the all-powerful, the uniter of the islands.
But in spite of the king’s care, when the royal procession left the palace the tall young courtier had to warn, “The august one already approaches the landing!” whereupon the king and all his retinue began to run, holding onto their various badges as they did. The king, aware of the ridiculous sight he presented, yet unwilling through fear to go more slowly, glared at the tall courtier whose information had been delivered late, and the aide, who was having difficulty keeping his tapa cloth straight as he ran, began to sweat and prayed beneath his breath, “If there is to be a convocation, O gods of Bora Bora spare me!”
The king stumbled on in the hot morning sun, angry, muttering, damaged in pride. But he did reach the landing place a few moments before the canoe, and although he could not have known it at the time, his sweaty embarrassment helped rather than hurt, for from the outrigger the High Priest noticed with satisfaction the king’s discomfort and for a moment allowed a smile to creep toward his lips. But it was quickly suppressed, and the priest resumed his aloof study of the mountain peak.
Gently, the steersman brought his canoe to rest, careful lest any untoward accident draw the priest’s attention, for the paddlers knew what message the religious man was bringing from the temple of Oro, and on this day it behooved all men to be careful. When the canoe was secured, the High Priest disembarked with imperial dignity, his white-bark cape with its fringe of dog’s teeth shining against his long, black hair.
He was a powerful symbol of Oro as he moved with his god-carved staff to meet the king, genuflecting slightly as if to indicate that he acknowledged the latter’s supremacy. Then, recovering his posture, he waited grimly while King Tamatoa, the supposed ruler, bowed low and held a subservient position long enough to impress all witnesses with the fact that power had somehow been mysteriously transferred from his hands into those of the priest. Then the king spoke.
“Oh, blessed of the gods!” King Tamatoa began. “What is the wish of Oro?”
The pressing crowd, handsome men and fine women, naked to the waist and dark-eyed, held its breath in apprehension, which the High Priest sensed and relished. He waited, while soft winds from the green lagoon tugged at palms that lined the shore and made the dark green leaves of breadfruit sway. Then he spoke solemnly: “There will be a convocation!” No one gasped, lest he draw fatal attention to himself.
The High Priest continued: “A new temple is to be erected in Tahiti and we shall convene to consecrate the god who is to live in that temple.” He paused, and visible fear crept over the faces of his listeners. Even King Tamatoa himself, who could with reasonable assurance count on being spared, felt his knees weaken while he waited for the dread details that completed any announcement of a general interisland convocation at Oro’s temple.
But the High Priest also waited, appreciating that the longer his terror continued, the more effective it would be in impressing the sometimes recalcitrant Bora Borans with the temper and might of their new god. On this day he would maneuver the king himself into asking the fatal questions.
Flies that had been feeding on dead fish along the lagoon shore now turned their attention to the bare backs of the waiting crowd, but no man moved lest in the next dreadful moments he become conspicuous. The king waited. The priest waited. Finally in a hushed voice Tamatoa asked, “When is the convocation?”
“Tomorrow!” the High Priest said sternly, and his news was instantly interpreted as he had intended. Thought the king: “If the convocation is to be tomorrow, it must have been decided upon ten days ago! Else how could the news reach Tahiti in time for their canoe to return to Havaiki tomorrow? Our High Priest must have been in secret consultation with the priests of Oro during all those ten days.”
The flies stung perspiring backs, but no man moved, awaiting the next ominous question. Finally Tamatoa asked, “How many men for Oro?”
“Eight,” the priest replied, impersonally. Placing his staff before him, causing watchers in the muted crowd to fall back, the gaunt dark man in shimmering white robes moved off toward his temple, but when it appeared that he had finished with the crowd he suddenly whirled about, made a terrifying sound in his throat, and thrust his staff directly at the steersman who had brought him into the safety of the lagoon.
“And this one shall be first!” he screamed.
“No! No!” the steersman pleaded, falling to his knees on the sand.
Implacably, the great gaunt priest towered over him, pointing at him with the staff. “When the seas were upon us,” he intoned mournfully, “this one prayed not to Oro for salvation but to Tane.”
“Oh, no!” the sailor pleaded.
“I watched his lips,” the priest said with awful finality. Attendants from the temple gathered up the quaking steersman and hauled him off, for his legs, surrendering to terror, could not be forced to work.
“And you!” the dreadful voice cried again, thrusting his staff at an unsuspecting watcher. “In the temple of Oro, on the holy day, your head nodded. You shall be second.” Once more the attendants closed in on the culprit, dragging him away, but gently lest Oro be offered as a human sacrifice a man who was bruised or in any way imperfect.
Solemnly the High Priest withdrew and King Tamatoa was left with the miserable task of nominating the six additional human sacrifices. He asked, “Where is my aide?” and from a spot toward the rear of the crowd, where he had hoped to remain unnoticed, the tall and trembling courtier stepped forth.
“Why was I late in greeting the sacred one?” the king demanded.
“The lookout stumbled. It was he who was tardy,” the aide explained.
From the rear of the crowd a woman’s voice inadvertently blurted, “No, that is not true!” But the woman’s husband, a small man of no marked intelligence, was dragged before the king, where he shook like a torn banana leaf, and the king surveyed him with disgust. “He shall be third,” the king commanded.
“Oh, please, no!” the lookout protested. “I ran true. But when I reached the palace,” and he pointed to the aide, “he was asleep.”
The king recalled his earlier impatience with the young courtier and announced peremptorily: “He shall be fourth. The rest shall be taken from the slaves.” With this he strode back to the palace, while the lookout and the tall courtier, already pinioned by the priests, stood in limp amazement, appalled by the catastrophe in which each had so accidentally involved the other.
As the frightened crowd dispersed, each congratulating himself that for this convocation he had escaped the insatiable hunger of Oro, a young chief clothed in golden tapa, which indicated that he was of the roval family, stood bitter and silent in the shade of a breadfruit tree. He had not hidden himself through fear, for he was taller than most, better muscled than any, and marked by a lean, insolent courage that no man could mistake. He had remained apart because he hated the High Priest, despised the new god Oro, and was revolted by the incessant demand for human sacrifice.
The High Priest, of course, had immediately detected the young chief’s absence from the welcoming throng, a breach of conformity which so enraged him that during the most solemn part of the ceremony his penetrating gaze had flashed this way and that, searching for the young man. Finally the priest had found him, lounging insolently under the breadfruit tree, and the two men had exchanged long, defiant stares that had been broken only when a golden-skinned young woman with flowing hair that held banana blossoms tugged at her husband’s arm, forcing him to drop his eyes.
Now, with the ceremony ended, the stately wife was pleading: “Teroro, you must not g
o to the convocation.”
“Who else can command our canoe?” he asked impatiently.
“Is a canoe so important?”
Her husband looked at her in amazement. “Important? What could there be more important?”
“Your life,” she said simply. “Wise navigators do not sail when the clouds are ominous.”
He dismissed her fears and strode disconsolately to a fallen log that projected into the lagoon. Falling angrily upon it, he dipped his brown feet into the silvery waters, and kicked them viciously as if he hated even the sea; but soon his placid wife, lovely in the fragrance of banana blossoms, came and sat beside him, and when her feet splashed in the cool green waters, it was as if a child were playing, and soon her husband forgot his anger. Even when he stared across to the small promontory on which the local temple sat, and where the priests were dedicating the eight doomed men to Oro, he spoke without the animal anger that had possessed him during the ceremonies.
“I’m not afraid of the convocation, Marama,” he said firmly.
“I am afraid for you,” his wife replied.
“Look at our canoe!” he digressed, pointing to a long shed near the temple, under which a mammoth twin-hulled canoe rested. “You wouldn’t want anyone else to guide that, would you?” he teased.
Marama, whose priestly father had selected the sacred logs for the craft, needed no reminder of its importance, so she contented herself with pointing out: “Mato from the north can guide the canoe.”
Then Teroro divulged his real reason for attending the dangerous convocation: “My brother may need my help.”
“King Tamatoa will have many protectors,” Marama replied.
“Without me events could go badly,” Teroro stubbornly insisted, and wise Marama, whose name meant the moon, all-seeing and compassionate, recognized his mood and retreated to a different argument.
She said, “Teroro, it is you mainly that the High Priest suspects of being disloyal to his red god Oro.”