Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  But right for a gate of the reef he silently headed the bark,

  And wielding the single paddle with passionate sweep on sweep,

  Drove her, the little fitted, forth on the open deep.

  And fear, there where she sat, froze the woman to stone:

  Not fear of the crazy boat and the weltering deep alone;

  But a keener fear of the night, the dark, and the ghostly hour,

  And the thing that drove the canoe with more than a mortal’s power

  And more than a mortal’s boldness. For much she knew of the dead

  That haunt and fish upon reefs, toiling, like men, for bread,

  And traffic with human fishers, or slay them and take their ware,

  Till the hour when the star of the dead goes down, and the morning air

  Blows, and the cocks are singing on shore. And surely she knew

  The speechless thing at her side belonged to the grave.

  It blew

  All night from the south; all night, Rahéro contended and kept

  The prow to the cresting sea; and, silent as though she slept,

  The woman huddled and quaked. And now was the peep of day.

  High and long on their left the mountainous island lay;

  And over the peaks of Taiárapu arrows of sunlight struck.

  On shore the birds were beginning to sing: the ghostly ruck

  Of the buried had long ago returned to the covered grave;

  And here on the sea, the woman, waxing suddenly brave,

  Turned her swiftly about and looked in the face of the man.

  And sure he was none that she knew, none of her country or clan:

  A stranger, mother-naked, and marred with the marks of fire,

  But comely and great of stature, a man to obey and admire.

  And Rahéro regarded her also, fixed, with a frowning face,

  Judging the woman’s fitness to mother a warlike race.

  Broad of shoulder, ample of girdle, long in the thigh,

  Deep of bosom she was, and bravely supported his eye.

  “Woman,” said he, “last night the men of your folk —

  Man, woman, and maid, smothered my race in smoke.

  It was done like cowards; and I, a mighty man of my hands,

  Escaped, a single life; and now to the empty lands

  And smokeless hearths of my people, sail, with yourself, alone.

  Before your mother was born, the die of to-day was thrown

  And you selected: — your husband, vainly striving, to fall

  Broken between these hands: — yourself to be severed from all,

  The places, the people, you love — home, kindred, and clan —

  And to dwell in a desert and bear the babes of a kinless man.”

  NOTES TO THE SONG OF RAHÉRO

  Introduction. — This tale, of which I have not consciously changed a single feature, I received from tradition. It is highly popular through all the country of the eight Tevas, the clan to which Rahéro belonged; and particularly in Taiárapu, the windward peninsula of Tahiti, where he lived. I have heard from end to end two versions; and as many as five different persons have helped me with details. There seems no reason why the tale should not be true.

  Note 1, page 5. “The aito,” quasi champion, or brave. One skilled in the use of some weapon, who wandered the country challenging distinguished rivals and taking part in local quarrels. It was in the natural course of his advancement to be at last employed by a chief, or king; and it would then be a part of his duties to purvey the victim for sacrifice. One of the doomed families was indicated; the aito took his weapon and went forth alone; a little behind him bearers followed with the sacrificial basket. Sometimes the victim showed fight, sometimes prevailed; more often, without doubt, he fell. But whatever body was found, the bearers indifferently took up.

  Note 2, page 7. “Pai,” “Honoura,” and “Ahupu.” Legendary persons of Tahiti, all natives of Taiárapu. Of the first two, I have collected singular although imperfect legends, which I hope soon to lay before the public in another place. Of Ahupu, except in snatches of song, little memory appears to linger. She dwelt at least about Tepari,— “the sea-cliffs,” — the eastern fastness of the isle; walked by paths known only to herself upon the mountains; was courted by dangerous suitors who came swimming from adjacent islands, and defended and rescued (as I gather) by the loyalty of native fish. My anxiety to learn more of “Ahupu Vehine” became (during my stay in Taiárapu) a cause of some diversion to that mirthful people, the inhabitants.

  Note 3, page 10. “Covered an oven.” The cooking fire is made in a hole in the ground, and is then buried.

  Note 4, page 10. “Flies.” This is perhaps an anachronism. Even speaking of to-day in Tahiti, the phrase would have to be understood as referring mainly to mosquitoes, and these only in watered valleys with close woods, such as I suppose to form the surroundings of Rahéro’s homestead. Quarter of a mile away, where the air moves freely, you shall look in vain for one.

  Note 5, page 13. “Hook” of mother-of-pearl. Bright-hook fishing, and that with the spear, appear to be the favourite native methods.

  Note 6, page 14. “Leaves,” the plates of Tahiti.

  Note 7, page 16. “Yottowas,” so spelt for convenience of pronunciation, quasi Tacksmen in the Scottish Highlands. The organisation of eight subdistricts and eight yottowas to a division, which was in use (until yesterday) among the Tevas, I have attributed without authority to the next clan: see page 33.

  Note 8, page 17. “Omare,” pronounce as a dactyl. A loaded quarter-staff, one of the two favourite weapons of the Tahitian brave; the javelin, or casting spear, was the other.

  Note 9, page 21. “The ribbon of light.” Still to be seen (and heard) spinning from one marae to another on Tahiti; or so I have it upon evidence that would rejoice the Psychical Society.

  Note 10, page 23. “Námunu-úra.” The complete name is Namunu-ura te aropa. Why it should be pronounced Námunu, dactyllically, I cannot see, but so I have always heard it. This was the clan immediately beyond the Tevas on the south coast of the island. At the date of the tale the clan organisation must have been very weak. There is no particular mention of Támatéa’s mother going to Papara, to the head chief of her own clan, which would appear her natural recourse. On the other hand, she seems to have visited various lesser chiefs among the Tevas, and these to have excused themselves solely on the danger of the enterprise. The broad distinction here drawn between Nateva and Námunu-úra is therefore not impossibly anachronistic.

  Note 11, page 23. “Hiopa the king.” Hiopa was really the name of the king (chief) of Vaiau; but I could never learn that of the king of Paea — pronounce to rhyme with the Indian ayah — and I gave the name where it was most needed. This note must appear otiose indeed to readers who have never heard of either of these two gentlemen; and perhaps there is only one person in the world capable at once of reading my verses and spying the inaccuracy. For him, for Mr. Tati Salmon, hereditary high chief of the Tevas, the note is solely written: a small attention from a clansman to his chief.

  Note 12, page 25. “Let the pigs be tapu.” It is impossible to explain tapu in a note; we have it as an English word, taboo. Suffice it, that a thing which was tapu must not be touched, nor a place that was tapu visited.

  Note 13, page 34. “Fish, the food of desire.” There is a special word in the Tahitian language to signify hungering after fish. I may remark that here is one of my chief difficulties about the whole story. How did king, commons, women, and all come to eat together at this feast? But it troubled none of my numerous authorities; so there must certainly be some natural explanation.

  Note 14, page 41. “The mustering word of the clan.”

  Teva te ua,

  Teva te matai!

  Teva the wind,

  Teva the rain!

  Note 15, page 51. “The star of the dead.” Venus as a morning star. I have collected much curious evidence as to this belie
f. The dead retain their taste for a fish diet, enter into copartnery with living fishers, and haunt the reef and the lagoon. The conclusion attributed to the nameless lady of the legend would be reached to-day, under the like circumstances, by ninety per cent of Polynesians: and here I probably understate by one-tenth.

  Note 16, page 51. See note 15 above.

  THE FEAST OF FAMINE. MARQUESAN MANNERS

  I. THE PRIEST’S VIGIL

  In all the land of the tribe was neither fish nor fruit,

  And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to the foot.

  The clans upon the left and the clans upon the right

  Now oiled their carven maces and scoured their daggers bright;

  They gat them to the thicket, to the deepest of the shade,

  And lay with sleepless eyes in the deadly ambuscade.

  And oft in the starry even the song of morning rose,

  What time the oven smoked in the country of their foes;

  For oft to loving hearts, and waiting ears and sight,

  The lads that went to forage returned not with the night.

  Now first the children sickened, and then the women paled,

  And the great arms of the warrior no more for war availed.

  Hushed was the deep drum, discarded was the dance;

  And those that met the priest now glanced at him askance.

  The priest was a man of years, his eyes were ruby-red,

  He neither feared the dark nor the terrors of the dead,

  He knew the songs of races, the names of ancient date;

  And the beard upon his bosom would have bought the chief’s estate.

  He dwelt in a high-built lodge, hard by the roaring shore,

  Raised on a noble terrace and with tikis at the door.

  Within it was full of riches, for he served his nation well,

  And full of the sound of breakers, like the hollow of a shell.

  For weeks he let them perish, gave never a helping sign,

  But sat on his oiled platform to commune with the divine,

  But sat on his high terrace, with the tikis by his side,

  And stared on the blue ocean, like a parrot, ruby-eyed.

  Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the mountain height:

  Out on the round of the sea the gems of the morning light,

  Up from the round of the sea the streamers of the sun; —

  But down in the depths of the valley the day was not begun.

  In the blue of the woody twilight burned red the cocoa-husk,

  And the women and men of the clan went forth to bathe in the dusk,

  A word that began to go round, a word, a whisper, a start:

  Hope that leaped in the bosom, fear that knocked on the heart:

  “See, the priest is not risen — look, for his door is fast!

  He is going to name the victims; he is going to help us at last.”

  Thrice rose the sun to noon; and ever, like one of the dead,

  The priest lay still in his house with the roar of the sea in his head;

  There was never a foot on the floor, there was never a whisper of speech;

  Only the leering tikis stared on the blinding beach.

  Again were the mountains fired, again the morning broke;

  And all the houses lay still, but the house of the priest awoke.

  Close in their covering roofs lay and trembled the clan,

  But the agèd, red-eyed priest ran forth like a lunatic man;

  And the village panted to see him in the jewels of death again,

  In the silver beards of the old and the hair of women slain.

  Frenzy shook in his limbs, frenzy shone in his eyes,

  And still and again as he ran, the valley rang with his cries.

  All day long in the land, by cliff and thicket and den,

  He ran his lunatic rounds, and howled for the flesh of men;

  All day long he ate not, nor ever drank of the brook;

  And all day long in their houses the people listened and shook —

  All day long in their houses they listened with bated breath,

  And never a soul went forth, for the sight of the priest was death.

  Three were the days of his running, as the gods appointed of yore,

  Two the nights of his sleeping alone in the place of gore:

  The drunken slumber of frenzy twice he drank to the lees,

  On the sacred stones of the High-place under the sacred trees;

  With a lamp at his ashen head he lay in the place of the feast,

  And the sacred leaves of the banyan rustled around the priest.

  Last, when the stated even fell upon terrace and tree,

  And the shade of the lofty island lay leagues away to sea,

  And all the valleys of verdure were heavy with manna and musk,

  The wreck of the red-eyed priest came gasping home in the dusk.

  He reeled across the village, he staggered along the shore,

  And between the leering tikis crept groping through his door.

  There went a stir through the lodges, the voice of speech awoke;

  Once more from the builded platforms arose the evening smoke.

  And those who were mighty in war, and those renowned for an art

  Sat in their stated seats and talked of the morrow apart.

  II. THE LOVERS

  Hark! away in the woods — for the ears of love are sharp —

  Stealthily, quietly touched, the note of the one-stringed harp.

  In the lighted house of her father, why should Taheia start?

  Taheia heavy of hair, Taheia tender of heart,

  Taheia the well-descended, a bountiful dealer in love,

  Nimble of foot like the deer, and kind of eye like the dove?

  Sly and shy as a cat, with never a change of face,

  Taheia slips to the door, like one that would breathe a space;

  Saunters and pauses, and looks at the stars, and lists to the seas;

  Then sudden and swift as a cat, she plunges under the trees.

  Swift as a cat she runs, with her garment gathered high,

  Leaping, nimble of foot, running, certain of eye;

  And ever to guide her way over the smooth and the sharp,

  Ever nearer and nearer the note of the one-stringed harp;

  Till at length, in a glade of the wood, with a naked mountain above,

  The sound of the harp thrown down, and she in the arms of her love.

  “Rua,”— “Taheia,” they cry— “my heart, my soul, and my eyes,”

  And clasp and sunder and kiss, with lovely laughter and sighs,

  “Rua!”— “Taheia, my love,”— “Rua, star of my night,

  Clasp me, hold me, and love me, single spring of delight.”

  And Rua folded her close, he folded her near and long,

  The living knit to the living, and sang the lover’s song:

  Night, night it is, night upon the palms.

  Night, night it is, the land wind has blown.

  Starry, starry night, over deep and height;

  Love, love in the valley, love all alone.

  “Taheia, heavy of hair, a foolish thing have we done,

  To bind what gods have sundered unkindly into one.

  Why should a lowly lover have touched Taheia’s skirt,

  Taheia the well-descended, and Rua child of the dirt?”

  “ — On high with the haka-ikis my father sits in state,

  Ten times fifty kinsmen salute him in the gate;

  Round all his martial body, and in bands across his face,

  The marks of the tattooer proclaim his lofty place.

  I too, in the hands of the cunning, in the sacred cabin of palm,

  Have shrunk like the mimosa, and bleated like the lamb;

  Round half my tender body, that none shall clasp but you,

  For a crest and a fair adornment go dainty lines of blue.

  Love, love, beloved Rua, love level
s all degrees,

  And the well-tattooed Taheia clings panting to your knees.”

  “ — Taheia, song of the morning, how long is the longest love?

  A cry, a clasp of the hands, a star that falls from above!

  Ever at morn in the blue, and at night when all is black,

  Ever it skulks and trembles with the hunter, Death, on its track.

  Hear me, Taheia, death! For to-morrow the priest shall awake,

  And the names be named of the victims to bleed for the nation’s sake;

  And first of the numbered many that shall be slain ere noon,

  Rua the child of the dirt, Rua the kinless loon.

  For him shall the drum be beat, for him be raised the song,

  For him to the sacred High-place the chaunting people throng,

  For him the oven smoke as for a speechless beast,

  And the sire of my Taheia come greedy to the feast.”

  “Rua, be silent, spare me. Taheia closes her ears.

  Pity my yearning heart, pity my girlish years!

  Flee from the cruel hands, flee from the knife and coal,

  Lie hid in the deeps of the woods, Rua, sire of my soul!”

  “Whither to flee, Taheia, whither in all of the land?

  The fires of the bloody kitchen are kindled on every hand;

  On every hand in the isle a hungry whetting of teeth,

  Eyes in the trees above, arms in the brush beneath.

  Patience to lie in wait, cunning to follow the sleuth,

  Abroad the foes I have fought, and at home the friends of my youth.”

  “Love, love, beloved Rua, love has a clearer eye,

  Hence from the arms of love you go not forth to die.

  There, where the broken mountain drops sheer into the glen,

  There shall you find a hold from the boldest hunter of men;

  There, in the deep recess, where the sun falls only at noon,

  And only once in the night enters the light of the moon,

  Nor ever a sound but of birds, or the rain when it falls with a shout;

  For death and the fear of death beleaguer the valley about.

  Tapu it is, but the gods will surely pardon despair;

  Tapu, but what of that? If Rua can only dare.

  Tapu and tapu and tapu, I know they are every one right;

  But the god of every tapu is not always quick to smite.

  Lie secret there, my Rua, in the arms of awful gods,