“Don’t look now because I don’t want him to know I told you, but I saw Paratak climb up into that pandanus tree just to the north of us,” the boy said, slightly tilting his head in that direction. “I think he wants to kill you!”
“I think he wants his kilt back,” replied Ḷainjin. “Etre, remember this: the shark you must worry about is the one who comes in a rage straight at you. You may never notice it until it’s too late. The shark that circles is too cautious to kill. Have you ever seen ṃaanpā?”
“No.”
“Well, you might get your chance. Now take a piece of your ekkwaḷ, make a loop, and tie it here around the utak, just below where we cut it this morning.” Ḷainjin cut two small notches on either side of the frond below the utak and tied a second loop with a slipknot around the frond. “Now we will bend it slightly as you tighten the slipknot to the frond below. Every day, you will tighten it just a bit. I’ll shave off a little more from the end now, and we are done until tomorrow morning before sunrise. Don’t be late.”
He tied his ring to his waist and began to descend. “This battle must be quick and nonlethal. Why spoil the story of such a day?” he reminded himself.
“But…,” began Etre.
Ḷainjin considered the boy’s eyes as he continued to descend the trunk. He lowered his brows and shook his head slightly and quickly to shut the boy up. From the concern in his eyes, he imagined that Paratak was probably below, but he continued his descent without glancing behind, intending to give his opponent the false impression that he had the advantage of surprise. When Paratak violently ripped his kilt from his waist even before he had reached the ground, Ḷainjin turned and grabbed hold of it with his left hand. Then he swirled and landed on his feet, using the opposing pressure on the kilt to steady himself. There was an instant when both men’s eyes met just before Ḷainjin, stark naked, turned his eyes to the kilt and gave it a momentary tug with his left hand. That caused his opponent to assume he was about to engage in a tug-of-war, and he foolishly turned his concentration to the decoy, tightening his grip with both hands. Ḷainjin pulled on the decoy with his left hand while shifting his weight to his opposite side. Then he swung the calloused heel of his right hand with tremendous force onto the left side of his opponent’s chin. The powerful, unnatural sound of the slap reverberated into the forest. The slap dazed his opponent’s senses and snapped his neck sharply to the right until the opposite side of his jaw met a slower-moving blow from Ḷainjin’s left palm. That seemed a kinder, softer stroke, but it was meant to steady his head for a final uppercut from the same heel of his right that caught Paratak on the chin and snapped his head back so violently that it sent him into a momentary but fateful lapse of consciousness.
By the time he regained his senses and opened his startled eyes, Ḷainjin had cut the wapepe image into the now-bleeding skin of his right breast muscle. His knees pinned down Paratak’s shoulders and his manhood stared him in the face, and he had a length of ekkwaḷ wrapped around Paratak’s neck, threatening to choke the life out of him. He was about to saw the rough cord, with the intention of cutting deep into his neck when suddenly the image of his friend sawing through the blood-spurting neck of their enemy flashed before him. Ḷainjin, remembering his grandfather’s caution never to steal his opponent’s dignity, abruptly and mercifully ceased. He stood above his astonished opponent — as naked and unashamed as the day he was born — and slowly tossed, up and down, the ring he could have cut his throat with. When he was convinced that Paratak had had enough of his message, he began walking casually down the path back into the village.
Etre, on his part, rushed to crowd in front of him to cover his nakedness. Ḷainjin put his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and they began to march in unison. Then Etre let out several sharp whistles and the other jekaro boys joined them. Shortly, other boys joined in as well until the surprised onlookers could no longer see Ḷainjin’s nakedness with the crowd of boys shielding him from their view. As word of the fight spread among them, the group began laughing as they marched. Then, as dusk fell, someone broke into the well-known bọbo song, and the group began the dance before the many onlookers as they slowly pranced their way into the village, singing and pretending to swing pole nets back and forth:
A night to bọbo.
Chant and cry as
shiny-shadow fly by and
ka-pik-naaj-i-lọk.
And turn around, around again,
and bọbo back across wind.
And tighten sail along before
silver-shadow soar.
And turn around, around again,
and bọbo back across wind.
And tighten sail along before
silver-shadow soar.
Throw me a torch, we’ll
make light of the night.
Tangle up, he tangle.
Ok-kō-pooḷ-pooļ-e.
Twist pole again and
shadow catch, shadow catch, shadow catch.
Twist pole again and
shadow catch, shadow catch, shadow catch.
Tonight, our torch is burning.
The south reef flies with fish!
Tonight, our torch is burning.
The south reef flies with fish!
By the time they reached Ḷainjin’s house, they came face to face with none other than the irooj. He had his mother’s sleeping mat rolled up under one arm and Liṃanṃan at the other. He was waiting there in the pathway, ready to deliver publicly what he had promised. Ḷainjin, who had come naked to the occasion, remained confident, unbowed, and amused that all was coming together into a tale worth the telling. Liṃanṃan’s long hair was tied into a bun, speared with the jagged barb of a stingray tail and topped with a crown of fragrant, oil-coated kōņo leaves and wūt flowers. As his eyes met hers, such was their attraction that neither a thought, nor an action, nor an instant seemed to have passed since they were bonded by the spirit of the storm. Their throats were still as committed to each other as the day before, and their bodies drew together as she launched herself, without a backward glance, into the crowd, splitting the boys one from the other as she passed, with the same determination she had exhibited diving into the water, when they first met. If surprised by his nakedness, she did not show it on her radiant face.
The group moved as one to the entrance of the house. Etre thoughtfully turned back and politely accepted the mat from the irooj, passing it forward above the throng just in time for Ḷainjin to wrap it around them as they entered their sanctuary. There, he and Liṃanṃan successfully left the rest of the world behind them. As an afterthought, she turned back, grabbed a large basket of food placed inside the doorway, and handed it over to the boys, who immediately sat as one to eat at the side of the pathway. Ḷainjin saw her eyes meeting those of her father as each nodded, “Well done.” Then she reentered the house and burst into his arms, which quickly encompassed her. With their cheeks pressed against each other’s, he twirled her off her feet, around and round, until she clung to his neck and squealed with excitement. At that point, he heard the boys outside break into laughter as they ate and surely agreed that he was a rare newcomer from whom they had much to learn.
Ḷainjin swung her like that through the lamplit shelter and clear through to the open door to the starlit garden, where he scooped her up in his arms and set her down on the stone floor of the bathhouse. A sliver of moon could be seen in the western sky above the thatched wall of the enclosure. The giant clamshells were filled to their brims with water from the well, and grated coconut could be seen laid out upon smooth, green banana leaves. He grabbed a fistful, soaking it in the water, and scrubbed the bottoms of her feet with it. Then he washed himself as he had the evening before, only this time, as he stooped flat-footed on the stones, Liṃanṃan was there to scrub his back. She stood over him as she unbunned her fragrant hair, allowing it to cascade down upon him, and dried his face and neck and upper body with it. Ḷainjin swept her up again and placed her wet f
eet on the matted floor inside. He watched them scamper across the mats from one oil-filled shell to another, quenching the lights and launching a brief puff of smoke from each. When he entered the darkening room, naked, all became secret but ripe with her fragrance and the sound of her skirts falling onto the floor beneath her.
[71] A short, sprawling tree that grows next to the shore; beach cabbage: Scaevola taccada; “naupaka” in Hawaiian.
[72] “Look, he has an erection!”
[73] A general term for eels of all varieties.
[74] Greenstone; obsidian; a naturally occurring volcanic glass found in Melanesia.
[75] Literally, “spar man” or “spar in front”; the vertical boom or yard of the triangular lateen sail.
[76] Moray eel; marine eels of the Muraenidae family.
[77] A name: “woman to make fly.” “Li”: the female prefix; “kōkālọk”: “to make fly.”
[78] A term associated with flying fish of the family Exocoetidae; to take flight from beneath the surface of the water, flutter, spread wings, and glide.
[79] Currently one of the principal island groups that make up the Federated States of Micronesia, located in the Eastern Caroline Islands.
[80] Yellowfin tuna; Neothunnus macropterus.
[81] The frigate bird, Fregata magnificens; tied feathers used as telltales to confirm wind direction.
[82] An hourglass-shaped sharkskin drum carried by women when they accompany their men to a battle.
[83] A newcomer celebration.
[84] A name. Literally, “man this reef beneath us.”
[85] The atoll dwellers, especially the Marshall Islanders, cultivated numerous varieties of edible pandanus. Some had flavorful juice they sucked from the fibrous nodules. Other pulpier varieties were chewed like fibrous carrots or baked, and the pulp subsequently scrapped from the softened nodules. This mash or mokwaṇ was either dried into jāānkun or mixed with arrowroot starch and coconut milk and rebaked in a breadfruit leaf.
[86] Ripened breadfruit filled with coconut milk and baked in a breadfruit leaf.
[87] A name: “throw away.”
[88] First birthday.
[89] “Ḷō”: the male prefix; “ṃaj”: a general term for eels of all varieties.
[90] Trap-jaw Ant: Odontomachus simillimus.
[91] “Aloha”; “hello (or good-bye), love.”
[92] A subspecies of spider conch of the family Strombidae, species Lambis; characterized by stout marginal digitations.
[93] Old story; fable; legend.
[94] Also called “tuba,” “toddy,” and various other names; the sap of the coconut palm tapped from the flower bud as it grows and continues to protrude between its mature frond leaf and the less-mature inner fronds of the palm’s inner crown. The skill of making jekaro is practiced worldwide wherever palms grow.
[95] A stalk or composite flower from which coconuts grow and ultimately hang.
[96] “Utak”: the bud sheath from which the composite coconut flower will burst; “ṇe”: “that there by you.” In the Marshallese language, prepositions are directional, allowing for specificity when barking boat or with fishing commands.
[97] To eat grated coconut, usually with fish.
[98] “Big darkness”; “new moon.” The islanders have a name for every night of the moon’s cycle.
[99] The night the moon rises at dusk upon the waves.
[100] “Big wind”; typhoon.
[101] A heavy, oval shaped club ground from the shell of a giant clam and passed as an heirloom, by matrilineal custom, from mother to eldest daughter; used to pound and soften leaves and fibers for mats, skirts, sails, etc.
[102] A flat, pouch-like purse, woven from processed pandanus leaves, for valuables.
[103] Literally, “backside of ocean”; the westernmost atolls of the Rālik Chain.
[104] Pole fishing.
[105] Pole fishing from the reef edge at low tide under a full or near-full moon.
[106] An ancient term for people of Kiribati; literally, “people or bones of Pit.”
[107] Spiny lobster: Panulirus penicillatus.
[108] Octopus.
[109] The midrib of a coconut leaflet.
[110] A particularly delicious variety of cultivated, edible pandanus fruit.
[111] Mythical cannibal isle far to the west.
[112] Chief of the west.
[113] Sennit; coir fiber line made from processed coconut husk fibers.
[114] Night fishing for flying fish with pole nets and torches of pāle.
[115] “Watch flapping wings from still water.”
[116] To twist the pole and trap the flying fish in the net.
[117] A hardwood tree bearing orange flowers: Cordia subcordata.
[118] Large-leafed land taro: Alocasia macrorrhiza.
The atoll
Peering into the room from the doorway to the garden, he stepped from the energetic noise of cooking fires and the haze that hung in the still night air above the surrounding village. With his broad, sun-darkened nose, he sniffed the smoke from the quenched lamps that curled throughout the thatched house. Then he heard her feet take traction on the matted floor of their dark harbor. The matting slid on the coral stones beneath the pressure of her dash toward him. He deftly pivoted in the starlit doorway and braced himself just in time to absorb her ecstatic leap onto his hip. She wrapped her legs about his waist, squeezed his head in her arms, and blinded him with her breast pressed into his face. Then she squealed loudly as he twirled her around again and once again, back to the sleeping mat her grandmother had given them. Dizzily, they collapsed backward, he first, she upon him as bravely as she had upon the storm-swept waters that night. The boys outside responded to her piercing cries with laughter as they politely sprang again into song, to drown the frolicking sounds of their renewed adventure.
After absorbing the falling bones, he felt the comforting weight of her slight body pressed against him as he had in the cramped hull of his canoe. However, this time, the luxurious private space about them and the scent of her long hair carried him to greater heights of intoxication as his rough hands explored the smooth skin on top of him. He was aroused but determined to follow her gently along whatever path her grandmother had taught her to lead him on, but then, as a youthful spirit might, she abruptly launched them back into the society he thought they had left outside.
“Likōkkālọk is telling everybody that you desire me so much you would not say a word to her!” she said excitedly.
“She’s telling all the women they will embarrass themselves if they try to tempt you away from me. You would have expected her to lie and tell everyone she sat on you, but no. This time, she tells the truth, but she never tells the truth! How did you accomplish that?” she asked … but went on without pausing for an answer.
“Lijoḷọk is peeved that Likōkkālọk isn’t telling anyone about her part in drawing your seed to divert your passion. She is upset she will not be able to tell anyone about that now that Likōkkālọk has floated her self-humiliating story first. Who would believe her? What happened to your kilt? You did not kill Paratak, did you? What possessed you to strut down the path with no kilt on? That was the strangest thing any of us ever saw! Most men would have cut through the forest and snuck about the village. I am glad those boys were there to shield you. How did you become so popular with them?”
Patiently, he listened to her chatter, as he would the rustling of palm leaves during his jekaro regime. He repositioned her onto her tummy with her face against her grandmother’s soft mat. Her injured palms were face up at her sides, and he rejoined her with her skin by poking the moist leaves covering the thick, slick ointment of fermented nen fruit wrapped around them and asking, “Does that hurt?”
“No!”
“Who applied the wūno?”
“My grandmother,” she answered, as he bent her leg at the knee and pressed her slim calf down hard into the back of her thigh.
“Do your hands hurt?” he asked. He slid the heel of his large hand into the ball of her small, calloused foot and inserted his thick fingers into the broad spaces between her toes, pressing down hard on her shin until she winced in pain from her stretched thigh muscles.
“No, the redness is gone, but she wants me to keep the wūno there tonight as a reminder.”
“Reminder of what?” he asked dispassionately, as he repeated the maneuver on her other foot and leg.
“She wants me to remember all her instructions.”
“What were her instructions?” he calmly asked.
“You’re joking because you already know! She told me to keep myself inside, to relax and keep my thoughts clear of everything else.”
“Everything but what?”
“You know — what you want to do to me! All right, I am not going to say another word. Penetrate me!”
Ḷainjin chuckled as he respectfully ignored her command, sat on his heels with his legs bent beneath him, and began firmly and deliberately massaging each bone of her foot, still moist from the coconut milk.
“How does that feel?”
“Good!”
“Does your body ache from the storm?”
“Oh, yes! Everything aches. I have been so tired too! I have been on my mat recovering this whole time! But I could hardly sleep with all the women coming and going and wanting every detail of our encounter.” Then, changing the tenor of her speech to imitate the women, she said, “Is it true he chased away all the sharks as they circled about you?”
“You’re probably exhausted from all the stories you made up!” he joked. She remained prone with her knees bent and her feet in the air as he systematically massaged and twisted the flesh surrounding each bone in her foot. After he finished bending, squeezing, and kneading it, he took the other foot and began the same, sensing that her tension was beginning to ease. When he had finished with her feet, he grasped hold of her legs, still in the air, below her ankles and suggested they play a game.
Man Shark Page 16
