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In Raiatea, the chief Tetuanui informed me, the membership of the Protestant church of Uturoa walked on the umu, and embarrassed the missionaries, who had taught them, as the Tautirans were taught, that the Umuti was a pagan sacrament. In some islands it was called vilavilairevo, and in Fiji the oven was lovu.
The smell of the burning wood of the Umuti was hardly out of my nostrils before my day of leaving Tautira came.
"No, it is in the Bible, and was taught by Te Atua, the great God. The three boys in Babulonia were saved from death by Atua teaching them the way of the Umuti." "Where will the Umuti be?" I inquired. "I must see it." "By the old tii up the Aataroa valley, on Saturday night." That was five days off, and it could not come soon enough for me.
The people of Tautira, from Ori-a-Ori to Matatini, had the fullest confidence that Tufetufetu had shown them a miracle, and that it was not evil; but to the American and European missionaries the Umuti was deviltry, the magic of Simon Magus and his successors, This was shown clearly in the statement of Deacon Taumihau of Raiatea, which I give in Tahitian and English: E parau teie te umu a Tupua.
I was among the tepees of the Red Indians of North America when they leaped unscathed through the roaring blaze of the sacred fire, and trod the burning stones and embers in their dances before the Great Spirit. The Umuti was not all new to me. Long ago, when I lived in Hawaii, Papa Ita had come there from Tahiti.
Crookes, the distinguished physicist, took into his laboratory handkerchiefs in which Home had wrapped live coals, and found them "unburned, unscorched, and not prepared to resist fire." The scene of the Umuti was an hour's walk up the glen of Aataroa, which began at our swimming-place.
Raiere answered quickly: "Aue! he does not ask for money, but he must live, and we all will give a little. It is good to see the Umuti again." "But, Raiere, my friend," I protested, "you are a Christian, and only a day ago ate the breadfruit at the communion service. Fire-walking is etené; it is a heathen rite." "Aita!" replied the youth.
Raiere exchanged a few words with the driver of the cart, and as they continued on toward Tautira, he said to me in a very serious voice: "He is a tahua, a sorcerer, who will enact the Umuti, the walking over the fiery oven. He is from Raiatea and very noted. Ten years ago, Papa Ita of Raiatea was here, but there has been no Umuti since." "What brings him here now?" I asked. "Who pays him?"
The solemnity of the Umuti fell from them. Accordions, mouth-organs, and jews'-harps began to play, and fragments of chants and himenes to sound. Laughter and banter filled the forest as they squatted or lay down to wait for the feast. I did not stay. The Umuti had put me out of humor for fun and food.
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