Chapter 23
Walk About
The next few days around the ranch were mostly back to normal. Whenever we were sittin’ around the table, someone would ask Paniolo Pete to tell us more about his trip to New Zealand.
Tanga’s whole family was waiting for them when their ship docked. Remember he was of royal blood and was treated as such. The whole village and the surrounding neighbors gathered to celebrate his wedding to Maile, and the festivities lasted several days.
Although Maile and Tanga had been officially married in Hawai‘i, his family insisted they be remarried in the traditional Māori manner. What a wedding that must have been! Whenever Pete talked about it, he got kind of a far off look in his eyes and seemed to be deep in thought. Come to think of it, he never really did give us all the details of the second wedding. All he really said was that if he ever planned to marry, he would do it in Māori tradition. Paniolo Pete also told us that a man can only handle so much attention. After a couple of weeks at being the center of attention, he was ready for some peace and quiet.
By this time Pete’s Uncle Nickel had a bunch of children and was greatly enjoying the life of a married family man. Every time Pete visited their home he was instantly attacked by a crowd of youngsters and Nickel would be bursting with pride over one of his kids’ latest accomplishments. To hear Pete tell it, Nickel’s children were about the smartest, fastest, most talented, and generally the best young’uns anywhere in the world.
“Everything they did was a wonder to Nickel,” Pete told us, “even if it was just climbing a tree. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I took to wandering around a bit. It was about my third or fourth week there and I decided to take a little side trip to another land down under. I sailed across the Tasman Sea to Australia, where I was about to be introduced to a new culture of native people, the Aborigines. Now Australia is almost as big a country as the Mainland United States and after I arrived, I decided to head by train almost 2,000 miles west into the outback. Now the Australian Outback is pretty remote. It doesn’t get much rain, and because the land is so dry and arid, that part of the country is pretty sparsely populated. Most of the people who live there are Aborigines, the native people of Australia.”
“A few days after I arrived, I was out exploring in the brush when I saw a little man stalking a wild boar with a long stick. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how he was planning to scrap a pig with a stick. I followed him quietly and was surprised when he raised his long stick to his mouth and blew into it. I was even more stunned when that old pig dropped in his tracks. To make a long story short, the little man was an Aborigine whose name was Miro, and we took a liking to each other right from the start.”
“Neither of us spoke the other’s language, but we seemed to communicate by nodding our heads and doing a lot of pointing. We also drew pictures in the dirt. We must have been quite a sight—two grown men squatting and drawing pictures in the dirt.”
I can’t quite remember exactly what Pete said after that except that when Miro decided it was time to leave, Pete naturally followed him. We may never know everything that happened in those few weeks after he met Miro, but Pete told us he learned how to live off the land with no possessions to speak of. I reckon his first experience with raw survival didn’t turn out too good. Hearing him tell the story, I can almost picture what it must have been like.
Paniolo Pete and his new friend Miro were teaching each other how they do certain things according to their own traditions. Miro decided it was time for Pete to learn how to use one of the blow-guns he hunted with. Now unless you’ve seen one of these guns, it might be hard to picture what it looks like. The blow-gun is about five feet long, hollow on the inside, and it takes a lot of practice to learn how to use it. The darts Miro made were soaked in some kind of poison plant juice. After much explaining, I reckon Paniolo Pete got the point, because he told us he treated those darts as gentle as a newborn calf. He was extremely careful to load the dart just as Miro had shown him and carried the blow-gun so the dart wouldn’t fall out.
When they spotted a type of Australian rabbit, Pete very carefully put the blow-gun to his lips, sighted down its length, took a deep breath, and wham! Next thing he remembered was lying by the fire, shivering and sweating and never so sick in his life. As he had taken a deep breath to shoot the rabbit, the dart naturally followed the flow of air right into Pete’s mouth. He told us he thought sure he would be meeting his Maker soon.
“If brother Miro hadn’t been there to babysit me over the next few days,” Pete remembered, “I guess I wouldn’t be here now and you would have to change the name of our coffee to ‘Foolish Pete’s Kona Coffee’.”
Needless to say, Pete developed a very deep respect for hunting with a blow-gun. But as can only be expected, it wasn’t long before the Kahiona boys convinced Paniolo Pete to show them how to make and use one. I gotta tell you, it sure was a sight seeing all them fellas out there at the Double ‘P’ sitting on the lanai and shooting bamboo darts into the palm trees. The practicing might have gone on much longer except Noelani and Auntie Pukilani came out to see what they were doing and promptly put an end to the competition.
“Hey, how you like I stick those things in you? Those trees no bother you, so why you bother them?” Noelani scolded the would-be pig hunters.
Auntie Pukilani added, “Sista, they got nothing more to do. See, it’s still daytime and they all playing like we no got work to do. Come, all you boys, we go clean the coffee mill plenty good.” So ended the blow-gun games around the Double ‘P.’
Getting back to my story about Pete’s adventures down under, after he became a little more efficient in living off the land, he went with Miro on a walkabout. When I asked him how long he was gone, he just shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I guess it was nearly a year Bill. We just took our time. Australia is a pretty big place.”
At the time he told me this story, we were working cattle at one of the neighbors’ ranches, and I guess my shock must have showed. “It’s not like we just walked, Bill. We had to hunt and fish to stay alive and we had a few setbacks during our trip.” He never really did explain to me what a walkabout was.
Knowing Paniolo Pete, I can imagine a certain amout of time was spent making new friends and helping them in any way he could. One thing about old Pete, when it comes time to lend a hand, he’s always at the front of the line. No matter how busy we were, anytime one of his friends or neighbors needed help, we’d be there. Whether it was working cattle, shoeing horses, or building a house Pete would always go, and we went with him.