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Updated: August 16, 2024
And at length he rose and came down to the oven, saying, 'What's up? "'Plenty kaikai. Big pig come by and by, they said. "So he stood waiting while they dug, and no pig came. Then he said, 'Where is the pig? And at that moment the u'u crashed upon his skull, so that he fell without life and lay in the oven. Wood was piled about him, and he was baked, and there was feasting in Hanamenu.
The hunchback leaped to the edge of the pit. He raised his thin arms in the air, and I seemed to see, amidst the contorted limbs of the aged banian, fifty feet above, the quivering bodies swaying. "The toua breaks! They fall. Here on the rocks. They are killed with blows of the u'u, thus! And thus the meat is cut, and wrapped in the meika aa. Light the fire! Pile in the wood! It roasts!"
His club of ironwood, its edge sharp and toothed, he grasped with both hands; he widened his foothold and threw his body forward to withstand a shock. He calculated to an inch the arrival of the first boar, and swung his u'u on its head with precision. The boar crumpled up and fell down the hillside. The second he struck as unerringly, but the third he chose to kill with his knife.
For himself, he loved the ways of his fathers, and though yielding as he must to the payments of taxes and the authority of new laws, he would not toil in the copra-groves or work on traders' ships. His father had been a warrior of renown. The u'u was wielded no more, being replaced by the guns of the whites. The old songs were forgotten.
They demanded for the case five francs a packet. Many of the younger Marquesans counselled giving the Cantonese a taste of the ancient u'u, the war-club of a previous generation. Desperate as was the plight of the older gamesters, they dared not consent. The governor would return, the law would take its course, and they would go to Noumea to work out their lives for crime.
The kuku is a small green turtle-dove, very common in the islands, and called also u'u and kukupa. Under any of these names the green-feathered morsel is excellent eating when broiled or fried. I did not take a gun, as, unless hunger demands it, I do not like to kill.
"They waited for the space of the waxing and waning of the moon, and the gods said nothing. Then the warriors made ready their u'u of polished ironwood, and filled their baskets with stones, and made ready the spears. On the darkest night of the moon the Piina of Fiti-nui was to go forth to fight and be killed by the Hana-uaua.
But sometimes he was saved by his courage, for our chief after looking at him with terrible eyes, said, 'O man of heart, go your way, and never dare again to fight such a great warrior as I! "That ended the war. The other chief was ashamed, and led his men down to their own valley. But if our chief had killed him, then there was war; at once we struck with the u'u and ran forward with our spears.
He laid down the u'u and drew the knife with one motion, and as the powerful brute rushed at him, stepped aside in the split second between his gauge of its position and its leap. His knife was thrust straight out. It met the boar with perfect and delicate accuracy. The beast fell, quivered a moment, and lay still.
When the spears were thrown, and each man had but one, then the fight was with the u'u, hand to hand and eye to eye. That was a fight of men! The gun is the weapon of cowards. It is the gun that fights, not the man. "Our last fight we brought back four bodies. Meat spoils quickly. We had our feast right here where we sit now."
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