Michener, James

by Hawaii

  "Oh, no" the sailor pleaded.

  "I watched his lips," the priest said with awful finality. Attendants from the temple gathered up the quaking steersman and hauled him off, for his legs, surrendering to terror, could not be forced to work.

  "And you!" the dreadful voice cried again, thrusting his staff at an unsuspecting watcher. "In the temple of Oro, on the holy day, your head nodded. You shall be second." Once more the attendants closed in on the culprit, dragging him away, but gently lest Oro be offered as a human sacrifice a man who was bruised or in any way imperfect.

  Solemnly the High Priest withdrew and King Tamatoa was left with the miserable task of nominating the six additional human sacrifices. He asked, "Where is my aide?" and from a spot toward the rear of the crowd, where he had hoped to remain unnoticed, the tall and trembling courtier stepped forth.

  "Why was I late in greeting the sacred one?" the king demanded.

  "The lookout stumbled. It was he who was tardy," the aide explained.

  From the rear of the crowd a woman's voice inadvertently blurted, "No, that is not true!" But the woman's husband, a small man of no marked intelligence, was dragged before the king, where he shook like a torn banana leaf, and the king surveyed him with disgust. "He shall be third," the king commanded.

  "Oh, please no!" the lookout protested. "I ran true. But when I reached the palace," and he pointed to the aide, "he was asleep."

  The king recalled his earlier impatience with the young courtier and announced peremptorily: "He shall be fourth. The rest shall be taken from the slaves." With this he strode back to the palace, while the lookout and the tall courtier, already pinioned by the priests, stood in limp amazement, appalled by the catastrophe in which each had so accidentally involved the other.

  As the frightened crowd dispersed, each congratulating himself that for this convocation he had escaped the insatiable hunger of Oro, a young chief clothed in golden tapa, which indicated that he was of the royal family, stood bitter and silent in the shade of a breadfruit tree. He had not hidden himself through fear, for he was taller than most, better muscled than any, and marked by a lean, insolent courage that no man could mistake. He had remained apart because he hated the High Priest, despised the new god Oro, and was revolted by the incessant demand for human sacrifice.

  The High Priest, of course, had immediately detected the young chief's absence from the welcoming throng, a breach of conformity which so enraged him that during the most solemn part of the ceremony his penetrating gaze had flashed this way and that, searching for the young man. Finally the priest had found him, lounging insolently under the breadfruit tree, and the two men had exchanged long, defiant stares that had been broken only when a golden-skinned

  young woman with flowing hair that held banana blossoms tugged at her husband's arm, forcing him to drop his eyes.

  Now, with the ceremony ended, the stately wife was pleading: "Teroro, you must not go to the convocation."

  "Who else can command our canoe?" he asked impatiently.

  "Is a canoe so important?"

  Her husband looked at her in amazement. "Important? What could there be more important?"

  "Your life," she said simply. "Wise navigators do not sail when the clouds are ominous."

  He dismissed her fears and strode disconsolately to a fallen log that projected into the lagoon. Falling angrily upon it, he dipped his brown feet into the silvery waters, and kicked them viciously as if he hated even the sea; but soon his placid wife, lovely in the fragrance of banana blossoms, came and sat beside him, and when her feet splashed in the cool green waters, it was as if a child were playing, and soon her husband forgot his anger. Even when he stared across to the small promontory on which the local temple sat, and where the priests were dedicating the eight doomed men to Oro, he spoke� without the animal anger that had possessed him during the cere-1 monies.^

  "I'm not afraid of the convocation, Marama," he said firmly. 1

  "I am afraid for you," his wife replied.a

  "Look at our canoe!" he digressed, pointing to a long shed near the temple, under which a mammoth twin-hulled canoe rested. "You wouldn't want anyone else to guide that, would you?" he teased.

  Marama, whose priestly father had selected the sacred logs for the craft, needed no reminder of its importance, so she contented herself with pointing out: "Mato from the north can guide the canoe."

  Then Teroro divulged his real reason for attending the dangerous convocation: "My brother may need my help."

  "King Tamatoa will have many protectors," Marama replied.

  "Without me events could go badly," Teroro stubbornly insisted, and wise Marama, whose name meant the moon, all-seeing and compassionate, recognized his mood and retreated to a different argument.

  She said, "Teroro, it is you mainly that the High Priest suspects of being disloyal to his red god Oro."

  "No more than the others," Teroro growled.

  "But you're the one who shows your disbelief," she argued.

  "Sometimes I can't hide it," the young chief admitted.

  Furtively, Marama looked about to see if any spy had crept upon them, for the High Priest had his men in all places, but today there was none, and with her feet in the lagoon she resumed her careful reasoning. "You must promise me," she insisted, "that if you do go to Oro's temple, you will pray only to Oro, think only of Oro. Remember how the steersman's lips were read."

  "I've been to three convocations at Havaiki," Teroro assured her. "I know the dangers."

  "But not this special danger," his wife pleaded.*1

  "What is different?" he asked.

  Again Marama looked about her and again she saw nothing, so she spoke: "Haven't you wondered why the High Priest spent ten extra days at Havaiki?"'

  "I suppose he was preparing for the convocation."

  "No. That must have been decided many days earlier. To permit canoes from Tahiti and Moorea to return to Havaiki by tomorrow. Last year a woman from Havaiki confided to me that the priests there consider our High Priest the ablest of all, and they plan to promote him to some position of prominence."

  "I wish they would," Teroro grumbled. "Get him off this island."

  "But they wouldn't dare make him paramount priest so long as his own island is not completely won over."

  As Marama talked, her husband began to pick up a thread of importance, which often occurred when the wise moon-faced woman spoke, and he leaned forward on the log to listen. She continued: "It seems to me that the High Priest will have to do everything possible in this convocation to prove to the priests of Havaiki that he is more devoted to Oro than they."

  "In order to make himself eligible for promotion?" Teroro asked.

  "He must."

  "What do you think he will do?" Teroro asked.

  Marama hesitated to utter the words, and at that moment an unexpected wind blew across the lagoon and threw small waves at her feet. She drew her toes from the lagoon and dried them with her hands, still not speaking, so Teroro continued her thought: "You think that to impress others, the High Priest will sacrifice the king?"

  "No," Marama corrected. "It is your feet he will place upon the rainbow."

  Teroro reached up and tugged at the tip of a breadfruit leaf and asked thoughtfully, "Will the killing then stop?"

  "No," his wife replied gravely, "it will go on until all your friends have left the lagoon. Only then will Bora Bora be safe for Oro."

  "Men like Mato and Pa?"

  "They are doomed," Marama said.

  "But you think not the king?"

  "No, the queenly young woman reasoned. "Your brother is well loved by the kings of Tahiti and Moorea, and such a bold step might turn not only those kings but people in general against the new god."

  "But offering me to Oro would be permitted?" Teroro pursued.

  "Yes. Kings are always willing to believe the worst of younger brothers."

  Teroro turned on the log to study his beautiful wife and thought to
himself: "I don't appreciate her good sense. She's a lot like her father." Aloud he said, "I hadn't reasoned it out the way you have, Marama. All I knew was that this time there was special danger."

  "It is because you, the brother of the king, still worship Tane,"

  "Only in my heart do I do that."

  "But if I can read your heart," Marama said, "so can the priests."

  HAWAII

  22

  Teroro's comment on this was forestalled by an agitated messenger, his arm banded by a circle of yellow feathers to indicate that he belonged to the king. "We have been looking for you," he told Teroro. "I've been studying the canoe," the young chief growled. "The king wants you."

  Teroro rose from the log, banged his feet on the grass to knock away the water, and nodded an impersonal farewell to his wife. Following the messenger, he reported to the palace, a large, low building held up by coconut-tree pillars, each carved with figures of gods and highly polished so that white flecks in the wood gleamed. The roof consisted of plaited palm fronds, and there were no floors or windows or side walls, just rolled-up lengths of matting which could be dropped for either secrecy or protection from rain. The principal room contained many signs of royalty: feather gods, carved shark's teeth, and huge Tridacna shells from the south. The building had two beautiful features: it overlooked the lagoon, on whose outer reef high clouds of spray broke constantly; and all parts of the structure were held together by thin, strong strands of golden brown sennit, the marvelous island rope woven from fibers that filled the husks of coconuts. Nearly two miles of it had been used in construction; wherever one piece of timber touched another, pliant golden sennit held the parts together. A man could sit in a room tied with sennit and revel in its intricate patterns the way a navigator studies stars at night or a child tirelessly watches waves on sand.

  Beneath the sennit-tied roof sat King Tamatoa, his big broad face deeply perturbed. "Why has a convocation been called?" he asked peremptorily. Then, as if fearing the answer, he quickly dismissed all who might be spies. Drawing closer on the tightly woven mat that formed the floor, he placed his two hands on his knees and asked, "What does it mean?"

  Teroro, who did not see things quickly himself, was not above reciting his wife's analyses as his own, and now explained, "It looks to me as if our High Priest must be seeking promotion to the temple in Havaiki, but in order to be eligible he has to do something dramatic." He paused ominously.

  "Like what?" the king asked.

  "Like eliminating the last signs of Tane worship in Bora Bora. Like sacrificing you ... at the height of the convocation."

  "I'm fearful of just such a plot," Tamatoa confessed. "If he waits till we're in convocation, he could suddenly point at me the way they pointed at our father, and . . ." The troubled king made a slashing swipe at his brother's head, adding dolefully, And my murder would be sanctified because Oro had ordained it."

  "More likely the High Priest," Teroro corrected.

  Tamatoa hesitated, as if probing his younger brother's mind, and then added petulantly, "And my death would go unavenged."

  Self-pity was so alien to Tamatoa, whose warlike capacities and prudent leadership had kept little Bora Bora free from invasion by

  FROM THE SUN-SWEPT LAGOON23

  its larger neighbors, that Teroro suspected his brother of laving some kind of trap, so the younger man fought down his inclination to confess his own plans for the convocation and observed idly, "The canoe will be launched at noon."

  "Will it be ready by sunset?" the king asked.

  "It will, but I hope you won't be on it."

  "I am determined to go to this convocation," Tamatoa replied.

  "Only evil can befall you," Teroro insisted.

  The king rose from his mats and walked disconsolately to the palace entrance, from which he could see the majestic cliffs of Bora Bora and the sun-swept lagoon. "On this island," he said with deep emotion, "I grew in joy. I have always walked in the shadow of those cliffs, and with those waves clutching at my ankles. I've seen the other islands, and the bays of Moorea are lovely. The crown at Tahiti is good to see, and the long beaches of Havaiki. But our island is man's heaven on earth. If I must be sacrificed to bring this island into harmony with new gods, then I will be sacrificed."

  The images evoked by Tamatoa's memories of the Bora Bora of their youth accomplished what his guile had been unable to do, and Teroro cried, "Brother, do not go to Havaiki!"

  "Why not?" Tamatoa asked, flashing around and moving back to the mats.

  "Because your departure to the gods will not save Bora Bora." "Why not?" Tamatoa demanded, thrusting his face close to Teroro's.

  "Because when the club falls, I shall kill the High Priest. I will rage through all Havaiki and destroy it. Then the other islands will destroy us.

  "As I thoughtl" the king cried sharply. "You have a plan to riot. Oh, Teroro, it will accomplish nothing. You cannot go to the convocation."

  "I will be there," Teroro muttered stubbornly. The king stood grave in the morning shadows and pointed his right forefinger at Teroro. "I forbid you to leave Bora Bora."

  At this moment the warrior-king Tamatoa, burly and serious-faced, was a symbol of overpowering authority to his younger brother, and the projecting finger almost made Teroro tremble; for although he wanted to grasp his brother by that finger, and then by his hand, and finally by his strong arm and thus pull him down onto the mats for an honest conversation, the young chief could never have brought himself to touch the king, because he knew that the king was the instrumentality whereby the gods delivered mana�the spiritual sane-tification of the heavens�to Bora Bora, and even to touch a king or pass upon his shadow was to drain away some of that mana and thus imperil not only the king but the entire society.

  Yet Teroro's desire for words with his brother was so great that he prostrated himself on the matting, crept on his belly to him, and

  24HAWAII

  pressed his face close to the king's feet, whispering, "Sit with me, brother, and let us talk." And while the flies droned in morning heat, the two men talked.

  They were a handsome pair, separated in age by six years, for a sister had been born between, and each was aware of the special bond that linked him to the other, for as boys their wrists had been opened one solemn day, and each had drunk the blood of the other. Their father, dead as a sacrifice to Oro, had named his first son Tamatoa, the Warrior; and then when a younger brother was born the family had reasoned: "How fortunatel When Tamatoa becomes king he will have his brother to serve him as high priest." And the younger child had been named Teroro, the Brain�the intelligent one, the man who can divine complex things quickly. But so far he had not proved his name to be appropriate.

  Tamatoa, of course, had developed into a classical island warrior, rugged, big-boned and grave. Like his dedicated ancestors he had defended Bora Bora against all cabals and concentrations. Six times in his reign of nine years he had been called to beat back invaders from powerful Havaiki, so that the sudden supremacy of that island's new god, Oro, was especially galling; the ancient enemy seemed about to conquer by guile what it had never been able to take by force. Teroro, on the other hand, had not lived up to his name, and showed no signs of becoming a priest. Tall and wiry, with a handsome thin face, he loved brawling, had an impetuous temper and was slow to grasp abstract ideas. But his greatest failing was that he could not memorize genealogies or sacred chants. His love was navigation and the challenge of unknown seas. Already he had driven his canoe to distant Nuku Hiva, while a run down to Tahiti was familiar play.

  "I am afraid it is for you the gods will send the rainbow," Tamatoa whispered.

  "We have stood against them in the past, we can do so again."

  "In the past they had canoes and spears. Now they have plans and plots. I don't feel hopeful."

  "Are you afraid?" Teroro asked bluntly.

  "Yes," the king confessed. "New ideas are afoot, and I can't seem to grasp them. How has the
High Priest succeeded in manipulating our people so successfully?"

  "New gods are popular, I suppose," Teroro hazarded. "When our people see many sacrifices they know the gods listen. It makes the island seem safer."

  The king studied his brother for a moment, then asked cautiously, "Would it not be possible for you to accept their new god?"

  "Impossible," Teroro said flatly. "I was born with the blessing of Tane. My father died defending Tane, and his father before him. I will never consider another god."

  The king breathed deeply and said, "Those are my thoughts, too. But I am afraid the High Priest will destroy us, Teroro."

  "How can he?" the impetuous young warrior demanded.

  "By tricks, by plans, by clever ideas."

  FROM THE SON-SWEPT LAGOON

  25

  "I'll trick himl" Teroro cried in frustration. Slashing his hand across his knee he muttered, "I'll trick his head into a mass of coconut jelly."

  "That's why you mustn't attend this convocation," Tamatoa said. Teroro stood humbly before the king, yet spoke stubbornly: "Beloved brother, that is why I must go." Then, rising, he moved about the palace mats and said prophetically, "The High Priest will not destroy us. If we go down, he goes down with us. The whole island goes down. Brother, I swore to our father that I would protect you. I'm going to the convocation, to protect you. But I will give you my promise not to riot unless they strike you." "They won't strike me, Teroro. They'll strike you." "They had better strike with the speed of a hungry shark," Teroro laughed, and with this he walked out into the glorious high noon of Bora Bora, when the sun blazed overhead and filtered through palm fronds and breadfruit leaves, making soft patterns in the dust. Naked children called back and forth in their games, and fishermen hauled their canoes onto the beach. The soporific haze of noon, compounded of sunlight and dust was upon the island, and all things were beautiful. How restful this moment was, when the sun hung for a moment in midheaven, casting no shadows; flies droned and old women slept. Through the beautiful and dusty heat Teroro moved slowly to where the great ceremonial canoe of Bora Bora rested, and as he went he called, "Into the water! Into the water!"