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Updated: June 24, 2025
We were then invited to take a siesta behind an immense curtain of tapa that had been hung across one end of the room. There mats and pillows were laid for Teuila and me, and in a few seconds we were fast asleep. In an hour and a half we waked simultaneously and found dinner waiting for us.
Quite often the dyes with which the designs were painted on the tapa were not entirely dry when the tapa was taken in, and many fine pieces were smeared and ruined. Days were short in the narrow walled-in river gorge and the Sun shone directly on the tapa for only a few hours, passing then beyond the high western wall, and gloom would settle about the cave, growing deeper with oncoming night.
The dress of the men consists of a narrow belt of bark and a strip of tapa worn between the legs. Around their knees and ankles they wear small, shiny shells, and on their chests a large circular plate of tridacna-shell, to which is attached a dainty bit of carved tortoise-shell representing a combination of fish and turtle. This beautiful ornament is very effective on the dark skin.
Dressed like a native in tapa cloth, with bare chest, and flowers in his tawny hair, the handsome boy was seated in a hammock. With her head against his knee, a beautiful girl was looking up into his face, one hand locked in his. In that land of pretty women she was the one that outshone them all Tehea, the sister of the king, for whose sweet favor every man on board had sought in vain.
A low sound like the "sough" of the sea or the distant falling of water came from the north; while at intervals the hoarse bark of the coyote and the yelling of terrified monkeys could be heard afar off in the woods. "Tapa la casa! tapa la casa!" "Anda! anda con los macates!" This was speedily fastened at all corners, and strong stays were carried out and warped around the trunks of trees.
They then unwound the "tapa" from their bodies and threw it in a heap on the ground, following this by more manoeuvres. About twenty men came into the square, some with their faces blacked and their bodies stained red with some pigment, and wearing only aprons of coconut strings, with bracelets of leaves on their arms and carved pigs' tusks hanging from their necks.
In out-of-the-way parts the "sulus" are still made of "tapa" cloth, and the women sometimes wear small fibrous aprons. They also often wear wild pigs'-tusks round their necks. Both men and women gave themselves severe wounds about the body, generally as a sign of grief on the death of some near relative.
One can hardly dwell in a spirit of filial devotion upon the relation of our forefathers to soap and water, but these Marquesans bathed several times daily in dulcet streams and found soap and emollients to hand. It was curious to me to reflect, while Père Olivier and I stood watching the two aged crones beating out the tapa cloth, upon what slender chance hung the difference between us.
In Geog Tapa, their meetings for women every evening had an attendance varying from thirty to one hundred. Many of these were glad to learn the way of salvation, even from children. Besides this, the older pupils, under the guidance of an experienced native helper, spent much time in personal conversation and prayer with their own sex, as did the members of the other Seminary with the men.
Did I not see the former queen lift the hem of his tapa and bow over it? It was night, the lights sputtered, and I was awed by the success of the incantation. A minute after Papa Ita had gone, I threw a newspaper upon the path he had trod, and it withered into ashes. The heat seared my face. The doctors, five or six of them, Americans and English, resident in Honolulu, shrugged their shoulders.
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