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Updated: June 2, 2025
My presence had stimulated the waning interest of the few remaining Marquesans, and the handful of young men and women went with me often to the sea outside the Bay of Virgins, where we lay in the blazing sunshine having great sport with spear or hook and line. We speared a dozen kinds of fish, specially the cuttlefish and sunfish, the latter more for fun and practice than food.
He merely walked up the tree, one hundred and twenty-five feet in the air, and cast down the nuts from the summit. Not every man there had the physical stamina for such a feat, or the lungs, rather, for most of them were coughing their lives away. Some of the women kept up a ceaseless moaning and groaning, so badly were their lungs wasted. Very few of either sex were full-blooded Marquesans.
"This poker," I said, "is not like écarté or baccarat. It is a study of character, a matching of minds, a thing we call bluff, we Americans. These poor Marquesans must have some fun. Let him do it! No harm can come of it. It is far to Paris, where the laws are made." The governor turned to O Lalala. "No stakes!" he said. "Mais, non! Not a sou!" the lame man promised.
The people of this isolated valley, forgetting their brief encounter with the European idea of money and of the accumulation of property, had reverted to the ways of their fathers. Before interference with their natural customs the Marquesans were communists to a large degree.
He said that he had come in their interest; that he would not cheat them or betray them; that he would make them well if they were sick. The French flag was their flag; the French people loved them. The Marquesans listened without interest, as if he spoke of some one in Tibet who wanted to sell a green elephant. In the South Seas a meeting out-of-doors means a dance.
Trash! And the same gentleman, some half an hour later, being upon a different train of thought, dwelt at length on the esteem in which the Marquesans held that sort of property, how they preferred it to all others except land, and what fancy prices it would fetch.
They lived like affectionate brothers of one family, he said, the authority of the chiefs being only that of fathers among children. They had no mode of punishment for there were no offenders. Theft was unknown, and all property was left unguarded. So Porter, who, with his ship's company, killed so many Marquesans, was fully aware of their civic virtues, their kindness, gentleness and generosity.
Captain Cook called the Marquesans the most splendid islanders in the South Seas. The men were described, as "in almost every instance of lofty stature, scarcely ever less than six feet in height." And now all this strength and beauty has departed, and the valley of Typee is the abode of some dozen wretched creatures, afflicted by leprosy, elephantiasis, and tuberculosis.
Thus I have heard the mortality of the Maoris attributed to their change of residence from fortified hill-tops to the low, marshy vicinity of their plantations. How plausible! And yet the Marquesans are dying out in the same houses where their fathers multiplied. Or take opium.
The Marquesans of the north said their race came from Hawaii, and those of the south from Vavao. Seventeen places they had stopped at in their great migration eastward, they said. Pu te metani me Vevau A anu te tai o Hawa-ii! Pu atu te metani me Hawa-ii A anu te ao e Vevau! Blow winds from Vavao And cool the sea of Hawaii! Blow back, winds from Hawaii, And cool the air of Vavao!
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