*****
Shawn was forever changed on the day he was attacked by the island warriors, and before losing sight of the island he promised he would return. One reason was to see if he could possibly recover his gear, that is if any of it was still in one piece and not rusted away. The second was to learn more about the native islanders’ superstitions. He wanted to know why their culture accepted as fact that a photo of someone took a piece of their soul. If the tribe existed in that jungle for centuries, how many cameras could they have possibly seen to come to this conclusion? It was clear by their behavior they had little exposure to the outside world.
So Shawn traveled back to the island and his old guide Tagoga set him up with a local translator. It was Shawn’s first trip in seven years where he did not have a surfer to shoot or a camera in hand. There was no way he was going to risk getting killed because he took a photo this go-around! Togoga had told him the chief had died two years earlier which reportedly calmed the tribe’s past violent demeanor, but he misjudged years ago and he swore not to take any chances.
The translator also acted as a guide and they made their way underneath the dense forest canopy to the tribe’s village — a collection of small huts around a decaying spirit house. The translator entered the doorway of the largest hut and soon reappeared to tell Shawn he was welcome to eat at a feast in his honor. During the meal, Shawn was drawn into their spiritual conversations where they offered stories passed down as to why they felt a person’s soul could be transferred from their bodies. The storytellers spoke of creation and how all energy was from one source, and both light and energy shared the same space in the heavens. They told how their deity had given form to energy and light by blessing it, allowing it to create from its presence a conscious being. This God instructed them to see themselves in the same way or all as one, sharing the same space, the same light, and the same energy. They also lived according to karma where their spiritual growth could only be gained by their actions in this life, their soul evolving within them, moving in time and space.
In a more recent history, there was a story from a hundred years ago. It was said a wooden structure with a flying cloth appeared beyond the reef. From the sailing ship came men who spent days on the island occasionally interacting with the tribesmen. They carried a strange box which was held up by three thin trees. When they came to an island bird or animal, one man would put a black cover over his head and cause a bright flash of light. Then they would move the box until they came to another bird.
On the last day of many, the islanders became more curious and one visitor, the man who disappeared into the box, came to the chief and showed him his very first photo. As the tribe’s leader had no point of reference, he had no way of comprehending the black and white image of the pelican. As it was his responsibility to his people to make sense of what he was unable to explain, he concluded the image could only exist because they had taken a piece of the pelican, or captured part of its very essence.
While the traveler stood face to face with the tribe as Shawn would do years later, they felt they had shared a wonderment of the modern world with the backward people, and while the first photographer waited, the tribesmen listened closely to the chief as he warned them of the stranger’s ability to take the soul from the living creature. Then, making the same mistake Shawn had made by misinterpreting the mood of the chief, the expedition photographer moved the camera and pointed it directly at the islanders. Like in Shawn’s living nightmare, violence erupted amongst the tribesman. The clan leader shouted out in warning, “they come to steal our souls, to take our spirit, and keep it for their own!” Unlike Shawn though, many of these first visitors ended up staying for dinner, but not in the way Shawn wanted to hear.
Shawn needed little more information to appreciate the terror he caused when he took their picture two years ago.
On this second visit to the island, Shawn was freed from the stress he had become used to, and he became close to the family of the same young girl he given a candy to on his first trip. Through them he learned conditions had become harder on the island as more visitors arrived after Drake bragged about surfing the beautiful, undiscovered waves. Apparently, the photographs he published also contributed to the weakening of the tribe’s traditional beliefs.
Wairua, as he had come to know her by, became obsessed with the ways of the new visitors and told her parents she desired to see more of what their universal God had created. She said wished to leave the island.
These were strong words as her tribe’s religion held that a spirit or being must be free to go where it is guided. Just as light flows around the islands and the seas, children must follow their predetermined destiny, so while no parent willingly sends their child away, particularly when they never know if they will see them again, they consented when Shawn offered to act as her guardian. He promised he would keep her safe and sheltered from the evil Wairua’s mother feared most, as they knew little of outside civilization beyond their island. He also swore (on his God and their God) he would bring her home each year to visit, which he did faithfully.
Shawn found it weird to be part-parent, part-friend to Wairua. He immediately enrolled her into Hanalei’s high school where, once she mastered reading and writing, she graduated with honors and went on to attend the university on the Big Island. In thanks, Wairua helped keep Shawn’s house, and acted as the caretaker for his spirit and his soul. In doing so, she never missed the chance to remind him he was destroying everyone and everything he photographed.