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While thus engaged, we were suddenly discovered, being betrayed by Mowno's gaudy tiputa, seen through the foliage by the quick eye of his better half, who immediately sprang up with a clear, ringing laugh, scattering a lapful of flowers upon the ground, and came running like a fawn towards him; the rest of us still keeping concealed.
The party of natives did not seem greatly to outnumber us, and were not particularly formidable in their appearance. They were, as well as we could judge at such a distance, of no more than the ordinary stature. With the exception of the individual already referred to, in the gay tiputa, they wore nothing but the maro, and were armed with long spears.
The people on shore now seemed to confer together, and in a few moments, one of their number, who, from his stained tiputa of yellow and crimson, appeared to be a chief or person of consequence, came down to the water's edge, waving a green bough, and beckoning us to land.
On grand occasions, they cast over their ordinary dress an upper garment, called a tiputa, the cloth of which they manufacture themselves from the bark of the bread and cocoa trees. The bark, while still tender, is beaten between two stones, until it is as thin as paper; it is then coloured yellow and brown. One Sunday I went into the meeting-house to see the people assembled there.
It is by no means an elegant article of apparel, and Johnny was at first inclined to look upon it with disfavour. But upon being informed that it was in all respects, except the material of which it was made, like the "tiputa," formerly worn by the Tahitian chiefs and men of note, he became fully reconciled to it.
The personage in the tiputa waited to receive him, continuing to wave the green branch, and to make amicable signs. Rokoa advanced, and greeted him in the Tahitian fashion, by rubbing faces.
A deacon of the church went to him, and informed him that the umu was ready, and he came slowly toward us. He wore a white pareu of the ancient tapa, and a white tiputa, a poncho of the same beaten-bark fabrics. His head was crowned with ti-leaves, and in his hand he had a wand of the same. He was in the dim light a vision of the necromancer of medieval books.
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