Later that evening, Kalbōk would show up, usually in the still-pouring rain, at their grandmother’s cookhouse with his catch. With gratitude, she would send her granddaughters off to the lagoon to clean them, and that was when he would make his famous choice. If he chose well, the rain would make it all the easier for Kalbōk and the eager girl to scamper away unnoticed amid the haze of the downpour. They would soon disappear into the cold, gray dusk, where, perhaps backed against a tree, each would, in turn, devour the heat of the youthful body of the other until their passion sparked a release, a final embrace, and then a casual return to the grandmother’s cookhouse. There, he would be offered food and hot, pungent nen tea in a half-shell cup.
Yes, the women all loved Kalbōk because he never stopped fishing. Depending on the tide and the time of day or night, he knew which type of fish to chase and how to catch it, and just as important was that he had the skill and the patience to make the fishing implements necessary for success. So naturally, when the young friends hatched their plan to seek their fortune, they asked Kalbōk to fashion the tackle necessary to capture the monsters and extract the jaws. They needed hardwood hooks as wide as a man’s spread hand and as thick as the eye of the large bonito tunas they would use for bait, and braided lines of twine strong enough and long enough to recover the beasts from whatever depths they might attempt to escape.
Ḷani made the fishing line, not from coconut husk but from the inner bark of the arṃwe tree. Taknoḷ was a ri-jekjek wa. The others laughed at him, a small boy, for engaging in woman’s work. He cooked breadfruit, gathered and processed pandanus leaves, and woven pandanus-leaf matting. At first Ḷainjin thought Taknoḷ was the kind of boy who was more like a woman. However, after a while, he came to realize that engaging in these chores was not a choice — it was part of Taknoḷ’s responsibility as a ri-katak.
Ḷainjin loved to bwilbwil with the other children, racing toy outrigger canoes up and down the reefs and along the lagoon shore. On such occasions, he would stop and watch Taknoḷ, all alone, grinding broken pieces of giant clamshell into adze heads for his craft and sharpening the heads of adzes that belonged to his uncles. It did not look like a lot of fun. Taknoḷ explained that he knew how to read the coral shapes fused together at the reef’s shore, how to choose the best surfaces to grind his pieces of giant clamshell, and how to distinguish the best grade of sand to use as the abrasive. Ḷainjin would watch him sit for an entire morning, pushing and pulling with shoulders and arms and clutching onto the shell fragments with his battered fingers until he had ground enough away to receive an uncle’s approval. Later, Taknoḷ explained to him that the first rule of the hull-maker’s trade was to respect the adze’s blade for the time devoured in its making and thus become careful to strike a clean and accurate cut with each thump into the breadfruit wood.
Next, Taknoḷ’s studies turned to the breadfruit tree. He learned each variety in detail. He learned to estimate each tree’s current and future ability to produce fruit based in its location, and the location of trees surrounding it. One breadfruit could feed one person for one day, and yes, he learned the various methods of preparation, cooking, and preservation of the fruit. Finally, he learned the attributes of its timber — easily shaped by adze — strong, buoyant, and less likely to split than other wood when seasoned properly, and resistant to rot when kept drained and dried. He grew to know every tree, including its age, its fruit-bearing capacity, and its pace of growth. He would sit in one tree all afternoon and carefully count the breadfruit into the hundreds. He fashioned the longest harvesting tool on the island, prided himself on knowing exactly which fruit to fell next based on its point of ripeness, and desired method of cooking. Then he sat listening to his elders deliberate about which tree to sacrifice to produce the next hull based on size and purpose of use. The second rule he learned from Taknoḷ was to respect the resources sacrificed to produce the hull. Each hack of an adze blade was a sacramental task made only after much deliberation, forethought, and anticipation, and such was Taknoḷ’s early education.
Later in childhood, he began to study how to make matting from pandanus leaves. This was the period when he followed the women to the various pandanus patches. Not to the pandanus trees where men went to twist the large fruits and fell them to chew or prepare for cooking or preservation, but to the fruitless pandanus bushes where the women cut the still-green leaves, singed them in their fires, and dried, rolled, and otherwise prepared them for shredding and weaving into sleeping mats, skirts, and kilts. Taknoḷ explained that a hull maker needed to understand the whole matting process to make the strong, finely woven lateen sail. Were a sail to tear on a voyage, the hull maker must be prepared to make any necessary repairs. And the hull maker studied the women’s important roles in Rālik society to master their skills to become a self-reliant voyager.
As he grew older, Taknoḷ’s lessons turned to the coconut tree. The hull makers required him to study the fiber of the coconut husk. They loved, planted, and attended to the types of coconut trees that every other man hated. These trees produce long and skinny nuts that are light and difficult to husk. They bear small, oblong nuts with very little water inside. They loved these because the length of husk fibers made the ropes they twisted from them all the stronger and quicker to make. Therefore, Taknoḷ’s responsibility started with protecting and gathering the nuts of these trees, and he was no sissy at safeguarding them! Ḷainjin proudly watched him fight with tenacity many times. Taknoḷ would often follow a boy right up the tree to prevent him kicking down the immature nuts for the others to steal. When a standoff occurred, Ḷainjin would intervene. He would call up to the thief and threaten to climb up and throw him off if he did not immediately climb down. That always worked because they were all afraid of the ṃaanpā skills he learned from his maternal grandfathers. He could slap a boy three or four times before the boy had a chance to step back or otherwise retreat.
Because trees were scattered, almost hidden around the island for greater protection against violent storms, it was difficult to protect them all, and his uncles would punish him with more grinding if the nuts went missing. Once he was successful in collecting a sizable pile of nuts, he would remove the husks by spearing them on a sharpened hardwood stake. Next, he would enclose the husks within large coconut-leaf baskets and immerse them beneath piled coral rocks at the lagoon’s edge for several moons until the outer strands separated easily from the inner layers of useless fiber. Then Taknoḷ would take these strands to the eldest hull makers of his father’s lineage. This was the part where Ḷainjin loved to tag along, because these men sat day in and day out beneath their children’s stilted, thatched houses making twine, arguing about all manner of things, and telling stories that gave him shivers.
Yet it was later in their childhood, once Taknoḷ had learned the symmetry, proportionality, and dimensions of the proa and lateen sail combinations, that his young friend became more useful to him and their friendship bonded like hull to keel. Ḷainjin loved to race toy proas and Taknoḷ taught him how to win. He had learned that, for a hull of a certain length, the height of the mast should be this, the distance to the kubaak should be that, and so on. Ḷainjin loved asking him questions because Taknoḷ’s responses were so exact, and he knew any toy boat built by Taknoḷ would be faster than his because of his skill as a ri-jekjek wa. Nevertheless, he played more often than Taknoḷ did and so earned a reputation for being first among others. During that period, especially during the day, Taknoḷ was learning to lash. He claimed it was due to their lashings that the Rālik and Ratak proas were so indestructible in the open ocean. Of course, any boat is at risk of destruction among the reefs of an atoll. The renowned saying Emejjia wa ilọmeto was used to emphasize that a boat is safer outside the reef environment than within it, but it also lent confidence that the ancestors had spent hundreds and hundreds of seasons perfecting its design. Taknoḷ practiced these lashings to the point where he could tie them blindfolded or
— his favorite — repair them from below, in the water in the lagoon or even out in the open ocean. When Ḷainjin thought about all the things Taknoḷ had taught him and how many lives his friend had given him, his throat thickened and his eyes glossed over with gratitude.
He looked at the boat Taknoḷ always referred to as his peerless achievement. He remembered the tree sacrificed and the seasons of tribute that they paid for it. He remembered the block of wood that Taknoḷ had cut into with his adze, one deliberate hack after another. He remembered the gathering of the nuts, the husking, the soaking, the making of the twine, all the stories, all the parts fashioned, all the lashings, the sail making, and the enormous gathering to commemorate the boat’s launching. But most of all, he remembered his friend-for-life’s character, as well as those of the other men sitting there in his imagination, and tears crept into his eyes now and then as he realized what those boys, over the seasons, had collectively become to him — the father he had missed and now knew he would never know.
He paddled on through the night like this, his mind swirling with stories and chants and proud and sad thoughts of days and nights past until at last, the small kite-like stars of Jebrọ arose above the eastern horizon. He knew that dawn was about to break, and then his throat sank into his chest as he peered desperately into the distance ahead. Two boats, silent as the night, appeared — as though from nowhere — directly in his path! He stopped, sat quietly listening, and peered ahead. He searched the horizon in every direction to see if there were other boats about him but detected nothing. The unsettling part was that the two boats were either moving toward him or not moving at all. Perhaps they had seen him and were now waiting for him to close the distance before making their move. He waited to see if they were closing on him. No, they were not moving, and they were silent. Might they be drifting? Sleeping? Or pretending to be? At this point, if they had ill intent, it would be a big mistake to try to paddle away. The main rule of combat: Never allow your opponents to run you down! Then you end up fighting exhausted with your back turned into the helpless target of a shot from a sling or spear. It was always better to attack and allow their fear and the element of surprise to assist you. Since he was alone, surely, they would have enough crew to paddle him down. In addition, he was tired and they were probably rested. But might they be asleep and drifting, and should he attempt to skirt them and paddle by in the night? There was not much chance as dawn was about to expose him, and if they decided to attack him, he could end up trapped like a mother turtle on the beach.
Likely, they were friendly islanders from Ujae or Lae, but not knowing for sure, only a fool would approach them unprepared. Tame islanders, if lost, could become mad from thirst, hunger, or fear of the unknown. A retreat in any case would be unwise and cowardly. As the faintest glimmer of dawn broke in the east, Ḷainjin cut a short length of his trolling line, quickly tied six slipknots that would function as little nooses along its length, and tucked it under the belt of his fiber kilt. He fastened his ring, reached into his hull below, and grabbed his shorter, hand’s-length rajraj, placing it on the shelf under his outrigger platform. Then he grabbed his oar and paddled forward with calm deliberation. If they were proas from Pit, he would board them, and if he found weapons he would scatter them, cut their sails, and string as many of their paddles as possible before diving and swimming them back to his boat. He would only be vulnerable until he reached the water. No man could approach him there and live. “If they were asleep,” he thought, “so much the better.” If they had no weapons he would have nothing to fear and would leave them to their own devices.
As he closed upon them and as light began to illuminate the darkness, he realized there was only one mast. “Might one of the boats be disabled?” he thought. No, there was only one boat, and it was anchored onto a kājokwā. He was relieved when he saw ak feathers hanging from the boat’s fore- and backstay. It was a Rālik proa. He would proceed with caution but would not attack them. This could prove interesting.
The Chief awoke and glided almost effortlessly off the boat into a faint morning breeze. Even a whiff of a breeze was more to his liking than the heavy air of recent days past. He rose like a kite, up and up with hardly a flap of his wings. He saw the island in the distance but then became disturbed by a more panoramic sight before him. The entire southeastern sky, yet again nearly void of clouds except along the horizon, was slowly turning from yellow to a bright, transparent red color. In his short life of eighteen or so seasons, he had never seen a sunrise that shade of red, and some instinct within did not like it. Red in the morning was usually a signal of rain. Unlike most seabirds, his feathers lacked oil and did not shed water as easily. He hated rain and usually soared above the clouds to avoid it, but he had only rarely viewed a sky that frightened him. Full of energy from yesterday’s catch, he quietly circled the large object to which the other proa anchored. He remembered that these drifting things were good for fishing. The light was not yet right for him to see deep into the water below, but he could see circles of slow-moving fish congregating beneath the floating object. And here and there, a big-mouth twisted ominously through the water like a bitter lizard, hunting insects along the strand. He spied, scattered about on the dead, barkless tree, carcasses of fish used for bait, and delicious bite-sized heads here and there. He saw three humans sleeping on its dry surface. It was too bad he was afraid of those lying things, or he would flop down and gobble all those tasty tidbits! It would be a grand gesture were the commoner to get busy and collect them for his breakfast! After all, he had not eaten a thing all morning!
Below, Ḷainjin had been distractedly observing the magnitude of the cloudless red dawn, and he knew what it signified. He paddled vigorously toward the kājokwā and adjoining proa. Surprise was the mark of his fighting prowess. The boat was somewhat larger than his, but its hull appeared weighed down to a dangerous degree. He guessed they had filled it with fish they caught the day before, during the night, or both. He felt poised and confident, and ready for the encounter. If he raised his sail in this faint breeze, they were so overburdened they could never catch him. Nevertheless, they were probably friendly and from one or another of the atolls about him — and probably from the closest. Otherwise, why catch so many fish only to have them rot? Per tradition, because women were aboard, there was a tiny, hastily thatched hut upon the proa’s outrigger platform. Sitting cross-legged in the open doorway was a woman with wild, gray-streaked hair, attentively observing every stroke of his approach. When he got close enough for each to distinguish the other, the smiling woman, as though she were Lōktañūr herself, jokingly called out, “Ñaijuwe,” harkening back to the story of Jebrọ.
“You can go along with kapiḷak,” he joked back, continuing his approach. She appeared to glance furtively at the deviant red dawn, and laughed as she acknowledged his clever and timely response.
“You think that’s kapiḷak?” she inquired, pointing her finger eastward.
“You know the legend. Kapiḷak’s storm comes before Jebrọ rises, but some say not always. I put trust in what I see.”
She stood and lifted a half-eaten stalk of pandanus kernels from inside the doorway. Demonstrating considerable strength, she hurled the stalk of orange fruits at him as she responded. “Well said, Jebrọ!” Then she sat down again, pushing her wild, graying hair away from her face.
The stalk landed halfway between their vessels with a splash, submerging but then popping up and floated there invitingly. Now Ḷainjin was a man of little weakness, but like his ancestors before him, he had an irresistible penchant for gnawing pandanus. Ḷainjin’s large mouth and pronounced square jaw, perhaps born from ages past, left him well suited for it. Disregarding the red dawn, the threatening ring left exposed on his finger, any possibility of an ambush lurking from inside the hull or hut, the whereabouts of the Chief, or anything else that would normally encourage him to be attentive, he paddled forward and grabbed the weighty, floating stalk by its stem. Then he br
oke off a gigantic ripe kernel, bit off the piece of the inedible stalk attached to it, and crunched and twisted the fibrous fruit until his mouth was filled with the sweet, satisfying flavor he had missed over so many seasons past. It was the taste of home.
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