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His view of our stupidity, even he, the mighty talker, must have lacked language to express. He never interfered with my Tahuku work; civilly praised it, idle as it seemed; civilly supposed that I was competent in my own mystery: such being the attitude of the intelligent and the polite.
Taahauku, on the south-westerly coast of the island of Hiva-oa Tahuku, say the slovenly whites may be called the port of Atuona. It is a narrow and small anchorage, set between low cliffy points, and opening above upon a woody valley: a little French fort, now disused and deserted, overhangs the valley and the inlet.
He had certainly to bear a great expense, for the Tahuku will not work without reward; and certainly exquisite pain. Kooamua, high chief as he was, and one of the old school, was only part tattooed; he could not, he told us with lively pantomime, endure the torture to an end.
But our chief visitor was one Mapiao, a great Tahuku which seems to mean priest, wizard, tattooer, practiser of any art, or, in a word, esoteric person and a man famed for his eloquence on public occasions and witty talk in private. His first appearance was typical of the man.
This cure is prepared from the rubbed leaves of the tree from which the patient stole; so that he cannot be saved without confessing to the Tahuku the person whom he wronged.
As we sat under the awning in opposite corners of the cockpit, he braiding hairs from dead men's chins, I forming runes upon a sheet of folio paper, he would nod across to me as one Tahuku to another, or, crossing the cockpit, study for a while my shapeless scrawl and encourage me with a heartfelt 'mitai! good! So might a deaf painter sympathise far off with a musician, as the slave and master of some uncomprehended and yet kindred art.
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