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Updated: June 20, 2025
"Beaten to Death was in the stomachs of the men of Atuona, and they laughed at us. Our High Priest said that the Euututuki, the most private god of the priests, commanded us to avenge the eating of Beaten to Death. But the season of preserving the mei in pits was upon us.
Two sheep were huddled together by my trail window, the horses were lying down in the brush, and a nightingale lilted a gay love song in the cocoanut-palms above the House of the Golden Bed. Next morning all Atuona had a tight handkerchief bound over its forehead. I met twenty men and women with this sign of repentance upon their brows.
He heard the news with amazement and consternation. For a day he sat disconsolate, unable to credit the disaster that had befallen his carefully made plans. Then he offered the matches at usual traders' prices, and the people mocked him. All over the island the fire-ploughs, oldest of fire-making tools in the world, were being driven to heat the stones for the mei. Atuona had no need of matches.
Haabuani, master of ceremonies at the dances, the best carver and drum-beater of all Atuona, who was of pure Marquesan blood, but spoke French fluently and earnestly defended the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility, even coming to actual blows with a defiant Protestant upon my very paepae explained his attitude.
He said that they should go to Atuona, and bring back bodies for feasting. Many nights the drums beat, and the chief talked much, but there was no war. "The High Priest went to the Pekia again, and when he came away he ran without stopping for two days and a night, till he fell without breath, as one dead, and foam was on his mouth. The gods were angry. Still there was no war.
When the supercargo called us below for dinner, pride and not appetite made me go. The priest answered with a groan. Padre Olivier was prostrate on the deck, his noble head on a pillow, his one piece of luggage, embroidered with the monogram of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the needlework of the nuns of Atuona. "I am seasick if I wade in the surf," said the priest, in mournful jest.
The bay of Atuona, narrow between high cliffs covered with cocoanut-trees, was the scene of my lessons. The tide came booming into this cove from the Bay of Traitors, often with bewildering force, and a day or two a month as gently as the waves at Waikiki. The river spread a broad mouth to drink the brine, and the white sand was over-run by the flowered vines that crept seaward to taste the salt.
"There was no war then between the valley of Atuona and that of Hana-menu; the people of both crossed the mountains and visited one another. But it was discovered in Atuona that a number of the people were missing. Some had gone to Hana-menu and never reached there, others had disappeared on their way home.
Every here and there the stroller had a glimpse of the Casco tossing in the narrow anchorage below; and beyond he had ever before him the dark amphitheatre of the Atuona mountains and the cliffy bluff that closes it to seaward.
The affair was formal, and a matter of parade, as when in Europe sovereigns call each other cousin. Yet, had we stayed at Atuona, Paaaeua would have held himself bound to establish us upon his land, and to set apart young men for our service, and trees for our support. I have mentioned the Austrian.
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