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Updated: June 2, 2025
Sad indeed is it that to-day the Marquesans are rapidly dying off from consumption and fever introduced into their fair domain by civilization itself. Nestling in a good-sized valley near the harbor our flyers saw scores of native houses, as they drew nearer.
The fish turned swiftly to see what teased him, and in the same split-second of time, over his fluke went the noose, and Red Chicken was up and away, while his companions on a nearby cliff pulled in the rope and killed the shark with spears in shallow water. Red Chicken said that he had learned this art from a Samoan, whose people were cleverer killers of sharks than the Marquesans.
We reached the plane of cocoanuts, and I asked Orivie to fetch down a couple, after essaying to perform that feat myself and failing dismally besides scratching my nose and hands. Bare feet are a requisite bare and tough as leather. The Marquesans cut notches in the trees after they reach maturity, to make the climbing easier, a custom they have in many parts of Asia, but not in Tahiti.
But the house, the grave, and even the body of the dead, have been always particularly honoured by Marquesans. Until recently the corpse was sometimes kept in the family and daily oiled and sunned, until, by gradual and revolting stages, it dried into a kind of mummy. Offerings are still laid upon the grave. In Traitor's Bay, Mr. Osbourne saw a man buy a looking-glass to lay upon his son's.
France had begun to make good her promise to expand her trade in Oceania, and the isolation of the dying Marquesans and empty valleys was ended. The steamship Saint François, from Bordeaux by way of Tahiti, had come to visit this group and pick up cargo for Papeite and French ports.
Eight arms, some shorn of their suckers, stretched out ten feet toward us. The Marquesans retreated precipitately, and I led them, laughing nervously, but not joyously. The son of Ugh! stopped first. "Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta!" he cried. "Are we afraid of that ugly beast? I have killed many. Pakeka! We will eat him, too!"
These crabs are called by the scientists Birgos latro, by the Marquesans tupa, by the Paumotans kaveu, and by the Tahitians, ua vahi haari. It was a never-failing entertainment on my walks in the Paumotas to observe these great creatures, light-brown or reddish in color, more than two feet in length, stalking about with their bodies a foot from the ground, supported by two pairs of central legs.
From this one might think that Asia had taught the Marquesans the art of making namu during their prehistoric pilgrimage to the islands, but the discoverers and early white residents in Polynesia saw no drunkenness save that of the kava-drinking.
The Christianized Marquesan fancies that he finds these old beliefs revived when Père David tells him of purgatory, from which prayers and certain good acts help one's friends, or may be laid up in advance against the day when one must himself descend to that middle state of souls. All Marquesans live in the shadow of that day.
This made all Marquesans sad, and those in the crew talked to Earth Worm, who had also been wronged, and urged him to rise and strike. But he said nothing. "The ship came to the Paumotas, and the governor sat all day long on a stool on the deck, watching the islands as they passed. Earth Worm sat in his place, watching the governor.
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