At that instant, from the corner of his eye, he noted a slight figure escape from the hut behind the woman and then jump onto the kājokwā.
The Chief, who had mustered the courage to land on the floating tree, was in the middle of gulping down a fish head when he was surprised by the spent pandanus kernel the female human hurled at him. She had excellent aim, and had she not eaten away most of the projectile, it might have clobbered him good. All feathers and little flesh, he escaped with only a minor loss of plumage and, spreading his wings, rose quickly atop the light breeze above the kājokwā. In a nasty temper, he viewed the commoner, still loafing with the others below. “When is he going to start fishing?” the Chief wondered. In the interim, he warily eyed the young female, who had decided to stick a foot beneath the leaves wrapped about the waist of one of the three sleeping males and jiggle it with a squeal.
“Grandma, his mast is hard as he sleeps!” Ḷainjin heard her shout faintly above the sound of his mandibles chomping.
“He must be dreaming of me!” the older woman laughed back.
“Grandma, I can’t wake him up!” Ḷainjin turned to see one of the men wake up and try to grab her foot, but she was too quick and rushed to wake the others.
She kicked his foot. “Wake up! A stranger has arrived.”
Ḷainjin, who had seen the Chief rise from the kājokwā as he broke off a second kernel, continued crunching and twisting the pulp free from its fibrous core. He saw three men rise, menacingly perhaps, from where they had been sleeping. He nodded at them and continued his pleasurable chewing and twisting. Finally, the men from the kājokwā and the young woman who had awakened them one by one hopped aboard their vessel and stood on either side of the sitting woman’s hut. They had a name for this chewing, twisting eating of the pandanus fruit. They called it wōdwōd, and they appeared, to a person, to be disarmed by the look of absolute ecstasy he felt on his face as he continued to chew. How could he have forgotten the aromatic flavor and distinctive citrusy juice of this variety that swirled pleasantly now in his mouth and ignited so many memories of days long past?
The young woman, the apparent leader of the group, had casually begun to ask Ḷainjin questions. What was he doing all by himself out here in between the atolls? Continuing to eat, he had shrugged both shoulders and his eyes laughed a bit, as if to intimate he had no particular reason for paddling around in the open ocean.
Next, she asked where he had come from. Continuing to wōdwōd, he responded with an abrupt turn of his head over his shoulder, as if to say, “Back there.”
“Aelōñḷapḷap?” she asked.
He responded by raising his eyebrows as he chewed and quick-canting his head back, as if to say, “Yes, I’ve been there.”
“Naṃo?” she asked.
He responded similarly, as if to say, “Yes, I’ve been there too.” He continued to wōdwōd.
“Ellep?” she asked.
“Yes.” He canted his head again, continuing to wōdwōd.
“So where was it that you were headed?”
Pointing his nose toward where he assumed the island was, he tossed the wasted fibrous core of the kernel into the water and tore another from the stalk that was still floating in the water next to him.
“Lae?” she asked. “That’s where we are from. Why are you going there?”
He scrunched his nose, lifted his shoulders as though to say he was not sure, and continued chewing, so engrossed in his pleasure that he must have made the young woman feel ignored.
“Enough!” he heard her say just as she dived headfirst into the water. He had not paid her much attention until then. The men in the proa stood to watch her submerge and stroke under water several times before popping up and grabbing the pandanus stalk from the water next to him.
“Daō,” she said, tearing loose a kernel and biting into it. Now that got his attention. He dipped his hand in the water and rinsed the pandanus juice that had run down into his scraggly beard from the corners of his mouth. Removing the wasted core from between his teeth, he examined it, dropped it in the sea, and reached for another, but she held the stalk playfully away from his grasp. The men were all shouting at her to swim back into their protection, but she appeared to relish the attention she was receiving and hung onto the bulwark of his boat playfully, as though she was a child with no need to ask permission to do so.
However, there was. In Rālik and Ratak culture both, you could sit yourself down by a man’s fire, enter his shelter, grab onto his fishing line or his kilt, or even throw pandanus fruit at his bird, but you could never touch his boat without permission. To board another’s craft uninvited was an act of aggression, and he nearly reflexively slapped her. However, an alluring smile broke across her lovely face. The pandanus fruit stuck coquettishly between her large white teeth as she held onto the boat with one arm and extended the pandanus stalk teasingly away from him with the other. Then she lunged her head forward, daring him to snatch the kernel from her mouth. Instead of slapping her, he twisted the bait from between her clenching teeth, put the kernel into his mouth, and crunched down into the crisp pulp as she puckered her full lips in response.
Suddenly he realized she had hooked him. She had used his greed and succeeded just as surely as he had hooked that tuna the day before. They had all watched it, and without amazement because, as he was soon to learn, she was the irooj’s daughter and always got her way! She was the most enticing thing he had ever witnessed. Her long, straight hair carried the aroma of flower-scented coconut oil. The ebony tattoos covering her bare auburn shoulders, arms, and hands — right up to the little squiggles that led to her short, clean nails — were of masterful quality and exquisite in detail, but the woman’s nearly childlike personality was what captivated him. She scrunched her nose, imitating his response to her grandmother’s question, and he could not help but stop his munching to laugh at himself as she turned to the others to let them see her comic clowning impression of him. They all broke into laughter together. As he laughed, she deftly reached up and began pulling at the fiber line he had tucked into the belt of his kilt. There was something sensual in the way she popped each noose — with which he had intended to steal their paddles — from between his belt and his muscular, tattooed stomach that prevented him from staying her with his free hand as he crunched. Treading water, she wrapped the line ridiculously about her neck as though to create a necklace of it.
“Okay, it’s settled. I’m going with Jebrọ,” announced her grandmother.
One of the young men, perhaps her grandson, began to protest vigorously.
“Your boat is too full!” she told him. She explained she did not want to be on his boat when the storm hit. “You’ll throw me overboard to save your precious catch!” She used the word eakpel, which means to discard ballast into the ocean to create more freeboard, but in more serious and life-threatening situations, it could also refer to discarding people — usually the eldest first!
“Grandma, you don’t know anything about this stranger. How do you know you can trust him? Look at that thing eat! He looks as useful as a baby sucking its mother’s tit!”
All the men, including Ḷainjin, laughed, although he continued to chew.
“Well, he knows more than you do! He is obviously a man of the ocean. He is a seafarer and not an irooj’s spoiled son. He’s used to being out here,” she said. “You’re used to life on shore, and you’re going to panic when the storm hits. Today I trust him.”
“Jebrọ,” she requested, “paddle over. Ñaijuwe!”
“What storm? What’s she talking about?” her grandson asked. The three men huddled in discussion.
Ḷainjin had been preoccupied with trying to grab another pandanus fruit. Every time he stood up to reach over the young woman in the water, to grab what was left of the stalk that she kept extending away from him, he risked exposing everything under his kilt to her, and she kept coaxing him to do so. Meanwhile, treading water, she had managed to move his vessel
over to theirs. But of course, her grandmother could not board until Ḷainjin invited her to do so, and the three men were standing on the deck between her and his boat, as if to prevent the elder woman from reaching it.
At the same time, since the Chief had been given full rein over the kājokwā, he had eaten the last of the fish heads. Now he glided back to claim his place and dig his claws into the lashings on the outer cross-booms of the outrigger. The bird’s eyes peered at the young woman holding onto the pandanus stalk. She repeatedly teased him by pretending to throw another pandanus nodule at him, but the bird’s sharp gaze saw through her ruse and he remained calm.
Finally, the young woman, perhaps feeling that the center of attraction had gravitated away from her, announced she was ready to make an exchange. They would give the stranger all their pandanus if he would give her his ring and agree to take her and her grandmother to Lae. As Ḷainjin considered her proposition, he wondered what he had to lose. Additional crew would be helpful in the storm, but he knew he could never control this vivacious animal in the water next to his boat. That probably broke some rule, although at that moment he couldn’t remember which one. And he was aware that time was running out for all of them!
He tossed the ring, with the loop of line that had secured it to his wristband, into the water, where it floated next to her.
The men were clearly surprised that the stranger had surrendered his weapon so willingly. Caught off guard, they permitted the grandmother to board Ḷainjin’s boat. Then, at her command, they began loading his pandanus stalks. The young woman, still treading water, removed her necklace of twined fiber, slipped its loop through that of the ring, and dangled the ring as a pendant around her neck. All stopped motionless as they watched the stranger, pandanus kernel clenched between his teeth, grab her under her outstretched arms and lift her effortlessly over the bulwark into the hatch beside him. And then they all watched as he allowed her to playfully extend her necklace, put the ring’s shark tooth to his neck, and ever so gently prick his skin.
A small trickle of blood ran down his neck. She caught it with her finger and, with elated eyes, held it up to him and then jubilantly put it to her tongue. Perhaps such trust was better shown than said, and all at last agreed.
Except, of course, the Chief, who continued to scrutinize her every move and was unlikely to ever trust her.
[2] Thank-you.
[3] Outrigger float.
[4] Swell that “slaps from behind”; the countercurrent of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which periodically streams through the islands just north and south of the equator.
[5] The length across the breast from fingertips to fingertips; one fathom.
[6] “Rush here and yank back at me because the others have twitched me not! Relax and hang yourself!”
[7] “Chew it and gnaw at it!”
[8] Sun-dried sheets of pandanus pulp rolled into a log and wrapped in a sheath of pandanus leaves.
[9] Jālwōj islet; an area along Jālwōj Atoll’s western reef known for shark hunting.
[10] Literally, “small lagoon”; an atoll in the southern Rālik Chain of what is now the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
[11] Swell that “falls from the south.”
[12] The western chain of atolls of what is now known as the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
[13] “Call of the north”; the southern solstice, which annually coincides with winter in the northern hemisphere.
[14] Swell that "falls from the north.”
[15] Swell that “falls from the east.”
[16] A wooden, trapezoid-shaped vessel carved from breadfruit wood and used to knead breadfruit; the constellation Delphinus, the dolphin.
[17] Literally, “boat floating.” The symbol represents the four swells, one from each quadrant, converging upon an island in mid-ocean.
[18] Literally, “man shark.” “Ḷō”: the male prefix; “pako”: “shark.”
[19] The eastern chain of atolls of what is now known as the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
[20] Edible pandanus fruit cultivated predominantly on coral atolls in the central Pacific; pandanus tree: Pandanus tectorius.
[21] Chief.
[22] “A boat dies slow in the open ocean.”
[23] The spent core of a pandanus kernel drifting about in the ocean; a drifter.
[24] Too much sky inside; sickness caused by sleeping under the moon too often.
[25] Dried, braided coconut leaves used as torches for fishing; a coconut frond.
[26] A name: “woman beautiful.” “Li”: the female prefix; “ṃanṃan”: “very beautiful.” The north star, Polaris.
[27] Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius.
[28] The constellation Pleiades.
[29] “Take me aboard!”
[30] “Go with Mejdikdik!”
[31] A star name: “Little death.”
[32] To tack or, more specifically, shunt. The tack of the sail is transported from one end of the canoe to the other, keeping the outrigger to windward.
[33] Sheet in or trim the sail.
[34] Proverb: “Under the windstorms of Tūṃur, a man is an inchworm at sea.”
[35] “Call of the south”; the northern solstice, which roughly coincides with summer in the northern hemisphere.
[36] Proverb: “He calms the roughest waters. He loves all people.”
[37] The star Altair.
[38] Arrowroot; a nutritious starch processed from the rhizomes of the dryland, knee-high plant Tacca leontopetaloides.
[39] A gale sometimes associated with the first morning’s sighting of the constellation Aries.
[40] Understudy; apprentice.
[41] Giant clam: Tridacna gigas.
[42] Ironwood: Pemphis acidula.
[43] A fishing weir; a permanent V-shaped fish trap built by piling stones on the reef.
[44] Literally, “it pricks”; a species of rabbitfish highly prized for its flesh that schools in a line and is characterized by its venomous spines. Streamlined spinefoot: Siganus argenteus.
[45] Prick.
[46] Fruit from Morinda citrifolia, a small tree prized throughout the islands for its medicinal properties; a tonic thought to promote health. Also called “noni.”
[47] A small tree: Pipturus argenteus; the bark (or “ōr”) of this tree is stripped and twisted into fishing twine.
[48] Literally, “person who hacks hull”; boat builder.
[49] To make and race toy proas on reefs or along the shoreline.
[50] Literally, “before the hand”; traditional fighting using quickness and distraction.
[51] A knife or sword-like weapon uniformly edged with shark teeth.
[52] A chain of thirty-three atolls south of Rālik and Ratak; currently the Republic of Kiribati.
[53] A tree trunk adrift in open ocean or washed up on the shore.
[54] The frigate bird: Fregata magnificens; tied feathers used as telltales to confirm wind direction.
[55] To chew on a pandanus kernel with a twisting motion that crunches out the pulp and minimizes the fibers caught between the teeth.
[56] Literally, “my bite” or “my food”’ often used by a child to declaratively assert the intention to eat or to demand food from an elder.
The storm
The cool morning air had long since dissipated and the sun was in their eyes as Ḷainjin, still distractedly biting a pandanus kernel, paddled his proa over to the kājokwā before launching on the next leg of his journey. He could not bring himself to leave such a towering thing without researching its history, the signs of which only he among the others in the small group could decipher the significance of. He quickly found what he was looking for. The surface of the smaller end of the trunk appeared to have been smoothed by the friction of towing ropes. Finally, at the base of the massive trunk — perhaps three times the length of his boat — he found a hand-sized wapepe symbol carved unmistakably into it. That drew
an emotional shiver that emanated from his throat and extended down his spine to his extremities. This was one that had gotten away from his Seeker friends. A swell of emotions that he had long ago taught himself to ignore overcame him, and memories of those for whom he had never properly grieved promptly swamped his soul. Yet he stolidly turned his craft about to face the wind and asked his new crew to hoist their sail.
A faint but steady breeze allowed them to set a course a little north of due east. Gone was the smooth face of yesterday’s ocean as myriads of ripples now covered the surface of the rising and abating swells. Wondrously, the proas began to glide slowly across the water, and a feeling of relief to be in motion without having to strain his aching body lifted his spirit, coupled with the elation of no longer being so unimaginably alone. How long had he been by himself out there? He had long ago lost track. He sat at his place, his legs dangling through the stern hatch into the hull at the edge of the stern deck. He had tied his oar and was now lazily using it as a tiller when the young woman clambered around him, grabbed onto his shoulders from behind, and pressed her bare breasts against his back. She settled there, arms around his neck, straddling him. He had glimpsed her left knee as she crawled on all fours around him and immediately felt a pang in his throat and a rise in his manhood.
The elder woman had noticed his glance and responded playfully, “She likes you! Pretty soon she’ll grab your fish!”
“Shush up, turtle!” the young woman responded, her chin resting on his shoulder. “You want to eat his fish!”
At this, they all broke into laughter. It felt good to laugh with others.
“I’m going to test him,” she announced, and with that, she put her hands over his eyes.
“Father says a true navigator can steer blindfolded. I’m going to test him!”
Man Shark Page 5
