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Updated: May 16, 2025
From this apprehension, however, I was quickly relieved; for Kory-Kory, leaping from the pi-pi, and then backing himself up against it, like a porter in readiness to shoulder a trunk, with loud vociferations and a superabundance of gestures, gave me to understand that I was to mount upon his back and be thus transported to the stream, which flowed perhaps two hundred yards from the house.
He promised to return in three days at farthest; and, bidding me keep up my spirits in the interval, turned around the corner of the pi-pi, and, under the guidance of the venerable Marheyo, was soon out of sight. His departure oppressed me with melancholy, and, re-entering the dwelling, I threw myself almost in despair upon the matting of the floor.
The rear of the tenement built up with successive ranges of cocoanut boughs bound one upon another, with their leaflets cunningly woven together inclined a little from the vertical, and extended from the extreme edge of the 'pi-pi' to about twenty feet from its surface; whence the shelving roof thatched with the long tapering leaves of the palmetto sloped steeply off to within about five feet of the floor; leaving the eaves drooping with tassel-like appendages over the front of the habitation.
A few yards from the pi-pi was a large shed built of cocoa-nut boughs, where the process of preparing the “poee-poee” was carried on, and all culinary operations attended to. Thus much for the house, and its appurtenances; and it will be readily acknowledged that a more commodious and appropriate dwelling for the climate and the people could not possibly be devised.
This space formed the common couch and lounging place of the natives, answering the purpose of a divan in Oriental countries. Here would they slumber through the hours of the night, and recline luxuriously during the greater part of the day. The remainder of the floor presented only the cool shining surfaces of the large stones of which the 'pi-pi' was composed.
But the divinity had lost the use of them altogether; and while Kory-Kory was trying to prop it up, placing a stick between it and the pi-pi, the monster fell clumsily to the ground, and would have infallibly have broken its neck had not Kory-Kory providentially broken its fall by receiving its whole weight on his own half-crushed back. I never saw the honest fellow in such a rage before.
He promised to return in three days at farthest; and, bidding me keep up my spirits in the interval, turned round the corner of the pi-pi, and, under the guidance of the venerable Marheyo, was soon out of sight. His departure oppressed me with melancholy, and, re-entering the dwelling, I threw myself almost in despair upon the matting of the floor.
I told you so! they are coming for us! exclaimed my companion the next moment, as the forms of four of the islanders were seen in bold relief against the illuminated back-ground mounting the pi-pi and approaching towards us.
Farther on, you were fired upon by a detachment of sharpshooters, mounted upon the top of a pi-pi. Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop! green guavas, seeds, and berries were flying about in every direction, and during this dangerous state of affairs, I was half afraid that, like the man and his brazen bull, I should fall a victim to my own ingenuity.
Inserted into the interstices of the huge stones which formed the pi-pi were large boughs of trees; hanging from the branches of which, and screened from the sun by their foliage, were innumerable little packages with leafy coverings, containing the meat of the numerous hogs which had been slain, done up in this manner to make it more accessible to the crowd.
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