The Adventures of Vela

by Albert Wendt

  death through the tournament was temporary

  The Tournament was first week of the Mating Season

  (Nothing like brutal violence as thundering foreplay)

  Crews slew each day out on the malae to a river

  of blood my cheering subjects sucked back

  while they fornicated cannibalistically to

  my voyeurism that demanded at week’s end

  a mountain of corpses the victorious crews didn’t

  have time or energy to return to their Caves

  for resurrecting and the delicate Nei maths

  that balanced the whole environment was shattered

  While my subjects were distracted by the Mating

  that followed the Tournament I tried to force

  my linked Guardains to dream back to life

  the dead victims and restore the balance

  but they were still too drugged with the bloodletting

  Desperate I found another crew of nine (women

  massagers) inserted myself into their tenth

  position and linked through their Cave tried

  dreaming awake the balance but failed

  because some corpses were beyond resurrecting

  We the survivors shut ourselves in our Circles

  to escape the drowning stench of corpses

  I hoped my new Crew was the only even-

  numbered survivor with sole mana to

  the Caves’ secret power of healing

  but during our lengthy hibernation I spied

  through our Cave walls three others: my Guardians

  who’d acquired a tenth member one complete

  female crew of chicken breeders and another

  of dreaded eel trappers

  Immediately I used my new Crew and Cave to try

  to erase their mana but discovered

  to my moa-deep horror they were blocking

  my intrusion with equal moves

  to have us eradicated

  Through our Cave’s sight I counted 3511 remaining

  Nei inhabitants and my Crew under my in-

  structions braved that night’s rotten darkness

  and recruited them with promises of unlimited

  killing tournaments and an eternity of mating

  Being expert masseuses they won 2001 disciples

  before the three enemy crews recruited the others

  We evened our army to 2000 invaded

  enough Circles and peopled them with

  our crews programmed to fight to the finish

  I focused our linked 2010 minds on shattering

  the Guardians but as we were attacking the chicken

  breeders (physically) stormed our eastern Circles

  and I had to command our defences

  Unused to combat the breeders simply hurled

  wave after wave of suicidal bodies at our

  brainlinking that fried them to molten matter

  But just on the verge of victory we were attacked

  from the west by equally suicidal eel trappers

  who’d somehow learnt to solidify

  their courage into deadly spears of lightning

  that devastated my forces while I tried

  devising a counter Got it: my masseuses

  and I linked and blew out the brains of

  every eel in our rivers and ocean

  The eel trappers who took breath from their totems

  started dying with the chain explosion but

  just as their threat abated the Guardians focused

  their brainlinking directly on our Cave walls

  We panicked and couldn’t link defensively

  Long jagged fissures fingered across

  our mirror protection Focus focus! I programmed

  our linked Circle and for breathless days

  stayed the breaking Unexpectedly the Guardians

  appeared in our Walls in their grinning circle

  And as their haughty eyes drank up my cohorts’

  courage I felt the Circle’s resolve decreasing

  Hold! I pleaded but couldn’t halt it

  Looked again at the Guardians’ faces

  No no couldn’t believe it:

  All nine Guardians were my replicants down

  to my last detail and in their whirling

  eyes I recognised my madness With that

  our linkage crumbled and our walls broke

  upon us in a thunderous cracking

  I fled the Cliff as the Guardians’ forces swarmed

  over our outer defenses and started clubbing

  at the doors of our Circles Fled

  the evil of my own image and arrogance

  into the black forest of palmtrees

  From where I observed the wars that see-

  sawed across the Sacred Cliff and spilled

  like an epidemic over all of Nei territory

  breaking forever the eternal cycle which had

  guaranteed peace and abundance for every creature

  A tagata is his own vanity’s measure

  I’d reduced Nei to my Samoan reflection

  but too cowardly to accept responsibility built

  a canoe and sailed out of the tragic consequences

  which now nest unhatchable in my memory

  and through my telling bequeath to you for

  whatever wisdom you may gain from it

  and in your telling others in the written language

  of the Tetea bequeath to them and so on

  the planet over Nei shall become our common heritage

  15

  Olfact

  (1) Introduction

  The Tetea attribute emotions to the heart

  intelligence to the brain existence of the mind and soul

  is under dispute For us love is stored

  in the Va between your heart and lungs

  the agaga is wombed in your moa

  In Olfact near the atua-less Equator

  the Olfactor with the keenest nose is kingpin:

  ‘Best smeller is best leader’ ‘Trust only what you

  can smell’ ‘Follow your nostrils’ are only

  a few of their ruling proverbs

  (Smell-less is their word for dead)

  Sensitivity of olfaction is measure of ability

  and even art so in their terms we’re

  primitives not far removed

  from the odourless beast

  Although their language is Polynesian like ours

  theirs is an inexhaustible vocabulary

  for smell: all nuances subtleties shades

  moods seasons species ranks and attitudes

  Over 100 words for BO alone

  They use piss-smell to diagnose illness pregnancy

  state and identity of pisser age gender diet

  and life expectancy: a medical science

  developed to the nth degree (They smelled

  mine and diagnosed duodenal ulcers that bled)

  I observed their famous detective Manogimoenofo

  trace haughty murderer who’d pissed on

  his victim after strangling him: one sniff

  of the killer’s piss then out into the breeze through

  the palmtrees to the surprised murderer’s hut

  At his trial the accused denied it but when

  the elders sniffed his piss and the piss on the victim

  he was exiled to Manogitevolo where no Olfact can survive

  the evil stink of sulphur programmed into their

  psyche at birth as undeniable death

  (2) Education

  ‘Smell your way to wisdom’ is the basis of

  their philosophy For instance their education

  from birth is the training of the nose

  and taste buds to think see create

  the world in all its varied fragrances

  A pregnancy is followed by midwives through

  smell of urine and vulva to tell baby’s gender
>
  possible flaws and strengths (If there’s no

  odour the baby is aborted) As soon as

  the baby is out of the womb the midwife

  pinches its nose and declares it

  orator or priest or tufuga or fisherman

  or whatever talent the nose shape augurs

  The aiga’s elder then breathes into its nostrils

  unblocking it of aitu who might have hitched

  Each elder and parent then sniffs the baby’s armpits

  feet arse and mouth and agree on a name

  All Olfactors are named after smells and aromas

  A common girl’s name is Manogiti (Ti-plant-smell)

  A boy’s name is Manusami (Sea-smell)

  Some pretentious parents coin fancy names:

  Manogimaifititongamalelagituaiva (Scent-from-

  Fiji-Tonga-and-the-Ninth-Heaven) Manulosamaihawaii

  (Scent-of-Rose-from-Hawaii) Manogitagaloaalagi

  (Scent-of-Tagaloaalagi) –this is sacrilege!

  To Olfactors a tagata’s essence is smell and scent

  so the child is introduced first not to words

  but to sniffs and scents of parents relatives home

  pets family property encouraged to improve

  nose power to identify family and their essences

  To them the soul/agaga is the fusion of

  smells that makes you unique and when

  that departs from the body you’re dead

  Intelligence/atamai is that which allows

  you to learn the wisdom of scent essences

  Atamai is presumed innate unequally spread

  and is measured by what they call SQ

  (Scent Quotient) Tests Your SQ score is used

  to guide society’s choice of career rank

  class you can best fit into

  However Olfactor dissenters argue SQ Tests

  are based on elitist assumptions about

  noseshape inborn scentpower and class

  and used to maintain the Smellocracy

  in fragrant oceans of power

  Nevertheless an objective observer should record facts

  so I have to agree with the dissenters’ view

  that though the Smellocracy’s noses were

  extralarge many Olfactors with modest ones

  could outsmell them at every turn

  (3) Selecting Leaders

  The priests allowed me to observe that sacred process

  Manogisili the Boss Priest declared the time

  was near and sent his priests throughout Olfact

  to sample the odours of everything From

  their reports he decided the leader’s hour of birth

  Priests were stationed in every village

  and children born at that hour were brought

  to Manogisili who before Olfact’s Council pronounced

  them Smellocrats to be trained by his staff

  in the smell arts sciences and crafts

  For three months the babies remained unseen

  They emerged from the Temple for public scrutiny

  with noses (miraculously) cloned after Manogisili’s

  flared proboscis (I suspected surgery

  and careful molding of pliant nose bone and flesh)

  Their education continued with the priests

  while the other children at ten were divided

  according to their smell bent and lived in

  communal fale under tuition of masters in each craft

  (Unlike us they didn’t segregate the sexes and work)

  (4) Fishing as Art

  Fishing is my favourite art so I observed that

  training programme first: fifty apprentices acquiring

  the ingenious skills of Tautai Manogisa and

  Tautai Lolototai their most gifted navigator

  and fisherman (and better than our mediocre lot)

  Our art’s purpose they said is blunt: to harvest

  our Sea Atua’s beneficence bring needed goods

  from other lands survive and explore our

  vast Moana’s stretch ruled by atua

  who sometimes want you smell-less so

  our programme is aimed solely at

  succeeding the Final Test or our pupils drown –

  lost at sea to drift to cannibal lands

  And the test? I asked Wait and see

  they said Even our pupils aren’t told until the end

  So imagine a 10-year-old much loved by

  family arriving to learn/survive the Way

  of Manumoana the Sea Atua as taught by

  severe Masters who expected him to be adult

  right from his first step into the scene

  To Olfactors each virtue vice quality

  has a unique mix of scents partly innate but

  can be nurtured or erased through careful

  conditioning in a chosen Way so before

  the Masters see their apprentices with their eyes

  each one has to enter the fale in the utter dark

  stand in the centre strip and turn

  slowly 360 degrees while the Masters sit

  and with their perceptive noses smell out

  (and remember) each one’s flaws and strengths

  For six months Manumoana’s Masters gave

  all their training at night or with

  the fale blinds drawn to minimise use

  of ear and eye (Sometimes ears were

  plugged with husk and eyes were bandaged shut)

  First you had to identify well known smells

  then their ingredients and deeper still

  their chemical components and quantities of mix

  Less familiar odours were then introduced

  and drilled into nostrils’ memory banks

  New smells came next: in this the weakest

  pupils had to learn repeatedly with degrees

  of harsh words and the Masters’ whipping sticks

  Repeat repeat repeat until the knowledge

  was woven like veins into olfactions

  Their study next shifted to the sea –

  the element they had to survive on and in:

  at first Masters and pupils sat on

  the night beach identifying scent of

  every tideshift windmood and swing

  Using forefingers dipped into the sea’s

  netherend taste smell and name the content

  of the water underneath Canoe mounted

  they then paddled round the lagoon tasting

  smelling and recording each location’s mix

  From safety of lagoon the training shifted to

  Moana’s unpredictable deep on huge alia

  and small fleet of canoes and again in

  night and darkness pupils learned taste

  smell moods and directions of the sea

  That stage’s test was for each pupil to navigate

  the Masters to a chosen point

  and back to locate certain schools of fish

  predict tides and weather and survive

  five weeks without food except what they caught

  Again you had to score one hundred percent then

  the Masters taught each star in heaven’s night map

  lying on your patient back nose and eyes

  all night memorising every shift and star mix

  Listen smell remember recall repeat

  Then to that map they added names and smells of

  reefs islands lands you could find

  following your educated smellsense and memory

  to known Moana’s ends and the tips

  of the atua’s familiar scents

  I’d come to love the pupils (though they considered

  me senile – No smellpower Vela they joked)

  and I told the Masters I was singing

  my songs at their graduation feast

  What feast? they asked There’s yet the Final Test

  In all Olfact the
Masters had suffered and survived

  the longest sea drifts had discovered new lands

  to expand variety of fragrances and the stepping

  stones for Manumoana’s children to walk

  across the sea’s downsucking depths

  They were worshipped as icons of courage

  and smellectual strength heroes who’d endured

  the smell-less abyss over and over again

  but I sensed at the price of having to deny

  love scents for lovers are often lost to Manumoana’s Way

  I suspected also they disdained loving because it

  didn’t measure up to the euphoric scents of danger

  and the excrutiating fear of death in Manu-

  moana’s demanding breath: Danger’s smells

  are a fantastic trip! Manogisa once exclaimed

  (5) Other Arts

  I’ll leave description of the Final Test to

  my tale’s end and describe other Olfactor

  practices and arts we can learn much from

  As songmaker/poet I was interested in their

  unusual (to say the least) music and poetry

  Their musicians/poets were selected by the priests

  out of those born into the Smellocracy

  Selection was based on results of Ability Tests

  developed centuries before by their Master

  Songmaker Manogipesemalie the First

  after whom every Master Songmaker is called

  and numbered successively Manogipesemalie

  the 40th was in charge when I was in Olfact

  250 years old they said but looked a vigorous 50

  and still smelling-into-being a river of songs

  Out of that annual selection of Smellocrats

  I observed a girl and two boys undergoing