THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG. TA Cop¥right, 1920, by The Century Company; published by special arrangement with The McClure Newspaper Syndicate. White Shadows In The South Seas By FREDERICK O'BRIEN With what delight I returned to lazy days in Atuona Valley, lounging on the black paepae of my own smal blue cabin in the shadow of Temiteu, idling on the sun-warm sands of the familiar beach, walking the rememb- ered road between banana hedges heavy with yellowing fruit! The heart of man puts down roots wherever it rests; it is perhaps this sense of home that gives the zest to wandering, for new experiences gain their value from contrast with the old, and one must have felt the bondage, however light, of emotion and habit before he San know the joy of freedom from it. Still a man leaves part of himself in every home he makes, and the wanderer, free of the one strong cord that would hold him to one place, feels always the urge of a thousand slender temp- orary homes he has made everywhere on the world, So the id routine | sloged aiound we leasantly; e shade o: re a breadfruit, eating the braanfasts prepared for me by Ex- loding over the fire of cocoanut usks, bathes in the clear pool of the river with my neighbors, afternoons spent in the aol, roves or with merry companions on the o lodiny Exes directed the surf DObRg with a sure hand, lying flat, kneeling or even standing on the long plank as he came in on the crest of the breaktny, 1 had now Foon a ain succeeded in being carried g whi y the board, bu failed many times oftener than I suc- ceeded. Now I set myself in earnest to learn the art of mastering the surf. g Three cr four o'clock in the after- noon was the time I usually chose for and once I had made it a ce, all the bo s and girls of the village accompanied me, or waited for me at the shore, sure of hilarious hours, I must make children my com- ons here, for my older friends were so oopressed by the gloom of race extinc jon that save for Mali- cious Goss p and one or two others, ther¢ was no capacity for joyousness left in them, Exploding Eges was my chum, paid as forager and firemaker, but giving from friendliness his ser- vices as a wise and admirable teacher of the unknown to one unmade by civilization. The bay of Atuona, narrow between high clilts covered with cocoanut- trees, was the scene of my lessons. The tide came booming into this cove from the Bay of Traitors, often with bewildering force, and a day or twara month as as the waves at Waikiki. e river spread a broad mouth to drink the brine, and the white sand was over-run by the flow- ered vines that crept seaward to. taste the salt. No house was in sight, no man-made structure to maz the P mh, ve, as our merry crew ys Sh sported naked in the surf, fished gE e rocks, or lay upon the shin- beach. ing, first essay I used the lid of 8por that had enclosed an ornate cof- ordered from Tahiti by a chief who anticipated dying. It was large, weighty to drag or pu pio to the proper distance. _valiantly with it, I reached some dis- fice rom the Shar Ee wore urn. e wa Sd above me in sheets of clearest emerald crested with spray, breaking into foam and rising again, endlessly reshaping, repeating . selves. . Awaiting my opportunity, 1 chose one as it_ rose pehiind me, end | flu If upon it. Up and up an hr a carried by resistless momentum, and suddenly like a chip | in a hurricane I was flung forward a a fearsome speed, gh 1 of wind and water, seeing the beach dashing toward me, tin with exultation. i At the next instant my trus turned traitor. Its prow the waves, benging my head sand, 1 upon by foll waves that piled me foto shallow water, rol- me over and over, S me rose Eggs hold- and | longer Marquesan boys and 1s, weaned, and laug! breathing. 2 l4Nec literas imever a failure, while Gedge's little If-breed daughter, a beautiful fairy-like creature, darted upon the sea as a butterfly upon a zephyr. . After several weeks of effort and mishap, one dayfthe secret came to me like a flash, the trick was learned. I had been using the great board and was weary. | exchanged with Exploding Eggs for a plank three feet long and fourteen inches wide. Almost exhausted, I waited as usual with the butt of the board against my stomach for the incoming breaker to be just behind and above me, and then Jeaped forward to kick out vigorously, e board pressed inst me and my hands extended along its sides, to get in time with the wave: But the had tions, I straightened myself out rigid- T and lo! I shot in like a torpedo on e very top of the billow, holding the point of ie board up, yelling like a 01 e o So fast, so straight did 1 go, that it was all { could do to swerve in Yave was upon me before 1 shallow water and not be' hurled with force on the sand. "Metai!l Me metail" cried my friends in excited - congratulation, while like all men who succeed by ac- cident, I stood proudly, taking the plaudits as my due. 2 From that afternoon I had most ex- hilarating sport, and indeed, this is the very king of amuséments for fun and exercise. Skeeing; tobogganing, skating, all land sports fade before the thrills of this; nor will anything ve such abounding health and joy in iving as surf-riding in sunny seas. A hundred afternoons on Atuona Bay I spent in this exhilarating pas- time. To it we added embellishments, multiplying éxcitements. A score of us oe start at the same moment from the same line and race to shore; we would carry two on a board; we would stand and kneel and direct our course so that we could touch a marked spot on the beach or curve about and swerve and jostle each other. Exploding Eggs was the king of us all, and Teata was queen. She advanced as effortlessly as a mermaid, her superb shining on the shin- ing water, tossing her long black hair, land shrigking with delight. Occasfonally we varied these sports by a much more dangerous and ardu- ous game. We would ig our boards far out in the bay, half a mile or more, diving under each wave we faced, until after tremendous effort we reached the farthest seaward line of breakers. Often while I swam, clinging to the board and struggling with the waves for its possession, saw in the emerald water curling above me the shadowy shapes of thought to execute these instruc- |F 1 [patience and dexterity, I never suc- We found lobsters among the rocks, too, and on some béaches a strange kind .of lobsterish delicacy called in Tahiti varo, a kind of mantis-shrimp that looks like a superlatively villain- ous centipede. They grow from six to twelve inches jong and a couple of inches wide, with legs or feclers a along their sides, like the teeth of a socket-comb. Their shells are transul- cent yellow with black markings; the female wears a red stripe down her buck and carries red eggs beneath her. Both she and her mate, with their thousand crawling legs, their hideous heads and tails, have a most repulsive appearance. If one did not know they are excellent food cnd most innocent in their habits, one would flee preci- pitately at sight of them. Catching the varo is a delicate and skilful art. They live in the shallows near the beach, digging their holes in the sand under two or three feet of water, When the wind ruffles the sur- face, it is impossible to see the holes, but en calm days we waded knee-deep ip the clear water, stepping carefully ald peering i='mtly for the homes of the sea-cer* Finding one, we cautiously N into the hole a spool fitted v. , dozen hooks. A pair of tn. atures inhabits the same den. If th. vale was at home, he seized grapu.l and was quickly lifted and captured, the hooks being lowered again for the female. But if the female emerged first, it was a sure sign that her mate was absent. I pondered as to this habit of the varo, and would have liked to persu- ade me that the male, being a court- eous shrimp, combatted the invading hooks first in an effort to protect his mate. But the grapnel is baited with fish, and though masculine pride could wish that chivalry urged the creature to defend his domestic shrine, it ap- pears regrettably certain that he is merely after the bait, to which he clings with such selfish obstinacy that he sacrifices his liberty and his life.d However, the lady soon shows the same grasping tendency, and their deserted tenement is filled by the shifting sands. Catching varo calls' for much ceeded in landing one, but Teata would often skip Back to the sands of large fish, carried on the crests of the bo fey transfigured clearly against the sky; fins penis and tails out- lined with light. ; Once in smoother water we waited | for the proper moment, counting the foam-crests as they . Waves go in multiples of three, the third being and going farther than the two before it, and the ninth, or third third, being = strongest of all. This ninth | wave we waited for. Choosing any other meant being spilled in tumbling water when it broke far from land, and fallin ones which bruised unme We But taking the ninth monster at its start, we rode, marvelously, staying at its summit as it mounted higher and higher, shouting above the lesser ers, until dashed upon the smooth sand half a mile away. Exult- ation kept the heart in the throat, the julse beating wildly, as the breaker re its way over the foaming roll I on the roof of the swell, lying a most over its front wall, holding like death to my plank while the wind sang in my ears--and sky and. sea mingled in rushing blueness. 2 To such a ride twice in an afternoon taxed my strength, but the irls were never at my violent The Romans ranked swimming with letters, saying of an uneducated man, didicit nec natare."--He learned to read "mor to swim. The sea is the book of ihe South Sea Islanders. They swim as they walk, be as babies to dive mg to frolic in water. Their 0 | mothers place them om the river bank of | are swimming in challow water, becs scr inch by inch from my by ped i with the rough wooed. would not give np until 1 had to, and was con scing. from head to foot, I the sand, and i at a day old, and in a féw months they two and three years they play in the surf, swimming with the easy wcotion of a frog. They have mo feur of the water:to overcome, for the are ac- customed to the element FM birth, and it is to them as natural as and. 1t should be =o with all, for human locomotion in water is no mere tire- some or difficult than on the earth. One element is as suitable to man as the trans tion of him- . natural rough a grove. I ha with an infant at her breast lea from?" 3 swim through ? 2 ils . gE oF Fro Ee : i i : i fl soil $ 5 3 A = ¥ 3 HH i Iwould make prey to the succeeding i {png this of the beach with a string of them. Six a meal, with bread and wine, and they are most enjoyable hot, though also most dangerous. "Begin their eating by sucking ome cold," warned Exploding Eggs when presiding over my first feast upon the twelve-inch centipedes. "If he does not grip you inwardly, you may then eat them hot and in great numbers." Many white men cannot eat the varo. Some lose appetite at its ap- pearande, its likeness to a gigantic thousand-leg, and others find that it rests uneasy within them, as though claw, or tooth of the comb, viciously stabbed their interiors. 1 found them excellent when wrap in leaves of the hotu-tree and fried in brown butter, and they were' very wood when broiled over a fire on the beach. One takes the beastie in his fingers and sucks out the meat. Be- ginners should keep their eyes closed ration. In the old days this island of Fatu- hiva was the art center of the Mar- quesas. The fame of its tattooers, carvers in wood and stone, makers of canoes, paddles, and war-clubs, had resounded through the archipelago A GLIMPSE OF THE brou; shou! for centuries. Now it is one of the few places where even a feeble survival of those industries give the newcomers a glimpse of their methods and ideals now sinking, like their originators, in the mire of wretch 3 Qutside the mission gates, while I was there, I came upon two old wo- men making tapa cloth. Shrunken with age, toothless, decrepit, their only covering the ragged and faded pareus that spoke of poverty, they sat in the shade of a banian-tree, beatin the fibrous inner bark of the bread- fruit-tree. Over the hollow log that resounded with the blows of their wooden mallets the cloth moved slow- ly, doubling on the ground into a heap of silken texture, firm, thin, and soft. This paper-cloth was once made throughout all the South Sea Islands, Breadfruit, banian, mulberry, and other barks furnished the fiber. The outer rough bark was scraped off with a Ahell, and the inner rind slightly aten and allowed to ferment. It was then beaten over a tree-trunk with mallets of iron-wood about eighteen inches long, grooved coarsely on ome side and more finely on the other. The fibers were so closely interwoven by this beating that in the finished cloth one could not guess the process of making. When finished, the fabric was bleached in the sun to a dazzling white, and from it the Marquesans of old wrought wondrous garments, For their caps they made remark- ably fine textures, open-meshed, filmy as gauze, which confined their abun- dant black hair, and to which were added flowers, either natural or beau- tifully presesrved in wax. Their prin- cipal garment, the cahu, was a long and flowing piece of the paper-cloth, of firmer texture, dyed in brilliant colors, or of white adorned with taste- ful Jattamns, This hung from the shoulders, where it was knotted on one shoulder, leaving one arm and part of the breast exposed. Much in- dividual taste was exxpressed in the wearing of this garment; sometimes the knot was on one shoulder, some- times on the other, or it might be ght low on the chest, leaving the ders and arms bare, or thrown behind to expose the charms of a well-formed back or a slender waist. Beneath it they wore a pareu, which ed assed twice around the waists and vag to the calves of the legs. ean and neat as these garments always were, shining in the sun, leav- ing body free to know the joys of sun and air and swift, easy motion, it would be difficult to imagine a more graceful, beautiful, modest, and com- fortable manner of dressing. ~ For dyeing these nts in all the hues that fancy dictated, the wo- men used the juices of herb and tree. Candlenut-bark gave a rich chocolate hue; scarlet was obtained from the mati-berries mixed with the leaves:'of the tou. Yellow came from the inner bark of the root of the morinda citri- folia. Hibiscus flowers or delicate ferns were dipped in these colors and impressed on the tapas in elegant de~ signs. The garments were virtually inde- FUTURE XVL-Sea Sports and Sea Food of the Marquesans How to Catch, Cook and Eat a Centipede, and Other Dainties That the Islanders Relish. structible. Did a dress 'need repairin the edges of the rent were rei and beaten together, or a handful of fiber was beaten in as a patch. Often for fishermen the tapas were made waterproof by added thicknesses and the employment of gums and water- proof cloth for wrappings was made thick and impervious to rain as the oilcloth it resembled, Hardly one of these garments sur- vives in the Marquesas today. They have been driven out by the gaudy Prints of Germany and England brought by the traders, and by the ideas of dress which the missionaries imported together with the barrels of hideous night-gown garments contrib- uted by worthy ladies of American villages. The disappearance of these native garments brought two things, idle- ness and the rapid spread of tubercu- losis. The tapa clo could not be worn in the water or the rain, as it disintegrated. Marquesans therefore left their robes in the house when they went abroad in stormy 'weather or bathed in the sea. But in their new calicos and ginghams they walked in the rain, bathed in the rivers, and re- turned to sleep huddled in the wet folds, ignorant of the danger. As the tapa disappeared, 20 did the beautiful carvings of canoes and pad- dles and clubs, superseded by the cheaper, machine-made articles of the whites. Little was left to occupy the hands or minds of the islanders; who, their old merrymakings stopped, their wars forbidden, their industry taken from them, could only sit on their paepaes yawning like children in jail and waiting for the, death that soon came. The Marquesans never made a pot. They had clay in their soil, as Gau- guin proved by using it for iis model- ing, but Shey had no need of pottery, using exclusively the gourds from the vines, wooden vessels hollowed out, and temporary cups of leaves. This absence of pottery is another proof of the lengthy isolation of the islands. The Tongans had earthen ware which they learned to make from the Fijians, but the Polynesians had left the mainland before the ginning of this art. Thus they remain- a people who were, despite their startling advances in many lines, the least encum by wu inventions of any race in the world. Until hardly more than a hundred years age the natives were like our forefathers - who lived millenniums ago in Europe. But being in a gentler climate, they were fonttes, happier merrier, and far cleaner. One can hardly dwell'in a spirit of filial devo- tion upon the relation of our fore- fathers to soap and water, but these Marquesans bathed several times daily in dulcet streams and found soap and emolients to hand. It was curious to me to reflect, while Pere Olivier and I stood watch- ing the two aged crones beating out the tapa cloth, upon what slender chance hung the difference between us. Far in the remote mists of time, when a tribe set out upon its wander- ings from ' the home land, one man, perhaps, hesitated, dimly felt the dan- gers and uncertainties before it, weighed the advantages of remaining behind, and did not go. Had he gone, 1 or any one of Caucasian blood in the world today, might have been a Mar- quesan. It would be interesting, 1 thought, Sh o> sand years that have passed since that day have given us of joy, wealth of mind and soul and oyn real value in customs of what would have quesan. long, five inches in diameter at the in a purau rope, which had to be un<| wound and which weighed two pounds. The eleven pounds of tobacco were hard as wood, the leaves cement- ed by moisture. - The immediate customer was Tava- tini (Many Pieces of Tattooing), a rich man of Taaoa, in his fifties. His face was grilled with ama ink. One streak of the natural skin alone re- mained. Beside him on the counter sat a commandin SJoaking. man, whose eyes, shining from a blue background of tattooing, were signals to make one step aside did one meet him on the trail. they wete a revelation of wickedness. "That, man," said Le Brunnee, "is the worst devil in the Marquesas." The madman was Mohuho, whose wantonness. He was then chief of Tahuata, and the power in that island, in Hiva-oa and Fatu-hiva. every one who opposed him. There was no A superstition that he was protected by the gods, him immune from\ven islanders. These were geapce by the incidents Le Brunnec Many Pieces of Tattooin the ancestry of Great Night Moth. "Pohue-toa (Mgle Package), uncle of Earth Worm, 3 and father of this man," said Many | | | men of these islands, and the strong- Hana-menu. "There was no war then between the valley of Atuona and that of Hana-menu; the people of both cross- ed the mountains and visited one an- other. But it was discovered in Atuona that a number of the people were missing. Some had gone to Hanna- menu and never reached there, others had disappeared on their way home. The chief of Atuona sent a messenger who was tapu in all valleys, to count the people of this valley who were in Hana-menu to warn them to re- turn in a band, armed with spears. Meanwhile the priest went to the High Place and spoke to the gods, and after two days and nights he returned and said that the danger was at the pass between the valleys; that a demon had seized the Recple there. "The demon was Male Patkage. You know the precipice there is near the sky, and at the very height is a puta oH a narrow place. There Male ac fay in wait, armed with his spear' and club, and hidden in the grass, He was hungry for meat, for ng Pig, and when he saw some one he fancied, he threw his spear or struck them down with the v'u. He took the corpse on his back and ear- ried it to his hut in the upper valley of Hana-menu. There he ate what he would alone. "Oh, there were those who knew, but they were afraid to tell. After it became to the people of Atuona, to the kin of those who had been eaten, they did nothing. Male Package was like Great Night Moth later--a. man whom the gods fought NET By Juanita Hamel . be fairly heéart-stopping. oo -- i oe © Copyeigha, 1920, by Newepeper Fosture Servier Inc... Gest Brinn vighes reserved The imagination-gripping: mysteries which lurk in a cup of tea may upon what she who listens thinks. Suppose; for instance, there really is It depends mot only upon what they prophesy "a blond young man™ in her Beart as well as in the prophesy--only she / through the lips of the wise womas who reads their message, but also and smiling Cupid know how truly a 3 \ 5 b§ $8 * GOOD fortune this is. and manners Pieces. and attitude toward life, compared to I tell you the tale of how E been our portion in death at the hands of his father? the islands of the South Seas before I remember the time well. his white cousin fell upon the Mar- you have seen the rivers big and |cocoanut-trees felled by the flood, but _ Le Brunnee, the trader, was open- You have not seen ing a roll of Tahiti tobacco five feet time of no food, when the ground is as dry as the center of a dead tree, and center, and tapering toward the ends. hunger is in the valleys like the It was bound, as is all Tahiti tobacco, ghost-women that move as mist. He slew |she for her, and she wept and ate and unishment for him. {thanked J The French held him accountable only | green spot, he said, where there were for deeds against their sovereignty. more. Pieces, "He was one of the biggest | ,eaten your children. They are all ) est in Taaoa, He lived for a while in dead cause he hi chief of Taaoa, while his father was hunting the children in the forest." to consider what the hundred thou- for." "Was Great Night Moth the real of son of Male Package?" 1 asked. "Ah, that is to be told," said Man "He was his son, yes. Sh e esca| 1 ! Menlike, the ave one, the "That two-years it did not rain. The breadiruit would not yield. The grass on the land fel trees withered. The people ate the popoi from the deepest and night they fished. were empt bark, anything, There were fish, but it is ha plants died, There were no nuts ms. The pigs had no food, in the forest. The banana- its, and day n the pits and the people ate roots, to live on fish alone. "Some lay in their canoes and ate the eva and died. The stomaches of some became empt they threw themselves into the sea. ey had madness in them, but The father of Great Night Moth sent always more rain there, and there was !|some food to be found. His wife he {kept at the fishing, day and night, till name means Great Moth of the Night. |she slept at the paddle, and he himself He is the chief whom Lying Bill saw [went to the high plateaus to hunt for shoot three men in Tahuata for sheer | pig. of thought, and 1 his children to the hills. There is "For many days he came down ven having found none. But at last came to find baked meat ready him. He had found a certain "Many times he brought the meat combined with his to her, and she said that the children strength and desperate courage, made should come back to share the f but he said, Pp one day knew from witnesseg, but it was [with empty baskets. The py been who told [rough, and there was no fish. Her husband had become a surly man, and cruel; he beat her, She said, 'Is there as prince of Taaoa no pig?' 'No. Pat! They have lenty.' "She came from the fishin, VPig, you fool!' said her husband. You have eaten no pig. You have "Great Night Moth had escaped be- ad been adopted hy the Appoint Expert, Ottawa, Dec. 9.--The civil service commission has appointed Frank Cooper Craighead, of East Falls, Vermont, to a position as entomolo- gist for the department of agricul- tare. rity Many Milton householders find their supposed winter's supply of potatoes unfit to use, owing to dry rot. The Montreal Administration Com- mission refuses to recognize the "closed shop' demands of the police force. Soviet agents are busy in Canade. / Ie 2 EL ER | SRNR RESTLESS SLB REN ; rr Rag Bg Ee Seat he THAT RELIABLE II8 Consult our Samples of Xmas (Greeting Tards Ask representative to call or Phone 292 BRITISH WHIG Job Dept.