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Updated: October 27, 2025
They say that it is beautiful and that the people are joyous. They have all the namu they can drink. The government is good to them." Tetuahunahuna sighed, and looked at my bag, in which was the bottle of rum Grelet had given me. I poured a drink into the cocoanut-shell Ghost Girl had emptied, and gave it to him. "Kaoha!" he said and, having swallowed the rum, went on.
The Buddhist, according to his sect, murmurs Namu-myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo, or Namu Amida Butsu, or some other holy words of prayer or of praise to the Buddha, ere commencing his prayer to the ancestors. The words said to them are seldom spoken aloud, either by Shintoist or Buddhist: they are either whispered very low under the breath, or shaped only within the heart.
The beginning of it was not corrupt; it began, doubtless, in fear and respect, produced by trickery and pretence; but I was shocked to find that another element had been lately added, that Namu helped himself in the store, and was believed to be deep in Case's debt. Whatever the trader said, that Namu believed with trembling.
"When the whale is going to die, it speaks; it cries to the Lord Buddha for help, Namu Amida Butsu!" I went to another part of the garden where there were tame deer, and a "golden bear" in a cage, and peafowl in an aviary, and an ape. The people fed the deer and the bear with cakes, and tried to coax the peacock to open its tail, and grievously tormented the ape.
Some said he had a church there, where he worshipped Tiapolo, and Tiapolo appeared to him; others swore that there was no sorcery at all, that he performed his miracles by the power of prayer, and the church was no church, but a prison, in which he had confined a dangerous aitu. Namu had been in the bush with him once, and returned glorifying God for these wonders.
He was not alone in this; many in the village lived in a similar subjection; but Namu’s case was the most influential, it was through Namu Case had wrought most evil; and with a certain following among the chiefs, and the pastor in his pocket, the man was as good as master of the village.
The namu when stale causes the Marquesans to revert to wickedest savagery, and has incited many murders. Under the eye of the gendarme its making ceases, but a hundred valleys have no white policemen, and the half score of people remaining amid their hundreds of ruined paepaes give themselves over to intoxication.
The pipe was passing, and Grelet took his pull at it in the circle. The chant was of the adventures of the day. The hunters and specially Namu Ou Mio, the slayer of the three boars, told of the deed of prowess on the cliff-side, while the others sang of their journey and the sea.
"Namu Amida Butsu," "Namu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo," "Namu Hen Jo Kongo," are the most common of such magic formulæ. These prayers are heard on the lips of tens of thousands of pious pilgrims, not only at the temples, but as they pass along the highways. It is believed that each repetition secures its reward.
It is delicious and refreshing, and only slightly intoxicating. Allowed to ferment and become sour, it is all gall. Its drinking then is divided into two episodes swallowing and intoxication. There is no interval. "Forty-rod" whiskey is mild compared to it. I had seen the preparation of namu, which is very simple.
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